Chapter Eighty-Six: The Student Surpasses the Master

Ning Shuyi played a video she had edited. It was clearly assembled from many separate surveillance clips, and the locations were mostly around Wang Yuluo’s home. The footage was taken from more than half a month, and in some cases more than a month, before Wang Yuluo was killed.

Within the video, the figure of a young woman could be seen clearly.

Unlike the other pedestrians who passed by or lingered nearby, this young woman walked very slowly, looking around as she went. Her gaze would occasionally meet the camera that had captured her, and then she would continue scanning her surroundings.

Huo Yan frowned slightly as he watched the repeatedly looped clips of those same movements. “She was scouting the area, taking note of the position of every camera and the general range each one covered.”

Zhao Dabao snorted. “No wonder she was able to avoid the cameras so smoothly and get in touch with Wang Yuluo on the day of the crime. So she really did do her homework.”

“When did you start suspecting her?” Huo Yan asked Ning Shuyi.

Ning Shuyi thought for a moment. “Not for very long. At the beginning, I wouldn’t say I suspected her. I just kept feeling that something was off, but I couldn’t quite grasp the line of thought.

“Later, through the investigation, we were able to confirm that someone had wanted to get rid of Wang Yuluo by underhanded means. That meant only if Wang Yuluo died could the killer clear the obstacles and achieve their goal.

“Although a former boyfriend who had stalked the victim looked highly suspicious, if Li Qiao wanted to achieve the aim of saving twenty years of struggle, Wang Yuluo was not an obstacle at all, but the only path forward.

“So he was the first one ruled out.

“On the surface, there had been two people who seemed most likely to have done it: Wu Caimei, whose marriage had been ruined by Wang Yuluo, and Yang Huishu, whose way had been blocked by her.

“Wu Caimei goes without saying. She had already started a new life and was doing very well. It was obvious that Wang Yuluo and her father had both become part of the past; the original motive no longer held, and the conditions for the crime were absent.

“As for Yang Huishu, her motive was very clear, and she really did carry out her plan in her own way.

“But the method she chose was to gamble with fear, hoping to trigger a shock that Wang Yuluo’s body, already affected by hallucinogens, would not be able to withstand.

“In other words, although this girl’s hatred of the rich had twisted her into something psychologically warped, Wang Yuluo still did not pose such a threat that she would throw caution to the wind and look for a more reliable, certain way to kill.

“Especially after we discovered the venomous ants, I became even more convinced that after thinking of the venomous ants, she would not have gone out of her way to have someone send Wang Yuluo movie tickets or anything of the sort.

“Yang Huishu’s plan and the timing of Wang Yuluo’s death were nothing more than a coincidence.

“Once all of them were ruled out, what remained was a person we hadn’t even given much thought to at the beginning: Wang Yuluo’s cousin, Yu Mengpeng.”

“True. Yu Mengpeng also had the convenience of opportunity. It’s just that at first, with no obvious suspicion and no major conflict between the two sisters, it was hard to place suspicion on her right away,” Zhao Dabao said.

“In fact, she did have some doubts around her from the start. It was just that there were so many other people with stronger motives standing in front of her that no one had the spare attention to consider the more hidden clues.”

Ning Shuyi recalled the small details she had worked hard to catch earlier. “That day at Wang Yuluo’s house, Yu Mengpeng was the last to arrive, only after her mother kept urging her on the phone. At first she still put on an act, asking what had happened to her cousin, whether it was a car accident or some other injury.

“After that question got no answer, she didn’t press it. Later, when she spoke with us in private, she threw up smoke screens for quite a while in front of us, but never asked another word about what had actually happened to her cousin, whether she was dead or hurt, as if she had no curiosity or concern at all.

“When we were chatting in the cafe, she didn’t drink anything, but she kept stirring it and even unconsciously shredded a tableful of paper scraps. Thinking back on it now, that should have been the tension she was trying so hard to hide beneath her calm exterior.”

Huo Yan recalled the situation. Yu Mengpeng’s reactions from beginning to end did indeed seem to match what Ning Shuyi had said. No one had deliberately told her in the middle of it all that Wang Yuluo was already dead, but by the time she later accused Wang Yuluo’s ex-boyfriend, she seemed to have known that fact all along.

“Also, Yu Mengpeng kept stressing that Wang Yuluo wasn’t close to her, that she wasn’t brought into her circle, so the two of them weren’t familiar with each other. But in fact, the amount of observation she had made about her cousin was by no means small, and the information she gave us didn’t sound like something a truly unfamiliar person could have known.”

Ning Shuyi continued, “And she wasn’t completely without ambition for her uncle’s assets either. When she spoke to us before, she even mentioned that she wanted to join her uncle’s company as soon as she graduated, but her mother wouldn’t agree. She said Wang Yuluo hadn’t gone straight into her own father’s big company either, so as her niece, Yu Mengpeng couldn’t do that.

“Now that we look back, everything is very clear. Wang Yuluo’s aunt had her own plan and wanted to carry it out step by step, with steady and careful progress. It’s just a pity her daughter never understood her mother’s calculated intentions.

“Or perhaps she did understand, but lacked the patience to carry out the plan alongside her mother.

“Her motive for the crime was probably exactly the same as everything her parents had schemed for: to feed on her uncle.

“It’s just that she may have been too young after all. She thought herself clever, was self-important, greedier than her parents, yet possessed far less patience.”

“She didn’t want to proceed step by step. She only wanted a single leap to the finish,” Huo Yan summed up for Ning Shuyi.

Zhao Dabao shook his head repeatedly as he listened. “Mad! Truly mad! Just thinking about Wang Yuluo’s aunt and all those things she did, I already felt that when greed takes hold in human nature, it really is terrifying.

“Who would have thought! This family of three is something else entirely. They really are cut from the same cloth! The daughter has actually outdone her parents. The younger really does surpass the older!

“But why would she make a move against her own cousin? By rights, if she got rid of her uncle, then the whole estate would have gone to her cousin. Wang Yuluo had already been thoroughly spoiled into being useless by her mother, so she should have been easier to manipulate.

“She killed Wang Yuluo, but her uncle’s assets were still under her uncle’s control. She got no benefit at all, and neither did her parents.

“If she was greedier and wanted a one-step solution, shouldn’t she have gone after the person who was harder to manipulate instead?”

Ning Shuyi let out a sigh. “Then we have to return to the topic we discussed before. Knowledge is nothing more than a tool. It has no inherent good or bad. But once a person with malicious intent masters a certain kind of knowledge, who knows what absurd and crooked ideas might come to mind?”

Momo’s sinusitis flared up these past couple of days, and it’s been unbearable, so I’ll switch to one chapter a day for a few days first. Starting next week, we’ll go back to the old routine: two updates a day from Monday to Friday, and one update on Saturday and Sunday. Kisses!

The end of this chapter.