I See Murders Before They Happen

Chapter 151: Chapter 149: The USB Drive Is Cracked

Su Miaoyi described the killer’s appearance while checking her own tongue a few times in a mirror.

She made sure it was still there and hadn’t been severed.

But it still ached a little.

She didn’t know if it was just in her head or if the empathetic link had lasted too long.

In any case, her speech was affected.

It felt like her tongue had gone stiff.

Once the sketch was finished, Su Miaoyi took a look. ”This is him. The man He Yao mentioned, one of the ones who pulled the girl into the car.”

She forced the words out a few at a time, but some were still slurred.

Kang Ting looked at the sketch.

Su Miaoyi asked, ”He Yao’s phone? Any location data?”

”Nothing,” Kang Ting said. ”It’s been off the entire time, and her SIM card has been removed.”

”What about the missing girl?” Su Miaoyi asked.

”The missing girl is named Qiu Yu, twenty years old, a student at Jinghai University,” Kang Ting said. ”She hasn’t been found either.”

”He Yao seemed to be waiting for someone in the alley behind the KTV. Who was she waiting for?” Su Miaoyi asked again.

”We asked He Yao’s friends about this. He Yao was waiting for her boyfriend in that back alley,” Kang Ting said. ”We also confirmed with her boyfriend that she was indeed waiting for him.”

”What was she waiting for him for? It’s so dark there. Why did she have to wait in that spot? She could have waited anywhere else.” As Su Miaoyi focused on the case, her tongue suddenly felt better, and her speech became clear again.

Lu Zhishen glanced at her.

”They were going to have a date in that spot.” Kang Ting had asked the same question at the time.

”A date?” Su Miaoyi was baffled. ”What were they going to do on a date in the pitch-black dark?”

She fell silent after saying that, furrowed her brow, and made a tsking sound.

”He Yao’s boyfriend has a solid alibi,” Kang Ting said. ”He shouldn’t be lying.”

Su Miaoyi nodded and said no more.

”I’m going to run the sketch through the system,” Kang Ting said, leaving with the drawing.

Su Miaoyi thought again about the scene she had seen.

Of the two men who’d pulled Qiu Yu into the car, she had seen the face of He Yao’s killer, but not the other man’s.

The car had blocked her view of him.

”Your speech is back to normal,” Lu Zhishen said.

Su Miaoyi looked at him and wiggled her tongue. It didn’t feel so stiff anymore. ”Hey, you’re right. It is better.”

Lu Zhishen smiled. ”You were doing it just to mess with me.”

Su Miaoyi stared at him.

”To make it harder for me to draw the sketch,” he clarified.

”You saw right through me. As expected of the Jinghai City Bureau’s number one sketch artist,” Su Miaoyi said.

Lu Zhishen: ”...I’m the only sketch artist at the Jinghai City Bureau.”

”That still makes you number one. A little challenge like this is nothing for you,” Su Miaoyi said. ”Be brave, Zhishen! Fear no hardship!”

Lu Zhishen: ”......”

Lu Zhishen got up, walked over to her, and poked her on the forehead. ”Come on. Captain Kang went back on his own and left us here.”

Su Miaoyi also got up. ”Deputy Song must be waiting for us.”

...

「Back at the City Bureau.」

Su Miaoyi and Lu Zhishen were studying the case.

The system didn’t find any matches for the killer.

But in the afternoon, there was sudden news about the killer.

An undercover officer planted in the private hospital owned by the Fengjiang Group had seen the killer there.

Kang Ting said, ”Captain Zhuang called me a while back, saying there was something suspicious about the underground casino at the pool hall and the hospital owned by the Fengjiang Group, so we planted someone.”

”There hasn’t been any progress on the pool hall front.”

”Our guy managed to get in, but they’re extremely cautious. It seems they don’t use local hires, so he hasn’t been able to get any deeper. For now, he’s just working at the pool hall.”

”Jiang Junrui goes there to play pool sometimes. We don’t know what he does after he enters a specific private room.”

”What about the hospital?” Su Miaoyi asked.

”As for the hospital, our man got in by faking an illness,” Kang Ting said. ”It’s a private hospital, after all. Even though his tests came back clean, he got himself admitted on the pretext of needing to rest and recuperate.”

”But that’s also why he couldn’t stay for long. He’d already pushed his luck staying for a while, and snooping around trying to gather information would easily attract suspicion.”

”So after a while, we pulled him out. We were planning to send in a replacement.”

”Did he find anything out?” Su Miaoyi asked.

”He was in the general recuperation ward, where the doctors and nurses watched him like a hawk,” Kang Ting said. ”If he ever left the ward, a nurse would escort him. They called it an escort, but it felt more like he was being watched.”

”Just before he was discharged, he managed to give his escorting nurse the slip and tried to check out the inpatient building at the back. But he was stopped at the door.”

”For a hospital to be that strict, something isn’t right,” Lu Zhishen said. ”Why all the security?”

”They claim it’s for special patients, many with rare diseases, so they need to disinfect and strictly control who goes in and out,” Kang Ting said.

”And that’s where he saw the killer—at the entrance to that rear inpatient building,” Kang Ting said.

Su Miaoyi’s eyelid twitched. ”Don’t tell me the girls were taken for organ transplants.”

Kang Ting frowned, then said after a pause, ”Our man inside the hospital didn’t get past the door, but he saw someone inside the inpatient building and confirmed it was the killer.”

”If the killer is in that building, then where could Qiu Yu have been taken?” Su Miaoyi posed the question.

She then asked, ”When did he see the killer?”

”The day before yesterday,” Kang Ting said. ”He was discharged the day before yesterday.”

Su Miaoyi frowned.

’He saw him the day before yesterday.’

’There’s no telling if the killer is still at the hospital.’

’But... Qiu Yu has been missing for over a week. If she was really taken to that hospital...’

’After all this time, could something terrible have already happened to her?’

Su Miaoyi pinched the bridge of her nose.

”We’ll raid the hospital and make the arrest,” Kang Ting decided. ”It doesn’t matter if he’s still there. Since he was spotted at their hospital, we’re going in. Saving her is the priority.”

Su Miaoyi did not speak.

’If we raid them and find nothing, and we don’t save her, they’ll just hide everything even better next time.’

’But... saving her is the priority.’

After making his decision, Kang Ting started to walk out.

Just then, a technician was raising his hand to knock on the door.

His hand nearly knocked right into Kang Ting.

”Captain Kang.”

”What is it?”

”The passwords for both USB drives have been cracked,” the technician said.

Su Miaoyi stood up.

Lu Zhishen also looked toward them.

Kang Ting pulled the technician into the office and shut the door. ”Quick, let’s see.”

The technician put the laptop on the desk, and everyone gathered around.

He clicked play. The video was shaky for a moment before it stabilized.

Su Miaoyi breathed a sigh of relief when she saw people in the video.

’Thank goodness, it’s not Mo Xiaoxiao’s dog.’

They all held their breath, watching the videos from the drive one by one.

The first USB drive had a total of twelve videos on it.

The earliest one was from three years ago.

The twelve videos spanned a period of two years.

The intervals between the videos varied: three months, two months, one month, one week, a few days.

There was no pattern, but every single video was a piece of criminal evidence, enough to bring down the Fengjiang Group.