Ye Zeling also quickly confessed to her crime. Having killed her most beloved brother with her own hands had been tormenting her heart. So before Fang Rui and his team could even begin to interrogate her, Ye Zeling had already provided a detailed account of how the crime took place.
Her statement was largely consistent with Liu Jiale's account.
Fang Rui remembered something and asked, "Miss Ye, did you two put that small piece of paper in the victim's hand?"
"What paper?"
Fang Rui felt that there were still some unresolved questions in this case.
However, everyone else was already basking in the joy of solving the case.
Zhang exclaimed, "Ah! This case is finally solved. I can't believe Ye Zeling's acting was so good, she almost had me fooled!"
"I know, right? She was crying so heartbrokenly while hugging her brother's body. Who could have imagined that she was the killer herself! Though she's quite unfortunate. If she had honestly turned herself in, she might have only been charged with manslaughter. Now that she's made everything so complicated, she'll definitely get a longer sentence."
"Aren't you forgetting that she's a dance drama performer? I felt something was off about her at the time. Normal people don't cry like that."
"Then why didn't you say something at the time? If you had, we would have solved the case immediately!"
"Well... we didn't have any evidence then!"
"I have to say, the boss and Dr. Mu are really impressive. If we were investigating this case, we might have just thought it was an ordinary fire."
Everyone was eager to celebrate solving the big case, but Fang Rui wasn't as happy as they were.
Because he remembered Mu Mian saying that the cause of death was mechanical asphyxia. Although brain damage could also cause asphyxia, Mu Mian hadn't emphasized it at the time, which suggested that the wound wasn't the fatal injury.
And then there was that small piece of paper. Both Ye Zeling and Liu Jiale said they didn't put it there, which meant there was likely a third person at the crime scene!
When Fang Rui found Mu Mian, she was drawing in her office.
Mu Mian had weekly drawing assignments as part of her autism intervention therapy. She had been busy with the case all week and hadn't had time to complete it, but now she finally had time to catch up on her homework.
Seeing Fang Rui, Mu Mian put down her brush, "Fang Rui, I wanted to tell you earlier that I think Lin Lan is the real killer, but you left immediately."
Fang Rui smiled at Mu Mian. What a coincidence, he also suspected Lin Lan was the killer.
Mu Mian took out the now shriveled but still beautifully colored green cake from her drawer, "This is the evidence. Although it's not very rigorous as evidence."
"We found out that Lin Lan also went to that villa on the morning of June 8th. This further proves that she was likely present at the time of the crime."
Lin Lan had entered the villa by taxi, sitting in the back seat and avoiding the surveillance cameras the entire time, so she wasn't discovered in the first round of investigation.
After finding this discrepancy, Fang Rui questioned the taxi drivers one by one again, and one taxi driver confirmed that Lin Lan had taken his car to enter the villa area that morning.
Fang Rui took his team to arrest Lin Lan.
Lin Lan was cleaning the shelves, which had already been emptied of cakes, leaving only some molds. But Lin Lan was still cleaning very meticulously.
Fang Rui asked directly, "Miss Lin, you were also in the room when Ye Zeling and Ye Zeming had their argument, weren't you?"
Lin Lan's expression was very calm. Fang Rui thought she would deny it, but she confessed, "Yes, I was there that day. I was hiding behind the shelf."
"When Ye Zeming hit the sculpture, he wasn't dead yet. At that time, Ye Zeling ran out in a panic, and you took advantage of this opportunity to kill Ye Zeming. When Ye Zeling and Liu Jiale came back in, Ye Zeming was already dead, so they mistakenly thought Ye Zeling had killed him, right?"
"Yes." Lin Lan looked at her cake shop reluctantly, then extended her hands to Fang Rui, saying softly, "I confess. My faith does not allow me to lie, let alone commit crimes."
Fang Rui handcuffed her and took her back to the police station.
Lin Lan was probably the most cooperative criminal Fang Rui had ever seen. Before he could even ask, she volunteered the details of what happened:
"That day I heard Zeming was sick, so I brought him some medicine and cake. When I got there, I found out he wasn't sick at all, he just used this excuse to lure me there and ask me to lend him money. I was very angry, but I loved him so much that I still decided to lend him the money.
Then Zeling arrived.
Zeming didn't want us to meet because Zeling was very hostile towards me, so he asked me to hide and wait until Zeling left before coming out.
The siblings had a fierce argument, and during their quarrel, I learned about the sordid relationship between them. At that moment, my world collapsed.
Can you understand that kind of despair? I was raised with the purest faith, only to fall in love with such a scumbag. How ironic!
Later, Ye Zeling accidentally pushed Zeming, and his head hit a statue, causing a lot of bleeding. Ye Zeling was frightened, thinking she had accidentally killed her brother, so she ran out of the villa in a panic.
At this point, I walked over to Zeming and found that he was still breathing, he wasn't dead. He opened his eyes wide, seemingly wanting to ask me for help. But I didn't save him. I took a pillow and smothered him to death.
I think God will forgive me. I was punishing a demon, not committing a crime."
"You know what happened after that. When Ye Zeling went out, she met Liu Jiale. Liu Jiale loved her so much that when he found out about this, his first instinct was to cover up the truth. He engineered a fire, intending to destroy all traces of evidence.
Haha, but they never thought that the person who actually killed Ye Zeming was me."
Lin Lan sighed, "If only I hadn't left that note, you probably wouldn't have discovered that there was another person at the crime scene. But I don't regret it. Ye Zeling isn't a good person either, and I wanted to expose her dirty secret with her brother.
I hoped that the big fire would cleanse his filthy, sinful soul."
Fang Rui said, "We suspected you not just because of the note, but also because of that green velvet cake."
"The cake?" Lin Lan gave a bitter smile, "No wonder your girlfriend was so interested in that piece of cake. So she suspected me even then. I was careless. I saw her looking so naive, I thought she really just liked the cake. I didn't expect she was trying to get information out of me!"
"She's very smart."
Coming out of the interrogation room, Zhang gossiped, "Girl...friend? Boss, aren't you single? Where did you get a girlfriend?"
Fang Rui glared at him, "Don't go spreading rumors, this is just a misunderstanding."
"She was talking about Dr. Mu, right? Boss, be honest, are you dating Mu Mian?"
"Why would you have such a misconception? Mu Mian and I are diligently solving cases, what are you doing, imagining some romance novel? Are you tired of your job and want to quit?"
Fang Rui was a bit exasperated. He and Mu Mian had been working day and night to solve the case, where would they find time for dating?
"Tsk tsk, Boss, you used to call her Dr. Mu, but look now, you're calling her by her first name!"
"Is there a difference?" Fang Rui hadn't paid attention to these details. Names were just labels to him.
"You should use someone's title when working, it's common sense." Zhang imitated Mu Mian's tone.
"..."
"Boss, don't you feel that you treat Dr. Mu very specially?"
"I treat everyone who can help me solve cases specially. Mu Mian is a genius at solving cases, of course I have to treat her well, don't I?"
Zhang felt a bit disappointed. So the boss only valued Dr. Mu for her case-solving abilities. Dr. Mu really misplaced her affections. But then again, it seemed Mu Mian wasn't interested in Fang Rui as a person either, but rather in his future corpse.
Strangely compatible!
"Zhang Qiang!" Chen Xue patted Zhang's shoulder, "What are you muttering about again?"
"Ah, don't call my full name! And why are you shouting so loud!" Zhang saw that no one was around and whispered to Chen Xue, "Chen Xue, the CP you're shipping is purely your imagination! The boss doesn't like Dr. Mu at all!"
"That's not important, it doesn't matter," Chen Xue's eyes gleamed, "The boss is a Libra, and Dr. Mu is a Leo. These two zodiac signs are perfect for each other. They'll definitely end up together!"
Zhang looked at Chen Xue helplessly. He had thought he was the most unreliable one here, but to his surprise, Chen Xue, who usually appeared clever and quick-witted, turned out to be just as unreliable.
