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墨書 Inktalez
How many people have jumped off the Guansheng Bridge, leaving no trace behind? For decades, beneath the black-and-white photo on the tombstone lies only a grave without a body. So last night, whether the body thrown into the river could be retrieved really depends on chance, as a member of the civilian body recovery team in his sixties said. Therefore, Shen Jie did not have the arrogance of "We must recover the body today." His team members were investigating everywhere, and the technical investigation personnel were sweating profusely, not daring to let a drop fall. He coordinated the overall situation and broke down the thought process.
To prevent any foul play, the DNA and fingerprints of the informant Zhang Tiangang had already been collected, and the internal surveillance of PINK Bar would verify whether his claims were true or false. At this moment, Shen Jie stood with one foot on the steps, hands on his hips, staring at the bloodstains dripping down from the stone railing, muttering to himself, "After disposing of the body, why did the witness freeze in fear and not dare to move? Why not kill to silence? Or why act at that precise moment when witnesses were present? What would it have cost to delay by three or five minutes? Would the victim have escaped? But the witness said there was no struggle during the entire murder... no struggle... are we sure it was a living person?"
Just then, his phone suddenly rang, startling him so much that he jumped. Annoyed, he answered, "Who is it?"
"...Ji Qinchou, I got your number from the director."
"Ah! Look at my memory! I forgot to exchange contact information with you." Shen Jie’s mysterious and story-filled deep eyes immediately squinted into slits as he smiled like a grandfather coaxing his grandson and asked, "Xiao Ji, what's up? Any discoveries?"
"Yes, we need colleagues from the technical investigation department to come over for a scene examination and evidence collection."
Shen Jie straightened up. "What’s going on?"
The floor was littered with crumpled tissues; a rotting unknown substance was oozing from the trash can. On the bedside table lay cigarette butts, used condoms, an exaggerated male sex toy, and various BDSM items. The most horrifying sight was the black bed sheet that had hardened like cardboard, stained with white semen and blood that had turned black after being away from a body for too long—blending into the sheet—and even more unspeakable remnants of liquid that had dried up. The reason they confirmed it was blood and something even more terrifying was due to large patches of various stains on the light pink thin mattress beneath the bed sheet that could drive anyone to madness. At the foot of the bed stood a selfie tripod with a phone holder aimed directly at the bed.
"That's about it," Ji Qinchou briefly explained his findings at the scene to Shen Jie. A technical investigator extracted a hair about forty centimeters long, a blood-stained tooth, and a finger using tweezers from above the pillow. Regarding this finger, that investigator succinctly summarized, "A middle finger that was forcibly broken and torn off."
Shen Jie’s mind buzzed as he walked to the living room to call Zhao Ziqiang. "Where are you? It’s only a ten-minute drive; how long has it been? Are you pushing back in a police car?" After hanging up, he looked at Ji Qinchou, who remained quiet, and patted his shoulder. "Well done. Just remember next time if you have any thoughts or plans to do something; report to me first. We don’t advocate personal heroism here, so don’t try to pull any fast ones on me."
"Okay," Ji Qinchou nodded.
"Has Ye Ying gone back?"
"You guys arrived just as she left. After working physically and mentally since midnight until now, she couldn’t hold on anymore and went back to rest."
"Yeah, she has indeed worked hard."
Zhao Ziqiang and intern officer Wang Yi'an soon brought Du Zao into Room 1101. Shen Jie looked at Du Zao with an unclear expression as he approached him and sternly asked while pointing towards the second bedroom, "What happened in there?"
Du Zao glanced at Ji Qinchou beside him. "Tang Wenshan and his two friends brought people here to play."
"Here?" Shen Jie stared intently at Du Zao.
"The second bedroom."
"What kind of people?"
"The girls they drugged."
"When did this start?"
"I didn’t know where they were before; they started doing this on the third day after I rented this apartment with Tang Wenshan for cohabitation."
"You’ve known about this all along; why didn’t you report it?"
"Don't let them torment others; should I let them torment me instead?"
"Call the police! They will be arrested! You are completely safe! Can't you understand such simple logic?!"
Du Zao sneered disdainfully, "Logically, it's very simple, but reality doesn't follow logic."
"Stop playing word games with me. Bring her to the station and interrogate her!"
In the interrogation room, Du Zao sat in the interrogation chair, her hands bound and unable to move freely. The overhead light suddenly turned on, shining directly on her face, making it hard for her to open her eyes. She tilted her head, peering towards the dimly lit positions of the two interrogating officers. "Officer, is it illegal not to report a crime out of fear after witnessing it?"
"Heh, you know the law?" Shi Ya replied with a tone of disdain. "If what you say is true, then it wouldn't be illegal. However, we suspect you assisted Tang Wenshan and two others in kidnapping, raping, abusing, and illegally detaining multiple women. Do you have anything to confess?"
"It’s not me; you should provide evidence that I assisted them in committing crimes. Otherwise, this—" Du Zao looked around the interrogation room and shook her wrist, "is illegal detention."
"We found your complete fingerprints on the key to the spare bedroom's lock."
Behind a one-way mirror on the other side of the wall, members of Team Two stood behind Shen Jie, watching the interrogation process. Shen Jie crossed his arms and frowned slightly. "Shi Ya was careless; this woman is not easy to deal with."
"So what? I paid to rent the entire apartment; is it strange that I have a key to one of the rooms?" Du Zao raised her left elbow to shield herself from the bright light. "Could you turn off that light? Otherwise, I'll have to talk to you with my eyes closed."
"You have the key to the spare bedroom; you control its access. How could you not have been inside?" Shi Ya was very certain.
Du Zao indeed closed her eyes. "Having a key to the spare bedroom only proves that I can enter and exit at any time; it doesn't prove that I've actually been inside. The lock on that door doesn't only have one key."
Shen Jie let his arms drop, his shoulders sagging as well. "Shi Ya isn't getting anywhere."
Intern officer Wang Yi'an quietly asked a member of Team Two, Li Shuo, "Brother Shuo, does this girl and that Tang Wenshan have anything to do with our current homicide case?"
Li Shuo replied softly, "Currently, there’s no direct connection, but what Tang Wenshan, Sun Changyu, and Zhuo Anqi did involves criminal activity; we need to intervene."
"Uh—" Wang Yi'an's gaze subtly fell on Ji Qinchou's profile. This handsome guy looked about twenty-five or twenty-six, similar in age to him; where would he get experience handling criminal cases? Instinct? That should be limited to catching thieves or breaking up fights since he was just an auxiliary police officer at a neighborhood station. Ji Qinchou noticed and slightly smiled at Wang Yi'an, who felt embarrassed and blushed at being caught staring.
Ji Qinchou lowered his head and rubbed his eyes; he could vaguely see two dark circles under his eyebrows in the one-way mirror. On the other side of the mirror, Shi Ya was still engaged in a verbal sparring match with Du Zao, yielding no additional gains. It seemed they wouldn't get anything out of this today. As he relaxed his mind, drowsiness washed over him; he couldn't help but yawn without closing his lips when suddenly he heard Du Zao speak up.
"I should go back to sleep; I have work tomorrow." Du Zao lazily leaned back against her chair. "Before I moved in with Tang Wenshan, I sensed something off about what they were doing but didn't have a clear understanding at that time. I thought Tang Wenshan was led astray by Sun Changyu and Zhuo Anqi. As long as we lived together and spent time together, their opportunities for contact would decrease naturally, and he would correct his ways. So I took the initiative to suggest living together but still felt uneasy just in case; when my landlord gave me keys because I said I was living with my boyfriend, he gave me two keys for each room. But I lied to Tang Wenshan, saying there was only one key so we could share it—going to work together and coming home together—to keep track of each other's movements. For example, if he took the key and left before me and I came home to find no one there, I'd know he went out again; you understand that right? On moving day itself, Tang Wenshan took the spare bedroom key and forbade me from entering it. On the third day, they brought back an unconscious girl; when I casually asked about it, Tang Wenshan slapped me hard across the face. Yes, that night I heard that girl scream all night after she woke up, but what could I do? Kick down the door of the spare bedroom and be forced to join them? I could only turn a deaf ear; once there was one incident there would be another—time passed and people became numb; no matter how heart-wrenching those screams were from inside there, I could sleep without dreaming."
"Aren't you proud of that?"
"I'm not proud; who would be proud of being numb and becoming an unfeeling beast? I had no choice, Officer; I truly never entered the spare bedroom. Every time I walked out of the master bedroom, I didn't dare look up because right across was the door to the spare bedroom. Whenever I saw that door, I couldn't help but imagine what those girls were enduring inside; thinking about it made me feel worse inside—I didn't even dare look at that door anymore."
"Since you despise what they are doing so much, why not break up with Tang Wenshan?"
"Break up? Officer, do you know why I'm not one of those girls? Because I'm Tang Wenshan's girlfriend; without that identity, I'd be next in line for the spare bedroom—no exaggeration!"
"You could call the police."
"Officer, consider the situation from the perspective of the police. Let's not even talk about such an absurd matter. If I go to report this, will the officers at the station believe me? Assuming they do, what’s the first step? They would first need to confirm the crime scene at the rental apartment and rescue the innocent hostages. Can you guarantee when Tang Wenshan will return? He will definitely be caught instead of sensing something unusual and fleeing immediately, right? Fine, even if Tang Wenshan is caught, who can guarantee that Sun Changyu and Zhuo Anqi will be captured at the same time? If even one of them gets away, I won't survive. These people are ruthless and vengeful; they can do anything!"
"But this time you voluntarily handed over the keys."
"Because those three ran away! It’s not my fault; it’s Gao Liang. They can't take revenge on me."
"Who is Gao Liang?"
"The manager of PINK. You don’t know? Because those three went too far, female customers were scared to come, and naturally, there were fewer male customers, which affected the bar's performance. The manager had no way to explain it to the boss and had to deal with them. When they caught wind of it, they fled overnight without even packing their bags. They won’t dare come back for a while. I was just considering whether to report it, but I was afraid you would arrest me for not reporting what I knew. So I took some time to consult a lawyer to confirm that I hadn’t broken any laws. Just as I was about to report it, your colleague showed up, and I took the opportunity to hand over the keys to them so they could check things out themselves. I won’t go back to that apartment; I’d rather not be the first victim if those three return before you catch them."
"You know how to protect yourself."
Du Zao opened his eyes and looked at Shi Ya sitting behind the table in the dim light. "Is there something wrong with that?"
Shi Ya was silent for a moment. "No."
"Then can you let me go?" Du Zao shook his wrist again.
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