The nearby precinct arrived quickly.
The forensic team conducted a preliminary autopsy while the technical investigators scoured the surrounding area.
Su Miaoyi was sent back to the Municipal Bureau.
Zhuang Yanzheng had her wait for a sketch artist to describe the killer’s appearance.
Su Miaoyi waited in a reception room for the sketch artist.
The sketch artist pushed the door open and walked in. Su Miaoyi stared at him, momentarily stunned.
The man was about 183 cm tall, a stark contrast to Zhuang Yanzheng’s rugged, rough-edged look.
His skin was fair, and his hair was a bit long, nearly covering his eyes.
He dressed loose and casual, with an artistic, carefree air.
He gave off a melancholic yet harmless vibe.
The sketch artist glanced at her, walked to the seat across from her, set his drawing board on the table, pulled a pen from his pocket, and sat down.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
Su Miaoyi replied, “Su Miaoyi.”
The sketch artist lifted his gaze and looked at her.
Su Miaoyi met his eyes.
He dropped his gaze again, then suddenly introduced himself: “Lu Zhishen, sketch artist.”
Su Miaoyi was puzzled for a moment.
What?
Lu Zhishen? Like the monk from Water Margin?
“Zhuang Yanzheng said you’re an eyewitness?” Lu Zhishen asked.
Su Miaoyi snapped back to attention. “Something like that.”
Lu Zhishen picked up the drawing board and said, “Start by roughly describing his appearance.”
Su Miaoyi thought back. “A man, around fifty years old, height…”
In the image, the man had been hunched over the whole time, but she could still estimate.
“About 175 cm, medium build,” Su Miaoyi recalled. “His face was somewhat square, with a short chin. His lips… his lower lip was quite thick, but not a big mouth. His philtrum… was a bit long. His nose…”
Lu Zhishen listened while sketching. When she paused to think, he looked up at her.
Su Miaoyi met his gaze again.
Lu Zhishen said nothing and lowered his head to continue drawing.
Su Miaoyi continued, “His mid-face was longer than average, his nose was high with a slight aquiline curve, but not obvious. His eyes were large with prominent double eyelids, and the outer corners drooped. His eyebrows were thick, and there was a mole at the end of his right brow. His eyes were set at a normal distance, his forehead was fairly wide, and his hairline was receding.”
Su Miaoyi described everything she could in as much detail as possible.
Lu Zhishen kept drawing the whole time.
Usually at this stage,
it was Lu Zhishen who asked the questions.
Things like… chin length, philtrum length, mouth size, forehead width, and so on.
But now she’d said it all herself.
There was very little he needed to ask.
She seemed to know exactly what a sketch artist would need to ask.
Lu Zhishen finished quickly and showed it to her. “Is this him?”
Su Miaoyi looked at it, then said, “He was extremely panicked at the time, but also a little excited.”
Lu Zhishen looked at her and immediately understood what she meant.
He made some adjustments to the sketch and showed it to her again. “How about now?”
“That’s him,” Su Miaoyi said.
Lu Zhishen nodded, took the sketch, and stood up to leave.
Su Miaoyi called out to him. “Um… what about me?”
“You… what?” Lu Zhishen didn’t understand.
“Can I go now?” Su Miaoyi asked.
Lu Zhishen looked at her. “Let me check.”
“Thank you,” Su Miaoyi said. When he walked out, she leaned back in her chair.
She had never felt so miserable in her life.
She’d only eaten one meal all day and seen two corpses.
Been held as a suspect for this long.
It was this late, and she hadn’t even gotten any sleep.
And most importantly, she’d worked so hard for twenty-one days, and with the end of the month right around the corner, her novel had missed its update!!
Damn it all!
Su Miaoyi leaned back in her chair, tilting her head up to stare at the ceiling.
If she really wasn’t suffering from split personality, wasn’t sick, but had somehow gained some ability to be sought out by the dead…
How could something so absurd exist in this world…
Lu Zhishen took the sketch to find Zhuang Yanzheng.
Zhuang Yanzheng was in the conference room analyzing the case.
Two homicides in a single day—at this hour, everyone was working overtime.
“Done?” Zhuang Yanzheng asked.
Lu Zhishen handed him the sketch.
Zhuang Yanzheng looked at it, then passed it directly to Qi Feng.
Qi Feng left with the sketch.
Lu Zhishen asked, “Who is she? A new colleague?”
Zhuang Yanzheng knew he was asking about Su Miaoyi.
He steered him out of the conference room.
Zhuang Yanzheng asked, “What about her?”
Lu Zhishen leaned against the wall. “She doesn’t seem like an eyewitness. She seems like my new colleague—an experienced one at that.”
Zhuang Yanzheng took out a cigarette and rolled it in his hand. “That’s high praise.”
“An ordinary eyewitness who saw a murder and burial process—under panic, what their eyes capture gets distorted by emotion,” Lu Zhishen said. “Also… ordinary people don’t remember a stranger in such detail.”
Zhuang Yanzheng was already used to this.
“Like you—after all these years as a detective, you can quickly memorize a person’s facial features,” Lu Zhishen said. “She’s the same.”
Zhuang Yanzheng nodded. “How about having her as your colleague?”
Lu Zhishen looked at him, frowning. “No idiots allowed. She’d pass.”
…
Su Miaoyi fell asleep in the reception room chair, head tilted back.
The door was suddenly pushed open.
Su Miaoyi sat up straight abruptly, looking toward the door, then touched the corner of her mouth—good, no drool.
Zhuang Yanzheng stood at the doorway, feeling like she had made herself at home here. “You can go now.”
Su Miaoyi immediately got up and headed for the door.
Zhuang Yanzheng handed her her bag.
Su Miaoyi took it. “So my suspicion is cleared, right?”
“For now,” Zhuang Yanzheng said.
Su Miaoyi said nothing.
“For now” was fine.
Better than staying here the whole time.
“Let’s go,” Zhuang Yanzheng said.
Su Miaoyi followed behind him as they walked out.
Once outside the police station, Su Miaoyi looked at the pitch-black night and the quiet street, then said to Zhuang Yanzheng, “I’ll be on my way then.”
“I’ll give you a ride,” Zhuang Yanzheng said.
Su Miaoyi looked at him.
Zhuang Yanzheng walked straight to the car. “Get in.”
Su Miaoyi glanced around again—indeed, it didn’t seem easy to hail a cab around here.
She trotted a few steps and got in, sitting in the passenger seat.
“Going to Jinrong Residences?” Zhuang Yanzheng asked.
Su Miaoyi nodded. “Mm.”
He started the car, and she sat quietly in the passenger seat. After a while, she took out her phone and looked at it.
She opened the writing app.
Sure enough, readers were asking why there was no update.
Su Miaoyi replied to the comments.
The ride was silent.
When they arrived at the entrance of the residential complex, Su Miaoyi was about to get out when Zhuang Yanzheng said, “Let’s exchange contact info.”
Su Miaoyi looked at him.
Zhuang Yanzheng said, “If you see anything else in the future, contact me anytime. If you can’t reach me, just call the police directly.”
Su Miaoyi thought for a moment and saved his phone number.
Just in case she saw something again.
“Your suspicion isn’t fully cleared yet. Don’t leave Jinghai City recently,” Zhuang Yanzheng said.
“Okay,” Su Miaoyi said cooperatively.
After all, she had no plans to leave Jinghai anytime soon anyway.
“I’ll be going then,” Su Miaoyi said.
“Mm.”
Su Miaoyi got out of the car, glanced back at him, and then entered the residential complex.
Zhuang Yanzheng watched her go inside, then drove away.
……