Chapter 618: Waking Up In A Strange Place

Translator: Azza

Editor: Conspiracing

The fingerprints on the deceased’s clothes weren’t easy to extract. It took quite some time. Chen Shi took this opportunity to meet Zhou Xiao in the interrogation room. Zhou Xiao said impatiently, "How many times do you have to question me? Once one person finishes asking, you’ll change to another person!"

"I won't ask about those things. I want to ask something else." Chen Shi took out the picture Xu Xiaodong gave him and asked, "Is this 'tyrant' very much like the murderer?"

Zhou Xiao was taken aback for a moment and nodded. "It's a bit similar. What's the matter?"

"Have you been playing Resident Evil recently?"

"Hmm... I played the remake of Resident Evil 2 for a while."

"I suspect that your memory is contaminated. The murderer must not look like this. Zhou Xiao, did you have such a bad memory previously?"

"No, when I was a child, I had a good memory and I’d memorize text super fast. Then, I got depression and my memory got worse..."

"Depression wouldn't cause you to live in a mental hospital."

"What? You investigated me?"

"Your parents told us."

As soon as he heard the word "parents", Zhou Xiao's expression became a bit resentful, indicating that their family relationship wasn’t very good. He said loudly, "My parents don't love me at all. Ever since my brother was born, their attention all went to my younger brother. They’d only give me my younger brother’s leftovers or things he didn’t like. Have you ever seen this kind of fucking thing? I met my first girlfriend when I was in university, but we didn’t get along well. She always blamed me for being inattentive, bad-tempered, and insecure, but what can I do? I came out of such a family so I can only have such an ugly character. I hated myself too. After we broke up, I got depressed. My parents threw me into a mental hospital... That place was scarier than prison. They fed me medicine every day. The more you take the medicine, the worse your brain gets. The other patients were like this every day..." Zhou Xiao put on a dazed smile. "Just like this. They went stupid from taking so much medicine. I hated them every day I was there!"

"This kind of thing is very helpless. People cannot choose their own parents."

"Parents are evil!" Zhou Xiao said through gritted teeth.

Chen Shi suddenly thought that everyone who used to sit on that interrogation chair had four big characters hanging on their heads - Family misfortune. A family’s evils breeds big social evils, which could only make people hold their heads and sigh.

Chen Shi pulled a chair in front of Zhou Xiao and said in a conversational tone, "No matter how you were in the past, you have become what you are now. Accept yourself! Leaving the family is better than any magical medicine."

"You’re right. Although I’m alone in Long'an right now and don't make much money, I’m very free and happy... If only I could find a girlfriend." Zhou Xiao smiled.

"Find one! Two people being together is actually quite helpful for your physical and mental health since there’s a person around you to talk to. Children only really develop after they learn to speak. This is also true for adults. In fact, we’ve seen many psychopaths. They all have two things in common: Loneliness and a lack of understanding from other people!"

"If people don't fall in love in silence, they have to be a psychopath in silence? Is this reasonable?"

"Quite reasonable. Loneliness can kill people." Chen Shi said empathetically. He remembered the three years he spent alone. It was like he was being tortured every day.

"Mr. Chen, do you have a girlfriend?"

"Yes, that Officer Lin is her."

Zhou Xiao's mouth turned into an O shape, and it took a long time to return to normal. He smiled. "You don't have to buy lottery tickets for the rest of your life then."

"Why?" Chen Shi asked with a smile.

"Because you would have run out of luck."

It could be seen that Zhou Xiao was a funny person. Funny people were usually lonely in their hearts. Humor was used to prevent others from seeing through their outer shells. In this regard, Chen Shi, a fellow sufferer, empathized with him.

"Did you really have depression back then?" Chen Shi asked.

"Yes... It was depression." He was obviously lying.

“Does your memory loss happen often?"

"What memory loss? I remember everything!"

"Have you ever suspected that you have a dual personality?"

Zhou Xiao's eyes widened, and then he desperately shook his head. "No, no! Mr. Chen, you’re so awful. You suddenly came back to this topic while chatting."

Someone knocked on the glass outside and Chen Shi went out. Lin Dongxue said that the appraisal results were out. The murderer wasn’t Zhou Xiao.

"You guessed wrong, right?" Lin Dongxue said triumphantly.

"But, I still think he has a dual personality."

"You’re just splitting hairs now!"

"Were his fingerprints on the doorknob?"

"Yes!"

Chen Shi made an expression of "what did I say?". "He opened the door by himself. He doesn't remember it at all. Why would the murderer come in but not kill him? Isn't this suspicious? The murderer was about to silence him after coming to his door. Under what circumstances would they give up killing him?"

Lin Dongxue thought for a while and replied, "If they don't think the other party poses a threat?"

"What would constitute not being a threat? He has a mouth and eyes... I will test him again!"

Chen Shi took the appraisal report and returned to the interrogation room. He frowned and said to Zhou Xiao, "Guess whose fingerprints were found at the murder scene?"

Zhou Xiao looked puzzled. "I don't have a single friend in Long'an. Who do I have to guess?"

"The fingerprints were yours!"

𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

Zhou Xiao was stunned for a few seconds before he reacted fiercely. "Are you crazy? I was making pictures in the house at the time. How could I clone myself to commit murder? And I saw myself from upstairs?"

"I lied to you. The fingerprints were someone else's." Just as Zhou Xiao breathed a sigh of relief, Chen Shi said again, "But..."

"But what? If you have something to say, can you say it all in one go?"

Chen Shi showed him the report. Zhou Xiao couldn't understand the professional report. Chen Shi said, "On the doorknob, there were only your fingerprints. Do you still remember the pair of bloody footprints you found at home? The murderer came in and you opened it yourself. This is the only reliable explanation based on the evidence. You remember that the family of three in the next door was killed. It was a memory made up by your own brain which filled the gap in your memory at that time. The real situation is that you opened the door and let the murderer in. You stood face to face, as if you knew each other. Maybe you had said something to make him give up killing you!"

Zhou Xiao was shocked, and immediately denied all of this. "That’s impossible!"

"On this paper is the word ‘possibility’. You don’t remember that anyway. Let me change the question. Do you remember where you were when you woke up? On the floor, or on the bed?"

Zhou Xiao bit his finger, struggling to remember. He said timidly, "This has nothing to do with the case, right?"

"Of course it's related."

"In the corridor!"

"Corridor?"

"I was in the corridor when I woke up! And it wasn’t my apartment building, it was the third unit next to mine. Mr. Chen, if you could help me find out the truth about this, that would be nice. I’ve woken up there more than once. I suspect that I sleepwalk, or... have the dual personality you talked about!" Zhou Xiao admitted, albeit reluctantly.