Leading Inspector Ji up the block made me feel like Xiao’erlang, the young cowherder of an old folktale who led the enemy towards the trap that the troops had set instead of the village. But while Xiao’erlang would eventually bravely sacrifice his life to protect his fellow villagers from harm, I was hoping to get out of this without being implicated at all.

But for some reason, I had a bad feeling about this. I kept feeling like he was going to see right through the trap I had spent so much time and effort in setting up and all the hard work I had put into this was going to waste.

That made me feel indignant. I went through every tiny detail in my plan, but couldn’t find any loopholes. I was probably worrying too much.

As I consoled myself, Inspector Ji was peering out of the window where Daning had jumped from.

From the way he bent down to look out, I assumed he must be looking down at the place where Daning died. Actually, from the moment I had decided to commit suicide this way, I had spent countless nights standing in this exact position and looking down at the ground downstairs. I knew what sort of view he was looking at even with my eyes closed.

But Inspector Ji continued to lean against the window without saying anything for a long time, which made me start to feel uneasy.

What was he looking at? Why was he staring so intently for so long?

Just when my anxieties were about to overwhelm me, Inspector Ji broke his silence. He undid his first shirt button and panted as he said, “Gosh, it’s so tiring to climb the stairs all the way up here on a hot day! Your school should really install an elevator!”

It turned out that he was just taking a breather and not making observations about the area downstairs. That made me feel a little relieved.

Inspector Ji’s forehead was covered with perspiration as a cool wind blew at him, making him feel a little chilly and he even sneezed a few times, so he quickly walked away from the window. But his legs were still tired, so he looked around for something to lean against. He turned and noticed those condemned desks in the corner and quickly made his way towards them like he had spotted treasure.

My heart started thumping nervously when I first saw Inspector Ji make a dash for those desks. But I calmed back down once I saw that all he did was to turn around and lean against one of the desks. Coincidentally, the desk he was leaning against was the exact same one I was prepared to use for my eventual jump.

Inspector Ji had made this grand journey all the way up to the top floor just to take a closer look at what could have happened, but he had no idea that the most important piece of evidence was right under his own butt. I guess this was like looking for the donkey while riding it.

After Inspector Ji rested for a short while, he got to work. He could see the library through the window from where he was standing, so he pointed at the library and asked, “What place is that?”

“The library,” I replied.

He fell into deep thought for a while, then said, “If the victim had been pushed down, then the murderer might have leaned out of the window to look downstairs like I did earlier after pushing the victim down. That means that the students studying in the library in the block opposite might have seen the murderer’s face!”

I really wanted to tell him that the school library wasn’t open during lunchtime, but he had already gone ahead to tell his subordinates to go there and investigate before I could say anything.

After he was done giving his subordinates instructions, he looked around the floor we were on and was done with his investigation. He didn’t really want to have to climb all the way back down again and stayed where he was for some time. In the end, he lit a cigarette and leaned against that desk again to save up some energy before heading downstairs.

As he smoked, he suddenly asked me a question, “What do you think makes me different from ordinary cops?”

I figured he was going to start blowing his own trumpet again, so I quickly said what a bootlicker would say, “You’re an inspector and the rest are just police officers.”

“That’s just what you see on the outside. You’ve got to look past the surface and look deeper.”

I had no idea what the answer was and shook my head.

Inspector Ji didn’t blame me for being ignorant and gave me the answer he was looking for, “The difference between myself and ordinary cops is that…I’m extraordinary!”

He glanced at me, then continued to praise himself, “Most cops are very results oriented. Once they find any evidence, they immediately start arresting suspects and interrogating them. Not only does this often result in wrongful arrests, but it also raises the alarm for the actual perp. But I’m not like that. I was born ambitious but calm, quiet yet forward looking. I make sure that I’m cautious and professional when it comes to my work. And because of that, I crack cases very differently from other police officers. They see finding suspects as the key to cracking a case, while I’m more concerned with checking if the evidence we have is genuine.”

After that, he started applying all that to the current case at hand. “Let’s take this case as an example. After finding that button, the first thing I should have done was to arrest the owner of that button and question him, but I didn’t do that for one simple reason. The button wasn’t found in the victim’s hand, but in the area around him. That creates several questions here. What if that button had already been lost and the victim happened to land in the same area, causing them to be discovered together? Or what if someone had killed the victim, then purposely left the button somewhere near the body so as to frame another person for the crime? In short, we’re unable to conclusively name any suspect as the criminal because of such questions. Since that’s the case, we shouldn’t raise the alarm by calling any suspects in for questioning.”

Inspector Ji was an expert at making conjectures, but he was even better at allowing suspects to get away. After listening to his analysis, I couldn’t help but ask, “So, you’re just going to let the real murderer roam about scot-free?”

He said in a righteous tone of voice, “Of course not!”

I asked curiously, “If you still can’t be sure of who the killer is even with such an important piece of evidence, then…do you have a better way of solving this case?”

Somehow, he didn’t seem tired anymore when it came to talking about his philosophies. “Of course I do!”

“How?”

Inspector Ji smiled widely but didn’t say anything. Instead, he looked out towards the library that was directly across from us, then murmured as he explained, “From time immemorial, all cases will involve human witnesses and physical evidence. Having only a witness is not enough since a witness can lie. Having physical evidence alone is also insufficient, because one can always create false evidence!”

He paused for a moment, then looked up and laughed loudly and slowly like the ancient Chinese chancellor, Zhuge Liang. “We’re almost done with this case! We’re just missing one last detail!”

The implied meaning of his words was very obvious. He was going to count on cracking the case with an eyewitness. If I had known that this was the way this man worked, I would have pretended to be an eyewitness!

As I felt much regret in my heart, I also tried sounding him out, “And what if you can’t find any eyewitnesses?”

But he was very confident. “That’s impossible. Haven’t you heard of the saying? The only way for one not to be found out is to not do anything in the first place. As long as someone’s committed a crime, we’re bound to find out about it! And this happened in broad daylight too!”

Immediately after he said these words, his subordinate called to tell him that they couldn’t get any information from the library.

An eyewitness was very vital to the case, so Inspector Ji refused to let this go. He raised his voice at his subordinate, “That’s impossible! It must be because you weren’t detailed enough in your investigations! Go and investigate one more time!”

The poor police officer defended himself, “There were really no eyewitnesses because the library isn’t open during lunchtime, which is the time the victim died.”

Inspector Ji didn’t know what to say to that and hung up in embarrassment.

“What do we do now?” I asked. “Surely you’re not going to let someone die for nothing, right?”

Inspector Ji was feeling deflated but didn’t show it on his face. He consoled himself while consoling me, “Of course I’m not going to let that happen. I know what else I can do!”

I quickly asked, “What else can you do?”

He didn’t actually have any answer for me, so he was about to say that I was not privy to such matters as a member of the public when his phone suddenly started ringing again. The lab report on the button was out.

The caller said, “After looking carefully at the thread that was still connected to the button, we discovered that this button wasn’t pulled off.”

“Then?”

“Someone cut it off with something sharp.”

I was right next to Inspector Ji when the caller said these words. His words could be heard very clearly by Inspector Ji, and I could hear him very clearly as well.

My heart began to pound anxiously as it sank in regret.

How…how could I have missed out such an important detail?!