Seeing Ashley remain silent, Letisia felt that she had already made a breakthrough on the psychological level.
“Why? Why did you hurt him?”
The motive for murder was crucial.
Letisia stared into Ashley’s eyes and continued,
“Did he whistle flirtatiously at you, look at you with lecherous eyes? Did he touch your body? I get it—he molested you, so you resisted. Maybe it was some excessive self-defense, but it led to unfortunate consequences. You didn’t intend to kill; it happened while you were trying to stop him. He fought back, which scared you and made you lose control…”
Theme fabrication—one of the interrogation techniques.
In simple terms, the police would assume a motive for the suspect and reconstruct the scene based on it. Then, by observing the suspect’s expressions and body language, they could judge if they had guessed correctly.
The victim in this case, Onna Williams, had been sent to the Saint Dormer Community for reformation precisely because of a sex crime.
“Molestation?” Ashley’s face showed confusion.
“Is that term unfamiliar to you? It means touching your body without consent.”
“I know what it means… What I’m confused about is, I’m a girl?”
Ashley raised her hand, and the fingers in her line of sight were slender and fair, adorned with light pink nail polish—definitely the small hand of a girl.
Letisia was stunned for a full two seconds, not knowing what to say.
“A girl… a girl… I never thought my gender identity would be confirmed in an interrogation room. No one in my family ever told me. Maybe it’s because my father’s identity is unknown, and my mother passed away shortly after giving birth to me. Although I grew up in a big family, I was an orphan.” Ashley spread her hands.
Letisia was a bit dazed, unable to imagine that the other party would deny the murder motive by counter-assuming her gender.
“Am I pretty?”
Ashley seemed interested in this, her eyebrows arching as she clenched her knuckles, a hint of expectation on her face.
Letisia was utterly speechless.
However, even with the pickiest eye, Ashley was undoubtedly a little beauty in the making.
The contours of her nose and lips were beautifully soft, her pink-and-white skin flawless.
Her eye corners were full, the eye slits narrow and upturned, her pupils moist and bright. A single sidelong glance was enough to captivate the heart—you couldn’t find a pair of eyes like that in a thousand people.
“A beautiful shell housing an ugly soul, like a meticulously crafted lie—utterly repulsive.” Letisia felt she had to give a sharp critique.
“Ew, sounds pretty good. Actually, my standards aren’t high. As long as I don’t scare myself in the mirror, it’s fine.” Ashley said in a relieved tone, her small hand fanning rapidly by her face like a duck paddling water.
In the monitoring room, the black-haired loli occasionally glanced at the wall clock. Fifteen minutes had already passed, yet that girl still looked completely at ease, her psychological defenses as solid as a rock.
“What a stubborn, die-hard criminal. The evidence is ironclad, and she still won’t confess. Such a waste of time,” she muttered.
“Listen, Ashley,” Letisia’s tone softened a bit. “If you confess proactively, we can give you a lighter sentence.”
She stood up, her tall figure nearly filling the entire interrogation room. She walked around the table and sat beside the loli, using the action to end the confrontation phase.
The two sat shoulder to shoulder, like friends having a heart-to-heart.
Ashley’s pressure dropped sharply.
“Listen, I’ll protect you. I’m the Tribunal Chief, Letisia Alduluti. From city hall to the prison, the whole street is full of my people. You’re still a child—we won’t punish you excessively. Just wear a monitoring ankle bracelet and do weekly psychological evaluations, that’s all… Don’t answer in a hurry. Think it over. It costs you nothing. But if you refuse and we find out anyway, what will happen? Your sinful birth family has been completely destroyed. You have nowhere to go. You’ll lose your legal status, be forced to leave the city, and from then on, you’ll be cut off from the lights of human civilization.”
“A plea bargain?” Ashley pursed her lips, a trace of anger rising on her small face. “Your evidence is bullshit. I’ve lived in the community. Even if there are a few hairs and fingerprints at the scene, it doesn’t prove I’m the killer.”
“How do you know there were only a few?”
“Because it’s the truth. I lived there—I couldn’t control leaving some biological traces. But it wouldn’t be like you said, with over fifty spots all over the place… That’s impossible. I know that clearly.” Ashley said with conviction and candor.
“There are your fingerprints on the murder weapon.” Letisia dropped suddenly.
The words hit like a bombshell!
The police pulling out decisive evidence often meant they were ready to seal the deal.
The air seemed to freeze, even the dust motes halting in midair.
“Oh? Was he killed by a dictionary? I’ve been memorizing a lot of words lately.” Ashley responded lightly.
There was no daze, confusion, or panic—as if she already knew.
“Stop being glib. The murder weapon was an iron rod. You haven’t forgotten, have you?”
Letisia opened the file bag and pushed forward a photo of a bent-end galvanized water pipe.
“Most of the wounds match the murder weapon.”
“No recollection. Maybe I picked it up, so there are fingerprints or whatever.”
Ashley’s gaze didn’t dodge; instead, she carefully examined the photo, looking at the coagulated black blood stains stuck to it.
“What kind of punishment do you think you’d get for beating someone to death with a water pipe?” Letisia pressed step by step, giving her no room to breathe.
Criminals hesitate when sentencing themselves: first, switching to a third-person view is hard to process; second, their low moral threshold makes them not truly see it as wrong; third, social norms are their natural enemy, like wild beasts fearing a hunter’s gun, instinctively dreading legal punishment.
But Ashley said resolutely, “A life for a life, pay back what you owe.”
In the monitoring room, the black-haired loli’s heart leaped to her throat. Her butt left the stool, her body leaning forward, her face almost pressed to the monitor.
Having followed her teacher for over two years, Amber Abbey had participated in hundreds of interrogations and reviewed even more case files.
But Ashley gave her an unprecedented feeling. Amber vaguely sensed something was off but couldn’t pinpoint it. She racked her brains, yearning for a flash of inspiration to pierce her anxious, bewildered heart.
“Emmm… Everything from the suspect’s mouth so far has been unthinking responses, with no slip-ups. It means she prepared in advance, knowing what questions would come. Another possibility: some biotech relics from the Apocalypse Stratum are said to expand the brain domain and upgrade the brain…” Amber’s mind raced tensely, her small fists clenched, sweat seeping from her palms.
She suddenly remembered that Ashley had been summoned and hadn’t eaten or rested for hours, yet showed no fatigue, maintaining abundant energy and fighting spirit throughout.
It was obvious something was wrong at a glance, but hard to crack in interrogation.
“She’s about my age… Hmph, I’m confident I won’t lose to her. I’m Teacher’s best student…” Amber psyched herself up.
A long time had passed. The accompanying police had left one by one. Moreover, once the Tribunal intervened, the case was no longer theirs—they were just lending the space. Even if they had ideas, they had no right to point fingers at the Tribunal Chief.
“You need to explain this to clear your suspicion. That’s what an innocent person does, not deliberately evading. Even if you didn’t kill, you’re obstructing official duties now, and it’s not fun—you’ll be arrested.” Letisia suddenly changed her tone.
“You want me to prove how many bowls of noodles are in my belly?” Ashley laughed. Even though the other surely didn’t get the reference, she blurted it out.
Letisia tilted her head in confusion, thinking it was slang from some isolated area, and paid it no mind.
“I request a lie detector test.” Ashley suddenly said, a sly, fox-like smile hidden in her narrowed eyes.
The cunning grin of the little fox naturally didn’t escape Letisia’s eyes.
This being—one of Union City’s top fighters, known to the world as the “Disorder Witch”—couldn’t help but be surprised.
Did she have a way to fool the lie detector?
Just this?
The little thing didn’t hide it at all—full of mockery and blatant provocation.
Even though her entire family had been uprooted by her.
Back then, the little thing had stood before the blazing mansion, her pupils reflecting not just the soaring flames but also the irrational constructs made of pitch-black, cold wedge-shaped metal blocks—the staggered Tribunal Undead Squad…
Was this the bloodline of a criminal family? Meeting again, not only no trauma response, but baring her tender little teeth, wanting to bite.
Letisia didn’t want this little thing to have extraordinary traits.
Because there was a faint connection between them. Whenever people talked about or the media reported on the Jenkins Family, they always mentioned Trial Judge Letisia, who had rescued the family orphan from the Wetland Demon Lair, and believed Letisia should take responsibility for her education, guiding her to the right path—a heartwarming tale.
But Letisia only found it troublesome. Ashley was best off blending into the crowd, buried in the dust of history alongside the Jenkins Family.
She furrowed her iron-wire-like brows, quite annoyed, propping her cheek with slender fingers. Compared to tricky enemies, these entangling ties were even more irritating.
