A criminal police officer nearby speculated, “Maybe he was taken to the kitchen and mixed with the kitchen waste.”

Yan Ji said, “The kitchen waste has already fermented, and there’s all sorts of stuff in there. Even if he was really hidden inside, it would be hard to analyze.”

There was only one window on the second floor, facing the street. Opening the window, you could see the sign “Zhou Ji Barbecue” below. At night, the street would be filled with tables and chairs, packed with people having late-night snacks.

Yan Ji leaned out the window and looked down, “No normal person would dare throw garbage onto people’s dining tables…”

“When the body was discovered, the scene was quite chaotic. The girl could have easily carried the trash with her and thrown it into a nearby bin when no one was looking. There’s too much foot traffic here, so this clue isn’t very significant anymore.” Gu Yuan, with his hands in his pockets, left the room, not wanting to waste too much time on this.

“If a little girl, after killing her brother, cleaned up the scene without leaving a trace, then she’s not an ordinary girl…” Mo Lin said, flipping through the girl’s exercise book.

The exercise book was filled with dense problem-solving steps, showing that the girl’s logical thinking was very tight, and the red check marks all over the pages proved her good academic performance.

He put down the exercise book and glanced around the girl’s room. The two stuffed dolls by the bed looked old but were very clean, probably washed many times.

Opening the girl’s wardrobe, there was very little inside. Two thin sweaters with faded collars hung on the outside, with a few outdated clothes and pants inside.

At the bottom of the cabinet were two pairs of shoes: a pair of white canvas shoes with yellowing edges and a pair of adult slippers, with a large hole at the heel exposing the yellow sponge inside.

Yan Ji noticed the items in the wardrobe and sighed, “These parents are really biased, buying so many toys for the younger son that two boxes can’t hold them all, but being so stingy with the daughter.”

“Is the daughter biological?” Gu Yuan suddenly asked.

Yan Ji replied, “They say she is. If you’re not sure, we can do a paternity test.”

“I think it’s necessary,” Gu Yuan said seriously.

Mo Lin picked up a photo album hanging on the wooden wall and found a thumb-sized cartoon character sticker on the wall behind the frame, with a dent in the center.

He touched the dent and felt a circular edge. Mo Lin frowned, then peeled off the sticker from the wooden wall.

Underneath the sticker was a small, inconspicuous hole. He bent down and looked through it, discovering that from here, he could see the room next door.

The light in the next room was dim, making it hard to see clearly, but he could vaguely make out the outline of a bed.

Someone might be resting in the next room, as the curtains were drawn.

“Could this girl be peeping on others?” Yan Ji felt a chill down his spine, picturing the girl pressing her eye against the hole to spy on the opposite side.

Gu Yuan asked, “Who lives in the room across?”

“I don’t know. Looks like we’ll have to go over and ask,” Mo Lin said, placing the photo frame on the table and heading downstairs.

*

Two highly noticeable people waited in front of the shutter door for a long time until they finally heard the sound of a lock being opened from inside, followed by a rumbling noise as the shutter door was pulled open from within.

A woman in slippers appeared, wearing a thin floral nightgown, her hair curled into wine-red noodle-like curls.

Having been woken up suddenly, her eyes were not fully open, and she looked drowsily at the two people outside the door. “Didn’t you see the sign? We’re not open during the day!” The woman was a bit impatient.

Gu Yuan said, “We’re police officers and would like to ask you some questions.”

“So what if you’re police? Does that give you the right to disturb people during the day? Besides, I don’t know the people on the right, and we don’t usually interact. You should ask someone else!” The woman’s temper flared instantly.

Mo Lin stepped forward, blocking Gu Yuan behind him.

“We suspect you of peeping. Please cooperate with our investigation.”

“Peeping… peeping at what… explain yourself!”

“We found a small hole on the wooden wall on the second floor next door, which seems to have been made intentionally.”

“Impossible, I didn’t know about it!”

The woman’s eyes shifted to the lower left corner, as if recalling something.

“So we need to check it out. Please cooperate with our official duties.” Mo Lin smiled with a friendly demeanor.

The woman pushed the shutter door up and finally agreed to let them in.

The three of them went straight to the second floor and found that the stairs in this shop were on the far left, while Zhou Ji Barbecue’s stairs were on the far right. This meant that the living quarters of the two places were adjacent, separated only by a wooden board.

Upon reaching the second floor, Mo Lin found that the layout upstairs was completely symmetrical, and the room corresponding to the girl’s room was lit.

Mo Lin asked, “Who usually stays in this room?”

“I do. My son stays in the room next door. He’s not here today; he went to school,” the woman answered straightforwardly.

“Could you please turn off the light?”

The woman turned off the light, “What’s the problem?”

With the light off, a warm yellow beam of light projected from the small hole in the wooden board. Mo Lin approached and pressed his eye against the light spot, perfectly seeing the outline of the girl’s room.

“Strange, how come I never noticed there was a hole here!” The woman was surprised.

After a few seconds, she suddenly raised her head, “Officer, who lives across?”

In the dim room, Mo Lin’s narrow eyes examined the woman’s face, the light spot reflecting in his light-colored eyes, making him appear even more mysterious. However, his tone remained calm, “The laoban’s daughter. Why, do you find anything unusual?”

“No… nothing, this must be a misunderstanding. I have no reason to peep on someone else’s child…”

Mo Lin chuckled softly, his gaze never leaving the woman’s face in the dim light, “Maybe she’s the one peeping on you?”

People tend to lower their guard in the dark, so Mo Lin deliberately didn’t turn on the light, “You haven’t done anything inappropriate for children, have you?”

“No… I’m a single mom raising a kid, I don’t have time for such things.”

“That’s good. Be careful in the future.” Mo Lin walked to the door and turned on the light, suddenly turning back, “By the way, how old is your son?”

“Fifteen…”

Mo Lin nodded, “Is he a student at Yan Hai City’s Seventh High?”

The woman nodded, “Doesn’t seem related to my son. Why are you asking about him?”

“Just curious.”

Mo Lin exited the room and called to the person in the next room, “Gu Yuan, let’s go.”

Gu Yuan, with a serious expression, came out from the outermost room, hands in pockets, walking ahead.

Outside the shop, Mo Lin asked, “Did you find anything?”

Gu Yuan shook his head but frowned.

Mo Lin noticed his expression, “What’s wrong?”

Gu Yuan said, “There’s something off about that celebrity Yuan Tongtong.”

“What does this case have to do with Yuan Tongtong?” Mo Lin rarely encountered something he couldn’t understand.

Gu Yuan, hands in pockets, faced Mo Lin, “The boy’s room also has her poster.”

Mo Lin said, “So you feel something’s off, but can’t pinpoint why?”

Gu Yuan nodded, inadvertently licking his lips.

Mo Lin walked to the parking spot, took a bottle of mineral water from the trunk, and handed it to Gu Yuan, “Looks like we should go back and question the parties involved.”

Gu Yuan paused, accepting the water.

Just as he felt a bit thirsty, Mo Lin handed him water. Could he really read minds?

Back at the police station, Gu Yuan stood outside the Interrogation Room, holding the mineral water bottle, but his eyes were not on the barbecue shop owner Zhou Rongguang. Instead, they were on Mo Lin, who was interrogating Zhou Rongguang.

His posture was upright, the hair on the back of his head neatly trimmed, and his casual suit was pressed perfectly, leaving no room for any flaws.

Mo Lin glanced at Zhou Rongguang’s bandaged hands, “How are your hands?”

Zhou Rongguang looked exhausted, with heavy bags and dark circles under his eyes, “The doctor said it’s a second-degree burn, needs some time to heal.”

“The police visited your neighbors, and it’s said you and your wife have been arguing a lot lately. What’s the conflict about?”

Zhou Rongguang took a deep breath, straightening up as if getting into character, “My wife is slow with things, sometimes it makes me anxious. She often forgets customers’ orders, making them impatient, and I get anxious too, sometimes I yell at her… My wife’s family is well-off, she was pampered growing up, full of bad habits, gets angry when I say something, nags endlessly…”

He shook his head a few times and continued, “Life’s tough, always arguing over trivial things, can’t even take care of the kids properly. The shop’s so busy, yet she still puts on makeup in the morning, I’ve told her many times, but she just ignores me!”

“Why not hire someone to help at the shop?”

“Do you think we haven’t thought of that? We opened the barbecue shop because we lost money in business before, only paid off the debt a couple of years ago, haven’t bought a house yet, and our daughter needs to go to school. I just thought I’d work harder, save more money…”

Mo Lin said, “We found in your phone’s search history that you’ve been frequently searching for ‘divorce’ and ‘property division’ recently. So, are you going through a divorce?”

“Honestly, I don’t want to live with her anymore, tired and fed up. I did think about divorce and mentioned it to her, but considering the little one is still too young, I’ve been enduring.”

Mo Lin asked, “So it’s because of the little one that you haven’t divorced?”

The man said wistfully, “That’s right. Now that the little one is gone, our family is falling apart…”

“Tell me about your daughter. How’s your relationship with her?”

“The older one isn’t close to me, sides with her mom, doesn’t talk much to me. When her mom asked who she’d stay with if we divorced, she didn’t hesitate to say mom, such an ungrateful child!”