Chapter 36 Pure and Innocent
"Mom, today is Caixia's seventh day after her death. Can you please watch your words?"
The neighbor's son stood at the door, glancing at his own mother with eyes full of disgust.
The neighbor aunt, who was originally very critical of the Jiang family mother and son, smiled broadly when facing her own son.
"Yes, yes, Xiaohui is right! It's Mom's fault, Mom apologizes to Caixia!"
She apologized verbally, but the apology was directed at her own son.
Her son, however, still frowned, his brow furrowed with resentment, and came out carrying a basket.
"Mom, if you're free, go back and cook. Caixia, Ayuan and I can manage here."
"Oh? That won't do!" The neighbor aunt cautiously discussed with her son, "Mom has never let you do any work since you were little, how can you do it? Let Mom do it, okay?"
She reached out to take the basket from her son's hand, but he avoided her.
The man named "Xiao Hui" didn't even spare a glance for his mother, coldly ordering, "I've already told you, you can go back. A Yuan and I are fine here."
Seeing his cold expression, the neighbor aunt's smile remained unchanged. She just nodded awkwardly and went back without saying a word.
Because of this little incident, the atmosphere in the room became somewhat tense.
Chu Ci kept staring at the short, bloated man, and nudged Jiang Yuan with her elbow.
"And this is...?"
Jiang Yuan suddenly realized what was happening and quickly introduced them: "Sister Aci, this is our neighbor across the street, Qian Hui."
"Brother Hui, this is my sister's friend, Chu Ci."
He gave a brief introduction, but Qian Hui kept a straight face and did not react to his words.
Jiang Yuan smiled awkwardly, "Sister Aci, don't mind him. Brother Hui is just like that, he didn't mean anything by it."
"It doesn't matter."
Chu Ci smiled at Jiang Yuan, then turned her head to continue observing Qian Hui.
She had originally wanted to have an unexpected eye contact with Qian Hui to see if he was related to Jiang Caixia's death.
But there was no chance at all.
Qian Hui knelt before Jiang Caixia's memorial tablet, burning incense, candles, and paper money with his head down, without even glancing in their direction.
Chu Ci missed his gaze several times, so she went to his side and helped him burn paper money. "Brother Hui, you and Caixia are neighbors, so did you grow up together?"
Qian Hui remained silent, lowering his head to add paper to the brazier.
Only the flickering firelight danced in his calm eyes.
For some reason, Chu Ci felt that this person seemed to be somewhat hostile towards her.
Could it be that he saw her when she came here with the police a couple of days ago?
Just as she was about to continue her subtle probing, Qian Hui, who had remained silent, suddenly spoke up: "You're the one who killed Caixia."
Chu Ci: "..."
? ? ?
!!
This must be one of her lines, right?
"What do you mean?" She frowned and stared at Qian Hui's profile.
Even when the topic came up, Qian Hui kept staring intently at the burning brazier, showing no intention of turning his head away.
The firelight flickered on his face as he continued adding paper money to the brazier, but then he brought up another topic.
"Caixia is a very good girl. Her beastly father gambled and owed a huge debt, but he left all the debt to her and her two children and ran off to live a carefree life elsewhere."
“When she was very young, Caixia helped her mother take care of her younger brother, cook, clean, and go out with her mother to set up a small stall, smiling at customers.”
"Later, her family could no longer afford to send her and her younger brother to school, so she dropped out of school on her own initiative. She worked during the day and helped her mother run the stall at night."
He continued adding things to the brazier, and Chu Ci looked closely before realizing that what he was adding was a set of paper clothes.
She remembered that Jiang Caixia was naked when she was discovered.
Just as a thought was stirring in her mind, she suddenly heard Qian Hui beside her change his tone.
"But she changed after she met you."
Chu Ci: "?"
She frowned in confusion, "What did you say?"
Thinking back carefully to the relationship between Jiang Caixia and the original owner, although the original owner was a fraud and a disliked person, he still had a good relationship with Jiang Caixia.
Moreover, the fact that they could get along so well with the original owner suggests that, if not that they were birds of a feather, they must have been kindred spirits.
Does Qian Hui have some kind of bias towards Jiang Caixia?
She opened her mouth as if to speak, but Qian Hui had already burned everything he had brought, waved his hand, and stood up.
His eyes remained fixed on the burning brazier.
Gazing at the flickering flames in the brazier, he sighed softly.
"Actually, it's good that Caixia is gone. She came into this world cleanly and left cleanly. In the future, when people talk about her, they will still remember how kind-hearted she was when she was a child."
"No one would say anything bad about her. In everyone's heart, she is still a good girl, clean and innocent."
His last two sentences sent chills down Chu Ci's spine.
During her career as a criminal investigator, she encountered a case where a man hanged his fiancée at the church entrance simply because she had been getting too close to a male colleague at work.
When he was arrested, he argued vehemently that he was atoning for his fiancée's sins.
He felt his fiancée was unfaithful to him, and unfaithful people who want to go to heaven must pay the price for their actions.
Chu Ci had just entered the industry at that time and was deeply impressed by this case.
But what's even more striking is the killer's repeated use of the word "clean."
By the time she realized what was happening, Qian Hui had already left with the basket.
She hurriedly made an excuse that something had come up at home and left the Jiang family.
After walking a long way, she found a public phone booth and made a call.
"Is this Inspector Lin? This is Chu T-ci."
"Chu Ci?" Lin Ming was surprised. "What a coincidence! I was just about to call you. I've been investigating Jiang Yuan these past two days and have found out quite a bit."
Chu Ci's eyelids twitched. "I also have some new information. You tell me first, and we can share our information."
Lin Ming: "I've been investigating Jiang Yuan for the past few days, but I haven't found much."
"Until I checked his bank account, I found that starting a year and a half ago, almost every month, there would be an unexplained income of about three thousand yuan deposited into his bank account."
"Following this source of unexplained income, guess where I ended up?"
"Where?"
"Red-light district".
"Red-light district?!"
Chu Ci suddenly recalled the expression on Qian Hui's face when he burned paper money for Jiang Caixia, and goosebumps rose on her back.
"Yes." Lin Ming's voice softened.
"For the past year and a half, Jiang Caixia has frequently worked part-time in the red-light district, and all the money she earned has been transferred to Jiang Yuan's account, half of which was used for her mother's eye treatment."
"The other half has been in Jiang Yuan's account. I guess this is probably the dowry he saved up."
“I found out during my previous investigation that he once took the girl he liked to choose a wedding dress, probably planning to get married after raising enough dowry.”
After saying that, he let out a long breath to calm himself down before asking, "What did you find out?"
Chu Ci said seriously, "Do you remember the Jiang Caixia we saw when I communicated with the spirits that day?"
"Of course I remember."
Recalling what he had seen that night, Lin Ming felt a chill run down his spine.
What happened that day was like watching a horror movie; at the time, it was just sensory terror.
But when you think about it afterward, the fear that rises from the bottom of your heart is real.
He's installed a lot of lights in his house these past few days, and he's even started sleeping with a nightlight on, just in case he suddenly encounters a ghost in the middle of the night.
Even now, with his eyes closed, he can still recall every detail of that night.
Chu Ci: "Do you remember Jiang Caixia pointing to the door back then?"
“I remember that just as Jiang Caixia pointed to the door, Jiang Yuan pushed the door open and came in from the outside. That’s why I turned my investigation towards Jiang Yuan.”
“Yes, but I feel like we’ve made a mistake. Today is the seventh day after Jiang Caixia’s death, and I went to her house.” Chu Ci looked at the bustling street outside the public newsstand.
“I noticed that the front door of Jiang Caixia’s house and the front door of her neighbor’s house are opposite each other, so I suspect that Jiang Caixia may not have been referring to her younger brother Jiang Yuan that day, but to her neighbor across the hall.”
"Her neighbors across the hall? The Qian family?"
Chu Ci asked in surprise, "You've investigated their family?"
"No, that's not true. I just did visit them at the time and took a statement as required."
Lin Ming paused, recalling the Qian family from his memory.
The Qian family only had one son, Qian Hui, so they raised him to be all talk and no action, and he's almost thirty and still lying at home.
He met Qian Hui once when he took his apprentice to give a statement.
He was unremarkable in appearance, and because he spent most of his time at home, he had a puffy, pale complexion. He never made eye contact with anyone, and when he did, his eyes were silent and gloomy.
However, the neighbors all say that Qian Hui has always been like this, and it has been like this for many years.
With the testimony of Qian's parents and neighbors, including Jiang Caixia's younger brother, Qian Hui did not have the opportunity to commit the crime, so they abandoned this lead.
"Miss Chu, I think..."
"Inspector Lin, you're talking about Jiang Yuan..."
They both spoke at the same time, and Chu Ci paused, "Inspector Lin, you go first."
Lin Ming: "You suspect your neighbor Qian Hui? His parents and neighbor Jiang Yuan can testify that he did not have the opportunity to commit the crime."
“Inspector Lin, I do have suspicions about Qian Hui. But as you just said, Jiang Yuan has always known that Jiang Caixia is working part-time in the red-light district.”
Chu Ci paused for a moment, then said, "Inspector Lin, you also have an older sister. Would you use the money your sister earned from selling herself to save up for a bride price for the girl you like?"
"Of course not! What would that make me then!" Lin Ming retorted without even thinking.
But he quickly calmed down. "Jiang Caixia's mother is in poor health. Jiang Caixia went to the red-light district mainly to get medical treatment for her mother, right?"
"Yes, Jiang Caixia probably intended to use the money for her mother's medical treatment, but Jiang Yuan kept half of it. Do you think Jiang Caixia knows about the half of the money he kept?"
"..." Lin Ming fell silent.
Chu Ci waited for half a minute, but Lin Ming remained silent.
"Inspector Lin, I don't think Jiang Yuan is as innocent as he appears. If possible, I hope you can investigate the relationship between Qian Hui and Jiang Yuan."
Lin Ming understood what she meant. "You mean... Jiang Yuan and Qian Hui committed the crime together?"
He pursed his lips. "Impossible. Jiang Caixia earns a lot of money in the red-light district every month. Why would Jiang Yuan kill her? What benefit would he get from that?"
"There's really no benefit to it, but what if Qian Hui was the one who committed the murder, and Jiang Yuan was just helping out?"
"..."
There was a moment of silence on Lin Ming's end, and after a long while, he finally spoke with difficulty.
"Are you saying that Jiang Yuan is helping Qian Hui cover up the fact that he killed Jiang Caixia?"
"Maybe."
Chu Ci felt her head was in a mess, and even her vision was a little blurry.
"This is just my guess; Lin Sir still needs to find concrete evidence. Jiang Yuan needs money right now. If we can find out if there are any financial transactions between them, it might make things easier."
After hanging up the phone, Chu Ci walked home, but the matter remained on her mind.
But she didn't expect that before Lin Ming could get the results of his investigation, she would run into trouble first.
When I got off the bus, it was already dark outside.
Chu Ci walked home absentmindedly with his hands in his pockets, his headache and blurred vision getting worse.
Just as she was about to lean against the wall to rest, she suddenly heard footsteps following her.
She paused almost imperceptibly, noticing a dark shadow not far behind her out of the corner of her eye.
Remembering what Lin Ming and Shen Xiu had reminded her of, she clenched her fist in her pocket, her heart leaping into her throat.
Things have been quite unsettled lately; the killer in the case of the five-faced female corpse has still not been found.
Could it be... that she ran into her today?
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
