The Creator's Grace (GL) - Chapter 9
Recalling her probing questions from last night, and Ran Jin’s straightforward admission of having access to her sister’s lounge, Chi Yu was even more astonished. How much audacity and confidence did she possess to admit it so openly?
Perhaps she truly believed the surveillance footage had been completely destroyed.
Chi Yu and Qi Tong continued watching the video.
Ran Jin used facial recognition to unlock the access and entered Chi Li’s lounge, emerging 28 minutes later.
When she came out the second time, Ran Jin was still wearing her hat, sunglasses, and mask. She had taken off her coat, which she held bundled in her arms, wearing only a shirt.
She strode out, not appearing flustered, but rather with a composure that wouldn’t attract attention, quickly leaving the surveillance range.
Qi Tong stroked her chin and said, “That’s a bit strange. If she really stabbed her twelve times, that would require immense hatred to inflict such severe wounds. Her emotions must have been highly agitated. How could she still be so composed after coming out?”
Chi Yu said, “Because she came prepared. She definitely came with the intention of killing my sister, everything was planned beforehand. There was no need for any negotiation, no verbal stimulation, so her emotions might not have changed. Besides, she has always had excellent psychological resilience. I’ve hardly ever seen her lose control of her emotions, except…”
At this point, Chi Yu paused, as if something had occurred to her. Her thoughts drifted to a memory, but quickly returned, and she continued:
“So, her not being flustered isn’t strange. 28 minutes is enough time for her to successfully ambush her and clean up any traces left at the scene. Her coat was probably covered in bl00d, so she took it off.”
The video ended, and the two fell silent.
Chi Yu tried hard to calm her frustrated and explosive heart, and drank the coffee on the table.
The bitterness of the coffee soothed her a little, and she thought of another important matter.
“If you could get this surveillance footage, there’s no way the police couldn’t. With such conclusive evidence, why haven’t they arrested anyone?”
Qi Tong said, “Remember I told you about your sister-in-law having close ties with the police station? Her relationship with a police officer surnamed Lu is very subtle. I investigated these two people. On the surface, they never interact, but privately they have many recorded meetings. Especially in the month before your sister’s accident, they met more than twenty times in a month, you could say almost every day.”
“Are you saying that this police officer surnamed Lu helped her destroy the real autopsy report and surveillance footage?”
“Whether this officer surnamed Lu was the one who tampered with things can’t be confirmed for now.” Qi Tong spread a file open in front of Chi Yu.
Chi Yu glanced at it. In the two-inch photo on the file, a woman in a police uniform had her long hair neatly pulled back. She had almond-shaped eyes and thin lips, a naturally sweet appearance, but when her features were put together, combined with her expression, one could clearly sense the decisiveness and ruthlessness emanating from her face.
“Lu Siqing,” Chi Yu read the slightly awkward three characters, trying to remember them.
“I’ve checked this Lu Siqing. She’s the deputy chief of the Criminal Investigation Division of the South Bank Branch, the same age as your sister-in-law, 29 this year, and just got promoted. She recused herself from your sister’s case and has been away on a business trip these past few days.”
“She’s not my sister-in-law anymore,” Chi Yu reminded coldly.
“Yeah… okay, Ran Jin.” Qi Tong was genuinely afraid of Chi Yu, had been since they were little. As long as Chi Yu’s face darkened, Qi Tong would instinctively nod and bow, immediately correcting herself, looking like a humble little eunuch.
“Recused herself?” Chi Yu pondered the word. “Does the police station know about her relationship with Ran Jin?”
“Of course they know, because this Lu Siqing is a witness who can prove that Ran Jin was not at the scene when your sister was killed. Ran Jin has a very solid alibi.”
“How is that possible? The person in the surveillance footage is Ran Jin. Even if it’s only half her face, I can be sure, I won’t mistake her.”
“I know you definitely wouldn’t be wrong, but since this Ran Jin dared to commit the crime, and it was a planned crime, she must have made thorough preparations. This alibi is the key reason why she can’t be truly identified as a suspect so far.”
“What kind of alibi?”
“Live broadcast.” Qi Tong swiped her finger across the tablet, opened a certain app, found a live broadcast recording, and played it back for Chi Yu.
This was a live broadcast of a business interview. Besides Ran Jin, there were three other experts in the new energy field, sitting around a round table, talking animatedly about the future trends of new energy.
The host also specifically interviewed Ran Jin about the lunar mining rights.
This online live broadcast had hundreds of thousands of viewers, all of whom saw Ran Jin appear in the live broadcast room at the time of Chi Li’s death.
Hundreds of thousands of people were Ran Jin’s alibi.
“Ran Jin took Lu Siqing’s car to the live broadcast building. It’s said that after the incident, Ran Jin was summoned for questioning, and Lu Siqing even brought out her car’s dashcam footage to strongly prove that Ran Jin was in her car at the time, and she released all their conversation recordings. Through voiceprint recognition, it was confirmed that it was indeed Ran Jin’s voice. This evidence is already very solid, not to mention the live broadcast.
“From the moment Ran Jin entered the live broadcast building, if not hundreds, there were at least dozens of staff members following her throughout the process, coordinating work and confirming the program flow. If the viewers across the screen are only considered indirect witnesses, then the staff in the building all had direct contact with Ran Jin herself, solid, irrefutable evidence.”
Chi Yu took a map. Originally, she wanted to say, “Is it possible to create a time difference on the way to or from the location?” But after looking at the map, the distance between the golf course and the live broadcast building was 15 kilometers, and comparing it with the time of the incident, reason told her that for an ordinary person, this was completely impossible, unless Ran Jin had some special abilities.
However, the more irrefutable the evidence in plain sight, the more it seemed like a carefully prepared escape trick.
“And there’s one more thing that’s even more bizarre.” Qi Tong’s shoulders hunched slightly as she said this.
Chi Yu frowned slightly.
“I specifically checked your sister’s recent call records. Apart from one very strange thing, everything else was normal.”
“What thing?”
“Actually, the first thing I checked was your sister’s call records, because that’s the easiest to check. At the time, I didn’t feel much, but later, when I discovered that Ran Jin might be the murderer, and after comparing the times on the autopsy report and the surveillance video, I realized this strange thing.
“Your sister made a phone call very close to the time of her death. I suspect it’s very likely that because her secretary arrived, the murderer heard the movement and didn’t dare to stay any longer, leaving immediately without waiting to confirm she had passed away. So your sister still had one last breath left and made a phone call. Can you guess who your sister’s last phone call was to?”
Chi Yu was taken aback by her question.
Clearly, her sister’s last call wasn’t to her.
Chi Yu’s brow furrowed tightly. While feeling uneasy, she suspiciously uttered the most likely answer after thinking it over.
“Ran Jin?”
Qi Tong nodded vigorously. “Yes, it was Ran Jin.”
Chi Yu fell silent.
“If Ran Jin was really the murderer, why would your sister call the person who killed her? Shouldn’t she have called the person closest to her, called that secretary to rush in and save her? Or called you, her most beloved younger sister, to leave you a few words? She chose neither to call for help nor to call you, but instead called Ran Jin, who had just fled. Doesn’t this seem a bit illogical? Also, when was the will made? This is also crucial.”
Qi Tong felt a cold sweat break out all over her body as she spoke. She stood up, grabbed her shirt, and gently fanned herself. “If this phone call, which lasted over three minutes, hadn’t been made through an encrypted channel, with only a record and no way to find the content of the call, we could have solved the case by hearing what your sister said to Ran Jin at the very end.”
The two simultaneously fell into a longer silence. After thinking for a while, Qi Tong said again, “It’s not entirely illogical, there’s another possibility.”
Chi Yu looked at her.
“Your sister loved Ran Jin too much. Even knowing that she was the murderer, she still wanted to leave her last moments to her.”
Chi Yu: “…”
Qi Tong was frightened by Chi Yu’s sharp gaze. “I, I’m just offering a possible line of thought.”
Leaving Qi Tong’s studio, Chi Yu walked towards the open-air parking lot.
The cold current swept across the rooftop open-air parking lot, the cold wind like a knife, whipping the corners of Chi Yu’s trench coat into the air.
A layer of frost had already formed on the car windows. Chi Yu sat in the warm car, her nose slightly red. After pondering for a moment, she sent a WeChat message to Ran Jin.
[Are you at the company?]
Ran Jin always replied to her WeChat messages very quickly.
[Has your fever gone down? I have something to do, I’m outside. You rest well, I’ll come see you later.]
Words that were originally warm and considerate now seemed filled with nauseating hypocrisy in every stroke and dot.
Chi Yu didn’t reply. She threw her phone into the passenger seat, stepped on the accelerator, and the car sped towards the U.P. Building.