Overly Intense [Criminal Investigation] 113

Chapter 113: Is It That Hard?

How did Shen Yiyi know about these things?
How long had she known?
No…
Why did she have the panicked feeling of being caught after a night out?

At that time, it was Shen Yiyi herself who had said not to be in a relationship. So on what basis was she questioning her in this tone, making it seem as if her ambition was running wild?

The living room was only filled with the commentator’s passionate voice. Qin Luo swallowed the small tomato, her emotions taking eight hundred turns in a minute. She forced herself to look at the TV screen calmly. “Who told you these things?”

Shen Yiyi did not speak, just kept changing the channel.

Qin Luo said, “Did Liu Jia tell you?”

Qin Luo was now speaking like a criminal, beating around the bush and not getting to the point. Shen Yiyi did not like to press, so she stood up and walked toward the room. She took out a four-piece set from the closet, threw it on the bed in the next bedroom, and started to make the bed.

Qin Luo sat on the sofa and watched her forcefully pull the bedsheet, the sound of her patting the bedding bang, bang. Every movement was like venting.

She stood far away. “Are you angry?”

Shen Yiyi said coldly, “It’s okay.”

No matter where Shen Yiyi had heard the information, the matter with You Ning was a done deal. Qin Luo had no need to explain. But objectively speaking, to be involved with someone else after a breakup made her seem fickle. But in all conscience, she had not done anything wrong. It was awkward for adults to be open about their love lives. Only silence could protect them.

Qin Luo had her hands in her pockets, leaning against the doorframe, and silently watched her tidy up the bedding.

The fantasy had not come to the rescue in time. Her emotions were self-locked, and the panic from just now had faintly faded away.

It seemed that even if she did not explain to Shen Yiyi, she would not lose her. Just as they had kissed, it was the same principle that she would not completely get a heart. She was indeed not on Shen Yiyi’s future list—career, family, and death, she had none of them.

Qin Luo laughed at herself.

Clearly, the small matter of making the bed, she had also looked forward to it. But the flame had been extinguished by the other’s own hands. She herself could not seem to ignite anything.

“It’s done. You can sleep here tonight.”

“Thanks.”

After Shen Yiyi had finished tidying up, she walked out of the bedroom with a blank expression. When she passed Qin Luo, she did not stop, and the other did not reach out to stop her. They brushed past each other quietly.

There was no noise, no fluctuation, just as regular as a normal single night.

Shen Yiyi began to clean with a cleaning agent, but this time she wiped more finely, and the proportion of disinfectant was higher. And Qin Luo sat in the room, staring blankly at her computer.

At ten at night, Shen Yiyi’s phone rang.

It was Hong Ziguang.

Shen Yiyi had expected it, but she had not expected to answer this call in the stuffy fire of tonight.

“Little Shen… the higher-ups have found that there’s a problem with your communication trajectory. You and this Logos boss… what’s her name, Qin Luo, do you know each other?”

“I do.” Shen Yiyi took off her gloves and sat on the TV cabinet. “If you have any arrangements, just say so.”

“Oh my, if you knew each other, you should have said so earlier.” Although Hong Ziguang was complaining, he did not want to be too harsh. The last time Shen Yiyi had come to the office to refuse a case, he had said euphemistically, “You can just give the two cases you’re handling to Little Wang. You should recuse yourself.”

Shen Yiyi said, “Okay,” and then added, “Director Hong, since I’ve been recused now, and Little Wang is handling the case, can I take a sick leave and rest for a bit?”

“Rest?” Director Hong said with difficulty, “Recently, our identification center has been swamped with cases. If you’re not here…”

“Even a donkey has to rest!!” Shen Yiyi’s anger overflowed, and she raised her voice slightly.

Hearing the sound, Qin Luo stood up and opened the door, only to see her with a displeased expression. “I haven’t had a break since my surgery. I was so tired from working the night shift during the National Day holiday. A while ago, I was thinking of handing over the case and taking a break, but you insisted that I take the lead. Now that I’ve been recused, you won’t even let me take a sick leave to take care of my body?”

This had put the leader on the spot.

Hong Ziguang did not dare to offend his business partner. “Alright, then you can hand in an approval form to the logistics department when you have time. Fill in the surgery form, and I’ll sign it for you.”

Shen Yiyi said sarcastically, “Thank you, Director Hong.”

“As for the work arrangements, you still have to keep an eye on them online. There are a lot of tasks from the city recently.” Director Hong was not at ease and reminded her.

Shen Yiyi did not even reply with a “good.” “It’s nothing. I’m hanging up.”

After hanging up, she sent a message to Little Lin, telling him to hurry up and ask Old Geng for a spot to participate in the case. It didn’t matter if she, the main examiner, was recused. It would be embarrassing for her apprentice to be recused as well.

Men would always stick together. As long as Little Lin was there, she was not afraid of the fire burning the mountain.

Qin Luo poked her head out. “Did you really take leave?”

Shen Yiyi ignored her, threw her phone on the sofa, and put on a disposable glove to continue wiping her TV cabinet.

Qin Luo made small talk. “Then why don’t you clean up tonight? We can go back to Cloud Top to live.”

Slap—

The rag was thrown heavily on the cabinet.

“I just made the bed for you. You’re not sleeping in it now?”

Shen Yiyi stared at Qin Luo, her sarcastic tone mixed with other meanings. She was not only asking Qin Luo, but also herself, why a person would go back on their word.

She had said she liked her but had casually thrown her away.
She had said she didn’t want her but was so petty.

“I’ll sleep. I’ll go to sleep right away.”

Qin Luo could not afford to offend her. She turned and went back to her room, closing the door quietly.

But she couldn’t sleep either. The newly changed bedsheets had a mixed smell of disinfectant and fragrance, not like Shen Yiyi’s hard plank bed, which, although not soft, at least had her scent.

She tossed and turned, thinking of the notebook she had found in the coffee table drawer in the afternoon. It was Shen Yiyi’s mother’s notebook.

The handwriting was soft, not light or floating, and the spacing was sparse, leaving room to breathe.

When she was happy, she would add a few scribbled drawings. She loved to draw a heart next to “my baby” and then write Shen Yiyi’s name.

It was different from the Xu Meng that Qin Luo had imagined as a child.

Not only did Xu Meng have a soft shell, but she also had knowledge and planning. Her words revealed her pride in her career. Qin Luo could even see her aspirations for her daughter, which was a fantasy about a mother—a defiant romanticism.

She didn’t seem to be that elegant and gentle either. She would criticize her daughter for being naughty in her diary and be disappointed in her husband for doting on their daughter. She even complained about the chaos of her ideals when she was a full-time housewife.

It could be seen that in the years she had resigned to take care of Shen Yiyi, she had had a very hard time mentally.

In Xu Meng’s eyes, Shen Yiyi was lively, loved to laugh and sing, and seemed to have inherited her mother’s talent, and had been interested in rhythm since she was a child. Xu Meng had written in her diary that she hoped her daughter would not learn to dance when she grew up. She did not want her daughter to suffer the hardship of practicing dance. She was very much looking forward to her daughter going to school, thinking that the sooner her daughter entered school life, the sooner she could return to the stage.

She had always loved the stage.

Xu Meng must not have expected that Shen Yiyi would not be as bright and enthusiastic as she had been in her childhood. Instead, she was stubborn about the rules, abided by the order, did not like to show her emotions, and her behavior was even a little rigid.

Besides, Shen Yiyi had had that cold and indifferent tone since high school. She was not easy to get along with and had a sense of distance.

Was it only after her mother’s death that her personality had changed so much? Or was it related to what had happened in her childhood? How could there be such a big contrast?

It was rare for Shen Yiyi not to sleep well and not have to go to work. She had changed her usual habit and had lain flat in bed. But it was Qin Luo who had had a backache from the bed last night and had gotten up early to cook, and had knocked on the door cautiously.

Qin Luo did not mention moving back to Cloud Top, but the clothes she had brought last night were folded and placed in the entryway. Shen Yiyi took a bite of her porridge. “Are you moving today?”

“Didn’t you say we’d move after you took leave?”

Qin Luo had said “we,” which had made the Shen Yiyi who had been depressed all night feel a little relieved. She nodded, finished her breakfast with her head down, and began to pack her things.

When the two returned to Cloud Top, Qin Luo was driving, and Shen Yiyi was sitting in the passenger seat. The back seat and the trunk, besides her change of clothes, were also filled with many cleaning supplies, and the necessities of life: alcohol spray, alcohol wipes.

With Shen Yiyi around, half of the shadow that had been pressing on Qin Luo’s head was gone. But they did not chat. Qin Luo was afraid that if they talked too much, the topic would turn to You Ning again. She was afraid of making something out of nothing.

At the dining table.

The butler had not bought any groceries. The only two bags of instant noodles in the house were cooked by Qin Luo. Shen Yiyi had an extra fried egg in her bowl.

This time, Qin Luo did not lie to her. “I’ll change the bedding in a bit. You can sleep in the guest room.”

Shen Yiyi snorted coldly and took a bite of her fried egg.

“Can you stop snorting like that? It makes me uncomfortable.”

Qin Luo did not like Shen Yiyi’s sarcastic tone. A good face had to be so stiff, like an icicle stabbing a person, as if she owed her eight million.

“We’re just good friends now, as you said. This space is so big. I won’t bother you, and you won’t bother me. When the case has some clues, you can go back to work.”

Shen Yiyi had lost her appetite. “Handling a case is not like in your novels, where it can be solved in a month. If the chain of evidence is not complete, it can’t be closed even after a dozen years.”

“A killer so rampant can’t be caught in a dozen years?” Qin Luo couldn’t imagine it. As long as the killer was not caught, the Her Kill production could not resume work. She was not only anxious, but also scared in her heart. She said, “Then what are you police officers doing? Why don’t you all just resign?”

Shen Yiyi was completely full of anger and simply stopped eating.

She cleared the dishes and sat on the sofa. Seeing that Qin Luo’s coffee table was too messy, she couldn’t help but tidy it up. “Since I’ve been recused, I won’t hide the case information from you.”

Shen Yiyi was very direct. She didn’t even consider whether Qin Luo could understand:

“Shang Yi’s case, from the modus operandi, is very cautious. For the poisoning, she did not choose a lethal poison, such as a gas poison, or something that can cause a quick death.”

“Poisoning is a science.”

Shen Yiyi arranged the books on the table in order and even flattened the pages that Qin Luo had folded. “A poison that can be absorbed and cause death is a great test of the other’s knowledge and experience. If the dose is too small, it won’t be absorbed. If the dose is too large, it will be immediately suspected.”

“If you drink a lot of water after taking poison, and you vomit from the bloating, the poison will be excreted, and you can also save your life.”

“The local police did not think that Shang Yi’s death was a homicide at first. They thought it was a simple sudden death. After the forensic pathologist on duty arrived at the scene, he found the characteristics of the other’s eyelids, which also looked like a sudden death. Because Shang Yi had taken stimulants and other drugs that night, the criminal police and the forensic pathologist had misjudged and had not reported it for a further autopsy.”

“It was because he was a foreigner and had died of a drug overdose that the police had requested an autopsy for safety reasons. Liang Wei had not obstructed it. She had even asked her lawyer to seek a third-party identification to perform the autopsy together.”

Qin Luo had not expected that Shen Yiyi would go against the rules and tell her so much about the case.

“What do you mean?”

“It means that Liang Wei had paid for a professional to perform the autopsy with our police. The main examiner had even come to me for a signature at that time, saying that it was a third-party process. I had originally thought that it was for the money for Liang Wei, but now that I think about it, there are many possibilities.”

But the most direct point was:

“Liang Wei is not very clear about the cause of Shang Yi’s death.”

Qin Luo followed her train of thought. “She also wants to know what Shang Yi died of, in case the police’s negligence leads to an unsatisfactory conclusion of the case, and there is an accident in the division of her property.”

Shen Yiyi nodded. “Liang Wei and Li Peipei know each other.”

“What?!” Qin Luo was so shocked she stood up from her chair and walked barefoot to the front of the sofa. “The mistress and the wife know each other?”

“What’s so strange about that?” Shen Yiyi was used to this kind of thing. “There are even couples who kill their in-laws together. You’re a writer. How can you be so surprised by this kind of thing?”

Qin Luo couldn’t believe it. “How do you know? Did Li Peipei say it herself?!”

Shen Yiyi couldn’t say that she had peeked at the testimony for the case.

She just said, “Liu Jia’s information is not comprehensive, and the police also have a gap here. They had reached some agreements to get rid of Shang Yi. I guess Liang Wei was for a divorce, and Li Peipei was for freedom. But only they themselves know what the specific agreement was.”

“What can be confirmed is that Liang Wei never wanted him to die.”

If she had wanted Shang Yi to die, Liang Wei could have even hired someone abroad to shoot her husband and then returned to the country with her child. This method was much safer than killing Shang Yi with poison in the country.

Qin Luo did not have a character like Li Peipei in her mind. She was suddenly forced into the scene by the great forensic pathologist Shen, and she had to readjust her timeline, which was naturally difficult to digest.

“Let me sort it out. I’m getting a headache.” Qin Luo held her forehead and did not sit on the sofa. She saw Shen Yiyi still kneeling on the floor, wiping the table, and pulled her to her side to sit. “Stop wiping. My house doesn’t need to be so clean.”

Shen Yiyi crossed her arms, her voice cold. “Have you not suspected You Ning?”

Qin Luo squinted.

Oh my, that sarcastic expression of the great forensic pathologist Shen was back.

Her head hurt even more.

“What reason does You Ning have to kill Shang Yi?”

Shen Yiyi’s voice was deep, her mind full of incomprehension. “But you’ve never suspected You Ning. Do you know her very well? What if she has some unknown fetish or twisted habit? Why would she go and help Wang Lu? Just because she likes you?”

Either she was silent, or she was a machine gun.

And, what had You Ning done to help Wang Lu? She really didn’t know about these things.

Qin Luo leaned back on the sofa. “Liu Jia only said that You Ning had reminded her about the artist’s departure. She didn’t say that she had helped Wang Lu with anything. Besides, You Ning and Shang Yi have no financial dealings. Why would she kill Shang Yi? And why would she kill Qi Yingjun? She doesn’t like me to the extent of imitating Her Kill, does she? She’s probably just a passing NPC.”

Although there was a blind spot in Qin Luo’s perspective, her words were all to exonerate You Ning, and she even joked about it.

The fire that had been extinguished last night had spread.

“NPC?”

Shen Yiyi emphasized the word and said angrily, “So in your heart, You Ning’s soul is interesting, not only is she an artist and can talk to you, but she’s also extroverted, cute, and not rigid, upright and not dark?”

It was simply sophistry. Qin Luo was puzzled. “Where did I say that?”

“Do you like this kind of thing now?”

After Shen Yiyi had finished speaking, she waved her hand and stood up. “I knew it. You were only interested in math for three minutes back then. You didn’t like to think, and you would just give up on difficult problems. Anyway, you got the points, and your grades were not very bad.”

Qin Luo: My thinking is too fast. How did it get to doing problems again?

She said, “Weren’t we talking about the case?”

Qin Luo frowned. The Shen Yiyi in front of her was breaking out of her stereotype and was releasing her emotions in a small way.

“Right. So is it so hard for you to think that she’s a suspect?”