Breaking Through The Clouds

Chapter 81

Bu Wei was like white algae swaying at the bottom of the river. After a long while, she finally stepped into the ward and closed the door with her backhand. Then she walked toward the bed and sat down straight.

This angle made her and Jiang Ting look at each other face to face - as if some curse in the underworld was silently lifted, finally breaking free from the bottom to the top.

She asked: "What do you want me to answer?"

"Although it happened the night before, I don't think the police had time to tell you." Jiang Ting paused and said, "Wang Xingye is dead."

Bu Wei's face was blank as if she hadn't had time to think about what emotions to fill on the whiteboard, and after a few seconds, surprise, shock, and a trace of fear slowly surfaced: "...Wh...what?"

"He fell from the roof of a residential building in Gongzhou. The body was found early the next morning, and the police initially determined that it was suicide because of fear of punishment."

Jiang Ting's upper body was leaning on the back of the armchair. His posture was natural and calm, which was the opposite of the girl's stiff and somewhat deliberately upright sitting posture. After a long time, Bu Wei seemed to have barely digested the bad news that couldn't be called sad. She trembled and said hoarsely: "...It's too sudden, I didn't expect..."

"Really?"

Bu Wei's voice froze and she looked at Jiang Ting, who repeated it in her line of sight: "You really didn't expect it?"

"...I don't understand what you mean."

"I thought you had expected Wang Xingye to die when you said the words 'the kidnapper is my uncle' in front of Yan Xie." Jiang Ting said slowly, "-Or earlier when you heard Yan Xie and the others discussing privately that the chances of Shen Xiaoqi waking up was very high, and you decided to take the lead to throw Wang Xingye to divert their attention..."

"I don't understand what you're talking about?" Bu Wei's sharp voice interrupted Jiang Ting: "It was the kidnappers who forced me to push Shen Xiaoqi down. What's wrong with me telling the truth?"

"There is nothing wrong."

"..."

"But the only one who can prove this, Wang Xingye, is dead." a smile appeared under Jiang Ting's eyes, but there was no friendliness and kindness in it: "That is to say, no one can prove that whether you were coerced into the killing, actively cooperated, was an accomplice, or even... from the very beginning, actively asked to kill Shen Xiaoqi."

Bu Wei's expression was a bit strange, like two opposite expressions of fierce staring and weak innocence infiltrating from inside and out, intertwining together so that when she spoke, her voice was a little distorted: "Uncle police officer, I'm just a poor student. Have I offended you?"

"Don't think too much. It's just normal logical speculation from the perspective of the criminal investigation." Jiang Ting's expression was much blander: "By the way, maybe they forgot to tell you that you are not the first victim - In one of Wang Xingye's hiding places, we found a notebook or an archive to be exact, which recorded the first two girls Teng Wenyan and Li Yuxi. Have you heard of these two names?"

Bu Wei shook her head vigilantly: "...I don't know."

"I guess you probably don't know. Teng Wenyan was discovered by Wang Xingye in Lingzhou five years ago. In mid-July two years ago, she was kidnapped and killed together with another teenager named Li Rui. Li Yuxin was discovered by Wang Xingye four years ago in Jiangyang County. In mid-July last year, she and another boy named He Liang were kidnapped. He Liang was subsequently killed, and Li Yuxin suffered from severe PTSD. Similarly, you also encountered this kind of thing after being adopted for three years. It seems three years is like a shelf life. Once the freshness wears off and the shelf life is over, they become worthless."