Seeing the crime scene flashbacks made me the darling of the police station.

Chapter 308 I Suspect Her
"If she was drugged," Chu Xingrou thought, "if the drug was put in the cup that Tian Liu always carries with her, anyone could have done it in that busy shop. But it must have been done at night, otherwise, if Tian Liu had just taken a sip during the day and fallen asleep, wouldn't that have aroused suspicion?"

Su Miaoyi and Lu Zhishen nodded together.

“This person seems to know Tian Liu’s schedule quite well,” Chu Xingrou said.

“Back then, night patrols hadn’t started yet, so whoever went out at night wouldn’t be discovered.” Lu Zhishen twirled a pencil in his hand. “It was very difficult to pinpoint a specific person.”

“That’s right,” Su Miaoyi said, “but it’s different at Yue Hong’s house.”

"The patrols have already started," Chu Xingrou said. "Anyone on the street will definitely be spotted, unless it's the person who drugged me or the person who turned on the stereo, who is someone from Yue Hong's family."

“Tian Min?” Lu Zhishen said.

Su Miaoyi nodded: "I suspect her."

"The glue on the mask?" Lu Zhishen asked.

“Yes,” Su Miaoyi said. “Actually, I didn’t suspect her last night at Tian Min’s house. Yue Hong said she didn’t hear anything when the music started playing, and Tian Min had to call her to wake her up. When Yue Hong said that, I just felt it was familiar, and something flashed through my mind, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. So last night at Tian Min’s house, all I could think about was how the person who turned on the music left.”

“The patrolmen didn’t see anyone, just like you said.” Su Miaoyi looked at Lu Zhishen. “When the song started playing, the patrolmen on that street all went to their doorways. The person who turned on the music probably ran away at that time. But Duan Wenrui is also right. What if the people guarding both ends of the street didn’t move? How did the person leave? Did they just force their way in?”

“It’s not realistic to force our way through,” Chu Xingrou said. “They’ve all been armed, and there are people on every street. Reinforcements will arrive quickly. We can’t break through.”

“So hiding in a neighbor’s house and escaping in the chaos is unrealistic,” Su Miaoyi said. “I kept thinking about how the person left last night, and I was getting a little stuck on it. Until this morning when I saw the glue on the mask, suddenly many clues connected together.”

“Tian Min bought the glue from the convenience store that morning. There was an identical one under the coffee table in Zhuang Yanzheng’s office. I used it to glue my keyboard and I remember what it smelled like,” Su Miaoyi said.

"The glue Zhuang Yanzheng mentioned for sticking belts?" Lu Zhishen asked.

Su Miaoyi looked at him: "Adhesive belt? Young Master Zhuang is so good at managing his finances."

“He said it himself,” Lu Zhishen said.

"Oh," Su Miaoyi casually remarked, "It's not very credible."

Lu Zhishen nodded.

Su Miaoyi continued, "The glue on the mask smelled like glue, which reminded me of Tian Min. Actually, the white lantern hanging outside Tian Min's house today also smelled like glue."

“I didn’t smell it,” Chu Xingrou said.

“You can smell it if you look closely,” Su Miaoyi said. “This kind of glue is rarely used for making lanterns, unless you’re used to it or you have some on hand, so you just make one.”

"So this also shows that she's quite skillful with her hands; making a mask shouldn't be a problem for her," Chu Xingrou said.

“Yes,” Su Miaoyi continued, “Also, do you remember when we saw Tian Min today, I comforted her by patting her arm?”

Chu Xingrou and Lu Zhishen nodded.

"Her arms are all muscle, she must be quite strong," Su Miaoyi said.

"Stronger than Tian Liu," the voice in my head said.

Su Miaoyi's eyes trembled slightly. She had no memory of those days, only hearing from others that Tian Liu was very strong. Therefore, Tian Liu's whereabouts were closely monitored.

“She’s stronger than Tian Liu,” Su Miaoyi said.

“Tian Liu is really strong,” Lu Zhishen said. “Maybe it’s because she can carry things or something. When we left that day, she patted my arm as if to say hello. I even thought about reporting it as a work injury.”

“She is indeed very strong,” Chu Xingrou said. “If she is even stronger than Tian Liu, dragging the corpse should not be a problem.”

“That’s good,” Su Miaoyi said. “Also, Tian Min will be helping out at her brother’s butcher shop. Tian Xuan and Tian Shi should be very skilled at deboning, so I wonder if Tian Min is also quite skilled. If you’re very skilled at dissecting pig joints and develop a feel for it, you can easily dissect a human body just by touching the joints.”

"Sister Miaomiao, do you mean that Wu An did it piece by piece, and that Tian Min did it?" Chu Xingrou asked in shock.

“It’s just a suspicion,” Su Miaoyi said. “We still haven’t found out why Wu An was killed. No matter who you ask, the impression of Wu An is that he was very honest and wouldn’t do anything outrageous.”

Chu Xingrou was silent for a while: "What about Tian Shi or Tian Xuan? Tian Shi's height and weight match. We can't confirm whether the person provided by Captain Zhuang is the murderer yet; we only suspect that he is related to this place."

"The masked man and the stone in the picture don't match up with what I saw," Su Miaoyi said. "The body shape and posture don't match either."

Chu Xingrou thought for a moment: "If, besides the masked murderer you saw, the other murderer is Tian Min, and she turned on the stereo to assist the male murderer in committing the crime, then the murderer killed her father."

“Perhaps this father is not even as good as a stranger,” Lu Zhishen said.

Chu Xingrou didn't speak. She was too happy, and when she tried to empathize with her father, she always tried to see him as someone who could possibly hate her.

The fact that one's parents dote on them does not excuse the harm an incompetent father inflicts on a child and a family.

"What did you find out when you went out?" Lu Zhishen asked.

"We mainly asked about the deceased and Tian Min," Su Miaoyi said. "When we first arrived, we didn't pay much attention to Tian Min. When we asked the villagers about the deceased, apart from Tian Dajiang's side saying that Tian Min's family was cleared of suspicion, Tian Min wasn't mentioned in any of the other cases. So this time we mainly asked about Tian Min."

“In Tian Dajiang’s case, Tian Min certainly didn’t have the time to commit the crime, but the masked man did,” Lu Zhishen said.

“That’s right,” Su Miaoyi said. “The cases of Gao Hui, Tian Dajiang, and Tian Ming were all committed by masked men.”

“If it weren’t for Tian Ming’s death, it would be hard to suspect Tian Min,” Lu Zhishen said. “The more you do, the more you expose yourself. The more you try to clear your name, the more you expose yourself.”

“But Tian Min was genuinely crying; it didn’t seem like she was faking it,” Chu Xingrou sighed. “And they even put the stereo right in front of her house.”

"She probably thought that no one would do these things in front of her own house, and that the more she did it, the less likely she would suspect her."

　My darlings, let's have one more chapter.

　　I've finished writing the next chapter, but I'm increasingly dissatisfied with it, so I need to revise it extensively. If my stomach doesn't hurt tomorrow morning, I'll get up early to revise and update it.

　　Goodnight everybody.

　　Thank you everyone for your monthly tickets, recommendation tickets, and tips.

　　(End of this chapter)