Hearing such a detail, Xiao Jiang and Mu Chenyan were excited.

Mother Sun said, “I felt that the pen was still in good condition. My granddaughter, Lele, usually used it to read English, and it has no other use. What’s the point of buying a new one?” “Hence, I returned it to Lele.”

Mu Chenyan’s heart jumped in her throat and asked, “Where’s Lele?” “Did she take the pen with her?”

Mother Sun looked at the mess in the house and sighed. “So much has been happening at home, and I couldn’t help but send Lele to her maternal grandmother to stay away for a few days.” “She might have taken it with her as she reads English every day…”

Xiao Jiang asked a few more questions again, but Mu Chenyan’s attention was on the reading pen.

Coming out from the Sun family’s house, Xiao Jiang informed Su Qingcheng the result of the investigation and mentioned the reading pen.

“Chenyan, how did you think of asking that question after hearing about Sun Xu’s job?”

Xiao Jiang was becoming increasingly curious of Mu Chenyan. She was only a junior reporter, but her mind was so meticulous that she could totally become a detective.

Sun Xu’s unusual request for the mother to keep the pen meant that there must be something about it.

“Mother Sun said that Sun Xu worked at a sophisticated place hence it’s inevitable that he might have come into contact with some of the dignitaries, and those people often looked down on the waiters. Maybe they had discussed about something after getting drunk, and it was overheard by Sun Xu.”

As Mu Chenyan explained, Xiao Jiang’s eyes lightened up, and he felt that it made sense. “The topic Sun Xu was interested in would most likely be related to his brother’s pension?”

Mu Chenyan smiled, “I’m not sure actually. It’s just my speculation. I’m not a police officer. You guys would need evidence for the case, but I only need to make an assumption hence I could over think situations to explore more possibilities.”

Su Qingcheng laughed. “It’s good to over think. What’s worse is not thinking at all.” “However, what you’ve just said is right. Imagination alone won’t work. We need evidence.”

“How did it cross your mind that Sun Xu might have passed something to his mother?”

This was Xiao Jiang’s first time here. The Sun family was having a funeral for their Old Master, hence everything was quite chaotic, and he did not have much idea on how to obtain a testimony. However, Mu Chenyan had managed to get a clue just like that, hence he was naturally curious about Mu Chenyan’s thought processes.

“Sun Xu had a low education level. In his kind of job, one’s not allowed to take his mobile phone with him during working hours. If he really had the intention, he would have used other ways to record the information he overheard.”

“He must have acquired this information by chance. Since he took the reading pen that Lele uses every day for a few days, this meant that in the process, he needed to record numerous times.”

Mu Chenyan said plainly, “Of course, this is just my speculation. Moreover, I don’t think that a waiter with a junior high school education level would take his niece’s reading pen for the purpose of learning English.”

Xiao Jiang was piqued by what he had heard. He had been a criminal police for a few years and knew that cracking cases required evidence. This kind of imaginary practice was definitely forbidden by Wu Huai. He continued asking Mu Chenyan, “Then why didn’t he buy the most advanced micro camera or recording device then?”

Su Qingcheng was also intrigued by Mu Chenyan’s thoughts, hence she let Xiao Jiang asked closely.

Mu Chenyan was somewhat embarrassed. The beautiful and charming woman was now blushing. “I’m just making a blind guess. Don’t take it for real. Hurry up and find that reading pen, and then we’ll know for sure.”

“Lele is his brother’s orphan, so he must have taken care of that child. When the child learns English, he’d have told him that the reading pen has a recording function. Sun Xu’s income was very low, and he usually has to supplement his family’s household expenses. If he were to buy other devices, he’d have taken into account the problem of money spending.”

“Hence, when he has a need, the first thing that he thought of would be whatever that was available at home.”

Seeing that Xiao Jiang was about to raise another question again, Mu Chenyan responded directly.

“As for the 300 dollars that he was willing to give to his mother to buy a new one for Lele, it must be because he saved some very important content in the old reading pen which he thought was more valuable than money.”

Mu Chenyan finished speaking in a breath and took a sip of water from the glass Su Qingcheng had passed to her. Xiao Jiang was ecstatic. “Judging from what you’ve said, I should hurry up and make a move.”

“To do what?” Mu Chenyan asked and looked at Su Qingcheng.

“Go to Lele’s granny house to retrieve that reading pen.”

As Xiao Jiang replied, he had already jumped into that ramshackle police car of his.

“Sigh, I’ve said that all these are merely my wild guess. Sun Xu’s already dead, and even I myself am not sure whether the situation was as such.”

Mu Chenyan was worried that she would mislead them.

Su Qingcheng assured her, “Don’t worry. Since there’s such a circumstance, regardless of whether it’s like what you’ve said, we would still have to look for that piece of evidence.” “Moreover, those who’ve caused trouble together with Sun Xu came clean yesterday night, saying that Sun Xu had let them listened to a part of a phone recording. It’s very likely that Sun Xu had transferred it into his phone for them to hear.”

“These people didn’t dare to say much in the station. Sun Xu also didn’t let them know where the original copy was, and so there’s no substantial evidence that the recording they mentioned existed. Sun Xu’s mobile phone has long been taken away by the murderer. If you didn’t bring it up, I wouldn’t have thought that there might be other devices.”

Mu Chenyan nodded. “People nowadays are used to using their mobile phone for all occasions. At the place where Sun Xu worked, if there were any dignitaries discussing something in secret, it’s impossible that they would allow the waiter to hold the phone and record.”

Su Qingcheng sighed. Looking at the evidence she had collected the entire day, she commented, “I didn’t think these two cases would have a connection. It looks like this Sun Xu was murdered because he had known too much.”

“You mean to say that this was to silence him?”

Although Mu Chenyan agreed with this speculation in her heart, she was still shocked.

“There’s a very high chance that it wasn’t an intended murder but that he was accidentally beaten to death during the interrogation. We’ll have to wait for the autopsy report before we can be certain of it.”

…

The two women were occupied until the evening, only then did they had a proper hot meal.

It was the end of May and the season for skewers.

At the beer stall by the roadside, Su Qingcheng and Mu Chenyan ordered some barbequed skewers and beer and was about to dig in.

Mu Chenyan had never had this kind of experience. All her first-time experiences were given to Su Qingcheng.

The last time she had a super spicy set meal at City C, while this time, it was eating skewers and drinking beer.

Eating by the street side and drinking cold beer was something that not just the Yuan Family would not allow, but even when in the Mu Family, it was impossible for her to try something like this.

Her socialite title was such a fake one.

“I’ve always carried the title of a socialite last time, and I feel that I didn’t really experience the reality of the world and the suffering of human life. That was an incomplete life!”

Mu Chenyan was still fearful of eating spicy dishes, hence the skewers she ordered were all vegetables.

“How about now?” “It should be complete?” “Only when one had eaten skewers and drink beer does it count as a complete life!”

Su Qingcheng remarked gleefully and revealed her clean and white teeth. Her eyes were full of delight. Her meat skewer was glowing red, and this frightened Mu Chenyan.

“One of my psychological turning points was after I went to the battlefield in the Middle East during my university days.”

Mu Chenyan smiled and lifted the beer can. It was still a little tough for her to accept this kind of bitter liquid, and she frowned as she took a big gulp.

The cold sensation truly felt good. Mu Chenyan smiled and continued saying, ” The Mu Family and the Yuan Family were at the top of society. All that I saw was a prosperous world, and I’ve lived a smooth-sailing life. Even if it was not smooth, I could just play pretend and flirt my way through it.”

Su Qingcheng chuckled, “It’s different for me. When I was a child, I had problems with filling my stomach. Hence, my parents picked one from among their seven daughters to be sold off, and unfortunately, I was the one…”

Mu Chenyan was taken aback. She had never heard Su Qingcheng talked about her past.

No wonder she despised the human traffickers that much. In the last operation in City C, she had nearly beaten that female trafficker to death.

“Qingcheng, you…” Words were stuck in Mu Chenyan’s throat. Being abandoned by one’s biological parents, only the person alone could tell how painful it was.

Su Qingcheng motioned with her hands and said, “It’s not worth bringing up. It’s all in the past now.” “Why don’t we talk about you? I really admire your courage. I was a soldier back then, but I’ve never actually gone to a battlefield. There were many wars in the middle east, and it was intense. I signed up to join the peacekeeping forces but got rejected.”

When Su Qingcheng thought about the reasons she might have been rejected, a large part of it was due to Shao Yibai intervening. She imagined the meat skewer in front of her to be Shao Yibai and fiercely gnawed at it!

“Indeed, the war makes people realize that in the face of life and death, everything is but a walking shadow.” “In the refugee camp, I’ve seen the struggle and suffering of those at the bottom of society. Only then did I realize the insignificance of all I’ve experienced.”

“In order to survive and for one’s loved ones to live on, one could even lose their most basic dignity. Today, they might still be alive and walking, but tomorrow, when a bomb explodes, they could become pieces.”

Su Qingcheng had a few large glasses of beer, and her eyes were slightly red. She looked at Mu Chenyan and suddenly commented, “Hence, with that encounter in the battlefield, you’ve considered having gone through life’s honing, which was how you made it through the two years in prison…”

Hearing that, Mu Chenyan nodded and replied softly, “Indeed, life in prison was a vast difference from my previous life.”

From a pampered young lady to a prisoner, the psychological impact was truly not small.

“I’ve got no loved ones, no identity, no love, no dignity, and no hope for the future life.”

When Mu Chenyan said that, her eyes dimmed. The unfair treatment she had experienced during that period was not expressed in hate and grievances but in a plain and simple manner, as if she was talking about some other people’s story.

“Did you thought of ending your life?” Su Qingcheng asked.

“No.” “Even though I don’t know whether I could leave that place, I’ve never thought of committing suicide.” “I can accept death, but I don’t want to end it on my own. I’ve seen even harsher life and death, so I chose to respect life.”

“Hence, though I was beaten and bullied, I bore it all silently. It wasn’t because I was still thinking of Yuan Xuan and my family.”

“Now that I come to think of it, I only feel that those days were also a complement to making my life whole. I can’t be living a peaceful life forever and be a socialite who never knew the suffering of the human world…”

Su Qingcheng laughed. “When you first came over to be a reporter, even Wu Huai looked down on you, afraid that you could not take on the workload. It seems that a philistine man is just merely as such, while a woman’s tenacity is extremely strong.” “Not only did you persist, but you’ve also helped us to crack the case.”

Mu Chenyan gestured with her hand and smiled. “It’s all just my wild guess. There’s no rule to it but just an intuition.” “It’s also merely luck.”

Su Qingcheng was well aware that the Mu Chenyan she was seeing in front of her had been reborn. Those experiences she had gone through had allowed her to rose from the ashes and be reborn from the fire like a phoenix!