Eyes that are the same as those of evil

Chapter 11: The Elopement Murder Case (Part 11) (The End)

With the case solved, everyone was in the mood to care about other things. The technicians, forensic scientists, and DNA lab staff got together to talk about Tan Jia.

"Tan Ming's cousin, right? The one with the wolf tail, Polaris?"

"That girl sitting in the police station lobby these past few days? I was wondering why the motorcycle girl we arrested was being brought here. Turns out it was her."

Tan Ming was busy investigating the case and hadn't heard any discussions about Tan Jia. He said with dissatisfaction, "What motorcycle girl?"

"She's really cool. When she stands there, the intersection of Jiujiang District Committee Road looks like a scene from New York City. Her hairstyle and hair color are really eye-catching. Even the economic crime investigators passing by are staring at her. Ming-ge, she's not from around here, is she?"

That's not true. Tan Ming simply said, "She studied abroad before."

"Oh, no wonder she has that American campus vibe. So why is she in Jiujiang? And what a coincidence that she appeared in my dream..."

"Alright, alright, didn't we say we were going to eat Sanmao BBQ? I won't reimburse you for anything later," Zheng Yan interrupted their discussion.

Dreams are nothing compared to a barbecue party, so Xiao Chen and the others swarmed out.

Only Zheng Yan and Tan Ming stayed behind and headed towards the interrogation room.

At this moment, Tan Jia was still in the interrogation room, facing questions from the psychologist while kneading dough and answering some psychological assessment questions.

The pink dough was dyed by her own experiment, and she planned to make a piglet. This was a beginner's tutorial on dough sculpting, which only required kneading and pinching without the need for any tools.

He was bending down to pinch the mouth of a newly formed dough piglet when the shadows of two mountains fell in front of him.

Tan Jia looked up and met the serious faces of Zheng Yan and Tan Ming.

She didn't stand up, but released the dough figurine, leaned back in her chair, and looked up at them.

"Are you about to begin interrogating me?"

“It’s not an interrogation, it’s an inquiry,” Zheng Yan said, sitting down and softening his tone. “The case has been solved, and your dream was a great help. But we didn’t have time before, so now we want to hear you tell us the details of your dream.”

Tan Ming sat down as well: "Don't be afraid, just say what you think."

Tan Jia shrugged: "There's nothing more to say. I don't know why I had this dream, or why I saw the victim's face from the perspective of the murderer."

Zheng Yan: "Your brother said that on the day you arrived in Jiujiang, you were in a car accident and suffered a minor brain injury?"

Their criminal investigation team had also heard about the major car accident on December 129th. Because it was a chain-reaction collision, many people died. Ambulances and medical equipment were delayed in getting in, and several people even died while waiting because they couldn't stop the bleeding.

After being rescued, Tan Jia lay in bed for a while because she witnessed someone die next to her, so it was determined that the psychological trauma might be quite severe.

"Yes, so the doctor said it might be the psychological and physiological trauma caused by the car accident that temporarily gave me the ability to receive messages in dreams. That shouldn't be too strange, right? Aren't there precedents of deceased people appearing in dreams to help solve cases?" Her eyes were wary, not completely relaxed.

"Don't be nervous, we're not going to take you to do research," Zheng Yan smiled. "Is this the first dream you've ever had?"

Tan Jia nodded: "Yes."

Did anything unusual happen before or after the dream?

"No, I eat and sleep normally."

"Is it a recurring dream, or did you only dream about it that one time?"

“I dreamed about it later, but only the part where Mi Junfang was hit felt like fragments of a nightmare after witnessing the horrific scene.”

Zheng Yan asked a few more questions, and in summary, it was probably a sudden, one-time dream. Unable to find a scientific explanation and unwilling to speculate on the supernatural, the only explanation was psychological stress and the brain being manipulated.

Zheng Yan was about to end the conversation. He half-stood up, then, as if remembering something, sat back down and looked at her: "Although we can't be sure if this will only happen once, but if it happens again in the future..."

“Let’s not talk about ‘what ifs’,” Tan Jia stopped him from making a jinx. “This once is enough. I don’t want to become a monster in my dreams. Actually, I think you can have the doctor prescribe some medicine for me to make sure I don’t have these dreams anymore.”

"A sleeping potion? There's no such thing as a cure-all; we'll have to take it slowly. Thank you for the timely clue. Go back and get some rest. And this one you have—"

Zheng Yan's gaze fell on the dough figurines, and she said, "I remember your aunt is a dough figurine craftswoman. She even appeared on TV a few years ago. She teaches dough figurine making to women and children who have suffered trauma. It's a great way to distract yourself and pass the time. You've learned it well. This... Harbin red sausage is quite lifelike."

"..." Tan Jia glanced at the pink piglet clay figurine, and his expression immediately fell.

-

The small town was bustling with activity, and the sighs that arose from Mi Junfang's case after Luo Mei and her four children sold their house and left lasted for less than half a month.

Supermarket discounts, pharmacy points redemption programs, and school holidays quickly overshadowed this issue with the wave of public welfare initiatives.

Tan Jia has been going to bed early and waking up early lately, and has been learning dough sculpting with extra care.

Under her aunt's careful guidance, she was finally able to sculpt a decent human head and body on a bamboo skewer.

Currently, I am trying to abandon the original hand-kneading technique and advance to using a sculpting knife, hoping to successfully press out the first eye socket so that this head can truly have human characteristics, instead of being mistaken for a cross-species innovation.

That evening, after she finished sculpting a gray head that had failed to achieve the desired color, she propped it up on its base and, at her aunt's prompting, turned off the lights and went to sleep.

A yawn escaped her lips, and her eyelids slowly closed. The city lights became blurry orbs of light... then slowly transformed into a flame flickering in the darkness, gradually becoming clearer.

Someone threw paper money into the basin, and the flames instantly leaped up a height.

The people in the hall were wearing coarse cloth pointed hats, standing in rows with their heads bowed, and the faint sound of weeping lingered in the air.

In the very center was a black coffin, its lid slanted over the top. Only one person stood beside it, stuffing soybeans into the stiff-faced person's mouth.

More than the horrifying sensation of fingers touching dry, withered lips, her first feeling was extreme panic.

This intense emotion caused "her" to grab a handful of soybeans and stuff them into the deceased's entire mouth and even nostrils. Her hands trembled as she covered the person's mouth and nose, making the faint struggles under her palms seem to be nailed down and unable to attract attention.

The body temperature of a dying person is very low, but "her" palms were quickly soaked with sweat until the last trace of life in the coffin was gone.

Overwhelmed by fear, regret, and guilt, "she" trembled all over, loosened her grip, and was about to let out a hoarse sound.

At that moment, someone in the corner shouted, "Seal the coffin—"

The crying in my ears suddenly amplified, like liquor poured into a brazier, the flames and the sound rising together.

She was pulled away by several hands and disappeared into the crowd in the darkness. A moment later, she also burst into tears.

"dad!!!"

"Heh—" Tan Jia woke up with a start, covered in sweat, panting heavily. The air he inhaled stung his chest and lungs, and his heart was pounding so fast that his scalp tingled.

After calming her breathing slightly, she opened her palms, which were sweaty and hot, but a cool breeze came from her back.

(End of this chapter)