“Police!”
As Su Miaoyi said these two words, her hand instinctively went to the front pocket of her pants.
It was a subconscious gesture—she was reaching for her police badge.
But when she realized the pocket was still sewn shut, never having been opened since she bought the pants, she remembered she wasn’t a police officer.
Zhuang Yanzheng noticed her movement. It was a gesture all too familiar to him.
An ordinary person witnessing a murder scene could claim to have suddenly developed some supernatural ability, but what about this subconscious gesture?
Su Miaoyi casually moved her hand away from her pants.
She looked at the man before her.
Bald head, bare chest, wearing a pair of loud floral shorts.
Quite burly.
Though she had never seen his face, she had heard his voice in the visions she’d witnessed.
When the man heard her say “police,” he was visibly frightened for a moment. “Police? What’s this about?”
Su Miaoyi looked past him into the room, thought for a moment, and said, “We received a report from a citizen that there’s illegal gambling going on here.”
Due to the lighting, the room inside was somewhat dark, and she could only make out a woman standing further inside.
The man’s eyes flickered slightly, and he put on a fawning smile. “That can’t be right? We’re all law-abiding citizens. How could we do something like that?”
“What’s that sound in the room?” Su Miaoyi asked.
The man said, “You must have misheard. There’s no sound. Oh, my daughter’s watching TV inside. That’s the TV.”
The woman standing inside quickly walked away, and soon the faint sound of someone calling for help disappeared.
With the cries for help gone, Su Miaoyi suddenly became more urgent: “Move aside!”
The man blocked her. “Where’s your badge? How do you prove you’re a police officer?”
Zhuang Yanzheng’s badge flashed in front of his face. “Are you trying to obstruct official business?”
The man immediately put on a fawning smile. “Officer, no, no, I wouldn’t dare.”
“Move!” Zhuang Yanzheng said.
The man blocked him. “Officer, we’re all law-abiding citizens. How could there be gambling…”
While he was blocking Zhuang Yanzheng, Su Miaoyi pushed past his arm and entered the room.
“Hey!” The man turned to chase after her.
Zhuang Yanzheng shoved him aside as well and followed into the room.
He was strong, and the man stumbled to the side, steadying himself before chasing after them.
“Blood! It’s all blood!” The woman inside suddenly ran out with her hands covered in blood.
Zhuang Yanzheng and Su Miaoyi immediately entered the inner room.
They saw a young woman lying on the floor, a pool of blood beneath her.
Zhuang Yanzheng immediately called for an ambulance.
Su Miaoyi also quickly walked into the room, crouched down beside the young woman, and took her hand.
There was no warmth at all.
“Wake up, wake up. Can you hear me?” Su Miaoyi held her hand. “Can you hear me?”
The young woman’s eyes were closed, her eyelashes trembling faintly. Slowly, her hand gripped Su Miaoyi’s fingers.
“Don’t sleep. The ambulance has been called. Someone will be here soon. Hang in there. Don’t sleep.” Su Miaoyi pulled the blanket off the nearby bed and draped it over her.
The young woman had lost too much blood, and they didn’t dare move her, afraid of causing more bleeding.
Zhuang Yanzheng hung up the phone, and Qi Feng and the others had also arrived.
Just as Zhuang Yanzheng was about to enter the room to check on the young woman’s condition, the man suddenly stepped forward to block him. “Officer, my daughter just broke up with her boyfriend recently. After the breakup, she found out she was pregnant… You see this… this… We don’t know how it suddenly came to this.”
“Oh! My poor, unfortunate daughter!” The woman suddenly sat on the ground, wailing.
Zhuang Yanzheng turned to look at her.
Qi Feng and another officer struggled to help her over to a chair on the other side.
Zhuang Yanzheng looked at the young woman on the floor and Su Miaoyi, then turned to the man and asked, “What’s your name?”
“Feng Ming,” the man said.
Zhuang Yanzheng looked at the woman who was slapping her thighs and wailing.
Feng Ming said, “She’s my wife, Zhao Qin.”
“The young woman in the room is your daughter?” Zhuang Yanzheng asked.
“Yes. The girl came with her mother when she remarried into my family,” Feng Ming said. “Although she’s not my biological daughter, I’ve raised her as my own. That boyfriend of hers—he, he did something like this and then broke up with my daughter. He’s not even human. How is my daughter supposed to live after this!”
As he spoke, he covered his face.
Zhao Qin’s wailing grew even louder.
Zhuang Yanzheng watched them.
Feng Ming wiped his face. “Officer, this concerns my daughter’s reputation. Could you… could you let us handle this matter ourselves? Look, there are all these people outside watching.”
There were quite a few voices outside, but the officers had stopped them in time, and none of them had gotten close.
Zhuang Yanzheng looked around.
They had no evidence. Nothing at all.
He hadn’t had a chance to exchange information with Su Miaoyi since entering.
Zhuang Yanzheng circled the outer room.
Feng Ming followed him. “Officer, there must be a misunderstanding. We just run a small business, selling some goods. How could we be gambling?”
Zhuang Yanzheng glanced at him, guessing that Su Miaoyi had told him about this. “Whether there is or isn’t, I’m not just going to take your word for it. Since you say there isn’t, why were you dragging someone into the room?”
“There really isn’t anything, how would we dare?” Feng Ming slapped his thigh. “Ah! It was all a misunderstanding! I thought she was some con artist who’d wandered in, so I wanted to pull her inside and call the police—doing society a favor by getting rid of her.”
Zhuang Yanzheng shot him another look, then went to check the tobacco and liquor shop in the back.
Su Miaoyi crouched beside the girl, keeping up a steady stream of conversation, worried she might drift off to sleep.
“We’ve come to save you. You have to hold on, you have to keep going. Whatever you do, don’t fall asleep, don’t fall asleep. The ambulance will be here soon,” she said softly, stroking the girl’s arm.
Suddenly, the girl’s grip on her fingers loosened slightly.
Su Miaoyi’s heart clenched. “Wake up! Wake up! You can’t sleep! You can’t sleep! The ambulance is coming! Hold on! You—”
The girl showed no response at all, her eyes tightly shut, her breathing nearly gone.
Su Miaoyi raised her voice, calling to her even louder.
Soon, Feng Ming and Zhao Qin both rushed into the room.
Zhao Qin entered, plopped herself down beside the girl, and burst into loud wailing: “My poor, unfortunate daughter—”
Feng Ming took in the scene, then shoved Su Miaoyi aside abruptly, collapsing to his knees as if his legs had given out.
Zhuang Yanzheng reached out just in time, steadying Su Miaoyi, gripping her wrist and pulling her to her feet.
“Girl, girl, you can’t go. If you leave, what are we supposed to do?” Feng Ming shouted, glancing back at Zhuang Yanzheng and the others.
Seeing that Zhuang Yanzheng’s gaze was fixed on Su Miaoyi, not on them, he slipped his hand beneath the blanket, pressing it against the girl’s stomach, using his body to shield the hand hidden under the covers.
“Girl, wake up, wake up.”
His mouth called out, but his mind was calculating.
Things had reached this point—once the ambulance took this girl away, once she woke up, she would certainly tell the police everything.
So she couldn’t wake up…
As long as she didn’t wake, the police would have no evidence.
Feng Ming’s hand trembled slightly, but he still pressed down with force…
……