Others were stunned for a moment, then wanted to say something, but suddenly felt a gaze like a needle on their backs, and immediately fell silent.
Li Shuangjin gave them a fierce look, then stood up and walked ahead.
The interrogation inside was still ongoing.
"When did the boat dock?"
"I don't know." Zhuo Yan raised her hand. "I don't have a watch. I only remember it was dark for a long time then. Maybe several hours. It got light not long after I went ashore."
The person on the other side noted down her words and looked up again, "Was there anyone on the boat when you disembarked? There was a gunfight on the boat then, didn't you hear it?"
"I think so. There was a little girl who disembarked with me later. I didn't pay attention to the sound, maybe there was."
The person in front raised his hand to slam the table, but then remembered something and slowly lowered it. "Do you remember what that little girl looked like?"
"Thirteen or fourteen years old, this tall." She gestured with her hand. "Very pretty. She was also coming to Haicheng to see relatives. She said she was looking for the Marshal's mansion and that the young marshal was her brother-in-law."
The interrogating officer looked outside in disbelief, then turned back and said, "That's all for now. Since the real culprit hasn't been found yet, during this period..."
"What case?" she asked, her eyebrows curved with a mocking smile, not taking it seriously.
"The September sixteenth riverbank murder case," the officer said. "You and that little girl are the only two survivors."
Zhuo Yan was a little surprised, thinking that she hadn't killed them all at the time and had left a few alive.
However, in this era, human lives were as cheap as grass, and a few ordinary deaths were really not a big deal.
"Wasn't it a gang fight? It wasn't murder, why are you being so serious?"
"Oh." The officer also smiled. "You know about gang fights?"
Zhuo Yan smiled without responding.
The officer didn't care and got up with his notebook, walking out.
The first thing he asked Li Shuangjin after leaving the interrogation room was, "Boss, when did your nephew get married?"
Li Shuangjin frowned. "I don't know either."
The officer was stunned, then couldn't help but laugh heartily.
They all thought Zhuo Yan was talking nonsense. Li Shuangjin, considering his nephew's notorious womanizing ways, decided to send someone home to ask.
But the Li family said no one had visited them recently.
Although Zhuo Yan hadn't described the little girl in detail, the officer had a preconceived notion that the girl was also a Di Kun. The Li family would definitely pay attention if a thirteen or fourteen-year-old Di Kun came looking for her "brother-in-law."
Upon receiving the news, Li Shuangjin returned to the interrogation room and rushed directly to Zhuo Yan. "Are you playing us?"
"I'm not," Zhuo Yan said with an innocent look. "What I said is true."
"Do you know that Li Xiaoxian is my nephew?"
Zhuo Yan thought for a moment, and it seemed that was indeed the case.
"Yes."
Li Shuangjin was almost amused to the point of anger by her matter-of-fact attitude. "Then if my nephew got married, would I not know? And brother-in-law, Miss Qin, do you know you are a criminal suspect? If you don't explain everything that happened that night clearly, even if we can't find the truth, you'll have to stay here forever."
Zhuo Yan blinked and looked at him. "Oh."
She asked slowly, "Does Sixth Master work the night shift? Are you going back tonight?"
Li Shuangjin: "..."
Nothing could be coaxed out of her. Zhuo Yan hadn't really concealed anything. If she hadn't appeared, so many people would have died that night anyway. The question was, who killed the people afterwards?
The plot background of this world was very complicated, with warlords, bandits, and gangs constantly fighting. Deaths were not uncommon.
She didn't quite understand why he was so persistent.
Shen Yuan re-examined the known clues, but still couldn't find any leads.
As Zhuo Yan had thought, in such chaotic times, deaths were too common. However, there were two aspects of this gunfight that had to be clarified.
One of the two factions fighting on the boat that day had a man named Liu behind them, who was the only son of a deputy general under Marshal Li. Marshal Li was a relatively upright man and did not involve himself in shady dealings, but some of his subordinates secretly did. He didn't want to be too scrutinizing.
After all, they were brothers, and he couldn't watch them starve.
Li Shuangjin, as the captain of the Haicheng Police Department, usually turned a blind eye to these subordinates of his father. Sometimes, when he saw them being too arrogant, he wished someone would teach them a lesson.
Now that something had indeed happened, it was difficult to resolve.
Given the relationship between the two parties, he had to help investigate this matter and give Liu an explanation.
The other was that some of the people involved in the gunfight on the boat that day died after leaving the ship, and they died very strangely. They had no injuries on their bodies, their faces were extremely terrified, as if they had been scared to death.
Not far from where their bodies were found, there were civilians who had gone to the market early in the morning to do business. They said that when dawn was approaching, they heard people shouting, "Ghosts! Ghosts!" and running through the streets.
And Liu was among this group of people who were scared to death.
He had seen many people do evil under the guise of ghosts and monsters, and he did not believe in such supernatural things.
Even if there were ghosts, they could not withstand the wickedness of human hearts.
While thinking, Li Shuangjin tidied up his things and prepared to leave the police station.
Before he reached the door, a charming female voice suddenly came from behind.
"Sixth Master, are you leaving already? Aren't you going to wait for me?" Zhuo Yan caught up, and a shawl was now draped over her. It was almost dark, and the lights in the police station were dim, making her appear luminous.
Li Shuangjin looked at her fair and delicate face, her clear and translucent eyes that seemed to gaze into one's heart, and her rosy lips beneath her exquisite nose. He felt a dryness in his throat.
"How did you get out?"
"I walked out." She tilted her head to look at him, her face exuding a charming demeanor of a young woman, yet not truly an ignorant girl. The blend of these two temperaments was strangely fitting.
A police officer in uniform ran out from behind. Upon seeing Li Shuangjin, he first saluted, then said, "You, how did you get out? The door clearly wasn't opened."
In the blink of an eye, the person in the interrogation room was gone. He pushed open the door, but it was still locked, so he thought she had hidden in some corner and foolishly used the key to open the door and search inside.
The interrogation room was visible at a glance. If she wasn't there, she wasn't there.
It was then that he panicked and chased after her, not expecting that she had no intention of running.
"I walked out." Her slightly raised voice was exactly the same. Li Shuangjin felt a sense of angry exasperation from being appeased. He glared at the person chasing after him.
"Useless."
"Captain..." Sensing his excessively stern gaze, the man immediately lowered his head and fell silent.
"Oh dear, Sixth Master is so fierce." Zhuo Yan reached out and hooked his arm, naturally leaning against him. "It's not that he's useless, it's that I'm very capable. Sixth Master, you want to know how those people died, right? I can tell you."