Chapter 166 New Clues

"I... I don't know."

As the person involved, Ge Xin had thought about this question for a very, very long time herself.

The faces of her roommates flashed through her mind one by one.

But she couldn't find anyone who fit the profile of the real killer.

Terrifying!

Whenever she realized she couldn't find the killer,

A strong sense of fear would well up in her heart.

It was the feeling that the roommates she used to play and laugh with every day,

Who seemed like normal, ordinary people on the surface,

Were actually ghosts behind their masks!

Ghosts that could kill at any moment!

No one knew when it would appear.

And no one knew who its target would be once it did.

In short, it was absolutely terrifying.

"Let me give you a hint."

"Do you remember Xiao Nuannuan?"

Xiao Nuannuan?

She repeated the name in her mind.

A delicate and cute face appeared in her thoughts.

"I remember, of course I remember! We were in the same dormitory!"

"Do you think the person who framed me was her?"

"She's the real killer, isn't she!"

At this moment, she finally realized the meaning behind the police's words.

On the surface, they were asking about why she never admitted to being the killer.

But deep down, they agreed with her that she wasn't the killer.

To her, this was undoubtedly earth-shattering good news!

"Calm down."

Chen Mo pressed his hands down slightly.

He understood how excited Ge Xin would be to hear his words.

In fact, from her reaction,

Chen Mo could see that she wasn't faking it.

She was indeed genuinely happy and joyful.

To a certain extent, this also proved that Ge Xin was indeed not the killer.

"Yes, I'm not excited."

"I'm not excited."

She placed both hands on her chest, slowly calming her breathing.

Perhaps because she had already come to terms with life and death,

She was able to adjust her mindset very quickly.

In just a moment, Ge Xin calmed down.

"I said a long time ago that I was framed, and I've never confessed."

"If you cared about this case, you would have come long ago. Coming now means you must have found something, right?"

The anticipation in Ge Xin's heart grew stronger.

This meant she might be cleared of the false charges and released from prison.

Although her youth had been wasted,

She was only twenty-four years old now.

Compared to decades in prison,

It was obvious that if she went out now, everything could still be salvaged.

"Yes."

Chen Mo nodded slightly.

If she really was framed,

Then he couldn't treat her like a criminal anymore.

Instead, he had to treat her as a normal citizen.

Acknowledging it directly was the best compensation for her right now.

"Phew, I thought I wouldn't have a chance."

"So close, so close."

Her eyes instantly turned red, and then large tears began to flow.

"But this is on the premise that you really aren't the killer."

Only by producing solid evidence to prove Ge Xin's innocence,

That she didn't kill anyone,

Could they conclude that the killer was someone else.

In short, pointing the suspicion toward Xiao Nuannuan.

"I..."

Hearing this, Ge Xin instinctively wanted to say she wasn't the killer.

But she had said those words countless times since entering prison.

The response she always got was: where's the evidence?

Handling a case was all about evidence.

With evidence, everything was easy to discuss.

It was precisely because she had no evidence that she ended up in prison.

Naturally, she couldn't answer Chen Mo's question at this moment.

"I will help you find evidence for your case."

"What you need to do now is tell me everything that happened at the time of the incident."

"Also, based on what I told you about our suspicion of Xiao Nuannuan, tell me about any possible suspicions you have of her."

After he finished speaking,

Ge Xin hurriedly wiped the tears from her face with the back of her hand.

She immediately fell into deep thought and recollection.

She would never forget what happened that day for the rest of her life.

It was also a scene she often dreamed about after going to prison.

"When Xiaoya fell from the building, it was actually around midnight. Our school required lights out and sleep by ten."

"I was actually already asleep at the time."

"I only found out about Xiaoya's fall the next day after waking up. The police came and questioned us then."

"Then they started investigating. In the end, they asked me to go to the police station for a statement and such, and then they locked me up."

As she spoke, a trace of tension flashed across her face.

As an ordinary college student,

Going to the police station for no reason would be nerve-wracking, let alone being suddenly locked up.

"Afterward, the police told me they found my fingerprints on Xiaoya's body, specifically a handprint on her back."

"I did have a conflict with Xiaoya before, but it was just over trivial things. I'm not a psychopath. At most, I just wouldn't talk to her. How could I commit murder? I wouldn't have the guts for that."

"Later, the police said the suspicion on me was getting heavier and heavier..."

...

Time passed quickly as Ge Xin narrated.

During this time, she mentioned many points of suspicion against herself.

Some she hadn't even noticed herself.

It wasn't until she was sentenced

That she realized she even looked like the killer to herself.

At that moment, she had fallen completely silent.

"That's how the incident happened back then."

She pursed her lips. In fact, she had told this story many times; it was already engraved in her heart.

"If the killer is Xiao Nuannuan,"

"I don't know why she would frame me."

"But I've never heard of her having any conflict with Xiaoya either."

She began to think along the lines of the questions Chen Mo raised.

"A motive for murder doesn't necessarily have to be an argument."

"It could be other factors, commonly money, lust, emotions, or being hired..."

"During that time, was there anything unusual about Xiaoya?"

As Chen Mo asked, he flipped open the files on the table.

And Ge Xin's narration reached his ears.

"Even though several years have passed, I remember things from my school days very clearly."

"If I had to say there was any difference with Xiaoya back then, it's that she seemed to suddenly have money."

Ge Xin looked serious, as if she was very certain about this.

"At the beginning of the semester, our relationship was quite good. The reason a conflict happened"

"Was because Xiaoya looked down on me, thinking I was a country bumpkin who had never seen the world."

"But Xiaoya wasn't like that before. During the introductions at the start of school, she said herself that her family was just an ordinary one."

"If there was any change back then, this is the only one I can think of."

"As for whether it had anything to do with Xiao Nuannuan, I'm not sure about that."

Chen Mo nodded.

This visit could be said to not have been in vain.

At least the fact that Xiaoya's financial situation suddenly improved during her time at school

Was not mentioned in the case files.

Theoretically speaking, the victim's financial situation was average before death,

But suddenly improved around the time of death.

Any professional criminal investigator should have been able to find that out.

Such a major point of suspicion couldn't possibly go uninvestigated.

But why wasn't it written down?

Was Ge Xin lying, or was there an error in the investigation back then?

Chen Mo was more inclined to believe it was the latter.

To put it bluntly,

Criminal investigators of this era were actually quite weak in their investigative abilities.

Take Muhe for example; the annual case clearance rate was only thirty percent!

In other words, only three out of ten cases could be solved.

This probability sounded exaggeratedly low.

But it was the truth!

Officers who truly graduated from criminal investigation schools

Had only just joined the force and had not yet gained a say in the police station.

The people who could decide the direction of an investigation

Were the older generation of investigators who relied on experience.

This wasn't to deny their achievements or contributions,

But simply to state the investigative capabilities of this era compared to later generations.

In this era, if a murderer wasn't caught, the public would think it was normal and were used to it.

But in later generations, if a murderer who had just killed someone wasn't caught for a long time,

Everyone's reaction would be: wow, this criminal is so capable?

Their thoughts wouldn't go toward questioning the police's ability.

That was the biggest difference.

"Why didn't you mention such an important clue to the police?"

Chen Mo looked at a copy of Ge Xin's statement from back then.

He looked all over but didn't see anything about Xiaoya's situation.

"I, I don't know."

"I didn't know why I should say it, and I didn't know what to say at the time."

Ge Xin looked aggrieved.

She was indeed terrified at the time.

And she really hadn't thought about what Xiaoya being pushed off the building had to do with her suddenly improved financial situation.

"That's not right. It's normal that you didn't notice it."

"But the police should definitely have been able to find and notice it."

"There must be some clues in this that aren't written in the files."

Chen Mo pondered.

He was inclined to think that the sudden wealth was investigated at the time and found to be unrelated to the case,

So it wasn't recorded.

"Your cooperation has been very helpful to us."

Chen Mo stood up from his chair and expressed his thanks.

"As for the case, I will try my best to fulfill what I promised you before."

What he had promised Ge Xin before was, naturally, to clear her name.

To push forward with the Yan Lili case, he had to go through this process anyway.

So promising it didn't add any extra burden at all.

"Thank you. You are the most different policeman I have ever seen."

The happiest smile in a long time appeared on Ge Xin's face.

Part of it was saying nice things to please Chen Mo.

But the other part was also from the heart.

Because only the officer in front of her was willing to believe her.

Besides him, there was no one else!