when the moon whispers

Chapter 426: Accomplice - Confession (Part )

Six accomplices in the case
Seventy-eight Confessions (Part 2)
At half past midnight, in the middle of the old room that had stood tall for more than twenty years, the sound of a Sanwu brand clock drifted slowly from some half-open old window of some household, and the sound was vague, as if covered with a layer of frost soaked by time.

The three-year-old girl trod barefoot on the cold corridor floor, covered her tear-stained face with her hands, and wiped the tears and eye mucus at the corners of her eyes with her fingers. She sobbed until she was drowsy, and took a few steps back to squat beside an idle, dusty sauerkraut jar near the terrace, mumbling incoherent words, pulling her thin shirt to curl herself up into a ball, and buried her head in her arms drowsily.

The sensor lights in the corridor and stairwell flickered on and off.

The little girl must have closed her eyes for a few minutes, and then fell headfirst onto the concrete floor in a half-asleep state. Her forehead was about to hit the gravel when a black figure ran quickly from the staircase landing to the water tank and reached out to grab the little girl's face, which was wet and sticky from crying.

The little girl then opened her eyes in a daze, tilted her head back, and stared at the flickering light behind the shadow's head for a long time at the face of the person hidden in the darkness. She let out a "wow" and burst into tears.

"…I want to find my mother—"

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When Jiang Mo, holding the police equipment on his back, led the team to rush to the door of the apartment building, Xue Yilian was just holding the crying little girl who was too sleepy to open her eyes and slowly walked down the landing.

Xue Yilian took great effort to tuck her hair and put the hat on tightly, but it was pulled away by the little girl, and her long hair like waves was quietly scattered on her shoulders. Her cheeks had become much thinner after not seeing her for a few days, and it was a bit difficult to hold the little girl with a little baby fat. Her palms were stroking the black and cold soles of the child's feet from time to time. She raised her eyes and saw a taxi that had just stopped at the curb of the community. She glanced at Jiang Mo, raised her chin as if to signal, and nodded gently in the direction of the woman on the side of the road who stood stupidly under the locust tree with a backpack in her arms after getting off the taxi. Then she gently stroked the back of the little girl in her arms and whispered softly in her ear.

"Wake up. Mom is back. Look behind."

The little girl didn't sleep well. She muttered "Auntie" or "Sister" in her throat. She rubbed her eyes and looked out of the door of the apartment building for a long time in a daze. Only when Jiang Mo's palms, which were tightly holding the baton, were sweating, did the little girl seem to wake up from her dream. She shouted "Mom" crisply from a distance, then slipped out of Xue Yilian's arms with her puffy little butt and jumped to the ground. She ran a few steps barefoot and suddenly turned around. She raised her head belatedly and glanced at the black duty uniforms behind her. Her eyelashes fluttered in confusion, and her eyes fell on a pair of silver handcuffs.

Jiang Mo followed her line of sight and frowned slightly. He raised his hand to block Xiao Letian, who was holding the handcuffs and looking dazed, behind him. He watched the little girl fly out with a pout. Then he turned sideways and looked at Xue Yilian who smoothed her hair calmly. He slightly tilted his body and waved at the little girl who was already in the woman's arms and was invited by the female police officer from the police station to the side to understand the situation. He raised his lips lightly.

"I ran away from my old three-story house and lived here a few days ago. The window of the girl's bedroom is right at the corridor - her mother seems to go to the hospital to take care of the elderly at night, and often comes back in the middle of the night. Sometimes I hear crying next door and stay with her at the window for a while. Today, when she woke up, there might be no one inside or outside the house, so she opened the door and ran out by herself, but the door was blown shut by the wind and she couldn't go home. I just saw her squatting in the corridor."

Xue Yilian raised her arms and held them in front of Jiang Mo, talking to herself. "I knew you were here when the car turned near Nanyang Road. It's only a few streets away, so it's only a matter of time before we turn it upside down. We can't hide... I don't know when her mother will be back today, so I carried her downstairs, thinking... either we run into you guys, or... send her to the Nanyang Road Police Station, so that she won't be in the same room with a dangerous person like me."

Jiang Mo pressed down the handcuffs that Xiao Letian had brought out again, and turned to look at the little girl who seemed to have noticed something and was looking over her shoulder. He then waved at Huang Xingjun, who had already put his gun on the top of the car door, and raised his chin to signal Xiao Letian to take people upstairs to investigate. He then turned around and held Xue Yilian's wrists with one hand. "Let's go. Let's talk about it when we get back."

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The interrogation room was the same one where Xue Yilian, as one of the key suspects, was invited back by Gu Xing and his team when Chen Zuoyi was murdered in the Shanqian bar. They spent a full 24 hours investigating the case but still found nothing.

Xue Yilian slowly finished the breakfast prepared for her by the office clerk, then quietly asked for the clerk's opinion, asked for a hot towel, and wiped her face leisurely.

Without her heavy makeup, Xue Yilian could finally see the slightly pale features in the incomplete photo of the orphanage. Her face did not show any of the anxiety and hardship that had tormented her for most of the night, but she also did not show any regret or remorse. As she folded the wet towel, she was as calm as a pool of stagnant water, calmly waiting for the final judgment that would descend on her head.

Gu Xing stared at the face on the surveillance screen without making a mistake. Through the camera, he saw Xue Yilian looking up as if she had sensed something. He sighed and turned to look at Jiang Mo, who was so hungry that he wolfed down the whole bun and choked and had to drink mineral water for a long time.

"Can't you take it easy? This is only at home. Can you pay attention to the image of the police force when you go out?"

Jiang Mo shrugged and laughed, "I didn't pay attention to this before when I didn't have a partner, so I don't need to pay attention to it now."

"Finally you have something to say to me, right? You better be more careful--" Gu Xing saw that she was still choking after drinking half a bottle of water, and sneered silently, and took his pot of freshly brewed strong tea to refill her bottle, "You have been practicing Tai Chi and walking in circles here for half the night? I just saw Xiao Luo and Pang Tuo's on-site inspection of her old house and the temporary house turned back to the compound. Didn't they bring back any valuable clues?"

"Not everything Xue Yilian said was true, but she wasn't completely lying either. At first, she was planning to use static to slow down the attack, but then she somehow convinced herself to confess everything she should and shouldn't. She took all the blame for the heart-digging case from four years ago to now. Fatty just said on the phone that she had a backpack full of work IDs hidden in the room she rented temporarily, most of which were used to scout the area near the crime scene...but-"

Jiang Mo finally swallowed the dead bread stuck in his throat and let out a long sigh.

"She hasn't revealed a single word about the whereabouts of the murder weapon and the tranquilizers."

Due to work and health reasons, I will be working on another day~
"Just go and don't ask again, the white clouds are endless."