Chapter 130 - 128: Are You Sure You Didn’t Draw Her?

Chapter 130: Chapter 128: Are You Sure You Didn’t Draw Her?

The next day.

Xinyuan Square.

Excavation began on the circular platform. Police cars, forensic examiners, and officers were all on site.

It was impossible not to attract attention from the surrounding area.

It was nearly impossible to keep something like this from leaking to the public.

After all, countless eyes were watching, from the construction crew to the local residents.

The foot traffic in this area was also quite heavy.

If they couldn’t keep it a complete secret, it was better to be open about it.

Otherwise, being secretive would only arouse all kinds of suspicion.

Shen Yanzhou and Shen Jun had spent the night devising a public relations strategy to minimize the incident’s impact. As soon as day broke, they had workers begin breaking open the platform.

Both Shen Yanzhou and Shen Jun were personally present.

Zhuang Yanzheng, Yan Cheng, and Su Miaoyi were also at the site.

Following the spot Su Miaoyi had clawed at with her bare hands the previous night, they shattered the platform, dug through the opening, and then excavated more than a meter deeper.

Once they reached the clothing, they began excavating the surrounding soil more carefully before turning the site over to Yan Cheng and his team.

Zhuang Yanzheng questioned Shen Yanzhou and Shen Jun as part of standard procedure.

After the questioning, Shen Jun’s gaze once again fell on Su Miaoyi in the distance.

He had already glanced in her direction several times while Zhuang Yanzheng was speaking.

Wearing a mask and gloves, Su Miaoyi stood beside Yan Cheng, observing the excavation.

"Yan Zheng, is that girl in the mask also on your criminal investigation team?" Shen Jun asked.

Zhuang Yanzheng turned his head to look.

"Dad, she’s working," Shen Yanzhou said.

"What’s wrong with me asking?" Shen Jun shot his son an impatient look.

"She’s a consultant we hired," Zhuang Yanzheng replied.

Shen Jun nodded, his eyes shifting from Su Miaoyi to Zhuang Yanzheng, and finally settling on his son.

He said nothing more.

Zhuang Yanzheng said, "Uncle Shen, I’m going to go take a look."

Shen Jun nodded again.

Zhuang Yanzheng walked over to Su Miaoyi’s group.

Shen Jun continued to watch Su Miaoyi’s position.

Su Miaoyi stood at the edge of the excavated pit, tools in hand. Bracing herself with one hand, she jumped down into it.

Once Su Miaoyi was out of sight, Shen Jun turned to his son. "What’s that girl’s name? Who is she?"

"How do you know that I know her?" Shen Yanzhou asked.

"I’m your father. Not only do I know that you know her, but I also have a feeling you’re hiding something from me," Shen Jun said, staring at him.

"Dad, I’m a grown man. Isn’t it normal to have a few secrets?" Shen Yanzhou said.

Shen Jun snorted. "What’s her name?"

"Su Miaoyi," Shen Yanzhou said.

"Su Miaoyi?" Shen Jun thought for a moment. "Why does that sound so familiar? From the Ji family? The daughter they abandoned at birth?"

Shen Yanzhou nodded.

Shen Jun frowned and paused before remarking, "She doesn’t resemble Ji Sheng or Cai Qinglian at all."

Shen Yanzhou didn’t say anything.

’He didn’t plan on telling his family until he had a complete grasp of the situation.’

’After all, he couldn’t guarantee what the final outcome of such a bizarre situation would be.’

’He didn’t want to cause his family any further trauma.’

"Well, she wasn’t raised by them, so I suppose it’s normal she doesn’t look like them," Shen Jun muttered to himself. "The Ji Family... what a terrible sin."

Meanwhile.

Su Miaoyi, Yan Cheng, Zhuang Yanzheng, and Qi Feng brushed the dirt from the corpse.

Gradually, the corpse’s clothing was fully exposed.

It was a set of pajamas.

Seeing the intact pajamas, Su Miaoyi felt as if her head would explode. She shot upright and stumbled back, crashing into the edge of the pit.

The impact was so sudden that she ricocheted off the wall.

She started to fall forward.

Luckily, everyone reacted quickly.

Yan Cheng and Zhuang Yanzheng caught her, one on each side.

Su Miaoyi drew back the leg she had extended to steady herself.

"Did you prick your hand?" Yan Cheng asked nervously, looking at her hands.

’If her hand was punctured, first, there’s the bacteria. Second, what if the deceased had an infectious disease before they died...’

Zhuang Yanzheng also looked at her hands.

Su Miaoyi shook her head. "No, I just lost my footing. I’m fine."

Yan Cheng seemed a bit relieved. "Everyone, pay attention. Be careful not to get pricked by the bones."

Zhuang Yanzheng looked at her again. "Are you really okay?"

Su Miaoyi nodded. "Yes."

Zhuang Yanzheng didn’t press the matter.

Su Miaoyi looked at the set of clothes again.

The top was a short-sleeved pajama shirt made of a very soft fabric.

On the clothes, there was a triangular tear over the abdomen.

It was a tear from being snagged and ripped by a hook.

Su Miaoyi closed her eyes and slowly exhaled.

’These were her clothes.’

’Or rather, these were Su Miaoyi’s clothes.’

’In the visions she’d seen, Su Miaoyi had been wearing these exact pajamas on the night she was murdered.’

’This... was Su Miaoyi’s body.’

...

「Back at the Municipal Bureau.」

Su Miaoyi followed Yan Cheng to the autopsy room.

They laid out all the skeletal remains in their correct anatomical positions.

"Female, approximately twenty-five years old, height around five-foot-seven. Cause of death... a fractured cervical vertebra. Time of death was less than a year ago, likely eight or nine months."

As Yan Cheng spoke, his assistant took notes.

Su Miaoyi looked at the skeleton before her and touched its cervical vertebra.

There was a clear fracture.

’The killer had placed one hand on top of her head and the other on her chin, then simply twisted until her neck snapped.’

She touched it, but no vision came to her.

Yan Cheng took a bone sample from near the stomach area and sent it to the toxicology lab to screen for common poisons and to run a DNA comparison.

"See anything?" Yan Cheng asked.

Su Miaoyi shook her head. "No."

"Then I’ll call Lu Zhishen to do a cranial reconstruction," Yan Cheng said.

Su Miaoyi’s eyes twitched slightly. She nodded. "I’ll call him."

"Okay."

Su Miaoyi left the autopsy room to make the call.

Lu Zhishen arrived quickly.

Cranial reconstruction was a painstaking process that required time.

Su Miaoyi assisted Yan Cheng.

Once the autopsy was mostly finished, she returned to her desk to handle some of her own work while she waited for the results.

Cranial reconstruction.

’Ji Sheng’s DNA should be in the Municipal Bureau’s database.’

’From the last case—the one with the bodies buried under the villa.’

’Ji Sheng had been a suspect, so they had taken a blood sample to compare his DNA with the two bodies found there.’

She wondered how she would explain everything once the truth came out.

’What kind of fate awaited someone who had died and come back to life, yet couldn’t remember who she was?’

She waited from morning until night.

The sketch from the cranial reconstruction was finished.

Hearing that the results were in, Su Miaoyi went to the sketch artist’s studio.

Zhuang Yanzheng held the sketch, looking from Lu Zhishen to Su Miaoyi and back again.

Su Miaoyi looked at the sketch as well.

Zhuang Yanzheng held the sketch up next to Su Miaoyi’s face to compare them, then looked at Lu Zhishen. "Are you sure you didn’t space out and accidentally draw her instead?"

Lu Zhishen gave him a look and said flatly, "Book my ticket. I’m going back to Jiangcheng."

"Tch." Zhuang Yanzheng looked at him. "Just stay put. And stop threatening me with going back to Jiangcheng every chance you get."

Lu Zhishen backed down. "If two people’s genes are extremely close, it’s possible for them to look very similar without being blood relatives. That’s why the system sometimes returns multiple similar-looking people when running a facial recognition match."

’It was true; sometimes a facial recognition search would pull up people who just happened to look alike.’

’Then they would use personal information to rule out the false positives and identify the correct person...’