Jian Jing said, "Jiang Ou, someone saw you go to Jiang Guangze's room around 12:20 am on the night of the incident."
She brushed off the notebook in her hand, "I got this testimony a long time ago. I think Jiang Xue probably couldn't have colluded with anyone in advance. Please explain."
Jiang Ou's face darkened as he stared at Jiang BaiYan first, "Are you talking nonsense?"
Jiang BaiYan was lounging casually on the single sofa, wearing home clothes and hugging a fat orange cat as if he was a retired old lady who could knit, "You might as well accuse me of murdering him directly, everything bad must have been done by me."
"Anyway, I didn't go," Jiang Ou denied it outright.
"Alright, if you don't admit it, you don't admit it," Jian Jing said, unexpectedly tolerant. She continued to question Jiang Xue, "You said you saw Jiang Ou go into the chairman's room. How long was he in there roughly?"
Jiang Xue said, "For a while, I didn't pay attention to exactly how long."
"Did you go into the room?"
She flatly denied, "No."
"However," Jian Jing said slowly, "someone also saw you go into the chairman's room, around 12:30 am."
Jiang Xue's face froze too.
Jian Jing flipped open her notebook and read the testimony written in it, "According to the eyewitness, she saw Jiang Xue walk into the chairman's office around 12:30 am, and about 5-10 minutes later, she walked out with a pale face, leaving in a hurry."
"Who said that?" As expected, the chairman's genes were very strong. The performances of the siblings were all the same. Jiang Xue jumped up and glared fiercely at the others, as if wanting to shred them with her eyes.
Jian Jing asked, "Do you admit it or not?"
Jiang Madam gently pulled her daughter's sleeve.
But Jiang Xue stubbornly refused to sit down and sneered, "Fine, I admit it. Unlike some people, I have figured it out. That night, I guess everyone didn't sleep well, right? If one person saw it, then there would be two. Of course, it could also be a collusion."
"Going into the room doesn't mean being the murderer," Jian Jing drank iced coffee and said slowly, "In fact, I have reason to believe that each of you has been in the room."
"I did go in," Jiang Xue readily admitted, "When I saw Jiang Ou go into dad's room, I really wanted to know why he went in, so after he left, I sneaked in."
"What was the chairman's situation then?"
Jiang Xue stared straight at Jiang Ou, "Dad didn't look right, as if he had no breath left."
Everyone was very surprised.
Li Lawyer had to say, "Miss Jiang, the chairman passed away around 3:20 am. The heart rate monitor issued an alarm at the first moment."
Jiang Xue said, "I don't really understand that, but can the plug of that thing be unplugged? I was very scared at the time and didn't notice if the machine was on or not. Maybe Jiang Ou unplugged it and then plugged it back in later."
"Impossible. If the person had died at 12 o'clock, there would definitely be rigor mortis by 3 o'clock," Li Lawyer denied her speculation. "The doctors and nurses wouldn't fail to notice that."
Jiang Xue didn't quite understand. Her first reaction was to look at Jian Jing — she didn't believe Li Lawyer, he was Jiang Qi's man, while Jian Jing was Jiang BaiYan's friend, and wouldn't lie for him.
Jian Jing said, "Rigor mortis occurs 1-3 hours after death. The villa had the central air conditioning on, maintaining the temperature at around 16 degrees Celsius. It’s unlikely there was a 3-hour advance death, but within 1 hour is not impossible."
It was the middle of the night when the incident occurred. As long as the main switch was turned off, the monitoring device would not alarm. After a while, when the power supply was restored, and the heart monitor detected that the heartbeat had stopped, it would alarm.
However... the murderer falsifying the time of death was mostly to create an alibi.
None of those present had an alibi.
She ridiculed inwardly, but didn't explain. Because as soon as she said this, the expressions of the suspects changed, although everyone controlled it very well. But the intersecting eyes betrayed their unease and thoughts.
It’s also fun to bluff them a bit.
Jiang Xue cleverly protected herself, "I was already asleep at 2 o'clock, it wasn't me."
"Then Jiang Ou went even earlier, which also ruled him out," Jian Jing "kindly" reminded.
Jiang Xue puffed her cheeks, but didn't change her words and insisted, "I don't know about that. Anyway, he went in, and I admitted it myself, there is no need to blame him."
"That makes sense," Jian Jing looked at Jiang Ou and smiled slightly, "Do you really not admit it?"
Jiang Ou was silent for a while, and suddenly relaxed. He crossed his legs and said, "Fine, I'll admit it. Anyway, whether I admit it or not, you guys don't believe me in your hearts."
He said indifferently, "I did go to dad's room, just when she said, I wanted to talk to him about something. But when I went in, I saw him sleeping very soundly, so I came out."
Jiang Xue said, "You're lying. When I went in, dad looked like he wasn't even breathing. You must have done something."
"Do you have a brain? She just said it's unrealistic that he died after 12," Jiang Ou said impatiently.
Jian Jing immediately corrected, "Death is one thing, taking action is another."
"In my opinion, it's still unclear who made the move," Jiang Ou said coldly. "Just because she said dad didn't look right at the time, does that mean he really wasn't alright? It’s also possible that she took action herself and blamed it on me. And there are also fingerprints."
Jiang Lian chimed in, "Yes, Xue is very suspicious. She might have done something and then asked Assistant Yin to come over, trying to steal the will."
Jiang Madam said, "First of all, I don't know there’s a safe there. Secondly, I don't know if there’s a will in the safe. Thirdly, even if I knew both, how would I get the password?"
Her tone was not without sarcasm, "The old man had been guarding against me for more than just one or two days. No matter how sincere I was to him, it was to no avail with you guys taking turns to brainwash him. If I knew there was a safe, a will, and a password, you should be clearer than me."
The three siblings exchanged a look.
Jiang BaiYan leaned in and whispered in Jian Jing's ear, "She's telling the truth."
Jian Jing: "Reason?"
"In this family, the one the chairman was most wary of was big sister's husband, then her, the outsider." He said, "The old man was very traditional in this regard. He didn't even fully trust his own children, how could he trust a mistress?"
Jian Jing just smiled without commenting, waiting for the following.
Jiang Qi said, "It seems that everyone finds this kind of result unacceptable, right?"
"This is slander," Jiang Xue said angrily.
"Then let's continue the investigation," he said indifferently. "Lawyer Li, Miss Jian, there are already rumors outside. Father's death cannot be kept secret for long. I hope that no matter what, we can come to an acceptable conclusion for everyone tomorrow night."
Li Lawyer: "I'll try my best."
Jian Jing said bluntly, "Whether you can accept it or not has nothing to do with me. All I want is the truth."
"We shall wait and see."
*
That night, the wall lights were bright. Jian Jing curled up in bed, lying on the pillow writing and drawing.
This was a special case with very little objective evidence, relying mainly on eyewitness testimonies. However, due to conflicting positions, everyone might conceal and lie.
How to pry open everyone's mouths and distinguish between truth and lies was the most difficult point of the case.
Jian Jing had never encountered a similar case before and was very excited.
She drew several corresponding groups in her notebook.
First of all, the one testifying that Jiang Ou entered the room at 12:20 am was Jiang BaiYan.
He said, "The chairman said he was going to change his will the next day, making everyone absent-minded. I thought it was a good opportunity to steal my phone back, which was with Jiang Lian. It must have been past 12, she wouldn't have gone to bed so early, either busy with work or discussing things with Jiang Qi, so I sneaked into her suite.
"She wasn't there, and the phone seemed to be locked in the safe. I tried several passwords but all failed, so I had to give up and come out. At that time, I saw Jiang Ou go into the chairman's room."
So Jiang Ou's actions had two witnesses.
Jiang BaiYan → Jiang Ou ← Jiang Xue
Then there was the one testifying Jiang Xue — Jiang Nursing.
When talking, she was hesitating whether to speak up. As a result, when she ran into Fan Secretary coming back, she didn't make a sound. In the afternoon today, Jian Jing took the opportunity to ask her again.
Only then did Jiang Nursing stutter and say, "I saw Miss Jiang Xue go into the chairman's room."
Here was her explanation: on that night, after she got off the phone with her boyfriend, she couldn't fall asleep right away and decided to get up and cook some instant noodles. But before she even got to the kitchen, she saw Jiang Xue sneaking around furtively on the second floor, peering left and right before quietly slipping into the chairman's room.
Jiang Nursing had been working for the Jiang family for half a year already and was familiar with the situation of this household. Not wanting to get involved, she simply went back.
"I figured the chairman had passed away around 3 AM, and it was only 12:30 then, so it should have been fine and I didn't mention it to anyone. But now that it's become such a big deal, I thought maybe I should speak up." She said somewhat apologetically, "I think I may have helped quite a bit."
So there was now a testimony accusing Jiang Xue.
And lastly there was the matter of Jiang Madam's fingerprints. She staunchly denied it, and no one testified to having seen her enter the chairman's room.
If the three Jiang siblings had seen her, they definitely would have spoken up, so in all likelihood they hadn't witnessed it.
So what exactly was the story with the fingerprints? Jian Jing did not doubt Li Lawyer's analysis results, but she was suspicious about how the prints got there and when.
She opened the comparison report Li Lawyer had sent over.
The two prints were of different sizes. The larger one belonged to the chairman—the thumbprint from his right hand on the safe handle. The smaller one was Jiang Madam's, her right index finger on the number pad.
At first glance there seemed to be no issues, but on further thought, if she had sneaked in and entered the password, then getting the safe open should have been all but guaranteed. So why were only the prints from fingers other than her thumb left behind?
Had she entered the wrong password, or were these prints not actually left by Jiang Madam at all?
If this was an attempt to frame someone, then who did it? One of the three Jiang siblings perhaps.
Why would they do this—just to set Jiang Madam up? But fingerprints alone could not prove any connection between opening the safe and the chairman's murder, much less determine if the prints had been left at the time of the incident.
So let's entertain the assumption that one of them killed the chairman, stole the will, then pinned it on Jiang Madam.
That would make sense, right?
But there was still one question.
Had Jiang Madam truly not gone to the chairman's room? Jiang Xue said she discovered the chairman breathing faintly, seemingly close to death. A high schooler suddenly faced with this kind of situation—what would be her first reaction?
To hide back in her room? Perhaps, but she was not a timid person by nature. On the contrary, she was quite gutsy. The two leaks had arisen because of her after all.
To put it bluntly, Jiang Xue had a tendency to play chaotic neutral.
She would definitely have gone to find Jiang Madam.
And Jiang Madam would surely have gone to the chairman's room as well.
So was it possible the prints really were hers, left when she had tried passwords but failed (or didn't have time) to open the safe? Why didn't she wipe her prints?
As she herself said, if she knew about the safe, then the three Jiang siblings must know about it too.
That left a huge question mark.
And then there was Jiang Ou.
He was the earliest known person to enter the room, claiming he gave up on waking his father after seeing the man unrousable. Who would believe that?
Wouldn't he try to sneak a peek at the safe?
And what about Jiang Lian and Jiang Qi?
Jiang BaiYan said when he went to Jiang Lian's room, she wasn't there.
Where had she gone?
Jian Jing set her pen down, thinking to get to the bottom of this, she would have to uncover everyone's movements and the timeline.
