Chapter 12: The Ninth Cycle of Time (VI)

Mr. Zhang went out for a while to bring Xiao Heyun a glass of water, and when the atmosphere had relaxed a bit, we started talking about family matters.

At first, they just asked Boy about his family, how many people were in his family, how was his relationship, and so on, and then they started asking personal questions.

According to the data, many young men orchestrate vicious incidents with the aim of getting back at the object of their advances.

Some of them think that killing someone will show their "manhood", such as making their girlfriend regret breaking up with them, or doing something big to show the woman who rejected them.

Essentially, such people are untimely bombs hidden in normal people, and until he shows it, who knows when they will blow up.

"What? Never been in love?"

At the answer, Mr. Zhang looked at Boy closely, noticing that he wasn't supposed to be talking, and gave a surprised expression, "Don't young men your age fall in love in college?"

"In engineering college, there were only seven or eight girls in a class, and they were all taken in the first year." Boy laughed bitterly, "Then there were heavy classes and part-time jobs, so I didn't have time."

"You're still working and studying? Can't see it."

Mr. Zhang looked at the cleanly dressed young man, although I could see that he was not wearing any brand name, but also not the goods of the roadside stalls, and the information shows that his parents are both full, the state enterprise double-income family, the conditions should not be bitter.

"Are you often short of money?"

If there is a large shortfall of money due to gambling or other reasons, you may also be desperate to make money.

"It's simply that I like to save money."

Boy didn't expect the policeman to be so gossipy and was a little confused, "It's not because the family is poor."

With just a few words, Mr. Zhang had already rejected most of his suspicions in his head.

A young man who is financially well off, has a normal family environment and is not emotionally entangled is mostly free of light-hearted thoughts and one can sense from the conversation that he is not mentally ill.

In other words, no one like that, as long as they are not brain dead, would do something like planting a bomb on a bus or assisting someone to do this.

Not long afterwards, Officer Du's steady, determined footsteps sounded from the corridor and opened the door to the questioning room and walked in.

As soon as he entered the room, Mr. Zhang's leaning on the corner of the table and chatting suddenly straightened out, and the atmosphere in the room, which had just been one of laughter and conversation, suddenly disappeared.

Xiao Heyun unconsciously straightens his back and subconsciously avoids the gaze of the visitor.

Officer Du did not say anything either, and when he entered the house, he played a few recordings on his mobile phone.

"...... Yes, comrade police, I saw them come out of the changing room together with my own eyes."

Glasses Boy's face changed when the security guard's voice sounded in the room.

He heard someone on the other end of the recording ask, "What time was it? Do you know what they were doing in there?"

"Around three o'clock I think, they must have been in the changing room for ages because there were several complaints in between that the door inside never opened and they couldn't even try on their clothes. What for? I don't know what for, it couldn't have been anything good anyway!"

"The little girl came out with tears all over her face, and she looked terrified. I knew that man was not nice! I said to the girl, "Don't be afraid, tell me what's wrong, I'll help you. The girl even helped him out, saying he was her friend, so how could I care? I was also negligent, I should have called the police at that time!"

The security guard rambled on the recording, "Something really happened, didn't it? Is the girl okay?"

Boy's face was impassive.

Officer Du kept a pair of stern, hawk-like eyes fixed on him, and with a mocking face released a second recording.

"This man? Ah, yes yes, it was about four or five in the afternoon, I think, and he came to our restaurant with a young girl and asked me to borrow a pen and paper, and since there weren't many people in the restaurant at the time, I remember it very well."

The bright voice of the fast-food waitress haunts everyone's ears.

"What's the paper and pencil for? The boy seemed to be writing something, probably making some sort of plan, and the girl kept listening. They talked for a long time and only ordered two drinks, which they never drank much of. Then the girl went to the corner to make a phone call and the boy sat by himself looking at his phone. Then after that they ordered two orders of chicken and chips, ate them and left."

"Yes, yes, that's the girl."

"How long was it in the restaurant? An hour there I think ...... I can't say exactly how long."

By the time the second recording was finished, Boy was sweating profusely, but his face was blue.

He knew, of course, that the police would find out sooner or later that they were in contact, but he figured that after the mutual "identification", the police would have to take at least a detour, if not be led into a ditch, to start a thorough investigation of the two men's friendships and internet traces and whatnot.

He didn't even think about being exposed so quickly!

Where did they go wrong?

Officer Du, always looking at him, gave a sneer that shattered his ramblings, "Haven't seen you since, eh? Li Shiqing followed you around like a madman, insisting that you turn yourself in, didn't he?"

"Don't know it before, never seen it?"

With each word he spoke, Boy became more and more disillusioned.

"What were you doing in the dressing room before three o'clock? What plans were listed in the dining room again? What have you been doing? Matching statements?"

At the end of the day, Officer Du was banging on the table like a roar and roaring out with ferocity.

"Speak up!!!"

Glasses Boy slumped back in his chair, breathing heavily, his mental defences having collapsed in full force.

Mr. Zhang, who was on the other side, duly handed over another glass of water and advised bitterly, "Young man, we are old police officers, we can still see whether you have done something bad or not, whether you are a good person or not. Maybe you haven't done anything bad and are just a person in the know, but to know and not report is the same as condoning crime ......"

He placed the water in front of Boy, knelt down and looked him honestly in the eyes and said, "I know you must have seen and felt something in the car at the time and got out of the car because you were scared, right?"

Boy, who was already sweating, nodded subconsciously, as if hypnotised.

The eyes of several officers in the room were tinged with joy at the sight of progress in the case.

"Did you see someone holding the driver hostage? Or did you see something in the car that shouldn't have been there? Did the perpetrators see your faces and know who you are? Or was it someone you knew?

Mr. Zhang did not spare Xiao Heyun every subtle expression on his face, but his tone was very gentle, "In fact, you don't have to worry about anyone retaliating against you, because the police will conceal the identity and privacy of every important witness, and will also send plainclothes to protect your next safety, so that you will not be threatened by criminals in any way ......"

Boy looks up slowly, his eyes beneath the boxy glasses with confusion and hesitation.

"No matter how unbelievable the outcome, we can accept it, and you can be brave enough to tell us the parts you know!"

Mr. Zhang grabbed him by the shoulders and shouted encouragement to him.

"No matter how unbelievable?"

Boy asked weakly.

"Yes! No matter how unbelievable!"

Mr. Zhang nods heavily.

"OK, I said ......"

--

In the other side of the interrogation room, Officer Jiang played all the recordings, as did Officer Du.

The previous questions, both the surveillance footage and the questions asked by the officers, as there was only one footage and no other witnesses, made it difficult to corroborate their words as false.

But now that witnesses from the changing room and the restaurant have been turned up and there are more witnesses, even if Boy Xiao Heyun tore up the piece of paper that made the plan on the way and threw it in several separate bins on different floors, there is no way for them to justify themselves anymore.

More importantly, because they had a history of telling lies, they could no longer be trusted to tell the truth, even if they did.

Officer Jiang has now confirmed that Li Shiqing and Xiao Heyun are in the same team, following the experience of the locker room and restaurant discussions.

Unlike Xiao Heyun's panic and devastation, Li Shiqing accepted the fact that "the police had broken us" calmly, and even with a sense of relief.

"It really doesn't work ......"

She was not as optimistic as Boy, who had been subjected to urgent police questioning.

"What else do you have to answer for? I advise you to speak honestly this time and not take the police for fools."

Officer Jiang was furious that they had been fooled, but good professional conduct allowed him to contain that anger well.

"Confession is lenient, resistance is harsh!"

"The truth as I know it will not satisfy you."

Li Shiqing sighed, "You'll think I'm crazy."

"Say it."

This is all Officer Jiang had to say.

Since his predecessor had advised him that this woman was more resilient than her male counterpart, he had not left Li Shiqing's table, standing as if he were a statue that would not move or falter.

Li Shiqing gave him a look, and Officer Jiang kept his eyes on her.

"It started when I got on the 45 bus ......"

Avoiding his scrutinising gaze, Li Shiqing bows her head, recalling everything that has been happening, and begins to tell the story.

If plan A doesn't work, plan B will be implemented.

Plan B was simple: tell the police everything they knew about the car and let them look for the clues available inside.

So, two questioning rooms, different times, same questions, different answers.

Li Shiqing: "...... My first incident was at 13:45 in the afternoon, when I was sleeping and woke up to a ringing mobile phone ......"

"...... When I had my fifth accident I was so scared and didn't want to stay in the carriage for a minute, so I pulled a random young man I didn't know next to me and said he was molesting me and asked to get out of the car and call the police ...... "

"Is this the one?"

Officer Jiang interrupted her with some impatience.

"No, not this time."

Li Shiqing's face showed a resigned misery as he calmly replied, "This time, it's my ninth accident."

She watched Officer Jiang look back at her with that "you make it up, you keep making it up" look on his face, ducked his head and went back to recounting all the details she could remember.

"The fifth time I finally got out of the car, but I don't know if it was because I had a concussion from hitting my head or because that past experience was so harrowing I subconsciously tried to forget it, so I lost my memory ......"

Officer Jiang, sitting opposite, rubbed his temples in slight annoyance as he listened to the eight o'clock doggerel and patiently continued to listen to the rest of the story.

On the other hand, Boy, who has had a relatively small number of time loops, has already finished all his time loops in three or five sentences, and could not be more sincere in his plea for the police to believe him.

"...... really, that's all I know, I don't know what the explosives are or why they exploded, I was so emotionally tense at the time, I just wanted to get out of the car quickly to slow down, that's why I pulled a Li Shiqing act and got out of the car in a hurry to find a way to deal with it first ......"

Seeing the increasingly disgruntled faces of several officers, Boy's voice trailed off as he mumbled aggressively, "You're the ones who said you could take it no matter how unbelievable it was ......"

When he had finished himself, he looked at him again with this look like he was mentally ill.

"It's unbelievable enough ......"

Mr. Zhang, who had been listening like a book from heaven, looked blankly at his colleague, "You usually read more online novels, what do you think?"

It was a thrilling moment of silence.

"It's quite a full-on story, the beginning of which probably got a lot of hits online, and it might even be a hit."

After a long time, Officer Du, who was questioned, said with a smile on his face, "I didn't know you guys were so good at this, did you? You've been working on the plot in the dressing room, haven't you? I'm sorry, did you even write an outline in the dining room?"

Boy: ......

" Mr. Zhang, ask Little Jiang to find a policewoman to accompany Li Shiqing from next door for a urine test and a blood test, and you, you come with me."

Officer Du's eyes were always suspicious and wary, never letting down any of his guard.

"I suspect you're stoned."