Eyes that are the same as those of evil

Chapter 213 Unexplained Motives 3
midnight.

Three figures gathered at the alley entrance.

Tan Jia looked up at the tall buildings in the distance with their large illuminated signs, recalling the direction of the light in her dream, and adjusted her position.

Take two steps to the right and you'll bump into Lin Zhiyue; take two steps to the left and you'll bump into Zheng Yan.

"..." She looked around speechlessly, then gestured to the ground, "Perfect, you two, one of you play the victim and the other the murderer, and recreate the scene."

Zheng Yan: "You should be the murderer. Only you know many of the details."

Who would play the victim? Zheng Yan thought about the scene to be performed later: Lin Zhiyue lying on the ground with Tan Jia holding his mouth shut...

He resolutely stepped forward: "I will be the one who dies."

The performance lineup has been finalized.

Zheng Yan lay on the ground, his mouth tightly covered, his hands and feet flailing wildly.

Tan Jia: "Lin Zhiyue, watch carefully, and it would be best if you could draw the scene later."

Lin Zhiyue immediately grabbed her sketchbook and started sketching.

Tan Jia emphasized the details: "The murderer was able to cover most of the victim's face with one hand, and his fingertips could even touch the victim's earlobe. His knuckles were relatively thick and fleshy. Captain Zheng, your face is a bit big; it takes me two hands to cover it."

Zheng Yan: "..."

"Also, the killer was quite large, able to cover the victim's entire upper body. The victim's head was pressed firmly to the ground... Strange, it should be in this spot, but the ground here is very rough. When the victim fell and struggled, there should have been skin flakes or even blood left behind..."

Her gaze swept across the ground before settling on the stone steps at the edge of the alley, where a few wild grasses had sprouted from the cracks in the stones, their leaves crushed by something, leaving dark green creases on their leaves.

"The deceased was lying here, and then, when he was struggling to escape again, he was pinned down in the middle of the road by the murderer. We need to check the weeds and stones here; there may be traces of blood, bodily fluids, and hair."

Zheng Yan stood up, nodded, and said, "The shoe store owner and employees said that the deceased was carrying a very small underarm bag, which was used to carry small items, and there was nothing worth robbing. If we can't confirm it was a robbery, we need to investigate the possibility of sexual assault."

They spoke in hushed tones, while Lin Zhiyue's paintbrush never stopped moving.

The rough sound of a pencil scratching across paper added to the eerie atmosphere of the dark alley.

It was dark everywhere; the shadows cast by buildings, telephone poles, and various vehicles lay motionless on the ground, but something seemed to flash by in the corner.

Zheng Yan instantly looked in that direction, shouted, and chased after him, "Who's there!?"

The cordon was still swaying. Tan Jia stayed where he was, and a few minutes later, Zheng Yan returned with him.

He was a young man in his early twenties, with a perm, wearing shorts, and quite thin.

With his hands tied behind his back, he was being led over by Zheng Yan, repeatedly shouting, "I'm not the murderer! I just came to check! I have nothing to do with this!"

"It's okay that you're all sneaking around in the corner watching the police?! What are you looking at?!"

"I just wanted to see what you guys were doing, to see if you'd found any new clues!"

"Trying to find out about the police investigation's progress? Would a normal person care about this? Tell me, what exactly do you want here?!"

He stammered, and seeing that they were about to take out the silver handcuffs, he quickly twisted his body to dodge and hurriedly said, "I just want to know as soon as possible who killed Yang Jia!"

"What, you two are quite familiar? What's your name? What's your relationship with the deceased?" "My name is Zeng Qiang, and I...we are, we are boyfriend and girlfriend. But others don't know that yet."

Boy and girl?

During the interviews, no one mentioned that the deceased had a boyfriend, and Zeng Qiang even avoided looking away when he said this.

Mostly fake.

"Are you sure? Did the deceased know about your relationship?" Tan Jia asked coldly.

He started stammering again.

Zheng Yan twisted his arm, making him yell in pain.

"What exactly is your relationship? Tell the truth! Don't even think about lying. Yang Jia is dead, and he was murdered. We still don't know who the killer is. You'd better think carefully before you speak!"

"...We're friends, I guess. I was just thinking that if he were my boyfriend, would he be more qualified to know about the progress of the investigation?" he said dejectedly.

Tan Jia looked at him and asked, "Are you from around here? Do you know anything strange about what happened to the deceased recently?"

He answered the question quite seriously this time: "I work in a children's clothing store across from the shoe store. Yang Jia is very popular. She usually just stands in the store or at the entrance during work hours, and goes out to eat or goes home after work. Occasionally she says she wants to go out, but basically no one comes looking for her. However... she had a fight with the owner of another shoe store before, and was accused of having an inappropriate relationship with the owner of the versatile shoe store. Afterwards, I found out that the owner and his wife had a big fight in secret."

"Are you worried that her death is related to the shoe store owner or his wife?"

“I don’t know the final outcome, but they didn’t mention this when you came to ask… Yang Jia and I are friends. Two months ago, I collapsed on the street when I was sick, and she took me to the hospital. She’s a really good person. I wanted to help her. But I can’t imagine who would be so cruel as to kill her. She never had any conflicts with anyone… Then I saw a car coming and I thought, could it be the murderer…”

Zheng Yan didn't say whether he believed it or not, but rigorously questioned him about his whereabouts during the time of the incident last night.

Where were you between midnight and 3 a.m. last night?

"They're definitely sleeping at that time. I live in Wenpingyuan, three kilometers away. I'm really not the murderer! You can ask the family who runs the braised meat shop, or people around the neighborhood. I closed the shop at nine o'clock and left. Tonight I just wanted to test if the murderer would return to the scene. Isn't that what they say in TV dramas? That murderer inexplicably attacks girls who are passing by. Maybe he's a serial killer and will commit another crime!"

He even started analyzing it.

Zheng Yan asked him a few more questions to dispel his doubts, and then sent him far away.

Once the alley quieted down again, Tan Jia recounted the important information he had obtained from the inquiry.

"The deceased was recently accused of having an inappropriate relationship with the shoe store owner, which led to a major argument between the owner and his wife. Furthermore, neither of them mentioned this when the police came to question them. Could one of them be the murderer?"

They happened to know the deceased's whereabouts, which route she liked to take on her way home, where she lived, and could stake out and observe whether she returned home.

"Moreover, if you're asking who knows best what was in the deceased's bag, it's the people at the shoe store."

Zheng Yan nodded: "It's possible. The proprietress believed the deceased had an affair with her husband because of this rumor, so she wanted to kill her in a fit of emotion. Or the boss had his eye on the deceased and wanted to kill her because she refused. It's even possible that the owner of the shoe store across the street wanted to kill someone and frame the shoe store owner where the deceased worked."

Some people want to kill, but they can't get over their conscience and can't bring themselves to do it. They can plan for years or even decades until they can no longer bear it.

Some people kill for very casual reasons. They kill someone in a fit of emotion, or because they feel angry, or because they feel wronged. They don't need meticulous logic or layered emotional build-up. One second they want to kill, and the next second the other person is a corpse.

Therefore, all three people involved in this conflict are suspects.

who can that be?

(End of this chapter)