Chapter 328 - 326: Seeing as You’re a Decent Person

Chapter 328: Chapter 326: Seeing as You’re a Decent Person

"If I hadn’t come today, when were you planning to make your move?" Su Miaoyi asked.

"Tonight," Tian Min said. "The sooner, the better. I originally thought Twenty-one would succeed and get away, which would mean it had nothing to do with me. Plus, if something happened to you, they’d all be in disarray and probably wouldn’t even have the heart to investigate this case. I never expected him to fail."

"Didn’t the person backing you tell you? I’m very capable. Sending someone of Twenty-one’s caliber to kill me... who are you looking down on?" Su Miaoyi found a stool and sat down.

Tian Min watched her.

"What? I can’t even sit for a moment?" Su Miaoyi remained seated. "I’m going to sit here whether you like it or not."

Tian Min looked at her and said, "My mom’s coming back. My house is a mess now. Do you think she’s going to let any of you off the hook?"

"And you think she would let us off if we just left?" Su Miaoyi said. "This damage still needs to be paid for, doesn’t it?"

"Suit yourselves," Tian Min said.

She had barely finished speaking when Yue Hong’s shouts came from the courtyard.

She was crying and screaming, her words interspersed with curses Su Miaoyi couldn’t quite understand.

Zhuang Yanzheng and Duan Wenrui were outside, speaking with her.

Tian Min looked at Su Miaoyi. "Music to your ears?"

Su Miaoyi didn’t say anything.

"Can’t you ask whatever you want to ask in the interrogation room?" Tian Min asked.

"Nothing much. I just wanted to build a little rapport with you here, so you’ll confess everything honestly later," Su Miaoyi said.

"I didn’t manage to escape. You’ve already caught me." Tian Min looked at her. "Seeing as you seem like a decent person, I’ll cooperate a little. Get you home sooner."

Su Miaoyi nodded. "See? I told you building rapport would work."

Tian Min let out a small laugh.

Su Miaoyi said, "The person backing you is a woman, isn’t she?"

Tian Min’s smile vanished, her expression turning serious.

Su Miaoyi chuckled. "Someone who’s been trying to kill me for this long... I must know her, right? It can’t be some random stranger hunting me down. Is she nuts?"

Tian Min frowned.

"How do you two communicate?" Su Miaoyi watched her. "Besides the phone you normally use, where’s the other one?"

"So that’s the real reason you’re not leaving."

"I told you, I’m here to build rapport with you."

Tian Min looked utterly speechless.

"Where’s the phone?"

"I’m a little curious about you." Tian Min looked at her, the fierceness in her eyes receding. As she relaxed, she appeared much closer to her usual self. "You’re a police officer. How did you end up with someone trying to kill you?"

"I’m very curious about you, too," Su Miaoyi said. "How did you meet her? How did you get so strong? And how did you meet Twenty-one? Is he connected to her?"

"You ask too many questions."

"Where’s the phone?" Su Miaoyi asked.

Tian Min didn’t answer.

Yue Hong was still shouting outside, and a crowd of people had gathered at the gate to watch.

Su Miaoyi glanced outside, then put on her gloves and started searching Tian Min’s room.

It was an absolute wreck.

She checked the cabinet first, looking at every shelf, but didn’t see a phone.

Closing the cabinet, she moved to the bed with its broken slats. She lifted everything up to look, but there was nothing underneath besides a thick layer of dust.

Then she tapped on the wooden floorboards in other parts of the room. Finally, she noticed what looked like drag marks under the cabinet.

The marks were very faint, and it looked like they had been repaired at some point. Or perhaps the cabinet was always moved with great care. It had just been moved so many times that faint, barely noticeable traces had slowly formed.

You wouldn’t notice them unless you looked closely.

She pulled the cabinet away from the wall, pried open a wooden panel at the back of its interior, and pulled out a phone.

Su Miaoyi walked over to Tian Min, phone in hand.

Tian Min watched her.

Su Miaoyi looked at the old, paint-chipped feature phone.

It could only make and receive calls and texts, with no other functions.

The phone was on. Su Miaoyi checked the call log and the text message inbox; both were empty.

She took out an evidence bag and placed the phone inside. "Why don’t you just tell me the number she contacts you with? It’ll save me a trip to the phone company."

"Go ahead and check," Tian Min said.

"So much for building rapport." Su Miaoyi glanced outside, then went to the cabinet, took out a trench coat, and draped it over Tian Min, covering the handcuffs behind her back. "Let’s go."

As the two of them walked out, Zhuang Yanzheng had just transferred some money to Yue Hong for the house repairs.

Yue Hong received the money, checked the amount, and finally quieted down.

"Going to the police station again?" Yue Hong looked at Tian Min. "Will you be back to cook dinner tonight?"

"I won’t be back," Tian Min said. "Just make something for yourself tonight."

Hearing her speak so suddenly, Yue Hong froze on the spot, unable to process it for a moment.

Tian Min looked at her, paused, then said, "Be nicer to Tian Shi and Tian Xuan. And work on your temper. When they get married someday, be nicer to their wives, too."

Everyone at the gate was astonished.

Yue Hong still hadn’t fully processed it, staring blankly at her.

Tian Min said nothing more and left with Su Miaoyi and the others.

Yue Hong stood there stunned for another moment, then yelled, "You could talk all this time and you didn’t say so sooner! Making me watch you gesture all day long!"

In the car on the way back to the station, Tian Min said, "I have no real feelings for Yue Hong. If she hadn’t stopped Tian Ming when he tried to sell me... well, you guys would have just saved some money."

"Nobody asked, did they?" Su Miaoyi said from her seat beside her.

"I wanted to say it," Tian Min replied. "I spent all my time pretending to be mute, I never had a chance to talk. Now that I can, I want to say a few more things."

"Fine," Su Miaoyi said. "I hope you’re just as willing to talk when we question you in a bit."

"With Twenty-one’s failure, I had to try and kill you myself," Tian Min said. "I can’t beat you, so being exposed was inevitable. As long as I was trying to kill you, this outcome was set in stone. There’s no escape now, so there’s no point in hiding things from the past anymore. Like I said, you seem like a decent person. I’m willing to cooperate to get you home sooner."

"You’d better be telling the truth," Su Miaoyi said.

"You’ll know soon enough."

"I’ll give you that money back after we go back and get the expense approved," Duan Wenrui said to Zhuang Yanzheng.

"It’s fine," Zhuang Yanzheng said. "My dad is thrilled that I can contribute to the police department by spending my own money."

Su Miaoyi: ’......’ ’There goes Mr. Pays-to-Work again.’

When they arrived at the station, Tian Min was taken directly to an interrogation room.

This time, there was no need for her sign language. Her hands were cuffed to the interrogation chair.

Chu Xingrou and her team hadn’t returned yet.

Zhuang Yanzheng made a call to check. They had located the site, found the body, and were preparing to pull it out of the pit.

After the call, he also went to the interrogation room.

Su Miaoyi asked, "How did you meet Twenty-one?"

"About four years ago, I think. He was seriously injured and collapsed behind my rented apartment," Tian Min said. "Tian Shi and Tian Xuan were still young back then. We hadn’t opened the butcher shop yet, and we still had our family land, so they weren’t in Chang City much. They don’t know about this."

"You didn’t call for an ambulance?" Su Miaoyi asked. "You just saved a heavily injured stranger?"

A look of exasperation flashed across Tian Min’s face. "Of course not. How could a kind soul like me see someone dying and not help? I immediately dialed for an ambulance. Then he pointed a gun at my head and told me to hang up."

"And then?"

"And then I hung up," Tian Min said. "I snatched his gun, knocked him out with one punch, and dragged him to the dump near my place to let him die somewhere else."

...