Chapter 201: Who Are You Really?

Never left the city?

The woman on the train six years ago wasn’t the person standing in front of him, Song Wanyu?

Xiao Yu was stunned. His gaze pulled back from her face. Her micro-expressions were telling him one thing. She wasn’t lying.

‘Did I just see a ghost?’

Xiao Yu took a deep breath. “Thank you. I might need to come back to talk to you again. Goodbye.”

With that, he turned and left.

Downstairs.

“It wasn’t her?” Wang Dong was just as baffled. “How could it not be her?”

“Let’s find out,” Xiao Yu replied, pulling out his tablet and bringing up the old surveillance footage from the train.

Any surveillance footage related to an unsolved case was never deleted.

Xiao Yu had already reviewed it when he first took on the case and hadn’t noticed anything unusual. 

But now, things were getting complicated.

After reviewing the footage, Xiao Yu noticed that there was indeed a female passenger who entered the Ji family’s sleeper compartment. However, the video was a bit blurry, and because she was wearing a loose dress, it was hard to compare her body shape.

Throughout the entire footage, this woman’s face was never clearly visible on camera.

“This is a problem,” Xiao Yu said with frustration. “The case is too old, and even the officers who worked on it back then probably wouldn’t remember what the woman looked like. It’s very likely that someone used Song Wanyu’s identity. Wait, if Song Wanyu lost her ID six years ago, wouldn’t there be a record of her getting a new one?”

A thought struck him.

It’s important to remember that these days, forging an ID was extremely difficult. The chip embedded in it wasn’t something just anyone could replicate.

Train stations require an ID to buy and retrieve tickets.

So how did Song Wanyu’s ID, issued in M City, end up being used in Bencheng City?

Xiao Yu and Wang Dong looked into it.

There was no record of Song Wanyu ever reporting a lost ID and getting a new one?

Xiao Yu and Wang Dong exchanged a glance, both amused.

Wasn’t this getting interesting?

Ten minutes later.

“You again?” Song Wanyu opened the door, frowning at Xiao Yu and casting a quick glance at Wang Dong.

“Has your ID been with you all this time?” Xiao Yu asked, his gaze fixed on her as he carefully enunciated each word.

“That’s a weird question,” Song Wanyu replied, puzzled. “Of course, my ID has always been with me.”

“Back then, six years ago, were you living alone, or was someone else living with you?” Xiao Yu continued to question her.

“Well…” Song Wanyu hesitated for a moment. “A friend stayed with me for less than a month. Is there a problem?”

There was a huge problem.

Xiao Yu and Wang Dong exchanged a glance, a look of realization passing between them. Someone had used her ID to commit a crime.

“We need her information,” Wang Dong demanded, leaving no room for refusal.

Song Wanyu provided her friend’s details. Zhou Han, female, 32 years old, from M City… Listed as a missing person three years ago.

“Missing?!” Xiao Yu let out a sigh.

“Yeah,” Wang Dong’s expression turned grim.

They both knew what a missing person’s case usually meant.

Xiao Yu was frustrated.

There were less than seven days left on the system’s timer for the mission.  And he had no solid leads at all. 

What to do?

No, there had to be a way.

Xiao Yu took a deep breath. 

‘There’s still a chance to salvage this.’

After quickly calming himself, Xiao Yu began to reorganize his thoughts.

“The trigger: the stolen platinum ball, the Ji family’s suicide… no, they were murdered. The killer wanted the memory card, and the case is connected to the photos. How do we find him?”

“The clues in the photos are basically useless. We tried following the trail of the theft, but it led nowhere. No, not exactly nowhere. Zhou Han went missing.”

“Following Zhou Han’s trail won’t help. There won’t be any clues left behind. So…”

Xiao Yu slapped himself, snapping his mind back into focus. “Let’s rethink this.”

As always, the key to good detective work was to simplify, to do subtraction. List out the clues, and go through them one by one.

Were there really no clues left?

No, there were still two.

One, the memory card.

Two, the platinum ball.

Both clues were clear. Everything started with them.

Without them, there wouldn’t have been a theft, the Ji family wouldn’t have died, and those disturbing human-skin wax statue photos wouldn’t exist.

“Unless… the Ji family?”

A flash of realization crossed Xiao Yu’s eyes. “That’s it. Why did they have those photos? Why did the killer want them back? And why didn’t the Ji family return the photos? Why did they hide them instead? I was wrong. We were wrong from the very beginning.

“The platinum ball. It probably wasn’t stolen by the killer. It was the Ji family, they were putting on an act, weren’t they? Otherwise, how do you explain that all four train tickets were bought by the Ji family themselves?

“Were they trying to use this to send a message to someone that the item was lost? Then their plan was discovered, and the platinum ball was brought back and placed in front of the Ji family, and they were killed?

“That would explain why the platinum ball ended up back at the Ji family’s house. And Zhou Han, the one who supposedly stole the platinum ball, actually knew the Ji family?

“No, wait. Even if there was a theft on the train, it couldn’t have been seen by certain people. Could it be that the Ji family was putting on an act for Zhou Han? Were they trying to send a message to Zhou Han? Why? Because Zhou Han was connected to the killer? Was the platinum ball deliberately lost by the Ji family?

“But why would they do that? What was the significance of keeping those photos? No, it’s not the Ji family—it’s Zhou Han. The issue lies with Zhou Han. Zhou Han’s information… did Song Wanyu really not lie? Can micro-expression psychology really not be fooled?”

As Xiao Yu replayed everything over and over in his mind, scrutinizing every detail, his brain was working at full speed, like a CPU running at max capacity. Countless possibilities and pieces of information started coming together quickly, forming a clearer picture.

“So then…”

Xiao Yu suddenly lifted his head. “Why did Zhou Han need to use Song Wanyu’s ID? And could she have done it without Song Wanyu noticing? Is that possible? Or… is Song Wanyu herself the problem?”

Was I fooled by my own eyes?

***

“What on earth do you want?”

When Song Wanyu opened the door for the third time, she looked at Xiao Yu and Wang Dong, her face now cold.

“I only have one question,” Xiao Yu said coldly. “Did you ever let Zhou Han use your ID?”

Song Wanyu was silent.

“I just did some digging on you,” Xiao Yu continued, his eyes fixed on her. “In college, you majored in psychology, didn’t you? Specifically, experimental psychology, which includes micro-expression psychology and micro-expression management. Is that right?”

For the first time, Song Wanyu’s expression shifted from calm to slightly panicked.

“I knew that eyes could be deceiving, but I still got fooled by my own eyes,” Xiao Yu said with a cold smile. “So, Song Wanyu, who are you really?”

As for Zhou Han?

No, there was no Zhou Han.

It was Song Wanyu herself who got on that train six years ago and entered the Ji family’s sleeper compartment.

If Xiao Yu hadn’t been sharp enough, he might’ve been completely fooled by his own eyes and by her micro-expressions.