The forensic doctor concluded that Guo Jiangyin died on Saturday afternoon. But because we had already planned to kill Han Shaoqing and disguise it as a suicide, as her accomplice, I had purposely ensured that I had an alibi for the past few days. This had inadvertently helped to clear me of any suspicion that I might have killed Guo Jiangyin.

But even so, the inspector in charge, Inspector Ji, was still suspicious of why I had appeared in the victim’s rented apartment so late at night, so he kept asking me about why I was there.

I figured that if I told him that I was there to take something from Guo Jiangyin, the police would definitely investigate this item further and our murder plan would eventually be exposed. But I couldn’t think of a plausible reason on the spot either.

Inspector Ji became even more certain that something was fishy when he noticed how quiet I was. “Were you and the victim hiding some shameful secret or something along those lines?”

I was feeling guilty, so I quickly defended myself, “Wh-what secret could we possibly have?”

Inspector Ji noticed my reaction and raised his voice, “No secret? Then why would both of you arrange to meet secretly so late at night? You’d better come clean with me right now!”

I pretended to be completely clueless. “It’s not that I don’t want to come clean – I don’t have anything to come clean about!”

He became even angrier and gave me one last warning, “Don’t you know that the law will punish those who purposely try to evade it and deny their crimes even harder than those who admit it early?”

I got angry at this too and retorted, “That applies to criminals, doesn’t it? There is sufficient evidence to prove that I wasn’t there when she died and therefore I’m not the murderer! Look, I’m not sitting here to be interrogated. I’ve agreed to talk to you because I want to assist the police in their investigations and seek justice for the dead!”

He didn’t buy it at all, since he was always suspicious of everything in the world. He replied to my retort, “You might have a perfect alibi, but that doesn’t mean you’re not guilty of a crime!”

I blinked in surprise. “What do you mean?”

He unleashed his imagination and began thinking about who I could be. “You could be an accomplice. Someone else committed the murder and you were to help to deal with the dead body. Both of you could have been on it together so that you could cover up for one another.”

Beads of cold sweat started oozing out from my forehead.

He continued with his conjecture, “But unfortunately for you, after the murderer killed the victim, something happened before you could deal with the body. Someone else had discovered the body and called the police!”

I argued, “But if that’s true, then the murderer would be sure to cover his or her tracks well. Why would this person leave the door ajar and allow someone to discover the dead body so easily?”

The fact that I had pointed out loopholes in his theory didn’t seem to faze him at all. He just waved it off like it didn’t matter and said, “Either way, so long as you don’t tell us exactly why you appeared at the victim’s house at that hour, the police will have no choice but to investigate the case from this angle.”

That was clearly a threat! I kept quiet and began to think of what I could do now.

He could see that I was struggling inside, so he pretended to sound magnanimous as he said, “The police aren’t heartless people either. We will give you sufficient time to think things through.” But immediately after he said that, he made himself sound like the emcee of One Million Star* and began a dramatic countdown, “Five! Four! Three! Two! One!”

When his countdown hit “one”, I suddenly thought of a reason that could cover up the real reason perfectly.

I said, “I went to look for Guo Jiangyin so late at night because…because we’re actually lovers.”

This explanation clearly did not satisfy Inspector Ji. “It’s normal for young people to fall in love and go out with one another. There was no need to hide that. Since you claim to be lovers, I’ll confirm this with her parents.”

“We just got together last month so we haven’t told our parents yet.”

He wasn’t letting this go. “Small matter. Two of you work in the same department, so I’m sure at least your colleagues know, right?”

“No, we were dating secretly. The company has a policy against employees dating each other.”

“So, your colleagues don’t know and you didn’t inform your parents. Do you expect the police to believe you without any other evidence to back you up?”

I figured that when it came to something that nobody could prove or disprove, I just had to insist on it and the police would have no choice but to accept it.

Just then, a police officer walked into the interrogation room with a bottle of mineral water in hand.

That bottle was of the same brand as the ones next to Guo Jiangyin’s door. As far as I knew, Guo Jiangyin had bought these bottles because she originally intended to poison Han Shaoqing to death with the water. Now that a police officer had come looking for Inspector Ji with a similar bottle, I was sure the police had discovered something.

Just as I had expected, the two policemen exchanged a few whispers and the police officer left the room after that, leaving that bottle behind. Inspector Ji didn’t look as frustrated anymore too. He had clearly gotten hold of new clues and decided to stop asking me about why I was at Guo Jiangyin’s house at that hour.

He changed the topic, “Did the victim have a habit of drinking mineral water?”

I was already prepared for such a question, so I shook my head and said, “No.”

He nodded. “The victim had one of those large water dispensers at home, so she would have been drinking out of that and there would be no need for her to buy more bottles of mineral water. But we discovered at least seven or eight bottles in her home. What do you think?”

I pretended to be confused. “What’s the problem here?”

He smiled and asked me another question instead, “What do you think makes me different from ordinary cops?”

I figured he was going to blow his own trumpet, so I quickly buttered him up, “You’re an inspector, they’re just police officers.”

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

I had no idea what answer he wanted, so I shook my head.

He didn’t chide me for my ignorance and enlightened me himself, “I’m different from ordinary cops in that I’m…extraordinary!”

After saying that, he glanced at me, then continued praising himself, “The ordinary cop tends to go through a similar and narrow thought process for each case. They would start the investigations by looking for clues around the body, then continue their investigations until they finally piece the big picture together. But not me. I’m a big picture person, so I know how to start from the big picture and take note of every tiny detail, making sure I don’t miss anything.”

Now that he was done explaining his way of working, he applied it to the current case. “Let’s take this case as an example. Everybody is focused on the victim’s body, so all their investigations have begun from there. But I didn’t do that. I’m more concerned about the details that have nothing to do with the body, like this bottle of mineral water, for example. The victim had a huge water dispenser in her home, so why did she buy additional bottles of mineral water? And because I had that question in mind, I instructed my subordinates to send it to the lab for testing. Guess what they found? Several bottles actually contained poison! That’s enough for us to conclude that Guo Jiangyin’s death was not an accident.”

I thought, crap, crap, crap! The police have seen through Guo Jiangyin’s plan to poison Han Shaoqing to death! Would they continue investigating in this direction and discover our murder plan?

Just when I was worrying about this, I heard Inspector Ji continue, “I think that before the murderer strangled Guo Jiangyin to death, the original plan was to actually poison Guo Jiangyin. But something must have happened in between which made the murderer decide to strangle her instead.”

One really had to admire Inspector Ji for his bold conjectures. The way his logic worked actually gave me a pleasant surprise!

He went on, “Since you were lovers with Guo Jiangyin, I’m sure you would want the police to arrest the real murderer as soon as possible. So, let me ask you a few questions.”

“Please go ahead.”

He went straight to the point. “Who do you think the killer is?”

Honestly, I had no clue how Guo Jiangyin ended up dead in her own home, but I still felt that the most likely suspect was Han Shaoqing. But I couldn’t tell the police that directly.

Inspector Ji didn’t give up even after I shook my head and asked a second question, “Do you know if Guo Jiangyin had been unhappy about anything lately?”

I decided that it was best not to talk about how Han Shaoqing had been blackmailing Guo Jiangyin because I could be implicated.

After I shook my head again, Inspector Ji sighed and decided to approach this differently. He pointed at the bottle of mineral water on the table and asked, “What about the mineral water? Since you were her boyfriend, surely you’ve got some clues for me, right?”

“Clues…” I went into deep thought for a while. It did seem weird if I just didn’t seem to know anything. If I failed to provide him with any clues, the police might start suspecting me again,

A thought struck me and I quickly said, “We have a colleague in the department who often drinks this brand of mineral water. Would that count as a clue?”

This was something that the entire department knew about, so even if I didn’t say it first, someone else would.

TL notes:

*One Million Star: A popular talent singing competition based in Taiwan that revealed the results of each round by counting down.