The first area to be cleaned was the back seat of the car, where there were relatively more traces left.
Ye Sangsang fixed a flashlight to the back of the driver's seat using a wire, then filled a basin with a special cleaning solution. She meticulously scrubbed away any possible fingerprints left by Wang Shun, as well as shoe prints and small bloodstains.
The dirt on the driver's seat was also carefully wiped away, including the residue in the door crevices.
After finishing this, she moved on to cleaning the trunk.
As the place where the corpse had been stored, it was smeared with blood due to the bumpy journey.
Cleaning all of this required immense patience and an attention to detail that left no corner untouched.
Ye Sangsang happened to be just that kind of person.
The area under the trunk mat was cleaned spotless.
By the time she finished, two hours had already passed.
Finally, she cleaned the wheels, removing every trace of mud from when the car had entered.
She didn’t choose to rinse them but instead scraped off the dirt bit by bit, collecting it all in a basin of water.
The dirty water was then carried outside and poured into the street’s sewer.
This back-and-forth process took over three hours.
In the live stream, the number of viewers watching Ye Sangsang’s meticulous work didn’t decrease—it actually increased.
It was oddly satisfying to watch.
[Her movements are so methodical. I never thought I’d enjoy watching someone clean so much.]
[Same here. It’s a blessing for my OCD.]
[So detailed. It’s incredibly soothing to watch.]
The car was cleaned inside and out, with every crevice wiped repeatedly.
To put it bluntly, many viewers found it deeply satisfying.
Only Ye Sangsang, staring at the remaining items, pondered how to dispose of the raincoat, clothes, shoes, and the murder weapon.
The other items could be burned somewhere outside, but the hammer was harder to deal with.
She looked at the hammer in her hand, then decided to soak it in the cleaning solution.
The other items were packed into plastic bags, to be burned in a remote location the next day.
By the time she finished, it was already 11 PM.
Ye Sangsang entered the house but didn’t search for any useful clues.
Some timelines in the game that were irrelevant to the players could be skipped. After lying down on the small bed in the room, the game began to fast-forward through time.
The darkness before her eyes disappeared, and when she opened them again, she was greeted by bright sunlight.
The game’s time flowed at a 1:1 ratio with real time.
Skipped time didn’t count, and there were no limits to how often she could skip uninteresting periods.
Basking in the warm sunlight, Ye Sangsang sat up and began to survey the room.
It was an ordinary one-bedroom apartment, cluttered with various items. Though messy, there was a sense of order to the chaos.
The driver’s wife had already left. When Ye Sangsang got up, she walked outside.
The day before, she had tried to find other clues but discovered nothing. Perhaps the couple had been careful to avoid leaving anything incriminating for the police to find.
However, she vaguely sensed that the couple was fairly well-educated.
She picked up a bun from the table and ate it. After preparing the evidence to be burned, she searched around and found a dusty woven bag. Holding her breath, she opened the trunk and shook the ashes onto it.
Something that was too clean would only raise suspicion.
Once this was done, she drove off to find a place to burn the evidence.
After some searching, Ye Sangsang found a spot where people burned paper offerings.
With Qingming Festival approaching, it seemed perfectly reasonable to burn things there.
Watching the flames slowly consume the clothes and turn them to ash, Ye Sangsang finally turned and left.
Now, she felt like she was gradually immersing herself in the perspective of the taxi driver.
In short, she was getting into character.
Though she was immersed, she didn’t delve too deeply into uncovering the truth behind it all, as she knew someone else would reveal everything to her.
The police weren’t to be underestimated.
Time flew by like a fleeting shadow, quickly skipping ahead.
…
In the afternoon, a piercing, terrified scream drew many people from Tianjia Dam to a ditch in the middle of the farmland.
Before the police arrived, curious onlookers stepped over the narrow paths between the fields to peer into the ditch, where a body floated in the water. It was bloated and pale, with wounds that exposed shattered skull fragments and red-and-white flesh.
The nylon rope that had bound him was gone. Half of his head protruded from the water, anchored in place by a piece of driftwood, gently bobbing with the current.
It looked almost alive, sending shivers down the spines of those who saw it and raising goosebumps all over their bodies.
Bolder middle-aged men and women stepped forward to point and comment, while younger women and children stood on the roadside in the distance, listening to their descriptions and imagining what had happened in the ditch.
Many of the more timid individuals, hearing the descriptions, quickly pulled their children away, afraid of disturbing something sinister.
“Woo-woo-woo…”
The sound of a police siren broke through the crowd, growing louder as it approached the scene.
The onlookers, fearing they might be mistaken for suspects, slowly began to disperse.
The police car parked as close to the ditch as possible, and four officers in uniform stepped out.
Two of them began to usher the remaining onlookers away, setting up yellow caution tape to prevent the townsfolk from further disturbing the scene.
The other two officers put on protective gear and walked along the muddy path to examine the body in the ditch.
The body was too waterlogged to make out any facial features. The experienced officers put on gloves, took photos, and then worked together to pull the body out of the water.
Looking at the gruesome state of the corpse, the officers preliminarily concluded that it was a homicide.
Whether it was motivated by revenge, love, or something else would require further investigation.
After photographing the body, the officers placed it in a body bag. The woven bag found at the scene, as well as the nylon rope that had been washed downstream, were all collected and taken away.
Next, they gathered shoe prints and cleaned up any other suspicious traces.
Since there were few vehicles in the countryside, the officers also collected tire tracks from the road.
The first step in a police investigation is to identify the victim.
Wang Shun’s face was not too badly damaged, so his identity was quickly confirmed.
What surprised the police, however, was that he was actually a “familiar face” to them.
“Wang Shun, 41 years old, from Huagang County, Lin City. He has been involved in multiple crimes in Lin City. Time of death: between 6 PM and 10 PM last night…” In the police station, the investigative team began analyzing the information they had.
The police relied on two main tools in their investigations: witness interviews and physical evidence.
One officer noted that the scene was heavily contaminated, likely due to the vehicle used to dump the body. The Jiang City police began reviewing surveillance footage and conducting interviews to trace Wang Shun’s activities in the city.
After a day and night of investigation, they preliminarily determined that Wang Shun had gotten into a taxi.
The police speculated that he might have been killed by someone he had targeted.
To confirm this theory, they began conducting interviews.
In the early 2000s, there weren’t as many taxi drivers as there would be in later years, so it wasn’t difficult to gather all the drivers who had been operating in the area at the time.
Ye Sangsang was called in for questioning at the taxi company on the third day after Wang Shun’s death.
When she entered the interrogation room, she already had a clear idea of what was about to happen.
As long as she made it through the initial screening, unless something unusual came up, it was unlikely she would be investigated further.
In the simple office, a stern-looking police officer with a hint of a rogue demeanor pointed to the chair across from him and sat down opposite Ye Sangsang.
He held a cigarette in his hand, sniffed it, then set it aside and picked up a pen, looking at Ye Sangsang. “Where were you between 6 PM and 10 PM on the 19th? Answer our questions seriously. Lying to the police will land you in jail.”
In the early 2000s, public security wasn’t as good as it would be thirty years later, and the police were much harsher.
If they weren’t tough, they wouldn’t be able to control the local thugs, criminals, and gamblers.
Ye Sangsang was momentarily startled by his demeanor. She fidgeted with her hands, thinking for a moment before timidly replying, “It was raining heavily that day. I finished my last fare a little after 6 PM. Thinking there wouldn’t be anyone on the streets, I went home to rest.”
Her eyes instinctively drifted to the upper right corner as she spoke, as if trying to recall what she had done that night.
To play the role of an ordinary person, she couldn’t appear too clever or speak too fluently.
Ye Sangsang was a natural actress, so this came easily to her.
“Do you have any witnesses?” The young officer wasn’t ready to let her off the hook. His eyes bore into her as he pressed further.
Ye Sangsang pursed her lips, a hint of worry in her eyes. “Just me and my wife. Would my wife count?”
“No,” the officer replied without hesitation, his sharp gaze cutting through her.
Ye Sangsang's hands twitched slightly, clutching her pants, her eyes filled with deeper worry. She looked up, her gaze fixed on the police officer, and said, "I really was just about to go home. How could I possibly kill someone? Even if you gave me ten times the courage, I wouldn’t dare!"
Hearing Ye Sangsang's words, the young police officer stared at her intently, his body unconsciously straightening. He asked in a questioning tone, "I’m only here to investigate a theft case. Who told you anything about murder?"
At this, a flash of panic crossed Ye Sangsang's eyes, and she hurriedly explained, "When I came in just now, my colleague mentioned it. They said someone had died, and it might have been done by someone in the taxi business."
"Please believe me, I only just heard about it. I thought you were investigating a murder case!"
Her urgent self-defense, her fear of being implicated in the matter, made the young police officer visibly impatient. "Alright, alright, you can go now. Send the next person in," he said, waving his hand, his brow furrowed.
"...Okay... okay," Ye Sangsang said with a slight bow, then stood up and walked out of the room.
As she turned to close the door behind her, a faint smile played on her lips.
When playing a game, you have to take it seriously. Even if it’s just simulated NPCs, you can’t get away with being careless.
[Well... well, if I hadn’t seen Ye Sangsang commit the murder with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed she had done it.]
[Are games this twisted now? Do they really test your acting skills?]
[I’d say it’s Criminal Files that’s twisted. It demands real acting skills from players. Otherwise, with such a realistic simulation, any slip-up will get you caught.]
[Remember the streamer next door? They got too cocky after completing the early tasks, overacted, and ended up in jail. They had no choice but to start over. The streamer was almost in tears.]
Ye Sangsang, upon seeing the police officer who came to question her, appeared calm on the surface but felt a heightened sense of caution inside.
This guy isn’t an easy opponent.
She thought to herself that the police would soon conduct a second round of questioning.
She wasn’t far from the truth now.
