Ye Zeming has a sister named Ye Zeling, twenty-seven years old, a dance drama actress. She was the first to discover the fire and called the fire brigade.
When Fang Rui and Zhang located her, she was outside the police cordon, engaged in a fight with another woman, and several policewomen were intervening to separate them.
The beaten woman was the former girlfriend of the deceased, named Lin Lan.
"You damn woman, why are you here? Did you start this fire? Did you kill my brother? I knew it, you could not let go of my brother."
Ye Zeling yanked Lin Lan's hair forcefully, cursing like a shrew. Her crude behavior heavily contrasts with her beautiful appearance.
"Zeling, your brother called me here."
Lin Lan's hair was disheveled, and there were several scratches on her body, but her tone was still gentle, looking at Ye Zeling as if looking at a naughty child.
"Nonsense! Impossible! My brother assured me that he would never see you again, why would he call you? You're lying!" Ye Zeling became increasingly hysterical, her fierce eyes seeming to want to tear Lin Lan apart.
"Your brother said he wanted to see me one last time."
"Shut up! You're fantasizing again that my brother likes you. My brother hates you, you wicked woman, he would never see you!"
Lin Lan started to argue back, "Your brother called me anyway. You are not your brother. How would you know he doesn't want to see me?"
"Shut up! I just know. My brother says you're a whore!"
Seeing Fang Rui and Zhang come over, Ye Zeling immediately felt bolstered.
"Officer, the fire was definitely set by this woman. She's the murderer! My brother dumped her, and she held a grudge, she killed my brother!"
"We will thoroughly investigate this case. Miss Ye, please return to the station for questioning with me," said the officer.
"Good, officer, I will fully cooperate. You must catch my brother's murderer!" Ye Zeling spoke as she unleashed a venomous glare on Lin Lan.
Zhang corrected her, "I'm younger than you, you can just call me Officer Zhang," emphasizing on 'Officer'.
Zhang then looked at Lin Lan, saying, "You should come to the station for questioning as well."
"Okay, I will cooperate with your investigation," Lin Lan replied defiantly, mocking Ye Zeling with a smirk.
Just then, two policemen emerged, carrying a body bag.
"Is that my brother's body?" Ye Zeling threw herself onto the body bag, sobbing uncontrollably, "Bro, how could you just die like this? How am I supposed to live without you?"
Everyone present was a bit stunned - the siblings' bond was incredibly strong.
Fang Rui turned to look at Lin Lan. Lin Lan was staring at Ye Zeling, disgust written on her face, but she quickly managed to squeeze out a few tears, feigning grief.
"Can I ride in the same car as my brother?" Ye Zeling did not let go of the body bag, "I want to be with my brother."
Mu Mian was taken aback, it was her first time seeing someone so enamored with a corpse. Despite the body being shattered beyond recognition and the stench of flesh charred by fire, Ye Zeling couldn't let go.
She really loved it!
Mu Mian wanted to befriend her.
She switched her gaze to Fang Rui, lost in thought.
Sensing the intense gaze from Mu Mian, Fang Rui couldn't help but ask, "What's the matter, Doctor Mu?"
"If your corpse were to be shattered like that, I definitely wouldn't embrace it. However, I would try to piece you back together!"
"...Should I say thank you?" He added one more unnecessary question.
"You're welcome."
Despite Ye Zeling's persistence, Fang Rui relented and let her ride in the car with the deceased.
"If you're not afraid, go ahead and ride in this car."
"This is my brother's body, why would I be afraid! I would like to ride in this car!"
Mu Mian warned her: "Just don't open the bag. I haven't finished piecing the body together yet. I suggest you wait for me to finish before viewing his remains!"
Ye Zeling stared at Mu Mian with her shiny, large eyes, "What do you mean?"
"The body of the deceased has been blown to pieces." Mu Mian kindly informed, "Don't worry, I will do my best to put him back together. I am rather good at jigsaws."
What then followed was the sound of sirens accompanying Ye Zeling's loud wails the entire way, causing headaches for everyone in hearing range.
As Ye Zeling had had a mental breakdown, Fang Rui and Zhang had no choice but to first take a statement from Lin Lan.
Lin Lan was a pastry chef in her thirties. She was not as pretty as Ye Zeling, but had a unique charm of tranquillity and timelessness, and her voice was gentle.
"Miss Lin, what is your relationship with Ye Zeming?"
"Zeming is my ex-boyfriend." Lin Lan lowered her eyelids, her tone somewhat desolate, "Now, I guess we have no relationship. We broke up six months ago."
"Why did you break up?"
"Isn't the answer obvious?" Lin Lan laughed at herself, "Once he gained prosperity, he went about damaging relationships. After Zeming became an art master with a net worth of millions, he thought me beneath him, a mere humble pastry chef, and dumped me."
Zhang asked, "Do you hold grudges against him?"
"How could I not! When he was in difficulty, penniless, I was the one who took care of him. However, once I was useless to him, he kicked me out, spreading rumors that I was a gold digger and had left him for money before he made a name.
Ahh, but what good is resentment? When we broke up, he gave me a huge sum of money, we settled the score. Life has to go on, you can't be immersed in painful memories all the time."
Lin Lan's voice was calm, she seemed void of any emotions towards Ye Zeming. There was no emotional fluctuation when she mentioned him.
Fang Rui asked, "Considering your bitter fallout, why did he call you this morning?"
"He told me he was leaving the country and wanted to see me one last time before he left, to apologise. Initially, I refused but he said he had something important to return to me. I had no choice but to agree."
"What is it?"
"He didn't tell me. But I guessed it was the cross that my grandmother gave me, I lost it at his place, couldn't find it, I thought he had found it and wanted to return it to me."
Suddenly, something came into Lin Lan's mind, she pulled out her phone, "This is a recording of our phone call. You might want to listen."
Fang Rui played the recording aloud. Indeed, the contents of the call matched what Lin Lan had described.
"Miss Lin, do you habitually record your calls?" Fang casually asked.
"In our line of work, we constantly need to communicate with customers. Some clients are indecisive, if we don't record, it will lead to endless disputes at billing. So, I have set my phone to automatically record all incoming calls."
"Was the relationship between Ye Zeling and the deceased good?"
"Pretty good. Their mother left home when Zeling was two, and their father passed away early. It was Zeming who brought up Zeling. Hence, their sibling bond is exceptionally strong."
Lin Lan gave a self-mocking smile, "So good that they might be a bit exclusive. Therefore, she despises me, has prejudices against me. She always says I am after her brother's money, but when I was with Zeming, I was the one supporting her and her brother."
"You mentioned earlier that the deceased told you he was going abroad, do you know why?"
"Perhaps...for love."
"Love?"
“I’m not sure. But he once told me that he seemed to have found his true love. The reason he broke up with me was because he wanted to be with his true love.”
Fang Rui asked, "Miss Lin, do Ye Zeming siblings have any other relatives?"
"Other relatives? They have an uncle, but they don't get in touch frequently. But Zeming told me that their father had an affair and illegitimate child outside, this was the reason for their parents' divorce."
"Alright, thank you for your cooperation. If you have any clues, please contact me."
Leaving the interrogation room, Zhang immediately complained, "Boss, don't you think there is something twisted about the relationship between the sister and the deceased? They don't behave like the typical siblings."
Fang Rui corrected him, "At this point, it is not confirmed whether the deceased is Ye Zeming."
"Who else can it be! Just now, Lin Lan mentioned that Ye Zeming had a true love. Given Ye Zeling's obsessive property towards her brother, wouldn’t she have gone crazy and ended up killing her brother if she found out about this true love? Can the murderer be Ye Zeling?"
"Following your logic, shouldn't she have killed the true love of her brother first?"
"Yeah, boss, you thought about it more comprehensively! Shall I go and dig more at the fire scene, see if I can find the body of the deceased's true love?"
"You go!"
Zhang ran off in a puff of smoke.
The world quieted down in an instant for Fang Rui.
