As Zhou Jie spoke, her eyes turned red, and she suddenly started sobbing. Between her tears, she said, “In the end… I found out that man was actually my dad!”

Amid the girl’s cries, Li Meng slowly came to his senses. The information was a bit overwhelming, leaving him momentarily stunned.

“You… stop crying… what exactly did you see?”

The girl’s eyes were brimming with tears, and her fists were clenched tightly. “They were doing that kind of thing! They… were actually together… Dad betrayed us!”

Li Meng handed a tissue to the girl, thinking to himself: witnessing such a scene, this kid is bound to have some trauma!

The girl wiped her tears and continued, “If Dad divorces Mom, he’ll marry Aunt Qiu, and then Qiu Yao and I will become siblings… I don’t want to be siblings with him, so I told Qiu Yao about it, hoping he could stop them from being together. Qiu Yao warned Dad that if he dared to see Aunt Qiu again, he wouldn’t be polite to Zhou Hao.

Dad didn’t take Qiu Yao’s words seriously at all. He kept seeing Aunt Qiu and often argued with Mom.” The girl suddenly paused, thinking for a moment, “Did Qiu Yao kill my brother?”

“This girl is washing her hands of the whole thing,” Gu Yuan said coldly, standing outside the interrogation room.

“What she just said basically laid out Qiu Yao’s motive for the crime,” Mo Lin said quietly. “Qiu Yao’s confession can’t be used as evidence. Right now, all the evidence points to him, but there’s no direct evidence proving the girl was involved.”

Wang Yue swallowed a sip of coffee. “Fingerprints, palm prints, the wooden ladder, the school uniform with suspected bloodstains were all found at the boy’s place. If we can’t find more evidence, we’ll have to let them go home.”

Xiao Ze didn’t look too happy either, rubbing his temples. “Have Yan Ji thoroughly check the attic to see if he can find any traces of the girl. Intentional homicide and manslaughter are completely different in nature. Everyone, let’s work a few more days to gather more evidence.”

After a while, Li Meng came out of the interrogation room, taking a moment to compose himself. “This girl is too pitiful…”

“Pitiful?” Gu Yuan asked.

“Going through all this at such a young age, isn’t that pitiful?”

Gu Yuan: “What if she’s the murderer?”

Li Meng stared at Zhou Jie in the interrogation room and slowly said, “Even if she really is the murderer, I still think she’s pitiful.”

Gu Yuan’s eyebrows suddenly furrowed, making him look even more gloomy.

Mo Lin was right… Sympathy can sometimes cloud judgment, which is why it wasn’t wrong to have him interrogate the girl yesterday.

Time flew by, and as the clock on the wall struck 8, Meng Lan hurried back from outside. “We found out some things from the girl’s school.”

Meng Lan summarized, “The girl isn’t very popular at school and is often bullied by a few girls in the third year of middle school because they’re jealous of how often Qiu Yao walks home with her. Knowing the girl has a cleanliness obsession, these girls threw Zhou Jie’s school uniform into a stinky ditch, and it’s not the first time.

Zhou Jie is a good student, ranking second in her grade in the first-year entrance exam. She’s quite introverted and doesn’t like to interact with people, having almost no friends at school…”

“Cleanliness obsession?” Xiao Ze said, “How could someone with a cleanliness obsession climb up to the attic?”

This question left everyone deep in thought.

Li Meng scratched his head. “Seems like the girl really wasn’t lying!”

Xiao Ze: “Is the information reliable?”

Meng Lan: “I have photos of the dirty clothes and records of the school uniform purchases. In a month, she bought three new sets of uniforms.”

Xiao Ze: “Ask the girl’s parents what’s going on!”

*

“She’s only been in middle school for a little over a month, and she’s already bought three sets of uniforms. The day before yesterday, she asked me for money to buy another one. We don’t have that kind of money for her to waste!” Zhou Rongguang said angrily.

Wang Yue: “Does she have a cleanliness obsession?”

“Cleanliness obsession? Can’t hold a plate, can’t wash dishes, does that count as a cleanliness obsession?”

“Think back, has she always been particularly clean since she was little?”

“You’d have to ask her mom about that…”

Zhou Rongguang, having spent a night alone, was also starting to suspect Zhou Jie, so when he mentioned her, his expression was full of disgust.

Zhu Wanting’s mental state was a bit better than yesterday. Her makeup was removed, revealing very poor skin condition, with large patches of yellow spots on both cheeks.

“She was always clean as a child, changing clothes every day, wearing socks only once. When we went back to the countryside, she wouldn’t sit on the old benches, just stood the whole time… I used to tell her she’d offend people that way, and she realized it herself, getting a bit better over time.

Later, we ran a barbecue shop, and conditions weren’t great. She said she wanted to live at school, but we couldn’t manage it. The second child was too young, and we needed to make money, couldn’t take care of everything…”

The interrogation room door suddenly opened, and seeing it was Teacher Mo, Wang Yue immediately gave up his seat and sat to the side.

Mo Lin still looked nonchalant, smiling as he said, “I’ll just listen in, you continue.”

So Wang Yue sat back in his original seat, with Mo Lin sitting beside him.

Wang Yue continued to ask, “Is there anything different about your daughter compared to other kids her age?”

Zhu Wanting thought for a while, then shook her head.

“The night before last, Zhou Jie asked you for money to buy a school uniform?” Mo Lin crossed his legs, leaning back in his chair, smiling as he looked at Zhu Wanting.

“Yes, that happened.”

Mo Lin: “You didn’t give it to her.”

Zhu Wanting nodded. “We were helpless too. Clothes can be washed when they’re dirty; we can’t just indulge her by buying new ones every time.”

“Mm,” Mo Lin smiled, staring into her eyes. “So Zhou Rongguang hit her in front of customers.”

Zhu Wanting: “Yes, that happened.”

“What do you think about that?”

“She’s been a bit disobedient lately, so her dad hitting her was justified.”

Mo Lin lowered his gaze with a smile. “So your way of interacting with your child has always been about orders and obedience?”

Zhu Wanting explained, “The child is so young, doesn’t understand anything. If we as parents don’t discipline her, who will?”

Mo Lin’s narrow eyes squinted slightly. “If the way you educate your child is wrong, and the child makes a mistake, it’s the adult’s problem.”

This seemed to hit a nerve with Zhu Wanting. “We don’t have time to study how to educate children. Our parents taught us this way!”

“The surveillance shows that at 9:05 PM, you glanced towards the kitchen. What did you see at that time?” Mo Lin suddenly changed the topic, watching Zhu Wanting’s subtle facial expressions.

Zhu Wanting’s eyes twitched. “It must have been a mouse in the kitchen making noise, so I looked back.”

“It probably wasn’t a mouse,” Mo Lin said. “Think carefully.”

Zhu Wanting suddenly lowered her head, unconsciously picking at her fingers. “I didn’t see anything.”

“I found someone of your height to stand in the same spot and look in the same direction… and they could see a corner of the kitchen.

I observed that corner; there were marks on the floor from a box, and judging by the wear, it was recently moved. So I searched the kitchen and found that the cardboard box under the electric oil heater matched the floor marks perfectly, so…” Mo Lin’s eyes curved. “You saw someone moving the box, and that person was Zhou Jie, right?”

Zhu Wanting’s hands trembled slightly, her breathing became rapid, but she still refused to speak.

Mo Lin watched her reaction, a slight smile on his lips. “If you make false statements, you’ll be held criminally responsible. Think carefully.”

Hearing about criminal responsibility, Zhu Wanting’s face turned pale. “I… only saw… a sleeve.”

“What kind of sleeve?”

Tears welled up in Zhu Wanting’s eyes. “A school uniform sleeve. I saw a school uniform sleeve, just like my daughter’s. After it happened, I didn’t dare speak. I was afraid it would implicate my daughter…”

Zhu Wanting’s emotions completely collapsed. “Why is God doing this to me? What did I do wrong? Why did I have to see it? I’d rather be blind…”

The interrogation room door slowly closed, and inside, Zhu Wanting continued to cry loudly. Wang Yue followed Mo Lin, still pondering the testimony. “Teacher Mo, something doesn’t feel right.”

Mo Lin: “The school uniform doesn’t add up.”

At this moment, Wang Yue realized, “According to Qiu Yao’s confession, when Zhou Jie gave him the school uniform, Zhou Hao’s body was still on the second floor. If Zhou Jie went downstairs to stage the accident, she shouldn’t have been wearing the school uniform!”

A flash of insight struck Wang Yue’s mind. “Could the real murderer be Qiu Yao?!”

Mo Lin didn’t say anything, walking ahead at a brisk pace, with Wang Yue struggling to keep up.

*

The forensic team was collecting evidence in the attic, but unfortunately, they didn’t find Zhou Jie’s fingerprints, and none of the hair samples sent for testing belonged to Zhou Jie.

Wang Yue sat in the interrogation room, facing Qiu Yao, who was constantly rubbing his fingers. “My biggest regret is taking Zhou Jie to my secret base.”

He finished with a cold laugh. “She has a cleanliness obsession. Every time she went to the attic, she wore gloves and a hat. That’s why she was confident she could get away cleanly and push all the blame onto me.”

Outside the interrogation room, Xiao Ze was staring at the computer screen, looking as if he’d eaten something unpleasant. Meng Lan sat across from him, cautiously peeking over the computer. “Captain, are we really going to let Zhou Jie go?”

“No evidence, what else can we do?” Xiao Ze replied, even more frustrated.

“Why do you all think Zhou Jie is the problem? I feel like Qiu Yao is the murderer,” Li Meng asked fearlessly.

Meng Lan didn’t dare make a sound, shrinking back to her workstation.

Xiao Ze’s eyes were fixed on the interrogation room footage. “Instinct, a police officer’s instinct.”

But instinct, that intangible thing, can’t be used as a basis for conviction. Police work requires evidence.

Xiao Ze finally unclenched his fists. “Release them!”

Author’s Note: Another early start to the day~