Case Files Chapter 57: Campus Suspicions (19)

Translated by Vivian of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: Addis

 

“Area A is the male dormitories, yet this Wang GuiHua is clearly a feminine name. And, I checked the phone number that they registered with, it’s made up. This was also their first time using this Taobao account, and the information is fake. It must’ve just been a temporary registration,” said Lin Bai.

“A girl in the boy’s dormitories?” Guan Jin suddenly thought of someone. “The dormitory supervisor!”

*****

When Wang GuiHua saw Lu YunYang show up at the building in all his glory, smiling and telling her he had been looking for her, she really did feel quite excited.

“Professor Lu, did you come to visit your son again?”

“…He’s my friend’s son. Miss Wang, I’m going to be going abroad soon, so I want to send some gifts to my son, wait no, my friend’s son. I was wondering how to write this place’s shipping address?”

“You can just write which class they’re in, since there’s a mailbox for each class in there. Packages are placed in the cubicles, classified according to their type,” said Wang GuiHua.

“Oh, then what about your packages?”

“Mine? I’ve never bought anything before.” Wang GuiHua was confused. “Why are you asking me…”

“I believe that you’ve been looking after Guan Jin this entire time, so I also wanted to send you a gift.”

“Ah, you’re too polite, hahaha.” Wang GuiHua beamed brightly. “For mine, you can just write the Area A’s dormitory supervisor room, since I’m here most of the time. If I’m not here, they’ll just leave it next to the window. My mail also gets placed there, so when I pass by, I pick them up. Ah, actually, you don’t have to get me anything.”

“It’s my pleasure.” Lu YunYang said goodbye, and when he turned the corner of a building, he saw Guan Ji smirking at him.

“Say, even if you guys don’t want to alert the killer, you can’t make me sacrifice my image and deceive a woman.” Lu YunYang spread his hands.

“If you’re sorry, then you can actually send something to her, I’m sure she’ll be very happy.”

“Mn, I looked at the dormitory supervisors’ attendance records. The week that that package arrived, Wang GuiHua had taken a week of sick leave, so a temporary substitute was here. She said that she didn’t remember receiving a package for Wang GuiHua.

“The killer knew she wouldn’t be here and used that opportunity to use her name to receive the package. They really are extremely clever.”

Guan Jin and Lu YunYang separated, and Guan Jin went upstairs to his dormitory. When he arrived at the second floor, he bumped into Chen Jing. Chen Jing had been released because there wasn’t enough evidence against him, so no one else knew of this matter. However, he had become even more timid, and he even resigned his position as resident supervisor assistant.

“He-hello.” Chen Jing took the initiative to greet him.

Guan Jin nodded, and the two of them brushed shoulders as they walked past each other. Suddenly, Guan Jin stopped him. “Chen Jing, I want to ask you something.”

Chen Jing was startled. “What?”

“When you just got into this university, did you help out at the orientation party?”

“Yeah.”

“Who asked you to help?”

“My department head. At that time, I had just joined the advertisement team, so I was putting up posters. My department head told me to do stuff such as moving boxes around and such.” Chen Jing asked in surprise, “Why do you ask?”

“No reason, I’m just interested in organizing a party.”

Guan Jin didn’t obtain any useful information, so he continued walking back to his dormitory.

*****

The next day, the three of them skipped class for a good cause and went to the police station. Wen JingHan wanted everyone to brainstorm, though this wasn’t any different from the previous cases.

“They pretended to be Gao Yun, and they knew where Gao Yun got her coat from. It should be a girl, right?” Ding Ding said, “Tang ZiYou is smart enough, and Lu MinMin is a little neurotic. Could the two of them be working together?”

“But if it was a girl who went to Area A to retrieve the package, entering the male dormitories might attract attention, and they’re not allowed to even enter,” disagreed Lin Bai.

“During brainstorms, don’t question other people’s views. Put forward as many opinions as you can, and it doesn’t matter how bold they are,” said Wen JingHan.

“How did they know Wang GuiHua took the week off? They chose Area A, and Chen Jing is the only suspect that lives in Area A. However, the killer is very careful, so I reckon that in order to avoid suspicion, they purposely chose Area A, or somehow learned that the supervisor for Area A was taking a sick leave, so they took advantage of this opportunity,” said Gu Xiang.

Chen QiaoYu thought for a moment. “I keep thinking that WenWen is the only one who has the most motive, since he was rather close to Gao Yun. He also didn’t participate in the prank, so he has a reason to hate these people. However, there aren’t any records of him coming here, so who’s the one who has been doing these things?”

“Chen Jing is in Area A, and he’s the clearest about Wang GuiHua’s schedule, so maybe it is him. He’s also related to Dong Ping’s death.”

“Fang YuTian is the calmest and cleverest, so the possibility of it being him is the highest.”

“Bold… Could Li Qiang have purposely made it look like someone was trying to kill him, but in reality, he wanted to prove his innocence!” Ding Ding suddenly suggested.

“If we didn’t go looking for him, he would’ve died. Li Qiang’s phobia was written on his medical records, which we’ve already verified.” Guan Jin glanced at her.

“You’re not supposed to question me…”

Wen JingHan flipped through the papers and suddenly stopped. “The night Cheng JiaoJiao died, everyone said that they were sleeping in their dormitory. Has this already been verified?”

“Yes. During that time, the dormitory inspections were very strict, so as long as it’s not a weekend, they would’ve checked for sure. According to the records, they were all there,” said Gu Xiang.

“Then how did they come out?”

“They could have jumped from the window on the second floor.” Guan Jin said casually, “Although it’s a little difficult for the average person, there’s a soft lawn underneath, so they wouldn’t have been injured.”

“You’re overestimating the average person…” Chen QiaoYu said helplessly.

“Then how else could they have gotten out? Walk through the door? Besides, they went out, but how did they come back in? Although the building doors are opened very early in the morning, it would’ve aroused suspicion for them to return at that time, since the cleaning crew is there. If they waited for everyone to wake up before going in, his roommates would’ve been likely to discover that he wasn’t in the room.”

“Perhaps it wasn’t one of these people? Didn’t Lu YunYang think that none of these people’s personalities matched the killer’s?”

“Wait.” Wen JingHan interrupted them. “Even if the records show they were in their dormitory, does that mean they have to have been there?”

“False inspections?”

“No, what I mean is perhaps someone doesn’t have to be inspected.”

Guan Jin looked at him in surprise. “Are you talking about Chen Jing, who works in the dormitory supervision department?”

“That’s right, he might have helped the dormitory supervisors do the inspections. This way, he wouldn’t have to be inspected, and since he was outside inspecting dormitories, his roommates wouldn’t have been suspicious no matter when he returned, and he also has access to the keys to the entire building! He left the building during the inspections, and after he committed the murder, he returned in the dark, secretly opened the front door, and then secretly locked it.”

“The dormitory supervisors are also responsible for building supervision, which is why he could’ve known ahead of time that Wang GuiHua was taking sick leave and used her to buy the coat.” Chen QiaoYu slapped the table. “But, he doesn’t seem like the type of person to do these things at all.”

Guan Jin frowned and seemed to have recalled something. “Yesterday, when Chen Jing saw me, he said hello to me. I was clearly the one who reported him, so he should hate me, and he had no reason to take the initiative to greet me. This doesn’t make sense.”

Gu Xiang looked through the information they had gathered and was surprised when he saw something. “Look at this. Chen Jing explained that after he got Dong Ping’s call, he rushed back to the dormitories, and the records show that the phone call was made at three fifty. According to his friend’s memory, Chen Jing borrowed his library card at a little past four, which means Chen Jing used the excuse of borrowing books to borrow someone else’s card after the phone call, creating the illusion that he had never left. This was all premeditated, not a coincidence! How did we not notice this before?!” Gu Xiang was very upset.

“That guy is this smart? So is his timidness all a pretense? He kept it up for two years?” Ding Ding was skeptical.

“He’s introverted and cowardly, but that doesn’t mean he’s not smart. We were hindered by our cognitive inertia. His grades are very good, and he was able to get into Nanhua University, so it’s evident that he’s quite intelligent.” Wen JingHan was also a little unhappy about overlooking this.

“But, according to Lu YunYang’s analysis, his personality is just too different from the killer’s.” Chen QiaoYu still couldn’t believe this conclusion.

“It indeed doesn’t match, because the killer isn’t the Chen Jing you’re talking about.” Lu YunYang, who had been in another room listening to the recording of the questioning, walked out.

“Are you sure? The evidence all points to him, so how else would you explain it?” Chen QiaoYu felt that Lu YunYang was being a little subjective.

Guan Jin noticed something strange in his words. “Not the Chen Jing we’re talking about?”

Lu YunYang shot a pleasantly surprised smile in his direction. “You’re worthy of being my good partner, it’s still you who understands me. Actually, I should have looked at the recordings earlier, instead of just looking at the transcript on paper, since it led to me neglecting this possibility.

“You see, the whole process went like this. Chen Jing was caught in the act on the rooftop by Little Jin, and when QiaoYu went there with backup, he was already crestfallen, and he didn’t try to come up with excuses or struggle, right?”

Chen QiaoYu and Guan Jin nodded.

“But when he arrived at the police station, he began to defend himself. Suppose he thought of countermeasures on the way here, which was why he calmly asked, ‘is it illegal for me to go onto the rooftop to look for something I lost?’” Lu YunYang continued, “After QiaoYu questioned him, he revealed the fact that he wasn’t in the library. Although he looked nervous, he didn’t fidget or make any small movements that would indicate his nervousness or anxiety. At that time, we still hadn’t found out that he premeditated using his friend’s card to leave, and QiaoYu’s series of questions seemed aggressive, but actually, they weren’t enough to prove he had a direct connection to Dong Ping falling off the building. Since he had enough time to think of countermeasures, how could he not have thought about the worst case? Chen Jing is a very cautious person, so after Dong Ping fell off the building, he definitely imagined what it would be like if he was discovered. But under QiaoYu’s inquiries, he broke down at once. Even though his breakdown is explicable, his following explanation was extremely smooth, and he didn’t show any signs that he was an immature, scared, timid, and introverted person that had broken down under the police officer’s intimidation. And, his first retort, ‘is it illegal for me to go onto the rooftop to look for something I lost?’ was said very passive aggressively, and I dare say that a person like Chen Jing would very rarely say something like that, not to mention in this situation. This person’s behavior is very contradictory and abnormal.”

After Lu YunYang finished, everyone in the room fell silent.

“It can’t be, right? I’m a little confused, what do you mean by that?” Chen QiaoYu felt that there was something at the back of her mind, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. 

“Your idea is very bold, but I think that it’s not that unreasonable.” Wen JingHan frowned slightly.

“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” Guan Jin raised an eyebrow.

 

“Hey, can you guys say something that we can actually understand?” huffed Ding Ding, who felt very lost.