The Brain Science Case 8

Chapter 8: Paranoid Delusions – 8

Zhuang Jinbi lay in the corner, staring blankly at the sunlight outside the window.

She was in the holding cell at the station, and she couldn’t take it anymore…

A cigarette… she wanted a cigarette! She wanted to smoke without a care in the world!

It was all his fault! He thought he was some kind of bomb expert, thought he could just grab whatever he wanted with a gun, but in the end, he was defeated by his own body? How dare he smoke so much when he had asthma!

If it weren’t for the fact that he did whatever she wanted, she would have broken up with him long ago.

Ah Jie was better. Her other boyfriend.

Even though he was a bit older, he was talented and very smart. She listened to everything he said. His only flaw was that he didn’t allow her to smoke in the house.

Ah Jie—Su Yijie—often said the smoke would turn his photographs yellow, so she always had to sneak out to the balcony to smoke. Except for that one time she got completely wasted, invited friends over, drank, and smoked weed, and accidentally put out a cigarette on one of his picture frames—at the time, she thought there was an ashtray on the table.

He had been furious. He woke her from her drunken stupor and beat her senseless, forcing her to kneel and beg for forgiveness. For a moment, she had truly thought Ah Jie was going to kill her, but he eventually calmed down, thank goodness. He even gave her a gift afterward! Naively, she thought everything was settled, until Ah Jie found out she had another boyfriend… the idiot she had robbed the store with.

So useless. He couldn’t even buy them some time. Even if they had gotten away with it, they would have never had a chance to spend the money. And now she was locked up in here… with no cigarettes.

All she could do now was wait to be transferred to court, sentenced, and locked up for a few years. She probably wouldn’t die, right?

“Hey! You!” The male officer who came to get her had a face as sour as anything. “Out. Time for your transfer.”

She rose from the corner and shuffled listlessly toward the door.

**

Being assigned by Chen Huomu to transfer this female robber, Zhou Jinglin was filled with reluctance.

“Senior Ah Mu, I’m fine now, really!”

“What do you mean, fine? Everyone has seen how down you’ve been these past few days, haven’t they?” Her face stiffened, and Chen Huomu waved his hand. “Just think of it as a change of pace! That brainy teacher has already narrowed down the suspect list even further. Everyone is giving it their all. We’ll catch him soon!”

Brainy teacher… he must mean Tang Yingli, right? Her nicknames are multiplying. “If that’s the case, then I should go too…”

“Hey, there’s still time after you finish this. Or do you want to go together?”

With her senior putting it that way, she couldn’t refuse any longer.

“Out. Time for your transfer!”

Zhuang Jinbi shuffled slowly out of the holding cell. She looked listless, yawning frequently, and her hands were shaking. Her drug addiction was probably kicking in.

She was so young, only in her early twenties. If she hadn’t gotten into drugs, she would have been quite pretty. With her petite and delicate frame, she must have been popular with the opposite sex.

“D-Do you have a cigarette?” Zhuang Jinbi begged her, her hands trembling, her eyes vacant. “Miss, can I have a cigarette, please? I can’t take it anymore…”

“I don’t have any cigarettes!”

“Don’t mess around! Where do you think you are? Asking for cigarettes?”

“Bro! Please, just one cigarette! Ugh… I can barely walk!” Zhuang Jinbi plopped down on the floor.

“Get up! Stop throwing a tantrum! Little Zhou?”

Zhou Jinglin forcefully pulled her up by the armpits, and the two of them half-dragged, half-pushed her up the stairs.

Just as they were about to leave the basement, the sound of something hard clattering caught her attention.

A pink and blue beaded bracelet. It was particularly conspicuous on the gray concrete steps.

“This bracelet…” Zhou Jinglin quickly bent down to pick it up.

Zhuang Jinbi seemed to snap out of her daze. “Ah! That’s mine, give it back!”

“What do you mean, yours? So you didn’t take everything off? Where were you hiding it?”

“My boyfriend gave it to me! Miss, give it back!”

“This bracelet… your boyfriend gave it to you?” Zhou Jinglin glared at Zhuang Jinbi, her eyes as sharp as a knife. “Your other boyfriend?”

“Uh… yeah!”

She immediately grabbed Zhuang Jinbi by the collar. “What’s his name? Where does he live? What does he do for a living? Tell me everything, now!”

Zhuang Jinbi was terrified. Even Chen Huomu was stunned. “Little Zhou? What’s wrong with this bracelet?”

“I’ll explain later! Talk!”

“O-Okay… I’ll talk, I’ll talk! Don’t be so rough…”

**

If her deduction was correct, the direction of the media coverage was likely the key to why the killer had shortened his timeline.

He wanted to “win back” the media’s attention.

The reason he committed one sensational and horrifying murder after another was not only due to his deep-seated pedophilia and sadism but also for another reason—exhibitionism.

The culprit perhaps felt a severe lack of accomplishment in his professional life, yet had extreme confidence in his own abilities, which is why he committed such ostentatious crimes.

She muttered to herself, “What a narcissistic psychopath.”

Over the past two days, with the help of the major media outlets, they had continued to focus on the case but had significantly suppressed reports on the investigation and images of the crime scenes.

And after diligent screening by the team members, the list of suspects had been gradually narrowed down to fewer than five people.

The answer was about to be revealed.

“Chief!” Cai Yuwei, with dark circles under his eyes, rushed out of the monitoring room. “For the third case, a suspicious red van appeared at the dump site!”

“What model?”

“It’s an old car, a Renault… Ah! It’s often used as a delivery van!”

“Oh! A Hong Long, a Renault Express!” an older, more experienced detective immediately recognized it.

Fang Zijun focused on the image of the suspicious vehicle. “We got the license plate from a few angles… Little Gui! Look up the owner. The plate number is…”

The office door was suddenly thrown open, and Zhou Jinglin strode in. “Chief! I found it!”

Yingli turned to look at her. She pursed her lips, clutching something in her hand as she ran over.

“Found what?”

Clutching the evidence, Zhou Jinglin was emotional. “Wenqi’s bracelet! The second victim’s bracelet!”

“What!” Everyone in the room was shocked, including Yingli. “How did you find it? Where did you find it?”

“It was on Zhuang Jinbi.” Zhou Jinglin opened her hand, and the beaded bracelet lay perfectly intact in her palm. “She said her other boyfriend, a photographer, gave it to her! The man who came to our station for questioning, named Su Yijie, who drives a red Renault van!”

She looked up, her eyes instantly meeting Yingli’s. “There’s no mistake… he must be the killer!”

Fang Zijun’s heart skipped a beat. “Little Gui! The owner of the car?”

The officer called “Little Gui” nodded. “It’s just as Little Zhou said!” He gave her a thumbs-up.

“Big Head, go get a search warrant! Little Gui, send his home and work addresses to everyone. All units, move out now!” Fang Zijun finally let out a roar, as if releasing a pent-up frustration.

“Now, let’s go bring that murderous psychopath in!”

**

With the killer’s identity finally revealed, the morale of all the detectives in the Criminal Investigation Division soared.

“I’m going too!”

As everyone split into two groups to search Su Yijie’s home and studio, Zhou Jinglin was unexpectedly held back.

By Tang Yingli.

“This is the first case I’ve handled since I came back.” Her eyes were as clear as ever. “I want to see what he looks like with my own eyes, no matter what.”