Based on the road signs and directions on the elevated bridge she saw in her vision, Su Miaoyi determined the approximate specific location.
Zhuang Yanzheng drove. Su Miaoyi sat in the passenger seat. Two police officers sat in the back.
The car was moving fast, but it still took nearly an hour to reach the vicinity of their destination. The car couldn’t drive any further, so the four of them had to walk the rest of the way.
After getting out of the car, Su Miaoyi began observing her surroundings. Zhuang Yanzheng also looked around, scanning every possible hiding spot.
If everything she said was a lie and she had brought him here, then either she was trying to escape—with someone waiting here to pick her up—or she was targeting him, with someone lying in ambush to kill him.
But for now, everything seemed normal.
A river ran beneath the elevated bridge. Su Miaoyi and Zhuang Yanzheng walked to the riverbank. The two police officers followed—one carrying a forensic investigation kit, the other holding two shovels.
Su Miaoyi looked up, trying to find the angle of the road sign on the elevated bridge. Meanwhile, Zhuang Yanzheng and the two officers used their investigation lights to examine the ground and surroundings.
After a moment, Su Miaoyi crouched down. Zhuang Yanzheng remained vigilant of the area. Su Miaoyi shifted forward, then backward. Zhuang Yanzheng followed her movements, staying practically glued to her side.
Su Miaoyi stared at the ground, then after a moment looked at his shoes. She reached out and shoved him to the side: “Move over a bit. You’re blocking me.”
Zhuang Yanzheng stepped aside and watched her.
Realizing what she had just done, Su Miaoyi quickly corrected herself: “Sorry, could you please move aside a little?”
Zhuang Yanzheng didn’t say anything. He just moved over.
Su Miaoyi suddenly pointed at the ground. “Here.”
Zhuang Yanzheng’s investigation light shone on the ground. It looked no different from anywhere else.
Jinghai had been rainy lately. Even if there had been traces, they’d likely been washed away by the rain.
“Come over here. Dig it up,” Zhuang Yanzheng ordered the two officers.
While they dug, Zhuang Yanzheng looked around again. This place was desolate—almost no one came here. There were surveillance cameras on the elevated bridge, but this spot seemed to be out of their range.
“Captain Zhuang, there’s something here!” one of the officers called out.
Su Miaoyi reached them even faster than Zhuang Yanzheng. “Dig carefully,” she said.
Zhuang Yanzheng looked at her again. She really wasn’t quite right.
Ten minutes later, the area was fully excavated.
The stench of decay hit them straight in the face.
Su Miaoyi and Zhuang Yanzheng crouched beside the body.
“Call the nearby precinct and have them bring a forensic examiner,” Zhuang Yanzheng said.
“Got it.”
“Doesn’t the municipal bureau have forensic examiners?” Su Miaoyi asked.
“Not available these past 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 lately, and Jinghai’s been raining nonstop, so the humidity by the river is high. With this level of decomposition… it’s been at least a week.”
Zhuang Yanzheng looked at her again.
Su Miaoyi kept her eyes on the body: “The skull is caved in. She was struck with heavy force before death.”
It matched what she had seen in her vision. At the time, she had also felt pain in her arms and legs.
Su Miaoyi looked around, searching for something to lift the victim’s clothing and check her arms and legs. But before she found anything, Zhuang Yanzheng asked, “Aren’t you scared?”
“I…” Su Miaoyi glanced at Zhuang Yanzheng, then at the body.
And then…
She covered her mouth and gagged.
Su Miaoyi tried to stand and move farther away, but her legs gave out and she couldn’t get up at first. She only managed to rise on her second attempt.
She stumbled to the side and vomited…
Zhuang Yanzheng walked over to her again.
Su Miaoyi felt completely drained of strength, but she still shuffled to a new spot and crouched down. She turned her back to the body, not daring to look behind her, curling in on herself.
This was far more terrifying than what she had seen at noon.
Facing the grass, she only wanted to leave this place immediately: “You’ve found the body. Can you let me leave now, or… you can lock me up again if you want.”
Zhuang Yanzheng felt like he was splitting in two.
Her lack of fear earlier had been genuine, but her fear now was just as real.
She really did seem mentally unstable.
But if she were mentally unstable, how would she know there was a body here?
He thought for a moment, then asked, “What exactly did you see?”
Su Miaoyi covered her mouth and nose, thinking: “I saw a man swinging a shovel, striking her on the head.”
As she spoke, she pointed behind her.
“Then I saw the man burying her with dirt,” Su Miaoyi said. “She was still breathing at the time.”
She had seen it through the victim’s perspective.
The victim was still alive then.
She was buried alive.
Zhuang Yanzheng was silent for a moment. “Did you see the man’s face?”
Su Miaoyi recalled those eyes—terrified, yet excited.
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. “Like a left-handed person.”
Zhuang Yanzheng felt that she wasn’t scared anymore at this moment.
“By the way,” Su Miaoyi recalled, “he has a mole at the end of his right eyebrow.”
Zhuang Yanzheng pulled her up. “Come over, take another look at the body.”
Su Miaoyi went to look at the corpse again.
As Zhuang Yanzheng had expected, she wasn’t scared this time.
Instead, she studied the body seriously. “When I saw those images, I felt the pain too. Her legs and arms must be broken.”
The forensic examiner hadn’t arrived yet, so she didn’t dare touch anything.
“Would this be the primary crime scene?” Su Miaoyi asked.
Zhuang Yanzheng had been observing her the whole time.
She had knowledge of criminal investigation.
“Why aren’t you scared anymore?” Zhuang Yanzheng watched her state, feeling conflicted inside. On one hand, he thought she was highly suspicious; on the other, he felt she might genuinely possess some ability beyond the normal scope.
Could someone really see a crime scene from such a distance, days after it happened?
Just thinking about it seemed absurd.
But… who would plant someone in the police station using such an outlandish excuse? Unless they weren’t quite right in the head.
Su Miaoyi froze for two seconds.
Her sense of smell and vision seemed to recover momentarily.
She covered her mouth and dry-heaved, then quickly turned and walked away from the area.
She walked to the riverbank and plopped down on a rock.
Zhuang Yanzheng crouched down, pulled gloves from his pocket, put them on, and from beneath the rock she was sitting on, pulled out a chain.
“What?” Su Miaoyi looked down at him.
Zhuang Yanzheng lifted the entire chain, with a pocket watch hanging from the end.
He opened the watch with one hand.
It had been soaked in water; the hands had stopped moving.
Su Miaoyi looked toward the burial site and said, “Could it have been washed over here by rainwater?”
Zhuang Yanzheng examined the back of the watch and the chain.
Su Miaoyi watched him. “Can you tell anything from it?”
“Custom-made,” Zhuang Yanzheng said.
“You can tell that too?” Su Miaoyi craned her neck to look at 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 tell her shock wasn’t an act.
Su Miaoyi looked at the watch again, feeling it had been lying there for a while. “If something this expensive, unless the killer was too afraid to return to the scene, wouldn’t someone normally come looking for it? It didn’t get washed into the river, so if someone searched for it, it should be pretty easy to find.”
Zhuang Yanzheng looked at her, thinking she made a good point.
Moreover, items custom-made from this shop were usually highly sentimental and held great importance.
“Of course, we can’t rule out that it has a sad backstory and was thrown into the river, then washed back up,” Su Miaoyi added.
……