Chapter 52.2: As If She’d Killed Someone Before
After taking one of the portraits and having the two robbers verify it again, Zhao Weiguo confirmed that the man looked exactly like the robber who had jumped from the train window. He then promptly began filling out the transfer paperwork.
Meanwhile, Jiang Xia was already lying on the lower berth.
No one was making noise, and no one was smoking. The environment couldn’t have been more comfortable.
Sleepiness quickly washed over her. She yawned and soon drifted off.
Fortunately, she didn’t have any nightmares. The only problem was that the train’s constant clack-clack, clack-clack was too noisy, and she woke up again before she’d slept for very long.
Although she’d gotten a decent amount of rest, Jiang Xia hadn’t forgotten the persona she was maintaining. She continued pretending to suffer from motion sickness and intermittent PTSD. Whenever she had nothing else to do, she’d wash her hands, using the opportunity to look in the mirror and adjust the expression in her eyes.
Other than that, though, Jiang Xia had absolutely nothing to do.
She didn’t want to sit through another lesson from the Uncle Ba types, nor did she want to study old-fashioned food chemistry. And someone suffering from motion sickness couldn’t exactly read a book.
So all she could do was sit there.
And with nothing to occupy her, every second began to feel like an eternity.
Jiang Xia first studied the veins on the back of her hand. Then she counted the wrinkles in her bedding back and forth eight times. In between, she stared into space, played with her hair, and reminisced about her past and present lives…
But after two hours, she couldn’t sit still anymore.
Nope. She needed to find something to do.
With a deliberately pale face, Jiang Xia set out from the crew sleeping car at the very back and walked through the train, one carriage at a time.
A skill she hadn’t used in a long time was brought back into action. Jiang Xia surveyed the passengers and quickly found the people she was looking for.
This fellow is a colleague… Ah, no, a pickpocket. This one too. Remember that.
Ridiculous. It hadn’t even been a few months since the last time she’d taken a train. How could there be three pickpockets in a single carriage?
Good grief, it gets even more ridiculous. There are actually five in this carriage!
Jiang Xia went through every carriage from back to front, memorizing what these people looked like. Then she returned to the crew sleeping car and got to work drawing.
A little over an hour later, Jiang Xia carried a thick stack of portraits and knocked on the door of the crew compartment.
She placed the sketches on the table and said casually, “I took a walk around and found that all of these people are pickpockets. Chief Zhao, could you please arrest them?”
Huh???
Zhao Weiguo froze.
After standing there stunned for several seconds, he finally lowered his head and picked up one of the portraits.
They’d already exhausted all possible ways to describe how incredibly accurate her drawings were. But what was truly outrageous was that beside each portrait, she’d even written down the carriage number where she’d spotted the person, their seat, their approximate age, height, and clothing. She’d even noted whether they’d already made a move.
Looking at all that information, Zhao Weiguo was completely dumbfounded.
Could pickpockets really be caught like this?
No, seriously—how had she found so many pickpockets?!
Did she have Sun Wukong’s magical, all-seeing eyes or something?
The young railway officer beside him was equally shocked. Half skeptical, he poked at one of the portraits and asked incredulously, “Master, are there really this many pickpockets on our train?”
‘You idiot. Who would go to the trouble of fabricating something like this for no reason?’
Zhao Weiguo reached out and gave his apprentice a light smack on the back of the head.
“You’ll know once you’ve caught them. Come on. Let’s get to work!”
There were simply too many pickpockets, so Zhao Weiguo called over three more train attendants to help with the joint operation.
Once they caught the first pickpocket and found two wallets on him, everyone became excited.
This was going to be a huge haul!
The railway police and attendants worked their way through the train from one end to the other. The more pickpockets they caught, the brighter their eyes became, like cats spotting mice.
Catching pickpockets by matching them to the portraits was just too satisfying.
It was like the King of Hell calling names from the register of the dead. They just had to follow the list and make the arrests. Every single one was a guaranteed catch.
News could travel incredibly fast among train staff. Before they’d even finished making the arrests, the head chef in charge of cooking at the very last end of the train had already pushed a meal cart over.
He was doing it just so he could pass by the crew sleeping car and catch a glimpse of the extraordinary person who had walked through the entire train, identified more than twenty pickpockets, and even drawn portraits of every one of them.
He absolutely had to see her.
He’d be able to brag about this for three years!
The train pulled into a station.
Beaming with satisfaction, Zhao Weiguo led his people in escorting the entire pickpocket gang off the train and handing them over to the local railway police. After listening to his local colleagues exclaim in amazement and heap praise on them, he turned around and returned to the train.
Once all the passengers had gotten on and off, the train set off again. After traveling for a few minutes, Jiang Xia once again made another round of the train, looking like a wandering spirit on the outside while practically vibrating with excitement on the inside.
Sure enough, seeing her fellow criminals have a bad day was still incredibly satisfying.
So many new faces. She absolutely had to let them experience the loving attention of their senior!
This time, Jiang Xia hadn’t even had the chance to deliver the portraits herself.
Not long after she returned to the crew sleeping car, Zhao Weiguo appeared outside, already waiting for her.
Jiang Xia opened the register of the dead in her hands, a delighted smile spreading across her face.
Several dozen minutes later, another stack of portraits was handed over to Zhao Weiguo.
The wrinkles on Zhao Weiguo’s face practically split apart from smiling.
Like the Black and White Impermanence, he took the portraits and started checking names off—er, making arrests.
By the end of the night, Zhang Yongfeng and Gu Qingshan looked at each other in bewilderment.
How strange.
Why had the train been so quiet last night?
There hadn’t been a single pickpocket around!
The other passengers gradually realized that this time, traveling by train felt much safer than usual. They hadn’t lost a single thing.
What a pleasant trip!
The railway police were even happier.
Everyone was delighted—except the pickpockets.
Lu Yixing, however, was a little worried. He couldn’t shake the feeling that Jiang Xia’s excitement was somewhat abnormal, as though she were deliberately keeping herself busy to numb her emotions.
Still, finding something to occupy herself with wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, so he didn’t stop her. However, when Jiang Xia made her third round through the train, he borrowed a weapon from the railway police ahead of time and followed behind her to provide protection, just in case anything happened.
Fortunately, the rest of the journey went smoothly enough. Aside from the pickpockets, they didn’t encounter any other criminals, and they eventually arrived at Quzhou City without further incident.
Carrying the suitcase, Lu Yixing followed Jiang Xia off the train.
Zhao Weiguo and his apprentice got off as well, waving at them with expressions full of reluctance.
Sigh. Why did the Register of the Dead have to get off so early?
If they’d stayed on for a few more stations, they might have been able to catch enough pickpockets to meet their entire quota for the year…
＊
The two of them took a bus directly to the Quzhou City Public Security Bureau.
With so few clues, even after two days of investigation following the discovery of a set of fingerprints, there had been absolutely no progress.
So the moment they heard that the two had arrived, the members of the Criminal Investigation Division, along with Chen Yongyi, who had been comparing fingerprints in the office, all came rushing downstairs.
Director Du had made the necessary arrangements. Once he’d decided to send someone, he had made sure everything was properly organized. Although he hadn’t guaranteed that Jiang Xia would definitely be able to draw the portrait, he’d been very clear about her identity and age, so there was no chance the other side would be caught off guard.
As a result, Chen Yongyi, Xu Changsong, and the others had already mentally prepared themselves. They knew the person coming was a young woman who wasn’t even twenty years old.
But even with that preparation, when they actually saw her, everyone couldn’t help but feel their hearts sink a little.
She was too young.
At that age, even if she’d started practicing her craft as a child and had spent ten years honing it, could someone really have the skill to accurately draw a criminal portrait?
With doubts already in their minds, a hint of condescension naturally showed in their actions. Xu Changsong wasn’t in any hurry, walking at a leisurely pace. Chen Yongyi, who had arrived later, had even caught up and passed him.
“You’re Jiang Xia, right?”
Chen Yongyi looked her up and down twice. He vaguely felt that there was something unusual about the young woman standing before him, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was. For now, he went straight to the matter he cared about most.
“The portraits of Yang Da and Ding Si—you drew those, right? Do you have a photograph of either of them?”
“I drew them.”
Jiang Xia kept herself under control, immediately directing her gaze toward the elderly man who had spoken to her rather than looking elsewhere.
“There’s a portrait of Yang Da. I drew it from a photograph. Ding Si’s portrait was drawn from a description given by a witness.”
“Then we’ve got a good chance.”
Recalling what Ding Si looked like compared with the portrait, Chen Yongyi immediately relaxed.
“The witness got a fairly clear look at him. I think you should be able to get it about fifty or sixty percent accurate.”
Xu Changsong, however, wasn’t quite so convinced.
But when it came to solving a case, it didn’t matter what method they used. They might as well try it first.
“I’ll have someone bring the witness over.”
As he spoke, Xu Changsong took another look at Jiang Xia’s complexion. He secretly shook his head. Then he turned around and saw that the squad leader, Rong Zhenhai, had also come over.
“Comrade Jiang doesn’t look too well. She must be exhausted from the long journey. How about this, Da Rong? Take the two of them somewhere to rest for a while. We’ll talk once the witness arrives.”
As the primary investigator handling the case, Rong Zhenhai had been working himself ragged lately. His eyes were filled with red blood vessels.
Hearing his superior’s instructions, he forced himself to perk up, gave a slight nod, glanced at the two of them, and said, “You two, come with me.”
Jiang Xia followed.
There wasn’t much else to discuss here, so Chen Yongyi and Lu Yixing followed them upstairs as well, while Xu Changsong headed toward his own office.
The five of them walked up the staircase together.
Rong Zhenhai led the way, yawning as he went. He glanced at Jiang Xia again and suddenly felt that something wasn’t quite right.
At first glance, the female police officer who had come to assist them looked sickly and frail. But on closer inspection, there seemed to be an almost imperceptible air of menace about her.
Especially her eyes. There was something incredibly fierce about them, almost as if she…
As if she’d killed someone before.