Chapter 148 - 146: Have to Go to Jiangcheng

Chapter 148: Chapter 146: Have to Go to Jiangcheng

Late at night, it began to rain.

Su Miaoyi had fallen asleep leaning against the bay window.

Beside her lay a forensic notebook.

It was all written by Yan Cheng.

It was a very thick volume.

Su Miaoyi had been leaning against the bay window, but she’d fallen asleep after just a few pages.

In the latter half of the night, the rain grew heavier, drumming against the windowpane.

The noise stirred Su Miaoyi, and she opened her eyes to glance outside.

Watching the raindrops slide down the glass, she blinked. She thought she might have just been dreaming about being in Jiangcheng.

She looked outside, but she was too sleepy, so she closed her eyes and drifted off again.

She slept straight through until dawn.

"Ouch." Su Miaoyi was woken by a pain in her neck.

She was still propped against the bay window. She tried to get up but couldn’t.

Her neck hurt, her back hurt, and both her legs had lost all feeling, so numb they felt like they’d been pixelated.

Su Miaoyi managed to sit up. She pounded her lower back and kneaded her neck, only to discover she couldn’t straighten it.

Su Miaoyi’s eyes widened. "!!!"

She couldn’t straighten her neck, and in her panic, she fell off the bay window.

Her legs were still numb and useless.

In the end, she had to crawl from the bay window to her bedside, grab her phone, and find someone to rescue her.

She first checked the time, and after unlocking her phone, it opened right to the video she hadn’t finished watching before turning it off last night.

She just lay there by the bed, scrolling through videos for half an hour.

"Huh? What am I doing?" The numbness in Su Miaoyi’s legs had already faded.

She stood up and stretched a bit.

But her neck was still crooked.

Her phone buzzed twice, and she glanced at it again.

It was a message from Shen Yanzhou: [Are you awake? Come over for breakfast.]

Su Miaoyi tilted her head. "?"

’Why is he asking me to breakfast?’

’I don’t get it, but since he asked, I’ll go.’

After washing up, Su Miaoyi went to knock on his door.

Shen Yanzhou opened the door and looked at her.

"Morning," Su Miaoyi said, her head still crooked as she waved.

"What’s with this new look?" Shen Yanzhou asked, stepping aside to let her in. "Slippers."

Su Miaoyi looked at the ugly pink-and-green slippers on the shoe rack. One was shaped like a shark, the other like a big-headed fish. "You bought these?"

"Mhm," Shen Yanzhou nodded.

"Your taste is really something else," Su Miaoyi said. She had never been to his place before.

She took a few steps inside and discovered the slippers could talk.

The left one had a cutesy, high-pitched voice: *Aiya~*

The right one had a deep voice with vocal fry: *Aiya!*

Su Miaoyi glanced down. "......"

This early in the morning, the constant *Aiya, Aiya* was getting on her nerves.

Shen Yanzhou was standing in the entryway, laughing so hard he could barely stand up straight.

Su Miaoyi glared at him with her crooked neck. "I knew you didn’t have good intentions, asking me over this early."

Shen Yanzhou was still laughing.

Su Miaoyi took a few more *Aiya, Aiya*-ing steps and started laughing too.

Shen Yanzhou walked over. "What’s wrong with your neck?"

"I think I slept on it wrong," Su Miaoyi said.

"Let’s eat first. I’ll take you to the hospital to get it checked out after," Shen Yanzhou said.

"Okay." With her neck still crooked and her feet *Aiya*-ing, Su Miaoyi followed him into the dining room. "Don’t think I can’t hear you snickering."

Shen Yanzhou burst out laughing.

He had thought she would like them, so he’d bought them.

He just hadn’t expected this to be the result.

Su Miaoyi actually did quite like them. While she ate, she kept tapping her feet back and forth to make them talk.

The breakfast was delicious, which eased some of the sorrow from her crooked neck.

As she ate, she suddenly remembered something.

Last night, she had dreamed of Mo Xiaoxiao.

Not just Mo Xiaoxiao, but also Su Miaoyi.

It was a memory of when Su Miaoyi had gone to Jiangcheng.

Su Miaoyi suddenly sat up straight.

"What’s wrong?" Shen Yanzhou asked.

"I have to go to the municipal bureau," Su Miaoyi said, quickly chewing and swallowing the food in her mouth before getting up. "I have to go now."

Shen Yanzhou listened as the sounds of *Aiya~ Aiya!* faded into the distance.

He pulled out a wet wipe to clean his fingers, grabbed his own breakfast, stood up, and left.

Su Miaoyi went back to her own place to grab a jacket and ran right into him on her way out.

"I’m heading to work. I can give you a ride since it’s on the way," Shen Yanzhou said.

Su Miaoyi suddenly bowed a full ninety degrees. "Thank you so much."

Shen Yanzhou took a step forward, grabbed the hood of her jacket, and pulled her upright, gently pushing her toward the elevator. "Cut it out. I was afraid you were about to send me to my grave."

Su Miaoyi chuckled.

"Breakfast," Shen Yanzhou said, handing her a bag. "Take it and eat."

...

Su Miaoyi entered the municipal bureau with her crooked neck, greeting everyone she saw.

She walked to Zhuang Yanzheng’s office and knocked on the door.

"Come in," Zhuang Yanzheng called out.

Su Miaoyi entered.

Zhuang Yanzheng looked up at her. "Well now, what’s this new look?"

"It’s the new trend. You wouldn’t get it," Su Miaoyi said as she walked in. "You’re too old. Even if I explained it, you wouldn’t understand."

Zhuang Yanzheng: "......"

Su Miaoyi sat in the chair in front of his desk, looking at him with her tilted head. "I remembered my trip to Jiangcheng."

Zhuang Yanzheng looked at her. "Did Mo Xiaoxiao give you a memory card or anything like that?"

Su Miaoyi wanted to shake her head, but it hurt to move her neck. "In the memory I recovered, she didn’t give me anything. Nothing at all. And after remembering, I went through the bag, suitcase, and laptop I brought back from Jiangcheng. I’ve searched them all many times before, and there’s nothing."

Zhuang Yanzheng frowned.

"But I remembered something Mo Xiaoxiao told me," Su Miaoyi said. "She mentioned it to me three times."

"What was it?" Zhuang Yanzheng asked.

"She said she used to have a dog that was hit by a car and passed away. She had its ashes interred at a pet columbarium in Jiangcheng," Su Miaoyi said. "She gave me the detailed address and told me the service there was excellent."

Zhuang Yanzheng listened as she continued.

"Once, Mo Xiaoxiao was talking about how life is unpredictable, and said if she ever kicked the bucket, she wanted me to retrieve the dog’s ashes and have them buried with her," Su Miaoyi said. "I didn’t think much of it at the time, and then I forgot about it."

At the time, Su Miaoyi hadn’t thought much of it, wondering why she would suddenly bring it up.

But then she returned to Jinghai and was murdered.

She had been unhappy with her job, so she quit to travel and relax.

But instead, she met a "friend" like that.

And lost her life.

"So you think Mo Xiaoxiao’s backup video is at that pet columbarium in Jiangcheng?" Zhuang Yanzheng asked.

"I think it’s highly likely," Su Miaoyi said. "She never gave me the video directly, she only told me about it indirectly. If something happened to Mo Xiaoxiao, I might have gone to that columbarium, and the video might have had a chance of being made public."

Life is truly unpredictable.

When Mo Xiaoxiao made this move, she could never have imagined that another ’her’ would suddenly come to life and end up as a consultant for the police department.

"I have to go to Jiangcheng," Su Miaoyi said.

"Right before you came in, I got a call from Captain Kang Ting," Zhuang Yanzheng said.

"Oh?"

"He said there’s a case in Jiangcheng and was hoping to trouble you to make a trip."

Su Miaoyi tried to move, but another jolt of electrifying pain shot through her neck. She clutched it and said, "With that as a pretext, we won’t alert the suspect. Does our bureau need to approve my trip?"

"Mhm," Zhuang Yanzheng said. "Have Lu Zhishen go with you."

"He can do the sketch over the phone."

"Have him go with you. You two can look out for each other. Besides, maybe going back will help him clear his head, put him in a better mood."

"Alright."

...