Chapter 310: Chapter 308: I Suspect Her

"If she was drugged..." Chu Xingrou pondered. ’If someone put something in the cup Tian Liu carries around, well, the convenience store is always busy. Anyone could have done it. But they must have drugged it at night. If Tian Liu had a sip during the day and passed out, it would’ve immediately raised suspicion.’

Su Miaoyi and Lu Zhishen nodded in unison.

"This person must be quite familiar with Tian Liu’s routine," Chu Xingrou said.

"The patrols hadn’t started yet that evening, so no one would have been spotted going out," Lu Zhishen said, twirling a pencil in his hand. "It could have been anyone, making it difficult to narrow it down to one person."

"Right," Su Miaoyi said. "But things were different at Yue Hong’s house."

"The patrols had already started," Chu Xingrou said. "Anyone on the street would have definitely been seen. Unless... the person who planted the drug or turned on the stereo was someone from Yue Hong’s own household."

"Tian Min?" Lu Zhishen said.

Su Miaoyi nodded. "I suspect her."

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

"Yes," Su Miaoyi said. "Actually, when we were at Tian Min’s house last night, I didn’t suspect her yet. Yue Hong said she didn’t hear a thing when the nursery rhyme started playing and only woke up when Tian Min shouted for her. When she said that, it sounded familiar. Something flashed through my mind, but I couldn’t quite grasp it. So last night at their house, I was completely focused on how the person who turned on the stereo managed to escape."

"The patrol team didn’t see anyone, just like you said." Su Miaoyi looked at Lu Zhishen. "When the nursery rhyme started playing, the officers patrolling that street all went to the front door. The person who turned on the stereo most likely fled then. But Duan Wenrui was right, too. What if the guards stationed at both ends of the street didn’t move? How would the person leave? By forcing their way out?"

"Forcing their way out seems unlikely," Chu Xingrou said. "They’re all armed, plus there are people on every street. Backup would arrive fast. There’s no way they could have broken through."

"So hiding in a neighbor’s house and escaping during the chaos wasn’t a viable option," Su Miaoyi said. "I was up all last night wondering how the person got away. I was getting a bit tunnel-visioned. Then, this morning, I saw the glue on the mask, and suddenly, many of the clues clicked into place."

"The glue Tian Min bought at the convenience store that morning—there’s an identical one under the coffee table in Zhuang Yanzheng’s office. I’ve used it to fix my keyboard, so I know what it smells like," Su Miaoyi said.

"The glue Zhuang Yanzheng said was for fixing a belt?" Lu Zhishen asked.

Su Miaoyi looked at him. "Fixing a belt? Since when is Young Master Zhuang so frugal?"

"That’s what he said," Lu Zhishen said.

"Oh," Su Miaoyi said with a casual jab. "Not very credible."

Lu Zhishen nodded.

Su Miaoyi continued, "The glue on the mask had that exact smell, which made me think of Tian Min. Actually, the white mourning lanterns hanging outside her house today had the same smell on them."

"I didn’t smell it," Chu Xingrou said.

"You can smell it if you try," Su Miaoyi said. "People don’t usually use this kind of glue for lanterns, unless they’re just used to using it or happened to have it on hand and grabbed it out of convenience."

"So that also proves she’s quite handy. Making a mask would be no problem for her," Chu Xingrou said.

"Exactly." Su Miaoyi went on, "Also, do you remember when we saw Tian Min today? I patted her arm to comfort her."

Chu Xingrou and Lu Zhishen nodded.

"Her arms are solid muscle. She must be very strong," Su Miaoyi said.

’Stronger than Tian Liu,’ the voice in her head said.

Su Miaoyi’s eyes trembled slightly. She had no memory of those days and only knew from hearsay that Tian Liu was very strong.

That was why Tian Liu’s movements were also being heavily monitored.

"Stronger than Tian Liu," Su Miaoyi said.

"Tian Liu is already incredibly strong," Lu Zhishen said. "It’s probably from moving stock and all that. The day we left, she patted my arm as a goodbye, and I almost filed for a work-related injury."

"She really is strong," Chu Xingrou said. "If Tian Min is even stronger than her, then dragging a body would be no problem at all."

"Correct," Su Miaoyi said. "There’s also the fact that Tian Min helps out at her brothers’ butcher shop. Tian Xuan and Tian Shi must be very skilled at deboning, so wouldn’t Tian Min be skilled, too? If you’re so practiced at separating a pig’s joints that it becomes muscle memory, then with just a light touch, you could probably find a human’s joints and dismember them just as easily."

"Sister Miaomiao, are you saying... what happened to Wu An... the pieces... was Tian Min’s doing?" Chu Xingrou asked in shock.

"It’s just a suspicion," Su Miaoyi said. "We still haven’t found a motive for Wu An’s murder. No matter who we ask, their impression of Wu An is that he was a decent guy who wouldn’t do anything out of the ordinary."

Chu Xingrou fell silent for a moment. "What about Tian Shi or Tian Xuan, then? Tian Shi’s height and weight match the description. We still can’t be sure if the person Captain Zhuang’s team suggested is the killer; it’s just a suspected connection to this side."

"The masked person I saw in my vision doesn’t match Tian Shi," Su Miaoyi said. "Their build and posture are completely different."

Chu Xingrou thought for a moment. "So if there’s another killer besides the masked one you saw, and it’s Tian Min... She played the music to help the male killer commit the crime... but the person he killed was her own father."

"Maybe this father was worse than a stranger to her," Lu Zhishen said.

Chu Xingrou said nothing. Her life had been too happy; whenever she tried to put herself in someone else’s shoes, she always approached it from the angle of ’how could anyone possibly hate their own father?’

’Just because my own parents love me,’ she thought, ’doesn’t mean I can overlook the damage an unfit father can do to a child and their family.’

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

"We mostly asked about the victims and Tian Min," Su Miaoyi explained. "When we first got here, we didn’t pay much attention to her. While asking the villagers about the deceased, Tian Min’s name never came up in connection with the other cases, only that her family had been cleared of suspicion in Tian Dajiang’s murder. That’s why we specifically asked about her this time."

"For Tian Dajiang’s murder, Tian Min definitely has an alibi, but the masked man had the opportunity," Lu Zhishen said.

"Right," Su Miaoyi said. "Gao Hui, Tian Dajiang, and Tian Ming were all killed by the masked man."

"If it weren’t for Tian Ming’s death, suspicion never would have fallen on Tian Min," Lu Zhishen said. "The more you do, the more you expose. The harder you try to clear your name, the more you give yourself away."

"But Tian Min was crying so hard. It didn’t seem like an act," Chu Xingrou sighed. "And they even put the stereo right outside her own house..."

"She probably thought no one would ever suspect the person whose own front door was targeted," Su Miaoyi replied. "Perhaps she figured the more brazen it seemed, the less likely anyone would suspect her."

...

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