The people in the room all looked at Jia Ming. To an outside observer, Chen Ge had no reason to kill Jia Ming.
The police weren't fools—they had thoroughly investigated Jia Ming's social network long before apprehending him. His entire life up to this point contained no overlap with Chen Ge whatsoever.
Jia Ming's body shrank back desperately. After hearing Chen Ge's words, he grew even more terrified. "I can't say it! If I do, I'll never walk out of this hospital alive! He'll kill me here—use every method you can imagine, and you'd never guess what form your death will take! He's a vicious ghost, a skinning, man-eating fiend!"
"Stop dodging the question," Li Zheng said flatly. "If you don't come clean, I'll leave you alone in a room with him."
"Am I really that frightening?" Chen Ge knew Li Zheng was only saying that to pressure Jia Ming into confessing, so he played along. He got up and checked the ward's windows and door—once he confirmed everything was locked, he sat back down.
With no way out, Jia Ming hesitated at length before finally speaking. "I witnessed him kill someone. During my escape, he saw my face."
"When was this?" Li Zheng waved the doctor out and switched on his voice recorder.
"About three or four years ago." Jia Ming looked at Chen Ge with timid, fearful eyes, his voice so low it was like the buzz of a mosquito—if you didn't focus, you couldn't hear him at all. "I used to work at an insurance company. A real estate developer's family member was in a car accident. No major injuries, but the car was damaged. Traffic police investigated and found the driver had been drinking. Furthermore, the most serious damage on the vehicle turned out, after professional assessment, to have been caused by the owner himself while drunk. So according to regulations, I denied the claim."
"Because of that, the man brought people to our office to cause a scene. He was powerful and well-connected—the manager didn't dare offend him, so he pushed me out as a scapegoat. I had a temper too, and after they hit me, I fought back immediately. Both the thug and I ended up at the police station."
"My wife spent a lot of effort getting me out. I lost my job, and our family burned through a lot of money. I was furious, so I decided to get revenge."
"That night, I snuck over to his place. I meant to scout it out first, see what the situation was—but I stumbled onto something horrifying." Jia Ming stopped there, staring at Chen Ge, beads of fine sweat forming on his forehead.
"Well, go on!" Li Zheng and the female officer beside him both urged impatiently.
"I accidentally discovered that someone was going to kill the real estate developer." After saying this, he raised a finger but didn't dare point it at Chen Ge. "I only wanted revenge—I never thought about killing anyone. His death had nothing to do with me."
The matter had grown complicated, now involving a separate murder. Li Zheng frowned lightly. "Who's this developer? I've met most of the real estate developers in Jiujiang."
"His name was Jiang Long. He once funded the takeover of Mingyang Residential Complex—that's the largest unfinished construction project out in the eastern suburbs now."
"That was him?" Chen Ge and Li Zheng exchanged a glance, many threads of information clicking together in their minds.
"Jiang Long died in a car accident—an accidental death. We have a record of it at the station." Li Zheng immediately pointed out the hole in Jia Ming's story.
"You were deceived! You're still being kept in the dark! He was murdered, and the killer is right now—" Jia Ming bit down hard on the tip of his tongue, then jabbed a finger toward Chen Ge. "—sitting right next to you!"
"You're saying I killed Jiang Long? Then why do I have absolutely no memory of it?" Chen Ge watched Jia Ming's every movement. He noticed that Jia Ming's earlier act of biting his own tongue was disturbingly similar to something he himself did—in the past, whenever his thoughts became muddled or he found himself in danger and needed to force himself calm, he would bite down hard on his tongue, using the pain to snap himself back to focus.
Jia Ming didn't dare speak directly to Chen Ge. His last outburst seemed to have burned through all his courage.
"What exactly did you see? Why are you saying the killer is Chen Ge?" This was what piqued Li Zheng's curiosity—he had never before encountered a situation where a captured suspect accused their own accuser of being the murderer.
"Believe me, I remember that face perfectly! I'm absolutely certain it was him!" Jia Ming picked up where he'd left off. "The first time I went to find Jiang Long, it was around midnight. I planned to case the place in advance, but once I reached the villa district where he lived, I realized there was no way in—too many guards and cameras."
"But around one in the morning, something seemed to happen inside the complex. All the guards rushed toward one particular house, and I slipped in through the commotion."
"The incident was at the villa next to Jiang Long's. Two dogs that family kept had been silently slaughtered—brutally, without a sound."
"The guards cordoned off Jiang Long's neighbor's place and began searching for whoever killed the dogs. They made a huge ruckus, but Jiang Long's villa was dead silent—every light off, and no one answered when the guards knocked."
"Jiang Long probably wasn't home. I realized this was my chance—I could use the chaos to slip inside and grab something valuable."
"I circled to the back of the villa and tried to climb in, but the house was impossible to scale—cameras everywhere. Frustrated, I casually pushed on the back gate and found it wasn't locked, just latched loosely."
"The gate swung open, and before I could even react, the scene before me froze me in terror."
"A man knelt on the ground, drenched in blood, his face twisted in agony. Something seemed to be stuffed in his mouth, and blood was still seeping out. And right next to him stood another man, lazily holding a blood-soaked blade between two fingers, speaking in a leisurely tone about something or other."
Jia Ming looked at Chen Ge, both fists clenched so tight the veins stood out on the backs of his hands. "The man kneeling on the ground, covered in blood—that was Jiang Long. The other man, standing beside him—that was him."
"I appeared at Jiang Long's villa? And this was years ago?" Chen Ge had no memory of it whatsoever. The man had to be lying—or the person he saw merely resembled Chen Ge.
"Identical. Every feature on your face—I see it in my nightmares. I remember every detail." Jia Ming was practically on the verge of screaming. "Back then, Jiang Long begged me for help. When he opened his mouth to speak, blood ran down his chin—I didn't dare stay a second longer. I just ran."
"Hold on, I have a question." Li Zheng was still on Chen Ge's side—he felt Jia Ming's account didn't hold up to scrutiny. "Jiang Long ultimately died in a car accident. There were no stab wounds on his body, and the time of death doesn't match up either."
"That was only the first time. After that, this demon latched onto me. I kept having the same dream for days on end. As soon as I fell asleep, he would crawl out from under my bed, stand at my headboard, and tell me that after Jiang Long was dead, I would be next."