Chapter 9

Although Tong Jia was forced to stay at the police station for an extended period, she wasn’t treated poorly. She insisted that she had only made a false police report and had done nothing else.

Veteran officers privately marveled at her composure, thinking that if she were a criminal, she had an exceptional psychological resilience.

After multiple searches confirmed there were no bomb fragments at the scene, a female officer deeply regretted misunderstanding the hero earlier. She started buying boxed meals for Tong Jia daily, better than what she would afford for herself.

With good food, no psychological pressure, and no work to do, Tong Jia gained weight in just a few days.

The investigation results were finally released.

The captain brought her out for one last interrogation, “Why did you make a false police report?”

For the Nth time, Tong Jia repeated, “My boss is extremely stingy. The building’s beams are cracked, and no one repairs them. The mirrors in the guest rooms are broken and left unattended. When my colleagues told me this, I was extremely scared and felt the building was too unsafe.”

“If the building is unsafe, you can have someone inspect its quality. If there are indeed safety hazards, we would require the hotel to cease operations until rectified. But you skipped this step. Even if you made a false police report, you should have ensured the customers left the hotel immediately,” the captain said, staring directly at Tong Jia. “It’s as if you had a premonition the building would collapse.”

“Yes!” Tong Jia nodded vigorously. “I had a very bad feeling, like a sixth sense telling me to leave, or something terrible would happen.”

“I don’t know how to describe that feeling. Anyway, it was the first time in my life I felt such anxiety and fear.”

“One of my female colleagues was also very scared. She even called the police, hoping they would notify the hotel to evacuate the customers. But the dispatcher didn’t believe her and said she was scaring herself.”

“I really had no other choice! If the dispatcher had believed her, I wouldn’t have had to make a false police report.”

The captain was speechless.

He asked why she was so sure the accident would happen and preferred to make a false report to evacuate the crowd.

She replied that if the dispatcher had been reliable, she wouldn’t have had to make a false report.

Although her account was indeed what happened, wasn’t her answer a bit off-topic?

However, she wasn’t a criminal but a hero who had saved over seventy people, so he couldn’t be too harsh on her or use interrogation techniques meant for suspects.

“When will you let me go, Officer?” Tong Jia asked pitifully. “I made a mistake out of a moment of poor judgment.”

“And strictly speaking, I made a minor error. But I saved so many people, which should offset it, right?”

“The police station doesn’t have to give me a banner or a reward, but keeping me here indefinitely isn’t right, is it?”

“Some news media have heard about this and want to interview me.”

As she spoke, Tong Jia tapped her finger. “Officer, I’m actually quite busy and can’t stay here every day…”

The captain grew curious about the environment that produced such a person. In a few sentences, she had threatened, played the pity card, negotiated, and exonerated herself.

“We called you just for routine questioning,” the captain said sternly. “The accident investigation results are out, and you’re clear to go.”

“Really? I can go home?” Tong Jia rejoiced, standing up quickly and not forgetting to say, “Thank you, Officer.”

The captain stood up, intending to escort her out.

In the lobby, a veteran officer dragged in a young man wearing hip-hop clothes, cursing, “Why steal? Aren’t there better things to do? You’ve disgraced your ancestors!”

The young man remained silent.

As Tong Jia walked past them, the young man suddenly broke free from the veteran officer, grabbed Tong Jia around the neck with his left arm, and pulled a small knife from his pocket with his right hand. “Don’t come any closer!”

Tong Jia panicked, “Don’t do anything rash. You’ve only stolen some small things; you’ll be out in a few days. Hurting someone is much more serious than theft.”

“I don’t want to go to jail,” the young man said fiercely. “You all move over there; I want to get out of here.”

The veteran officer and the captain cooperatively moved aside.

The young man watched them intently, afraid someone might try to ambush him.

At that moment, Tong Jia grabbed his wrist holding the knife with her right hand and used her left elbow to strike his abdomen with all her strength.

Caught completely off guard, the young man released his grip in pain and dropped to one knee.

Tong Jia swiftly turned and kicked his leg, shouting, “Out of everyone in the room, you choose me? Do you think I’m easy to bully?!”

She kicked him once, then again, and a third time.

The female officer hurried over to stop her.

The veteran officer quickly subdued the young man and, half-dragging, half-carrying, took him away.

The captain, with a complex expression, said, “I’m sorry you were frightened.”

“It’s alright,” Tong Jia said, brushing her hair back. “Fortunately, I’ve trained a bit before.”

The captain looked at the female officer and gestured, “Escort her out.”

Understanding, the female officer promptly escorted Tong Jia out of the police station.

In a corner, the hip-hop-dressed young man lay on the floor, grimacing in pain. “Boss, you didn’t tell me she was this fierce. Damn, she really packs a punch.”

He lifted his shirt to reveal large bruises where he had been hit.

“You’ve got the nerve to complain?” The captain glared at him. “If you can’t even handle her, how will you protect the citizens while on duty?”

The young man in the hip-hop attire grimaced, “With citizens who can fight like that, who needs my protection?”

The veteran officer turned away to hide his laughter. When the captain looked over, he immediately composed himself and said seriously, “Captain, based on my analysis, her premonition about the building collapsing was likely a coincidence. I just observed her closely. When Xiao Wang attacked, Tong Jia was completely unprepared. If she had a super-strong sixth sense that could warn her, she wouldn’t have been caught off guard and only retaliated when she found an opportunity.”

The young man, Xiao Wang, nodded in agreement. “I struck suddenly and unexpectedly. Her instinctive reaction was genuine and unfeigned.”

The captain looked down in thought, then raised his head after a moment. “She mentioned a female colleague who called the dispatcher. Who is that?”

“………….”

Yun Xin POV:

In early spring, the weather was still chilly, with a cool breeze blowing. Yun Xin was returning home with a big bag of snacks from the convenience store near her rental. She spotted a familiar figure standing in front of her apartment complex.

At the same time, the figure noticed her as well.

“Talk?” Tong Jia asked.

Though phrased as a question, it left no room for refusal. Yun Xin silently followed.

After finding a bench in a nearby park, Tong Jia sat down and pulled a canned coffee from the bag. “Want one?”

Tong Jia silently took it and sat at one end of the bench.

Yun Xin opened a bottle of milk tea for herself and sat at the other end.

“The boss has been arrested,” Tong Jia informed Yun Xin. “He might be sentenced and could be in prison for over a decade.”

Yun Xin, who had read the police investigation report, responded, “He deserves it.”

It was said that professionals who reviewed the building plans concluded that it was destined to collapse sooner or later. Cutting corners during construction to save money had resulted in many deaths. If the boss didn’t go to prison, who would?

“While I was at the station, many people came to see me. Some thanked me for saving them and gave me checks as a reward. Others offered me new jobs with high pay, little work, close to home, no overtime, and even a luxury car upon joining. After ten years, they would even gift me a house. Plus, there were quite a few reporters wanting to interview me,” Tong Jia added.

“That’s great,” Yun Xin congratulated her. “Fame, money, a new job—you’ve got everything now. It was worth the risk of breaking the law to make a false police report.”

Tong Jia remained silent.

After leaving the police station, the first thing she did was go home and take a shower. The second was to find Yun Xin. She even called the manager to get Yun Xin’s residential address from the forms filled out at the time of employment. Luckily, while the paper documents were buried with the building collapse, the manager still had an electronic copy on his home computer; otherwise, she wouldn’t have been able to find her.

“What do you want to talk about?” Yun Xin, not keen on sitting in the cold wind, urged her to get to the point.

Straightforwardly, Tong Jia asked, “From the beginning, were you playing me?”

For a moment, it seemed like the air itself fell silent.

Yun Xin paused, “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

“It wasn’t me who could foresee the danger, it was you,” Tong Jia said, growing agitated. “My ability, ‘Insight,’ lets me see through lies and perceive the truth of events. In other words, my subconscious wasn’t predicting danger but recognizing that you were telling the truth, which is why I felt afraid.”

“Just like with Wang Ze’s incident, and during the hotel collapse. You deliberately acted anxious in front of me, and I believed you, which led me to make a false police report.”

“So in the end, I was just a tool for calling the police?”

The more Tong Jia thought about it, the more aggrieved she felt.

“How can you call that acting?” Yun Xin, hearing words like “ability,” “insight,” and “perceive the truth,” realized there was no point in denying it anymore. Instead, she explained, “People have many faces. One for strangers, another for those they know well. One for friends, another for family. One face in social interactions and another when alone.”

“When faced with an emergency, knowing which face can get you through will cause you to switch unconsciously. It’s not intentional deception; it’s a survival instinct.”

Tong Jia, who had just acted in front of the police to regain her freedom, felt a pang of self-awareness.

She couldn’t help but ponder—if she cursed Yun Xin now, would she be cursing herself too?

“Besides, I didn’t expect you to go to the extent of making a false report. I just wanted to get you out and find a legitimate reason to call the police…” Yun Xin said, looking innocent.

Tong Jia, “???”

Was I the real culprit?

After calming down, Tong Jia asked, “After the hotel collapsed, my eyes started seeing strange things occasionally. Have you experienced anything similar?”

She was referring to the transparent panels. Since she couldn’t casually mention this to others, she kept it vague.

Yun Xin replied, “I’ve had that for a while. But it’s fine. Just ignore it, and life goes on as usual.”

Tong Jia’s anger, which had subsided a bit, flared up again. “If you keep this up, I’ll only give you a third of the reward money instead of half!”

Initially, they were supposed to split 250,000 yuan. But if she only gave Yun Xin a third, it would shrink to 170,000. That would surely make Yun Xin regret angering her, right?

Just as Tong Jia felt a surge of mischievous satisfaction, Yun Xin said, “You can keep it all. I inherited a fortune worth several billion, so I don’t need it.”

Tong Jia, “…”

Forget it, let the world end!