Mingshen tilted his head, mused with her confidence. "I don’t understand, Spicy. How will I know anything? I am not a fortune teller."
Jia smiled. "Of course not. You are not a fortune teller. But you are a master manipulator for sure. The first day of the investigation when Xiyang left Yun to your care...Yun had spilled out everything to you of what he saw, didn’t he? He caught Ma Zhilan killing Dai Yaling.
He might have not understood what was really happening, but he clearly saw her struggling. Ma Zhilan urged him to keep quiet. But he still called out Yin Xiaoling and then Dai Fengge to bring their attention. As soone who wanted her dead themselves, they didn’t pay him any heed."
Mingshen arched his brow. "Is that so? That doesn’t have anything to do with though."
"You do. You looked after Yun for soti and when you returned, Yun exposed Dai Fengge and Yin Xiaoling for ignoring his calls."
Her sharp hawk-like gaze never left him for a mont. "But strangely, he didn’t call out Ma Zhilan as the culprit. And this is BEFORE he talked to Ma Zhilan and Dai ihui about it. Why would he lie then? I always felt odd that he saw Dai Yaling suffering but not the one attacking her at such a close distance. He is the first-hand witness, but he didn’t co forward with the truth. You told him not to, didn’t you?"
"I did no such thing~"
Jia continued despite his denial. "You, Yun and Ma Zhilan were together outside the theater when Huojin and I were questioning Dai Fengge and Yin Xiaoling for the second ti. Ma Zhilan must have told you the whole story then. How they t, how they planned it and their reasons behind it too. Ma Zhilan most probably didn’t want to take the risk of calling Dai ihui when the police were around. So you called her and gave your phone to Yun. The very call you charged Dai Fengge 375 Yuan for."
He simply chuckled.
"It was at that ti when she asked her son to not say a word about what he saw. Ma Zhilan must have talked to him too, explaining the sa request. You lended him your phone so that his mother could understand the situation too. It was right under my nose that you were adeptly manipulating the case all along."
"You concoct so seriously wild theories, Spicy," he bead with interest. "I find it fascinating."
"Theories?" A knowing smile curved her lips, "When Huojin and I were discussing motives, Dai ihui was obviously on the list. But you casually questioned that if she was at her office in Gucheng, then she couldn’t fly to Dongdan and possibly kill her mother-in-law. She couldn’t be at two places at the sa ti. You wanted us to brush her away as a suspect by pointing out the impossibility of her presence.
You also made a passing statent that Ma Zhilan was in a critical condition because of her panic attack, which was true. She is not a hardened criminal. Maybe the remorse of killing a person overwheld her suddenly at the bureau. But your tone...you made us feel as if a kind elderly woman like Ma Zhilan could not possibly be a killer."
"You must be lacking a lot of sleep, don’t you?" He yawned. "Any more theories?"
"The bite mark on Ma Zhilan’s palm."
Mingshen narrowed his eyes.
"Did you suggest she fake it as a dog bite? You must have probably noticed her band-aid while you were together. The bite of human teeth marks would have obviously put her on the spot. The marks were evidence of Dai Yaling’s resistance."
"I am touched that you think of as such a clever and intelligent man, which I obviously am, but the cool grandma with cool eyesight is equally very smart~ Certainly, there is so intelligence left in other humans too," he rrily chirped.
"This is not funny, Mingshen."
"Everything is an amusent for , my dear," his irises glimred with craftiness.
Jia’s gaze hardened like steel. "Then is Wu Yue’s drug addiction also just an amusent to you? I don’t think so. In fact, I believe when you figured out her addiction, you purposely ntioned it to us to lead the investigation astray. To distract us. You wanted us to chase after Wang Lei, the drug supply chain and a possible motive to bring Wu Yue on my radar..."
She took a small but somber towards him, eting his guileful gaze. "Lines 1, 2, 5, 8, 11, 14, 5 and 17. Rember them?"
"The lines which my n were investigating. You have a problem with that too?"
She smiled. "You must have not expected before pointing your finger at Wu Yue that the drug supply chain would involve the subway and its lines in their operation. But when you did, you suddenly recognized your error. Dai ihui and Ma Zhilan were connected through the sa subway. What if Huojin or I stumbled upon that connection?
They admitted that they t each other before but in a way to make us feel as if that was the only eting between them. But if we figured that they both took the subway, leaving hos at similar tis and their destinations that fell on the sa line - it was very much possible to deduce that they might be taking the sa train too. That’s why you included Lines 1 and 14’s investigation in your list because you wanted to keep away from that route. I don’t think you checking out Lines 1 and 14 was just a simple coincidence."
Mingshen lazily put his hands in his coat’s pockets, excluding his devilish charm. "Spicy. I am just a lead forensic expert here. I explain the dical jargon and you figure out the rest, right? I am the doctor. You are the investigator. Simple equation."
"And when were you ever normal to act the usual way? Tell , Mingshen. Why did you go so far? You knew everything from the beginning, yet you stalled the investigation and steered it in a way to drive our attention away from Ma Zhilan and Dai ihui. If you knew the truth then why didn’t you say so before?" She peered straight into his eyes, demanding an answer.
It was evident that she wouldn’t let this go until Mingshen admitted his sly involvent in manipulating the case.
Mingshen t her questioning gaze in silence. Even in that dimness of the theater, her clear eyes glistened with the desire to search for the truth.
He took two steps towards her until their chests almost collided. The distance left between them was less than an inch, their faces so close that their noses could bump against each other. The contours of his alluring face was formidable enough to make a woman weak in her knees. But the proximity didn’t affect Jia one bit. Her stance remained firm and unwavering.
"I told you, Spicy..." his voice eluded as a sultry hush, raising his finger that hovered on Jia’s lips but only a tiny fraction of space separating the contact.
"I speak or keep my silence according to my own will."
Jia rembered those words very well.
"I will speak up when I want to, and I will stay quiet when I wish so too. Nobody can coerce Yang Mingshen to do otherwise, certainly not your justice."
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