Based on the road signs on the overpass, the direction, and the distance she saw in her vision,
Su Miaoyi pinpointed the approximate location.
Zhuang Yanzheng drove.
Su Miaoyi was in the passenger seat.
Two more police officers sat in the back.
The car was moving fast.
But it still took them almost an hour to get near their destination.
The car couldn’t go any further, so the four of them had to walk.
After getting out of the car, Su Miaoyi began observing her surroundings.
Zhuang Yanzheng walked over, took out a pair of handcuffs, and cuffed his hand to Su Miaoyi’s.
He moved too fast.
Su Miaoyi felt a sudden chill on her wrist and flinched. "What are you doing?"
"To keep the suspect from escaping," Zhuang Yanzheng said, then started walking, yanking Su Miaoyi and making her stumble forward.
Su Miaoyi: "..."
There was a river under the overpass.
Su Miaoyi and Zhuang Yanzheng walked to the riverbank.
Of the two police officers, one carried a forensics kit, and the other held two shovels.
Su Miaoyi looked up, trying to find the same angle of the overpass signs she’d seen.
Zhuang Yanzheng and the two officers, however, were using inspection lights to examine the ground and the surrounding area.
After a moment, Su Miaoyi crouched down.
She tugged Zhuang Yanzheng down with her, causing him to stumble as well.
He watched her.
Su Miaoyi shuffled forward, then backward.
Zhuang Yanzheng had to shuffle forward and backward with her.
Just as he was starting to think, ’She must be doing this on purpose to get back at me,’ Su Miaoyi pointed at the ground and said, "Here."
Zhuang Yanzheng shone his inspection light on the ground.
It looked no different from the surrounding area.
It had been raining a lot in Jinghai recently.
Even if there had been any tracks, they would have been washed away by the rain.
"Come over here and dig," Zhuang Yanzheng said to the two officers.
While they waited for them to dig, Zhuang Yanzheng looked around the area again.
The place was desolate; almost no one ever came here.
There were only surveillance cameras on the overpass, but it seemed this spot was out of their range.
"Captain Zhuang, there’s something here," one of the officers shouted.
Zhuang Yanzheng immediately walked over.
Su Miaoyi couldn’t keep up and had to jog behind him.
Ten minutes later, the area was completely dug up.
The stench of decay assaulted them.
Su Miaoyi squatted down next to the body with Zhuang Yanzheng.
"Call the nearest precinct and have them bring a medical examiner over," Zhuang Yanzheng said.
"Right."
"Doesn’t the municipal bureau have a medical examiner?" Su Miaoyi asked.
"Not for the next couple of days," Zhuang Yanzheng replied.
Su Miaoyi nodded, covering her nose with one hand as she looked at the body. "The weather’s hot, it’s been raining constantly in Jinghai lately, and it’s humid by the river. At this stage of decay... it must have been more than a week."
Zhuang Yanzheng looked at her.
Su Miaoyi continued to stare at the body. "The skull is caved in. She was struck by a heavy blow before death."
It matched what she had seen in her vision.
She remembered feeling pain in her arms and legs, too.
Su Miaoyi looked around, searching for something to lift the victim’s clothes to check the legs and arms.
But before she could find anything, Zhuang Yanzheng asked, "Aren’t you scared?"
"I..." Su Miaoyi looked at Zhuang Yanzheng, then glanced back at the body.
And then...
She covered her mouth and gagged.
Su Miaoyi tried to stand and back away, but her legs suddenly gave out, and she couldn’t get up.
She only managed to stand on her second try.
She stumbled over to the side and threw up...
Since Zhuang Yanzheng’s hand was cuffed to hers, he had no choice but to follow.
He stood beside her.
Su Miaoyi felt completely drained, but she still managed to shuffle over and squat down in a different spot.
Zhuang Yanzheng could only stoop down.
Su Miaoyi kept her back to the body, not daring to look back, and seemed to shrink into herself.
’This is so much scarier than what I saw at noon.’
Facing the bushes, she just wanted to leave this place immediately. "You’ve found the person. Can you let me leave now? Or... you can even lock me up again, that would be fine."
Zhuang Yanzheng remained stooped over.
’Her lack of fear from before was genuine, but so is her fear now.’
’She really does seem a little unhinged.’
Zhuang Yanzheng felt his pockets but couldn’t find the key.
He could only maintain their current position.
After a moment of thought, he asked, "What exactly did you see?"
Su Miaoyi, still covering her mouth and nose, thought for a moment. "I saw a man swing a shovel and smash it over her head."
As she spoke, she gestured behind her.
She used the hand that was cuffed to Zhuang Yanzheng.
Zhuang Yanzheng felt his arm get suddenly thrown out and then yanked back.
Zhuang Yanzheng: "..."
"Then I saw the man bury her with dirt," Su Miaoyi said. "She must have still been breathing at the time."
She had seen it all from the victim’s perspective.
The victim had still been alive.
She was buried alive.
Zhuang Yanzheng was silent for a moment. "Did you see the man’s face?"
Su Miaoyi recalled those frenzied, excited eyes.
She nodded. "Around fifty years old. Medium build, wearing a blue shirt and black pants. The way he held the shovel..."
Su Miaoyi paused, then looked up at Zhuang Yanzheng. "He seemed to be left-handed."
’She doesn’t seem scared anymore,’ Zhuang Yanzheng thought.
"Oh, right," Su Miaoyi remembered. "He has a mole on the outer edge of his right eyebrow."
Zhuang Yanzheng pulled her to her feet. "Come on, take another look at the body."
Before Su Miaoyi could react, he had dragged her over to the body.
Just as Zhuang Yanzheng expected, she wasn’t afraid anymore.
Instead, she looked at the body seriously. "When I saw those images, I felt the pain too. Her legs and arms must have been broken."
The medical examiner wasn’t here yet, so she didn’t dare touch anything.
"Could this be the primary crime scene?" Su Miaoyi said.
Zhuang Yanzheng had been observing her the whole time.
’She knows about criminal investigation.’
"Why aren’t you scared anymore?" Zhuang Yanzheng asked, watching her. He felt a war waging within himself. Part of him found her highly suspicious, yet another part felt she might genuinely possess some power beyond the realm of normal human ability.
’Could someone really see a crime scene from so far away, days after it happened?’
’The whole idea is ridiculous.’
’But... who would try to plant someone in the police department using such a preposterous story? Unless they weren’t right in the head.’
Su Miaoyi froze for two seconds.
It was as if her senses of smell and sight had suddenly returned.
Su Miaoyi covered her mouth and dry-heaved, just as she was about to turn and get away from the area.
But because Zhuang Yanzheng stood his ground, she was yanked back.
She was suddenly, keenly aware of how heavy he was.
She dry-heaved again.
For some reason, Zhuang Yanzheng got the distinct and unwelcome impression she was about to throw up on him. He quickly led her a little further away.
Su Miaoyi plopped down on a rock.
Zhuang Yanzheng squatted down, took a pair of gloves from his pocket, put them on, and pulled a chain out from under the rock she was sitting on.
"What is it?" Su Miaoyi asked, looking down at him.
Zhuang Yanzheng lifted the entire chain, revealing a pocket watch hanging from the end.
He opened the pocket watch with one hand.
It was waterlogged, and the hands had stopped.
Su Miaoyi looked at the burial site. "Could the rain have washed it over from there?"
Zhuang Yanzheng examined the back of the watch and the chain again.
Su Miaoyi watched him. "Can you tell anything?"
"It’s custom-made," Zhuang Yanzheng said.
"You can tell that just by looking?" Su Miaoyi craned her neck to see the watch.
Zhuang Yanzheng showed her the logo on the back of the watch. "Custom pieces from this shop start at seven figures."
"How much?!" Su Miaoyi was shocked.
Zhuang Yanzheng could see her shock wasn’t an act.
Su Miaoyi looked at the pocket watch again, which seemed like it had been lying there for some time. "Something this expensive... unless the killer was too scared to return to the scene, you’d think the owner would come looking for it, right? It didn’t get washed into the river, so it should be easy enough to find if someone was looking."
Zhuang Yanzheng looked at her. ’She has a point.’
Besides, items custom-made at this shop were usually of great sentimental value and very important to their owners.
"Of course, we can’t rule out the possibility that it was thrown into the river because of some sad backstory and then washed back up," Su Miaoyi added.
...