I See Murders Before They Happen

Chapter 170: Chapter 168: Is the Information Forged?

”How did you find their addresses?” Zhuang Yanzheng asked.

”They can find the addresses of online influencers and celebrities, so isn’t it perfectly normal that I could find theirs?” Zhu Xuan said.

”Did you pay for them?” Zhuang Yanzheng asked.

”I looked them up myself,” Zhu Xuan said. ”I paid for a class. I was in the same one as Luo Min. Didn’t I just tell you that? Why are you asking again? How did someone with your intelligence get to your current position? Is your family rich? Did you buy your way up?”

To Zhuang Yanzheng, an attack of this caliber was less than a tickle.

He ignored her, simply continuing his questions. ”What kind of institution teaches people how to find others’ addresses? What’s its name?”

”They only taught the basics. The rest I figured out on my own.” Zhu Xuan let out a slow sigh. ”In this day and age, information is practically transparent. Food delivery, express packages, phone numbers... it’s simple to find someone’s address.”

Zhuang Yanzheng looked at her. ”What’s your computer password?”

Zhu Xuan paused for a moment before reciting a password—a string of letters and numbers mixed with various symbols.

The officer beside them immediately wrote it down.

Seeing that the officer had finished writing, Zhuang Yanzheng had Zhu Xuan repeat it.

Once he confirmed she had said the same thing twice, he had them take the password to the tech department.

”I’ve confessed everything I’m supposed to. Are we done?” Zhu Xuan asked.

”Who taught you martial arts?” Zhuang Yanzheng asked.

”Self-taught,” Zhu Xuan said.

”Self-taught?” Zhuang Yanzheng repeated. ”You killed people. Your dismemberment technique was clumsy, but your method of killing was clean and decisive. What kind of self-taught martial art makes you so proficient at killing?”

’Plus, she was far too calm. A normal person, no matter how deep their hatred, would feel fear the moment the blade broke through skin and flesh.’

Zhu Xuan didn’t speak.

Seeing her silence, Zhuang Yanzheng looked down at her file again.

From Ji City, thirty-two years old.

Parents both deceased when she was eight.

The file then listed her schooling information, all of which was in Ji City.

”After your parents passed away, who took care of you?” Zhuang Yanzheng asked.

”My grandparents,” Zhu Xuan answered.

Zhuang Yanzheng looked at the information they had gathered. There was nothing about her grandparents. ”And then?”

”Later, when I was in my teens, my grandparents passed away, and I lived on my own,” Zhu Xuan said. ”I applied for student loans to go to college.”

”When did your grandparents pass away?” Zhuang Yanzheng asked again.

”When I was ten, my grandfather passed away. When I was seventeen, my grandmother passed away,” Zhu Xuan said.

Zhuang Yanzheng watched her expression.

Her expression had only changed noticeably when Shi Xiaoru’s name was mentioned. The rest of the time, it was placid.

Zhuang Yanzheng had someone contact the local police to verify.

He felt something wasn’t quite right.

”Besides your grandparents, do you have any other relatives?”

”No,” Zhu Xuan said.

”You’re lying,” Zhuang Yanzheng said.

”Yes, that’s right. I lied. So what? What can you do to me if I don’t want to tell the truth?” Zhu Xuan said with a smile.

Zhuang Yanzheng narrowed his eyes.

”What can you possibly do to me? The outcome for me is death. Now that it’s come to this, what do I have left to fear? I’ll say what I want, and if there’s something I don’t want to say, there’s nothing you can do about it.” Zhu Xuan looked toward the camera. ”Even if you turn that off, I still won’t say what I don’t want to. Your whole ’leniency for confessors’ routine is useless on me.”

Zhuang Yanzheng looked at her.

’This is the kind of person who looks unassuming but is stubborn to the core.’

’It’ll be difficult to pry anything she doesn’t want to talk about from her.’

Zhuang Yanzheng said nothing more. He closed the file in his hands, deciding to wait until the Ji City police came back with more detailed information about Zhu Xuan’s family before questioning her again.

Shi Xiaoru would be arriving in Jinghai this afternoon as well.

He could also question her.

Just as he was about to stand, Zhu Xuan spoke again. ”Don’t waste your energy. Even if you interrogate me in shifts for forty-eight or seventy-two hours, I’m not going to say anything I don’t want to.”

Zhuang Yanzheng still said nothing and left the interrogation room.

Su Miaoyi took off her headphones to find him.

They met, exchanged a look without a word, and walked toward the main office area together.

As noon approached, news came back from the Ji City police.

They had gone to the address listed for her in her hometown.

After asking the neighbors, they confirmed that a family with the surname Zhu had indeed lived there.

An elderly couple raising their young granddaughter.

But after the couple passed away, one after the other, their granddaughter never returned.

They showed the neighbors a photo of Zhu Xuan, but after so many years, none of them could recognize her clearly.

Some said it looked like her, while others said they couldn’t really tell and weren’t sure.

「In the conference room.」

After Zhuang Yanzheng relayed this information, everyone was silent for a moment.

Lu Zhishen looked at Zhu Xuan’s file.

Her academic history was there, from elementary school to college.

But the photos in the file only started from high school.

”Zhu Xuan said her grandmother passed away when she was seventeen. The neighbors in her hometown in Ji City said that after her grandparents died, she disappeared.” Lu Zhishen had been up all night. He was already fair-skinned, but now he looked even more pallid. He felt like his brain was about to shut down as he spoke.

It might have actually stopped for a second, because he paused.

Everyone waited for him for a few seconds.

He continued, ”The photo in her file is from high school, when she was sixteen or seventeen. The neighbors shouldn’t have been so uncertain.”

”I agree,” Qi Feng said. ”I lived in my hometown until I started middle school, and I was a chubby kid. I went back over a decade later, having lost the equivalent of a whole person in weight, and the old folks there still recognized me at a glance.”

”Besides, a lot of the information in Zhu Xuan’s file is vague,” Zhuang Yanzheng added. ”Even if the internet wasn’t as developed when she was a child, there shouldn’t be this little information. Even without the internet, the local authorities should have had records back then, and everything would have been registered and compiled later on.”

Zhu Xuan’s file only mentioned her parents’ deaths.

There was no information about her grandparents.

There should have been records from things like the census between the ages of seven and seventeen.

”Could her identity be fake?” Chu Xingrou asked.

’If it’s fake...’

’Then there really was a Zhu family in Ji City back then, with a granddaughter living with her grandparents.’

’But that granddaughter isn’t the Zhu Xuan they have now.’

”Or the information is real, and Zhu Xuan’s excellent fighting skills are because she met someone after her grandparents passed away. It’s also possible she met this person in recent years,” Yan Cheng proposed.

Zhuang Yanzheng nodded. That was also a plausible theory.

He glanced at the time. Shi Xiaoru’s flight was due to land in two hours.

”Let’s all go eat first.”

Everyone walked out.

After leaving the conference room, Su Miaoyi walked with her head tilted onto Chu Xingrou’s shoulder.

She’d gotten cold that morning, and now her nose was getting stuffy.

The stuffy nose made her head feel fuzzy.

Chu Xingrou felt her forehead. It wasn’t hot. ”We’ve caught the killer, Sister Miaomiao. Why don’t you head home after you eat?”

”I’m fine,” Su Miaoyi said. ”I’m just hungry. I’ll be fine once I’ve eaten.”

”Eat noodles,” said the voice in her head.

Su Miaoyi closed her eyes and followed Chu Xingrou toward the cafeteria, silently conversing with the voice in her head. ”I think *you* look like noodles.”

”I look the same as you,” the voice in her head said.

Su Miaoyi decided to ignore the voice. When they reached the stairwell, she straightened up and started down the stairs.

She had only gone down a few steps when she suddenly froze.

Chu Xingrou stopped with her. ”Sister Miaomiao, what’s wrong?”

Su Miaoyi looked at her, stunned for a few seconds, then said, ”You go on to the cafeteria. I need to talk to Captain Zhuang about something.”

”Oh.”

Su Miaoyi turned, went back upstairs, and ran back to the conference room.

Zhuang Yanzheng was just coming out of the conference room.

Su Miaoyi ran up to him, grabbed his arm, and pulled him back into the conference room...