Chapter 33

On the third day after the incident in the early morning, inside the Nancheng Police Station, Song Wen’s team was working overtime as usual. Everyone was waiting for the results of an experiment that would determine the direction of the entire case.

For this result, Song Wen went to find Cheng Xiaobing and requisitioned the box of molten lava chocolates she had bought. Xu Yao and other colleagues from the identification center had been busy since the afternoon. They even consulted a professor from the chemistry department at Nancheng University and requisitioned precision instruments from a chemical factory in Nancheng for the experiment.

Lu Siyu sat at his desk, organizing materials. His eyes were nearly closing due to fatigue. To stay awake, he stood up and went to the restroom, taking the opportunity to get a cup of hot water from the water dispenser outside.

While he was out, Fu Linjiang nudged Lao Jia. “If the results prove that Lin Wanwan is a suspect, you should apologize to Xiao Lu.”

Lao Jia touched his nose. “The results haven’t come out yet.”

Fu Linjiang said, “You’ve been following Guo Hua’s leads all day, running back and forth without finding any relevant clues. Don’t insist on being stubborn.”

Lao Jia had a premonition in his heart. Perhaps he was wrong. But as an old detective, he also had his pride. If he had to apologize to a probationary officer, he felt he couldn’t bear that embarrassment. Seeing Lu Siyu coming in, Fu Linjiang didn’t urge him again and left Lao Jia’s desk.

Lu Siyu sat in a chair; he had just washed his face with cold water, and there were still water droplets on his hair. He took a tissue and wiped it off.

Song Wen walked over and kindly said, “If you can’t hold on, go back.”

Lu Siyu raised his head and whispered, “Captain Song, everyone else is working overtime.” He didn’t quite understand why Song Wen suddenly showed concern. If he withdrew alone, regardless of the outcome, these colleagues working overtime would be envious.

Song Wen lowered his head, looking at Lu Siyu. His skin, just washed, was so white that it was almost translucent. “They slept the whole night yesterday and didn’t organize the materials. I’m telling you, if you can’t hold on, you can go to the sofa in Commissioner Gu’s office and take a nap.”

Lu Siyu held the thermos cup in his hand and stubbornly shook his head. “Forget it. I estimate the results will be out soon, and I’m curious about the truth.”

As they were speaking, Xu Yao, in high heels, walked in with a clatter. She took out a stack of test materials from her bag. “Several chemistry labs worked overnight, and the results have finally come out.”

All the people gathered upon hearing this news. Song Wen took those test sheets, looked at the bunch of numbers on them, and raised the corner of his mouth slightly. Then he looked at Lu Siyu and said, “Let’s go, let’s interrogate Lin Wanwan.”

Lu Siyu stood up and followed him, instantly becoming alert. A hint of excitement appeared in his usually cold expression.

As soon as the door to the interrogation room opened, Lin Wanwan moved from lying down to looking up at Song Wen and Lu Siyu who walked in. It was already the second day she had been locked up in the interrogation room, and the first night she received special treatment. She was locked up in a room with a bed and slept for a while, but today she was locked up here all day. The long torture made her look particularly haggard and pitiful.

“Is the 48-hour limit approaching? Or did Guo Hua wake up, and you’ve figured it out? According to regulations, you can only detain me for this long, right?” Lin Wanwan spoke as if she had already concluded that she was the winner of this game.

Song Wen sat across from her and said, “That’s only if you’re not a suspect.”

Lin Wanwan hugged her arms and asked, “Why do you suspect me of murder? I’ve said everything I should. This whole thing has nothing to do with me.”

Song Wen leaned back on the chair, looking at her somewhat indifferently. “You know, with the 48 hours almost up, would I bother coming here if we didn’t have evidence?” Then he spoke in a low voice, as if delivering a judgment to the girl in front of him, “We found crucial evidence. It’s you, trying to use Guo Hua to kill your classmates.”

Lin Wanwan pursed her lips. “Officer, what you say must be based on evidence.”

Song Wen squinted slightly. “When did you start implementing your plan? Was it when you discovered that those dog thieves often came to the pet store? Or when you introduced Guo Hua to work there? Or when you experimented with doses on those stray cats? Or when you deliberately provoked the dormitory war, making Guo Hua buy chocolate, Dong Fang and Ma Ai Jing to start talking?”

Under the light in the interrogation room, Lin Wanwan’s clear eyes seemed like exquisite amber. She looked at the two people in front of her without arguing or interrupting, appearing as cold as ice.

Song Wen continued, “You must be curious where you left a clue. I can reconstruct the process of the incident. For the convenience of poisoning, you chose a trendy lava chocolate this time, a box of exactly four pieces. The chocolates have an outer layer and are filled with chocolate inside, convenient for dissolving the poison. That morning, pretending to be kind, you took the express delivery when no one was around. Wearing gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints, you injected poison into all four chocolates. However, because you were too afraid of dying, you chose one of them and marked it. Only a smaller amount of poison was injected into that particular chocolate.”

“These chocolates were left for some time. When you all consumed them in the evening, each chocolate’s filling contained a lethal dose. At night, the three of them returned to the dormitory one after another. You are very familiar with each of them and knew they all liked sweets. I don’t know how you sweet-talked Guo Hua into holding the box, and everyone shared the chocolates. You took the one you had prepared in advance, and afterward, the three of them ingested it without any suspicion.”

Lin Wanwan pursed her lips and remained silent. Song Wen continued, “You know that potassium cyanide is highly toxic, and fearing that this chocolate would take your life, even if you took the smallest dose, you still didn’t finish your portion. You hid the remaining chocolate in a tissue and waited until everyone finished washing up and went to bed. Then after the lights were turned off, you secretly entered the bathroom, flushing the tissue, chocolate, shredded gloves, crushed needles, all into the toilet.”

At this point, Song Wen stared intensely at Lin Wanwan. “Unfortunately, before you could finish these actions, and before you could wash your hands, they began to show symptoms of poisoning. The dormitory was pitch black, preventing you from doing more cleanup. You returned to your bed, hesitating whether to call an ambulance out of fear for your own life. At that moment, you touched Guo Hua’s phone, leaving your fingerprints on it, along with the chocolate. However, you couldn’t guarantee that the ambulance would arrive after their deaths. So, you hesitated and put the phone down.”

“Dong Fang was the first to be affected, rapidly succumbing to death. Ma Aijing started screaming for help. In your panic, you covered her head with a blanket, pressing it tightly, causing Ma Aijing extreme agony—poisoning combined with suffocation. You used all your strength to control her, but this left you unable to restrain Guo Hua any longer. Terrified, Guo Hua saw everything happening in the dormitory from the doorway and ran out. You suffocated Ma Aijing and, hearing people in the neighboring dorm waking up, you started experiencing symptoms of poisoning. Only then did you call 120.”

As Song Wen described these events, if their deductions were correct, this was everything that happened in the dormitory that night. Two girls lost their lives, one remains in a coma to this day, and the perpetrator sat across from them, calmly listening, as if hearing a story unrelated to her.

Lin Wanwan rebutted in a low voice, “Officer, you really have quite an imagination. I’ve said it many times—Guo Hua was the one who suffocated them.”

Song Wen sighed. The girl in front of him was indeed stubborn and self-confident. Even now, she held on so tightly. “What you overlooked is that some chocolate residue remained on your hands. With your hands, you smeared chocolate everywhere.”

Lin Wanwan blinked, her breathing calm. “I remember now, when we ate the chocolate that night, everyone’s hands and bodies were covered in some chocolate. Later, when they vomited, the dormitory became a mess. What does that prove? Maybe my hands got some in the chaos.”

Song Wen explained, “But the positions where the chocolate residues were left are quite specific. On the bathroom floor, we found a drop of chocolate filling. Nearby, we found a half-footprint left on the ground. The pattern and size of that footprint are identical to your slippers. Next to the footprint, we found trace amounts of glass shards and a small piece of rubber fragment. That should be where you handled the needles, and the rubber piece is probably from the gloves you cut up.”

“Why do you say it’s me and not Guo Hua who left these traces?” Lin Wanwan leaned back against the chair and continued listening to Song Wen.

Song Wen turned his pen in his hand. “If it were only these findings, we wouldn’t have enough to charge you, as the most crucial parts were flushed down the toilet by you. However, we found other traces. On the blanket used to suffocate Ma Aijing, we discovered numerous chocolate imprints. These imprints were left when you struggled with the blanket, resisting Ma Aijing, who was on the brink of death.”

Song Wen’s gaze was fixed on Lin Wanwan’s face, and the girl in front of him, upon hearing this, remained calm. Her tone was indifferent and cold, “Those are just some chocolate residue…”

Seemingly anticipating that she would ask this question, Song Wen said, “Yes, initially, we were puzzled by this too, as there was no name written on the chocolate. Moreover, as you said, lava chocolate is indeed prone to leaving traces. In the packaging box, on tissues in Dong Fang’s trash bin, on the cuffs of Ma Aijing’s clothes, and on the floor beside Guo Hua’s seat, there was chocolate. We first distinguished between vomit and unused chocolate.”

Song Wen continued, a slight smile appearing on his lips. “Due to the handmade nature of this chocolate, there were variations in size, and the injection of potassium cyanide couldn’t be precise. We took these chocolate crumbs for precise chemical composition identification. As a result, we calculated the concentration of potassium cyanide in those four chocolate balls.”

Lin Wanwan’s pupils slightly contracted.

“The chocolate on the bathroom floor, on Guo Hua’s phone, and on Ma Aijing’s blanket contained a significantly lower concentration of potassium cyanide compared to the other three lava chocolates. And this result can only have one explanation—” Song Wen looked at Lin Wanwan with sharp eyes, like a knife piercing the heart. “The chocolate crumbs from these locations originated from the same lava chocolate. Your fingerprint was found on the chocolate on Guo Hua’s phone, and we have your previous testimony confirming that you left it there. Therefore, it’s not difficult to deduce that this piece of chocolate was eaten by you before. The criminal process I just described is the truth of that night.”

This afternoon, after deducing the entire process, Lu Siyu proposed that Song Wen further submit those chocolate crumbs for inspection, to determine the precise components inside. Although there weren’t many of these crumbs, and many couldn’t have fingerprints extracted, they could help them pinpoint the culprit.

In the dormitory, Lin Wanwan suffocated Ma Aijing, and Guo Hua went outside to call for help. The behavioral trajectories of the two were completely different. The chocolates with the same concentration were all traces left by Lin Wanwan.

Once those liquids merged with the chocolate filling, undergoing thorough fusion, each chocolate ball’s filling would have a fixed concentration. That sweet and sticky substance spread across several corners of the dormitory with her fingertips. The bittersweet chocolate became a deadly weapon but also exposed who the real murderer was.

To ensure the precision of the test results, they even used new chocolates, injected them with potassium cyanide, and conducted multiple experiments. In the end, they finally had enough data to support their conclusions.

It was all over. With everything said and done, they had finally found the crucial evidence and identified the suspect in this case. Guo Hua, lying in the hospital room, was just a puppet manipulated by someone else. The true perpetrator, the one who wanted the girls dead, was Lin Wanwan.

At this moment, Lin Wanwan’s confession was no longer important; the evidence of those crumbs and physical objects was sufficient to prove that she held down the blanket, suffocating Ma Aijing.

All the truths were laid bare, and Lu Siyu stopped recording on the side, looking up at Lin Wanwan. The girl’s face showed little expression.

“Do you have anything else to say?” Song Wen also looked at her.

He had interrogated countless criminals. Most of them were tough in the early stages, but in the end, they crumbled one by one, either pale-faced, tearful, or shifting blame onto others. Facing these murderers, these suspects, he felt no sympathy. It was as if the creature sitting in front of him was just that – a creature, not worthy of being called a human.

Lin Wanwan looked at him and spoke coldly, “I didn’t do it.”

“It’s useless to deny it now,” Song Wen said in a deep voice. “Pity your classmates. They should have had a better future, but because of you… their lives have been changed. There is always a price to pay for murder.”

“Shut up! Don’t say it anymore!” This was the first time Lin Wanwan showed signs of losing control in the entire 48-hour interrogation.

In the interrogation room, Lin Wanwan looked at Song Wen and Lu Siyu in front of her, lifting her chin slightly. The interrogation light illuminated her pale face as if placing her under a spotlight. She quickly calmed down, speaking calmly and composed, without a trace of panic or tremor. “I didn’t do those things. I didn’t kill my classmates. The drugs were brought by Guo Hua, and the chocolate was bought by Guo Hua. She made them eat it. What you’re saying now is simply framing me.” She spoke with conviction, her eyes naturally carrying a pitiful look, as if everything truly had nothing to do with her.

Everyone in the observation room stared blankly at her. In the face of solid evidence, she still maintained her composure and continued to lie.

Thinking about the entire process of the case, Fu Linjiang’s back felt a chill.

Lao Jia frowned slightly as he watched the interrogation room. He was puzzled and said, “Could it really not be her? Did we make a mistake somewhere?”

“Do you think Xu Yao’s lab results could be wrong? Or do you think Captain Song’s reasoning is flawed?” Fu Linjiang questioned him. “She’s not addressing the chocolate issue anymore; instead, she’s evading it and seeking sympathy. Now, facing irrefutable evidence, she remains so indifferent. This lack of normal human reaction is her biggest flaw.”

Zhu Xiao nodded, “We may not understand such people, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”

Human thoughts are hidden within the body, ranging from good to bad. Some malicious thoughts are like poisoned vines, growing out from the heart, using the flesh and blood of a person, constantly accumulating, spreading, ultimately enveloping the entire person. Those with a poisonous heart may not feel any different themselves, but to others, it can be bone-chilling. Once the venom bursts forth, it not only poisons others but also poisons oneself.

Lin Wanwan seemed to lack sympathy, empathy, and respect for life. All she had was herself; others, whether family or friends, were just her puppets. Despite her outward softness, her inner arrogance was profound. In her dictionary, there was no such thing as panic, as if nothing was worth it.

If it weren’t for those chocolates, carefully chosen chocolates, they might not have been able to catch her.

The rain in Nancheng finally came, albeit a few days late. Perhaps due to being pent up for a long time, the rain came suddenly and urgently. Starting from the night large raindrops formed an airtight water curtain, shrouding the city. The rain didn’t stop, quickly accumulating a thick layer on the ground. It seemed as if everything between heaven and earth had been thoroughly washed by this rain. The slight stuffiness in the air disappeared, replaced by the fragrance of fresh grass.

At 1:30 in the morning, after finishing overtime and completing the final work on the case, making preparations for the transfer, Song Wen drove the police car to the steps at the entrance of the police station but didn’t rush to leave.

From a distance, Lin Xiuran got out of a taxi, holding a black umbrella. Song Wen called out, “Dr. Lin, working late?”

“Yeah, just came back from the funeral parlor. Another body was just discovered.” Lin Xiuran remembered something as he spoke, “By the way, Guo Hua survived another resuscitation. Tomorrow, she’ll be transferred to the better-equipped Hongcheng Hospital for treatment.”

Song Wen nodded in response.

People gradually dispersed, and Lu Siyu, carrying a bag, finally appeared at the entrance of the police station.

Pretending to have just arrived, Song Wen waved to him, “You didn’t drive today. Come, I will give you a ride in the police car.”

Lu Siyu agreed with a nod, walked over, and got into the car. As soon as he did, he began rubbing his eyes, completely lacking the energetic appearance from earlier. Now, he was not only tired but also cold, as if he had traversed vast snow-covered plains, exhausted all his strength, and just wanted to return to his warm home, hug his dog, and enjoy a peaceful sleep.

Song Wen saw that he didn’t move, so he leaned over, fastened his seatbelt, and praised him, “Well done. Thanks to you today, we finally pinned down the suspect.”

Lu Siyu nodded, not thinking that he had done anything remarkable.

Song Wen said, “If the case couldn’t be solved, Guo Hua’s family would be in a miserable state. You practically saved them.”

“It was the physical evidence that cracked the case. I just connected the clues.” Lu Siyu blinked, suddenly remembering the cold hands of Guo Hua’s mother. He didn’t actually think about saving people; it was just a momentary impulse. Now, sitting in the car, physically exhausted, yet with an unprecedented calmness in his heart, there was a hint of satisfaction. So, this is what justice feels like. Perhaps this is what Song Wen has been pursuing all along.

“Hey, why didn’t you let me say that it was your idea?” Song Wen asked the lingering question in his heart. On the train, after Lu Siyu speculated about the relationships in the dormitory and came up with the idea of testing the chocolate concentration to determine if Lin Wanwan was the murderer, he made a request for Song Wen not to mention that it was his idea.

At first, Song Wen thought Lu Siyu wasn’t very confident and was afraid the test results might be incorrect. However, later on, he realized that Lu Siyu had already convinced himself that he was right.

“If I suggested it, it would be a bit too much for Lao Jia. I can’t offend everyone, right?” Lu Siyu said as if genuinely wanting to get along here and feeling a headache for interpersonal relationships.

Song Wen started the police car, and raindrops hit the car window, making a faint sound. The headlights reflected Lu Siyu’s profile, fair, handsome, cold, and indifferent.

Suddenly, Song Wen thought of their conversation in the afternoon, the situations each person presented, and their understanding of the case, all intertwined with their experiences and backgrounds. So, what had Lu Siyu, who could see through the criminal’s psychology and resonate with the suspect, experienced?

Song Wen couldn’t help but ask him, “You said Lin Wanwan chose chocolate because it’s her favorite candy, a reward she received in her childhood.”

Lu Siyu murmured softly.

“What about you?” Song Wen turned to look at him. “What have you experienced?”

Lu Siyu didn’t speak, changed to a more comfortable posture, and just when Song Wen thought he wouldn’t tell him, Lu Siyu suddenly looked out the window and spoke softly, “Captain Song, I’m a bit hungry…”

What kind of feeling is hunger? It’s like having ice crystals in the stomach, piercing the body. All organs are clamoring, and every cell is chilling, experiencing the gradual departure of life. Only one word remains in the mind, enough to drive a person insane.

Eating is a primal instinct directly linked to life. Humans can do anything for the sake of eating. Therefore, eating is the most important thing in the world, and food is the most important thing in the world. For it, humans can erupt into war, and for it, they can mercilessly deprive other beings of their lives.

Outside the car, the rain continued to fall without stopping, making a rustling sound on the car window. It seemed like Nancheng’s rainy season had come early…

TN:

I’m honestly a bit confused about the conclusion of this case. They found this evidence from the initial start, the ones in the bathroom, so why didn’t they think to look into it until Siyu pointed it out. Esp if the slipper print matched LWW. The toxicity analysis too. Usually in cases of poisoning, isn’t a tox-screen one of the first things that is done? Of both the stomach content and the suspected source of the poison. I don’t know if it’s as a result of MTL or brain cells deficiency but it’s all good as long as the culprit was caught! And can someone give Lao Jia a refresher course on being a detective dafuq! With the evidence right in his face he still has the gall to doubt. And f*ck his “detective pride”. You can have sympathy and empathy, but as someone who has the life of others in your hand, you can’t be irrational or let emotions cloud your judgement! Old man can’t even swallow the fact that an intern was better than him. I’m also curious about Lu Siyu’s past experiences. His obsession with food seems like someone who has experienced starvation but he’s rich so how did he get into such a situation. Or maybe he wasn’t always well-off.