Eyes that are the same as those of evil

Chapter 47 The Ungrateful Wolf 4
Tan Jia didn't intend to introduce herself; she knew the criminal investigation team had other plans for her identity.

As expected, Zheng Yan covered up her dream and simply said, "She is the one who saved that child. She was at the orchard at the time because the two children went missing last night, and everyone was looking for them. She heard a sound and ran over to call out."

Lin Zhiyue didn't know whether he believed her or not. His gaze lingered on Tan Jia for a while, which made Tan Jia raise his eyebrows and stare back at him.

Her gaze was much more aggressive.

Zheng Yan coughed and said, "You just said that the murderer intentionally let you go back then? Why do you think that?"

“He won’t fail.” Lin Zhiyue turned his gaze back to the window.

The sunlight shone on his face, but brought no warmth whatsoever; even his pupils were a cold amber color.

"Can you still recall the killer's voice? Was it male or female? Did you see his face?" Zheng Yan asked again.

"No." He resumed his stingy manner.

The man standing next to the sofa to his right handed them a document at the opportune moment, saying, "I'm sorry, eleven years have passed since that incident. Post-traumatic stress disorder has left him with few clues, but they are all here. He understands your eagerness to solve the case as soon as possible, which is why he met with you. However, for his family, after eleven years, reducing the pain caused by the memories may be more important."

Zheng Yan hesitated before taking the document, opening it, and handing it to Officer An.

Tan Jia also leaned over to take a look.

It was a thick record, including confessions from eleven years ago, the suspect's response when identifying the body after being murdered, the transcript of the interrogation of the person in charge of another similar case five years ago, and a stack of drawings.

The paintings are full of memories of the case: a dark basement, the blurry shadow of a hanging corpse, the imagined figure of the murderer, the shadowy trees seen after escaping... The style of the paintings became more and more mature with the date of the inscription, but the content became more and more blurred. The most recent one was half a year ago, and the figure of the murderer became a blurry phantom behind the black lines of the whole page.

Zheng Yan immediately saw the key point and whispered to Officer An, "Back then, the murderer covered his eyes with a cloth?"

Officer An glanced at the person involved and lowered his voice even further: "Not sure. Because we speculate that the killer only tortured the victim at night, he may be mentally confused and unable to distinguish between darkness and having his eyes covered."

"How could I not distinguish between touch..."

“All the victims were brutally tortured. When he was rescued, his account and perception were confused. He was so stressed that he would go into a psychotic state if anyone got close. So the psychiatrist his parents brought in asked us not to touch him while taking his statement, so as not to stimulate him and make him worse.”

Zheng Yan opened his mouth and looked at the document again.

Despite being on his deathbed, nine-year-old Lin Zhiyue told the police everything he could remember, such as the abuse he suffered at the hands of the murderer, some of the things he said, and how he escaped.

A particularly useful clue is that the murderer seems to have mentioned that his child angered his mother to death—this is one of the strong pieces of evidence used to convict the suspect who made the extortion call years ago.

Also, the murderer would sometimes cry while holding the child he had tortured to death, and later on he became less active in abusing Lin Zhiyue, and seemed to be a little lax when digging him up to bury him.

Finally, Lin Zhiyue believes that the killer's voice is sometimes different, possibly from two different people, or it may have been disguised.

If the murderer who escaped back then could disguise his voice, it would explain why Zhu Muyang couldn't tell whether the murderer's voice was male or female.

After reading the text, they looked at the paintings one by one, focusing on the older ones.

Tan Jia didn't say anything. She just watched whatever they were flipping through, and even took a moment to glance at the person in charge.

Lin Zhiyue is a striking beauty; at first glance, one would immediately recognize him as a clean-cut and handsome man. Despite wearing long sleeves and trousers, his exposed ankles, wrists, and collarbones are all slender and beautiful. His appearance is completely different from that of the victim from years ago; he clearly comes from a wealthy family and has been carefully nurtured.

Perhaps her gaze was too obvious, Lin Zhiyue changed her sitting posture and coldly turned her head to look at the easel in front of the living room's French windows, where a half-finished painting was fixed.

Tan Jia looked over and saw an oil painting of maple trees in a downpour. The style was rich and realistic, and each maple leaf had a different shade of red and a different degree of curl. At first glance, it looked more like... a photograph.

She thoughtfully withdrew her gaze, looked at the paintings in the document again, examined a few, and then reached out to turn back to the previous page.

Zheng Yan and Officer An were watching intently when she reached out and flipped them back, causing them to turn their heads in unison to look at her.

"What are you doing?" Zheng Yan asked in a low voice.

“I have an idea.” She lowered her voice and pointed to a few lines in the statement, trying to mouth that there was a problem.

After all, it's in someone else's home, and the person in question is right in front of you, and their mental state is unstable, so it's not appropriate to chatter about crickets in front of them.

Zheng Yan, as if possessed, followed her thoughts, gestured to the corner of the living room, and then stood up to tell Lin Zhiyue and the "agent" that they wanted to discuss something.

The other party led them directly to the island counter in the dining area.

With the space for free conversation, Zheng Yan pulled Tan Jia aside and asked, "Where is the problem with these few sentences of your statement?"

Officer An looked at her with a puzzled expression.

Tan Jia pointed to the testimonies and said:
"It's not about any specific sentence, but rather that his narrative is almost entirely based on 'seeing.' His memories of the killer's voice, the words he spoke, the touches he received, and the parts of his body that the killer abused were not very vivid, and there were differences between his recollections. Only what he saw was the clearest. Even if he could only see a blurry outline at night, he could remember every detail perfectly, and he always gave the same account."

Her finger pointed to several of the paintings, which were Lin Zhiyue’s paintings of the same scene from different times. The shapes of the tree shadows and the windows of the distant residential buildings, as well as the quantity and color of the clothes drying in the sun, were exactly the same.

After she finished speaking, she looked at the two of them, hoping to get some response.

But Officer An, despite his serious expression, had eyes that conveyed his speechlessness at not understanding the students' nonsense: "Is this even a problem? It's common for victims to reuse the first version of a story when repeating details they deem insignificant."

"You mean his visual perception is very different?" Zheng Yan was more willing to follow her question and think further. "But this is not uncommon. When victims are subjected to cruel abuse, the brain's protective mechanisms may be activated, such as automatically weakening the sense of pain, hearing, smell... Perhaps because only the eyes are spared in the dark/blindfolded situation, his visual memory occupies the main position."

If Tan Jia hadn't rescued him in time, Zhu Muyang would probably have ended up in a similar situation. Under the deadly panic, his memory of the killer's voice is now very confused.

Officer An frowned: "What's the point of analyzing his psychological state eleven years ago now?"

“Don’t worry, Lao An. Although our goal is indeed just to get clues, sometimes listening to the wild ideas of young people might come in handy at a crucial moment,” Zheng Yan patted his arm. “My master used to say that although I’m stupid, I’m lucky to like to daydream.”

Then he asked Tan Jia, "You said you have an idea, tell me about it."

Unaffected by the doubts, Tan Jia held one of the paintings upright between two fingers and twirled it, saying, "I suspect he might be similar to a visual thinker, quite different from us. To get him to cooperate more, we need to try a different approach."

Ta-da! The male lead makes his appearance—Lin Zhiyue, currently in the first stage of developing into Jiajia's leg accessory.

Hehe, this time the male and female leads are a bit different from the previous ones. The main difference is that Jia is a bold, intelligent person who enjoys life to the fullest, and has a stronger sense of aggression and control, while Xiaolin is an all-around calico cat who follows her around like a lapdog… let's use that analogy for now.
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(End of this chapter)