Chapter 14
The next morning.
Xiang Siling, wearing a bikini and a bath towel, walked into the swimming pool of the community club. Sometimes she is the only one here for the whole day. But the club staff still keeps the water clean and fresh, which is one of the reasons why she likes to swim here.
It was too early and even the lifeguard hadn't arrived yet. There was only a young female worker in a cleaning uniform busying herself by the pool. However, Xiang Siling unexpectedly found a familiar figure whom she had not seen for many days lying on a lounge chair by the pool.
The way he was dressed today was much more casual than when he went in and out of Huayu before. He was not wearing a suit, but a black long-sleeved T-shirt and sweatpants, which made his skin look whiter and he looked a bit like the youth he had back then.
Xiang Siling threw away the bath towel and Pingting walked closer. As expected, she saw Luo Huaizheng slightly tilting his head to avoid looking directly at her body.
Xiang Siling chuckled and leaned closer: "Why do you still appear in front of me? Haven't you been fooled enough by me? Haven't I given you everything you want?"
Luo Huaizheng then raised his head, his eyes fixed on her face: "I came here to thank you."
Xiang Siling straightened up and started warming up on the sidelines. Luo Huaizheng turned his head and looked at the water again.
"Thank you very much, I owe you this," she said.
Luo Huaizheng's emotions were complicated and indescribable. He said: "If I say I don't blame you anymore, you may not believe me, and I can't do it now. But I also know that you were also a child at that time, a few months younger than me. If a girl is controlled and threatened by someone, even if you don't do anything, it can't be said to be your fault.
I always thought I was the worst. But actually, when I was in prison, there were people who cared about me, who guided me and kept me from going down the wrong path. People kept telling me that I could start my life over again, and many people helped me. But you didn't. I heard some things about you. During those years, you were no better off than I was. You lived in another cage. ”
Xiang Siling stopped warming up and looked at him sideways. However, Luo Huaizheng is such a person, always as tolerant and calm as the sea. When you look into his clear and peaceful eyes, you will know that he really means it.
Xiang Siling turned around and jumped into the water.
Luo Huaizheng clasped his hands, sat on a low beach chair, bent over and lowered his head, silently watching her swim a thousand meters in one breath without stopping, then resurfaced and lay down beside the pool where he was.
"I calmed down for a moment." Her face was wet, and she said with a half-smile, "I was almost fooled by you. Forgiveness, deception, sincerity, or falsehood. I guess the main purpose of your coming here today is to test my strength on behalf of Li Qingyao, right? After all, they have been investigating a certain case for so long, but they still can't find any evidence of the murderer."
For a moment, Luo Huaizheng felt a little guilty. But he said, “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
However, for Xiang Siling, his momentary hesitation was enough to make the judgment.
She tilted her head, resting her head on her arm, and looked at him with the innocence of a child, saying, "Last time, you stayed with me for two months before I remembered that Li Meiling had killed someone. Of course, the brain's memory is also unpredictable. This time, you want to get another truth. Are you planning to wrong yourself and stay with me for two months again?"
Luo Huaizheng simply did not deny it, stared into her eyes and said, "I didn't think so much. But from the moment you mentioned Li Meiling, I knew that you did so much just to help me. It did not do you any good and even brought you trouble.
So I think that you are different from what I thought before, maybe you are not willing to do bad things. Whether it was seven years ago or now, the decisions you made may have been made with hard reasons, and you may have been forced into a desperate situation. If you don’t know the suffering of others, don’t advise them to do good. Others have no right to judge your life, just like they have no right to laugh at and judge how I went from being a recommended student at Tsinghua University to a prisoner, even though there were many people like that back then. ”
Xiang Siling was stunned for a moment, but soon smiled disdainfully. She was silent for a while, rested her chin on her palms, stared at Luo Huaizheng and said, "Even if you want to coax me now, I don't have the heart to do that. Once the dream is awakened, people should return to reality and face the consequences they have to face. But who made you...you are you? If anyone else came to test me today, I would not pay attention.
Well, Luo Huaizheng, don’t you just want to know whether I am the real murderer who killed Luo Hongmin? I'll tell you the answer. However, this is my biggest secret, so from now on, I will never owe you anything again, and we are finally even. Luo Huaizheng, I will never feel guilty towards you again in this life, and I am relieved. ”
——
That day, Luo Huaizheng rushed to the police station when it was almost dark.
Li Qingyao and Chen Pu were walking out, each holding a stack of evidence bags. The Luo Huaizheng case came to an end, and the two began to read Ye Songming's diary carefully again, but so far, they have not gained anything.
Seeing Luo Huaizheng, Li Qingyao spoke first: "Luo Huaizheng, what's the matter?"
Luo Huaizheng nodded seriously.
The two men immediately took him to the conference room, and Luo Huaizheng first took out the bug that Li Qingyao had given him.
After the audio was played, Luo Huaizheng said solemnly: "Then she did something. This thing is very strange. I don't know what it has to do with Luo Hongmin's death, so I decided to tell you right away."
They both asked in unison: "What's the matter?"
Luo Huaizheng’s mind flashed back to the scenes he had seen throughout the day. The beautiful and slender woman showed a cool look for the first time, swimming freely in the water like a flying fish, tireless and refusing to stop.
"She was swimming the whole time," he said. "She swam for five hours, and only got up once to go to the bathroom, drink a bottle of energy drink, and take two pills, but I don't know what they were. I counted, she swam 120 times, 12 kilometers. This is not something that ordinary people can do, but her speed was very stable. When she came out at the end, her whole face was white and she almost fainted, but she did it."
After Luo Huaizheng left, Chen Pu and Li Qingyao immediately spread out the map of Mingya Lake, opened their investigation notebooks, compared various records, and quickly came to a conclusion -
The reason they couldn't find proof of Xiang Siling's presence before was because they made a wrong prediction. They only checked the surveillance footage 5 kilometers before and after the villa, assuming that Xiang Siling could only swim a maximum of 10 kilometers back and forth that night. After all, it was spring, the lake water was cold, and people’s physical strength was limited.
But today Xiang Siling told them that she could swim 12 kilometers in 5 hours, so she could go into the water in a place farther away from surveillance and in an absolutely safe place.
"But... there is not enough time." Li Qingyao hesitated.
"Enough." Chen Pu said firmly, "Do you remember, first, it was the night bus driver who deliberately drove very slowly, and it took him two and a half hours to get there. We estimated it based on the normal one and a half hour journey. But what if the driver drove faster than usual that night? Then it could be shortened to within one hour. Add in half an hour of walking and swimming time, and she can just get to the villa at around 2 o'clock, kill Luo Hongmin, and then meet up with Lu Xing who arrived at the villa at 2:10.
Second, we speculated at the time that the waitress at the Yingzhushan campsite might not have seen Xiang Siling in person at 7:30 in the morning, and she was misled. Then, she might actually reach Yingzhu Mountain even later, which would give her more time. ”
"But her child is only over 3 years old."
"What if the child is able to cooperate with the mother and forge an alibi?"
Li Qingyao was silent. =
Chen Pu sneered and said, "Xiang Siling has clearly admitted to us that she is the real murderer who killed Luo Hongmin. But the reason she dared to expose herself to Luo Huaizheng is that she knew we couldn't find any evidence. There was no surveillance where she went into the water, and the driver didn't see her face. She was completely 'invisible'."
Li Qingyao thought: "But it's not completely without loopholes. Lu Xing, as long as we catch him, we can get a confession; and as for the van of unknown origin, as long as Team Ding can find the source, maybe they can trace it back to Xiang Siling!"
"That's right." Chen Pu said, "It's only a matter of time before we catch her."
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