I See Murders Before They Happen

Chapter 189: Chapter 187: Wang Youxian Fled

Municipal Bureau.

When Su Miaoyi arrived, the only familiar face she saw was Brother Zheng.

”Where is everyone else?” Su Miaoyi asked.

”Out making an arrest,” Brother Zheng said. ”Captain Zhuang said I have a big mouth and didn’t let me go.”

Su Miaoyi looked at him.

Brother Zheng sighed. ”He holds a grudge.”

Su Miaoyi nodded.

”Just because I got hurt that one time? Is a torn fingernail not an injury?” Brother Zheng said, clutching his lower back.

Su Miaoyi nodded again. ”Brother Zheng, is your back hurting?”

”It’s an old injury,” Brother Zheng said, rubbing his lower back. ”Took a bullet there while chasing a fugitive. It acts up whenever it’s about to rain.”

”Do you have medicine?” Su Miaoyi asked.

”Just took some. It’ll stop hurting in a bit, I’ll be fine,” Brother Zheng said. ”Aren’t you curious who they went to arrest?”

”Who’d they go to arrest?” Su Miaoyi asked.

”Wang Youxian,” Brother Zheng said. ”The director of that show.”

”An arrest?”

”Yep,” Brother Zheng said. ”Surveillance was lifted this morning. Wang Youxian came out of his hotel, threw his phone in a parking lot trash can, and drove off.”

”The killer in this case was already arrested. He was interrogated all night yesterday and confessed to everything, which is why surveillance was lifted this morning.”

”But not long after surveillance was lifted, Captain Zhuang suddenly said Wang Youxian was a major suspect and needed to be brought in for questioning. By that time, his phone was already unreachable.”

”Wang Youxian’s residence in Jinghai is far from the Shunshi Film and Television Base, so there was no way he could have driven there in time. That’s why Captain Zhuang had someone check the surveillance footage from the hotel Wang Youxian had been staying at these past few days. They saw him leave the hotel, go to the parking lot, and toss a cloth bundle into a trash can.”

”Our guys were still monitoring the area, right? They hadn’t gotten far on their way back before they had to turn around. They dug the cloth bundle out of the trash can—it was his three cell phones.”

”After that, they kept checking surveillance feeds, and Captain Zhuang contacted the traffic police.”

”Since Wang Youxian hadn’t left the hotel that long ago, he was relatively easy to find. Once he was located, the traffic police tried to pull him over, but Wang Youxian drove right through their roadblock.”

Su Miaoyi’s mouth fell open. ”Was anyone hurt?” she asked nervously.

”No,” Brother Zheng said.

Su Miaoyi breathed a sigh of relief that no one was injured.

Wang Youxian... he was clearly acting out of a guilty conscience.

Su Miaoyi hadn’t seen a vision of him committing the murder. She had also ruled out Wang Youxian at the beginning and was worried that without direct evidence, he would try to argue his way out of it.

But now, it seemed things might be easier.

He was no longer under surveillance and was trying to make a quick getaway, only to be stopped right as he was about to escape.

Wang Youxian must have been on edge. When he was stopped, his first thought was probably that he had been exposed.

That would explain why he reacted that way.

With his nerves stretched taut and on the verge of a breakdown, having a glimmer of hope for escape snatched away could easily make someone act rashly.

”What’s the deal with Xu Yu?” Su Miaoyi asked.

Brother Zheng paced back and forth, one hand on his back. ”The tech department took apart the murder device. They extracted sweat from one of the components inside, then got a DNA profile from it. It matched Xu Yu’s.”

Su Miaoyi watched him pace. ”Would it be better if you sat down?”

”No, walking actually helps,” Brother Zheng said. ”Don’t worry, the medicine will kick in soon.”

Su Miaoyi nodded. ”So, Xu Yu confessed?”

”He did,” Brother Zheng said. ”He said he assembled the device himself and had the blade custom-made. He was also the one who placed the device under the floorboards. He even pasted the paper effigy under the device and attached the remote control to its hand.”

”When did he put the device under the floorboards?” Su Miaoyi asked.

Brother Zheng thought for a moment. ”You know how there was a three-day break between the filming of the first and second episodes?”

Seeing him pacing, Su Miaoyi didn’t sit either, choosing instead to lean against a desk. She nodded.

”The production team rented the venue two days before filming and then started setting it up. The night before Liu Namo’s death, Xu Yu snuck into the courtyard house when no one was around, avoided the surveillance cameras, and planted the device.”

Su Miaoyi said nothing. This production team had a lot of money.

They rented that courtyard house for a total of seven days.

She had seen their shooting schedule.

It was very relaxed, not a tight schedule at all.

All the filming was done in the first half of the night, with nothing scheduled for the later hours.

That gave Xu Yu a window of opportunity.

Besides, that coffin wasn’t terribly heavy. An adult man might not be able to lift it, but he could definitely push it.

There were, in fact, scratch marks on the floor at the scene from it being pushed.

But they had been repaired, so they wouldn’t be obvious during filming.

”He dug the hole in the floor over the course of three nights before placing the device,” Brother Zheng said. ”He’d do a little each day, then clean up, restore everything to its original state, and even repair the scratches on the floor to avoid having the props team curse him out the next day or get suspicious.”

Su Miaoyi frowned slightly.

Brother Zheng continued, ”Captain Zhuang asked if he wasn’t worried about being discovered, or about not having time to dig the hole on a given night. Xu Yu said he only decided to start the plan after seeing the shooting schedule. He said that if it were discovered, the props team would most likely assume the previous film crew had dug a hole and forgotten to fill it, or that it was a prop left behind by them.”

”That sort of thing happens a lot, so no one would think twice about it. If their own crew couldn’t use it, they’d just toss it in the back and forget about it.”

And sure enough, there were all sorts of dusty props piled up behind the main hall of the courtyard house.

”He had another remote control, didn’t he?” Su Miaoyi asked.

”Yes.”

”Where did he hide it?”

”Just as everyone suspected, Xu Yu said he flushed it down the toilet,” said Brother Zheng.

There was a restroom in the corner of the courtyard house.

A very small one.

You could only use the toilet inside; you had to go outside to wash your hands at a faucet.

At the time, they had wondered if the missing item had been flushed down the drain since they couldn’t find it anywhere.

After all, everyone was inside the courtyard house.

Before the police arrived, or even before they were called, there was plenty of time to dispose of it.

That night, Zhuang Yanzheng had people search the sewer pipes for the remote, but before she had to recuse herself, she hadn’t heard any news of it being found.

”So why did Xu Yu kill Liu Namo?”

Brother Zheng sighed. ”Xu Yu is an orphan.”

As soon as she heard the word ”orphan,” Su Miaoyi immediately thought of the Sunshine Welfare Institute.

Her eyes widened instantly.

Seeing her expression, Brother Zheng quickly said, ”It has nothing to do with the Sunshine Welfare Institute. Xu Yu’s hometown is in the Yu City Mountain Area. It’s very poor over there.”

”Xu Yu tested his way out of his hometown, and his tuition and living expenses for all four years of university were sponsored by Ye Qingwu.”

”Ye Qingwu?” Su Miaoyi repeated the name. ”The celebrity, Ye Qingwu?”

Brother Zheng nodded.

”I remember she quit the entertainment industry a few years ago and faded from the public eye,” Su Miaoyi said.

”She didn’t quit. She was driven insane by Liu Namo,” Brother Zheng said. ”She’s in a mental hospital now. Doesn’t recognize anyone.”

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