Composite Sketch Room.
Su Miaoyi looked at the person in front of her.
After the suspect’s sketch was completed, Lu Zhishen took it and stepped out for a moment.
Su Miaoyi had wanted to leave with him at the time, but Lu Zhishen asked her to wait a bit before going.
She didn’t think much of it and waited in the sketch room for a while.
Then Lu Zhishen came back, closed the door, sat down across from her, and asked a single question: “Why is it that you’re the witness every single time?”
Su Miaoyi hadn’t expected him to ask that out of nowhere. She froze for a few seconds, then said, “Coincidence, I guess.”
Zhuang Yanzheng and Yan Cheng had told him about her situation, but they hadn’t told the sketch artist, so she didn’t say anything either.
Lu Zhishen looked at her, his gaze fixed on her: “People who run into this kind of coincidence three times usually end up in the Jinghai City prison.”
Su Miaoyi said nothing.
Lu Zhishen crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, his demeanor calm. Perhaps because his long hair looked so soft, he gave off a fuzzy, gentle impression overall. He slowly narrowed his eyes: “You’ve got secrets you won’t tell me. You guys formed your own little clique and left me out.”
Su Miaoyi’s eyes went wide. A huge accusation dropped from the sky!
“I’m filing a complaint with the chief!” Lu Zhishen remained just as calm.
Su Miaoyi opened her mouth, said nothing, then gave a small smile: “Have you ever heard of aliens?”
Lu Zhishen looked at her, a hint of seriousness surfacing in his placid eyes: “What about aliens?”
“Aliens have nothing to do with what we’re talking about right now,” Su Miaoyi said.
Lu Zhishen: “…”
Su Miaoyi smiled with an utterly innocent look, grabbed her things, and stood up: “I just remembered—my eldest paternal aunt’s cousin’s second maternal aunt’s grandmother’s cat is having its one-month celebration today. I need to go chip in for the gift. I’ll head out first.”
With that, she walked to the door to open it.
But she pressed the handle a few times, and the door wouldn’t budge.
Su Miaoyi instinctively twisted the lock at the bottom.
It wasn’t locked, but the door wouldn’t open.
Su Miaoyi looked at Lu Zhishen.
Lu Zhishen let out a faint sigh and searched the table for his phone: “That door’s broken. Sometimes once it closes, it can’t be opened from the inside—only from the outside. I’ll call someone to—”
Before he could finish, there was a crack.
He looked up and saw Su Miaoyi gripping the door handle, slowly lifting up a… lock that had come off the door.
Lu Zhishen looked at the lock in her hand and the hole in the door, then slowly turned his phone screen off.
Su Miaoyi looked at him.
A laugh slipped through Lu Zhishen’s lips.
Su Miaoyi looked at the lock in her hand again, then gently set it on the cabinet beside her, opened the door, and walked out.
She was never here today.
Su Miaoyi hurried out.
Once she reached the lobby, she broke into a faster jog.
Zhuang Yanzheng and Shen Yanzhou walked over from the case-handling area across the way and saw her running toward the entrance.
“Stop right there. What are you running from?” Zhuang Yanzheng called out.
Hearing his voice, Su Miaoyi instinctively halted in her tracks.
Zhuang Yanzheng walked over to her in a few steps.
Su Miaoyi turned around, but the first thing she saw was Shen Yanzhou behind him.
She tilted her head to look past Zhuang Yanzheng at Shen Yanzhou: “It’s you?”
He looked a bit more disheveled than the last time she’d seen him, but it didn’t diminish his bearing.
Still, she could sense a trace of anger beneath his gentle features.
Shen Yanzhou’s gaze lingered on her face for a few seconds, then he asked Zhuang Yanzheng, “Is she with the city bureau?”
He’d seen her running over from the office area.
Zhuang Yanzheng didn’t answer. Instead, he asked, “You two know each other?”
“We’ve met once,” Su Miaoyi said.
Shen Yanzhou looked at her.
Zhuang Yanzheng glanced between them, then sidestepped to stand between the two, blocking Shen Yanzhou’s line of sight.
Shen Yanzhou frowned.
Zhuang Yanzheng asked Su Miaoyi, “What were you running from?”
“Nothing,” Su Miaoyi said.
“She took the lock off my sketch room door.” Lu Zhishen chased after them, holding the “evidence”—the door lock—in his hand.
Zhuang Yanzheng looked at Su Miaoyi.
Su Miaoyi pressed her lips together, looking at him without a word.
Zhuang Yanzheng then looked at Lu Zhishen: “If the lock’s broken, file a maintenance request. That piece of junk of yours—if it’s broken, good, get a new one. You keep fixing it over and over, and it never gets fixed right.”
Su Miaoyi nodded.
Lu Zhishen: “??”
Shen Yanzhou also shot Zhuang Yanzheng a glance.
Based on years of knowing him, this man was fiercely protective—extremely loyal to his own people.
This young woman…
“What’s your name?” Shen Yanzhou asked.
Su Miaoyi looked at him: “Su Miaoyi.”
Hearing that name, Shen Yanzhou’s pupils trembled slightly.
Su Miaoyi caught that faint flicker of change in his expression.
Zhuang Yanzheng said, “Alright, everyone head home.”
Lu Zhishen looked at them with clear dissatisfaction.
Su Miaoyi said, “I’ll be going then.”
“Yeah.”
Su Miaoyi left, and Lu Zhishen returned to the sketch room.
That left Zhuang Yanzheng and Shen Yanzhou.
Shen Yanzhou said, “That girl…”
“You suspect her?” Zhuang Yanzheng saw right through him.
“Don’t you think it’s all too coincidental? Her appearance, even her name… That person dared to openly provoke the police. Planting someone right beside you—wouldn’t that be an even bigger provocation?” Shen Yanzhou said.
Zhuang Yanzheng said nothing.
There really were too many suspicious points.
Especially with the current case, it made Su Miaoyi seem even more suspicious.
But he didn’t know what was wrong with him.
His instincts were telling him to trust her.
Shen Yanzhou said, “This is all your business anyway. I can’t be bothered to get involved.”
He said this as he walked out.
Zhuang Yanzheng followed him a few steps outside. “Your suspicion hasn’t been cleared. Don’t leave Jinghai recently.”
Shen Yanzhou didn’t respond.
“Did you hear me?” Zhuang Yanzheng said.
Shen Yanzhou took a deep breath, turned to look at him, and said coldly, “Do you think I can even leave? Before this case is solved, I probably won’t even be able to step out of my own front door.”
Zhuang Yanzheng raised an eyebrow.
Shen Yanzhou shot him a glare.
Zhuang Yanzheng said, “Do you know what news I received less than ten minutes after you entered the interrogation room?”
“What else could it be? Just that the case should be investigated thoroughly, that the Shen family will fully cooperate, and that I shouldn’t be given any special treatment.” Shen Yanzhou said.
Zhuang Yanzheng didn’t say anything.
That was about right—that was exactly the kind of message he had received.
Shen Yanzhou let out a cold snort. “Your Director Qin doesn’t even care about the sacrifice of his own daughter. What does a nephew with no blood relation mean to him?”
Zhuang Yanzheng frowned. “Shen Yanzhou! Watch your words. Director—”
Shen Yanzhou cut him off. “I don’t understand your beliefs, and I’m not as noble as you all are. I’m just an ordinary person. I just want my sister to live.”
Zhuang Yanzheng swallowed the words that were on the tip of his tongue.
Both of them fell silent for a moment.
After a while, Shen Yanzhou said, “The bracelet—the beads were hand-polished by my grandfather when she got into university. He made it into a bracelet as her enrollment gift. It’s nothing valuable, just ordinary wooden beads. But I hope that after the case is solved, Captain Zhuang can return it to me.”
With that, he left without waiting for Zhuang Yanzheng to say anything.
Zhuang Yanzheng stood at the doorway, looking at the sun outside. After a moment, he went back into the police station…