Chapter 160 Zhou Ming's Alibi

"Looking for me?"

Hearing those words, Zhou Ming shifted his gaze back from the window.

He glanced at Ji Feng's credentials and then asked curiously.

He had noticed them before they even entered.

He had initially thought they were relatives of other patients coming to tidy up a bed in advance.

He hadn't expected them to be looking for him.

And that they were police officers.

"Don't you know why we're looking for you?"

Without waiting for Ji Feng to nod in agreement, Long Hao immediately used a standard interrogation tactic.

The person was dead due to a crime.

Under normal circumstances, Zhou Ming shouldn't yet be aware that his girlfriend was dead.

"I... can probably guess."

Zhou Ming moved his gaze from Ji Feng and let it rest on Long Hao's face, answering calmly.

"Is it about my girlfriend, Yan Lili?"

As soon as he said this,

Long Hao's brow twitched.

Did he just trick it out of him?

Was it really this simple?

"Yes."

"Tell us about you and her."

Long Hao feigned composure, still not mentioning that his girlfriend was dead.

Instead, he let Zhou Ming talk.

"There's too much between me and my girlfriend. You have to tell me what exactly you want to hear, right?"

As he spoke, he brushed his bangs back.

Rows of red marks from razor blade cuts appeared on his arm.

It was obvious that this man had a history of self-harm.

Moreover, it was very likely the reason he was hospitalized.

"You should know what I want to hear."

Long Hao continued to probe.

Zhou Ming nodded silently upon hearing this.

He didn't show the slightest resistance.

"You're here because you want to know about Yan Lili's part-time job, right?"

He didn't hide anything and spoke about it quite frankly.

For a moment, the room fell silent.

As a boyfriend, his reaction upon learning about his girlfriend's 'part-time job' shouldn't be like this.

It should be anger!

Not this indifferent manner.

"You know what your girlfriend was doing?"

Long Hao looked puzzled.

As a normal male, such a thing would be unacceptable.

Yet Zhou Ming's reaction didn't give the impression that he found it unacceptable at all.

He even acted as if it had nothing to do with him.

This attitude really made one doubt the nature of their relationship.

"Yes, I found out a few months ago."

"I was very angry then, but I'm not angry anymore."

Zhou Ming answered all of Long Hao's questions plainly.

He didn't resist the questioning in the slightest.

"You were angry before, but you're not now?"

"Why did you suddenly stop being angry? Did you do something?"

The implication in Long Hao's words was clear.

He was angry then but isn't now because his girlfriend is dead.

His resentment was gone.

"I did indeed do some things."

As Zhou Ming spoke, he lifted the blanket covering his legs.

Then, his two legs came into the view of the four people.

They were covered in dense, red marks from razor blade cuts.

Looking closely, one could even see some scars.

As soon as the old wounds healed, he would cut new ones.

"Whenever I'm sad, I do this. Over time, I stopped being so angry."

"Besides, I can't provide Lili with good living conditions. If she can earn money herself, that's her own skill."

"I would never blame her for being a materialistic girl."

Every word Zhou Ming said was excessively calm.

To an outsider, it might seem like he was talking about someone else's business.

But anyone who knew he was the victim's boyfriend would find his reaction incomprehensible.

"In other words, the reason you don't hate her is that you've come to terms with it?"

"And not because you did something bad to her?"

Long Hao asked this question hesitantly.

"Something bad? What do you mean by that?"

"Aren't you looking for me because she got arrested?"

"What exactly happened to Lili?"

A trace of anxiety appeared in his expression.

"Tell me, what happened to her?"

"I've checked; what she's doing is illegal, but it shouldn't be that serious."

"Why do you all have those expressions?"

He suddenly got out of bed and walked barefoot to Long Hao.

He grabbed Long Hao's hands and asked anxiously.

"Calm down."

"If you don't calm down, we can't tell you."

Long Hao pulled his arms from the man's grip and then gestured for him to lie back on the bed.

Afterward, the four of them left the ward.

Once outside, a look of helplessness appeared on Long Hao's face.

"You all saw the injuries on him, right?"

"He really doesn't seem to be faking his illness, and it's already quite severe."

"If we tell him the news of Yan Lili's death now, I'm afraid it will cause a lot of trouble."

If they told him, they feared it would affect his emotional state and lead to extreme behavior.

If they didn't, the case really couldn't move forward.

"To put it bluntly, his emotional state is not within our scope of consideration."

Xu Qingqing's expression was cold.

It wasn't that she was cold-blooded.

It was that Zhou Ming was still a suspect.

To consider his illness instead of ruling out his suspicion...

Was simply ridiculous.

"Chen Mo, what do you think?"

After she finished speaking, she looked at Chen Mo to seek his opinion.

"Actually, there's a point you've overlooked."

As Chen Mo spoke, he pointed to his own arm.

"When Zhou Ming was showing us his wounds, he said something."

"'When I cut myself enough, I stop being angry.'"

"This sentence actually hides another layer of meaning: whenever Yan Lili did something that saddened him, he would self-harm."

"If Yan Lili really loved Zhou Ming, then his self-harm was actually a way of hurting her."

As he spoke, Xu Qingqing fell into thought.

She also roughly understood what Chen Mo meant.

This was the benefit of working with smart people.

Some things were understood with just a hint.

There was no need to waste breath on long explanations.

"You mean to say..."

"The reason there are no injuries on the victim is likely because the injuries are on Zhou Ming himself?"

Believe it or not, this deduction actually made quite a bit of sense.

Unless Zhou Ming was lying.

Otherwise, combined with his previous words, interpreting it this way wouldn't be wrong.

"No wonder there wasn't a single wound on the victim."

Long Hao had a look of delayed realization.

He immediately sorted through the current situation again.

It was as if he had thought of something.

"If his way of punishing his girlfriend was to self-harm,"

"Then wasn't everything he just said a lie to us?"

"He has actually been angry and furious all along. Self-harm could never resolve the hatred in his heart!"

Chen Mo didn't immediately voice an opinion on this.

Instead, Xu Qingqing gave her own view.

"He probably wasn't lying to us, but the sequence is wrong."

"Zhou Ming's reaction just now was too calm. When he said he wasn't angry, he probably really wasn't anymore."

"But before that, he must have been angry. Only after driving his girlfriend to death did he completely stop being angry, which led to his current calmness."

Long Hao nodded, also thinking this was the most reasonable explanation.

"Take him back for interrogation?"

"Based on the current situation, he's a very strong suspect."

"At the very least, the suspicion hasn't decreased at all."

Hearing this, Chen Mo finally spoke up.

"No rush, let's ask a bit more."

On the way there, he had been thinking.

Was it possible that Zhou Ming was also being framed by the killer?

There was still no definite answer to this question.

They were solving a case, but they were also in a competition.

If Zhou Ming wasn't the killer, taking him back for interrogation would only waste precious time.

"Alright, we'll do as you say."

Long Hao nodded, showing unconditional trust in Chen Mo.

He then pushed open the ward door again and walked straight in.

Chen Mo and Xu Qingqing followed closely behind.

"Where did you go yesterday?"

"During the interval from afternoon to evening."

Upon hearing this, the anxious look on Zhou Ming's face froze.

He had thought the police came back in to tell him about Lili.

He hadn't expected them to still be questioning him.

He sat back on the bed and looked out the window.

"If you don't tell me what happened to Lili, I won't say anything."

He put on an angry front.

"After you answer the questions, everything you want to know will be told to you."

Before Long Hao could speak, Chen Mo suddenly cut in with an answer.

He was indeed worried that Long Hao would directly say Yan Lili was dead.

If this guy really was the killer, he could then reasonably throw a tantrum and cause a scene.

At that point, let alone asking questions,

even getting him to talk would be an issue.

This was why Chen Mo had spoken up so urgently.

"Fine, I hope you won't lie to me."

After saying that, he began to recall the question the officer had asked earlier.

"Yesterday afternoon I was in the ward, and in the evening too."

"Who can prove you were here?"

Long Hao pressed.

This point was actually quite important.

If it could be confirmed that he had been lying in bed all day yesterday,

then his suspicion of committing the crime at the hotel would be much smaller.

Hiring a killer?

Almost impossible.

Zhou Ming was just a 21-year-old boy from an ordinary family.

Where would he get the money to buy someone's life and have them kill for him?

At least until similar suspicions arose,

this question could be set aside for now.

"Nurse Xiao Nuan can prove it."

"Yesterday I asked her to help refill my water bottle; we saw each other."

As he spoke, he pressed the button next to the hospital bed.

Once this button was pressed, the nurse would receive a notification and rush over.

To a large extent, it was a way for patients to call a doctor when they couldn't cry out for help.

Long Hao, who was just about to call for a nurse, swallowed his words.

Zhou Ming was too frank and too straightforward.

Before coming, they had actually discussed the possible reactions Zhou Ming might have when faced with this question.

First, he could clearly state where he was yesterday and have witnesses to back him up.

Second, he could have forgotten or be unable to explain clearly.

Clearly, the current situation fell into the former category.

He could explain his location yesterday and had a witness.

—Tap, tap.

The sound of nurse shoes stepping on the tiles rang out.

"What's wrong? What's wrong?"

A nurse, roughly twenty-three or twenty-four years old, wearing a nurse's uniform and a mask, hurried in.