Chapter 197: with translation of chapter title

Wang Yan looked incredulous, "Are you pretending? And you even used the pretense of being the life committee member to swindle money from classmates—you're really shameless!"

Ye Shuheng was thoroughly ridiculed, unable to save face, and stood up directly.

"How shameless can you be! Back when you pursued Jiang Hong, I had to bring you to the boys' dormitory—you don't know how long Jiang Hong caught me and scolded me!"

"What?!!!"

An uproar broke out; Ruan Ruan linked arms with Su Mian, growing increasingly excited.

The atmosphere grew tense; they also never expected Ye Shuheng to confront Wang Yan head-on.

Wang Yan couldn't stay seated either; she gritted her teeth, "What's the point of bringing this up?"

The focus suddenly turned to Wang Yan; Wei Xiaowei's eyes flickered, "Speaking of this, back then it seemed like it even caused Ruan Ruan's mother to lose her job..."

Ruan Ruan, who had been watching the drama, quickly hid her teeth and hurried to defend herself.

"I didn't even know my mother lost her job because of this! I also don't know what happened between Jiang Hong and the class monitor."

Su Mian suddenly recalled that the script mentioned Ruan Ruan's mother was the dormitory supervisor of the neighboring boys' dorm.

Having been dismissed for some reason, she became unemployed, heartbroken, lost hope in life, fell seriously ill, and Wang Yan had visited their dorm.

She also brought Ruan Ruan a gift, and in a few words kept shifting blame, claiming Jiang Hong forced her to go; thus, in a sense, Ruan Ruan resents Jiang Hong.

"I remember the class monitor came to our dorm and even gave Ruan Ruan a gift."

Just that one sentence overturned the previous lies; Ruan Ruan looked at Su Mian in disbelief.

Su Mian showed little expression; she simply chose to state the facts—helping her once doesn't mean she has to be a saint to the end.

Moreover, she is the murderer.

Seeing the momentum, Wang Yan launched an attack, "Exactly, I told you then that Jiang Hong forced me to go—you're also a suspect!"

"What suspicion do I have? I've been preparing for graduate school afterward; I don't even know where Jiang Hong is!"

"You're still thinking about grad school while your mother is in that state—you should be out working; where do you get the nerve to consider grad school?"

"You think being a graduate student makes you impressive? Don't think I don't know you got in through the back door—Su Mian has complained to me about your so-called achievements; she despises people like you the most! You even stole her Survival Spot."

Seeing Su Mian not helping her, Wei Xiaowei immediately spilled her own business, which originally had nothing to do with the case; upon hearing it, Wang Yan's face turned deathly pale.

"No! I didn't!"

The crowd argued incessantly; from the initial sole suspect Zhou Yunfeng, it expanded to four people now, spawning a heap of extraneous issues.

Including Zhou Yunfeng once wanting to pursue Su Mian while treating Wei Xiaowei as a backup, Wei Xiaowei tampering with Su Mian's graduation defense PPT to get revenge, Wang Yan abusing her authority to make classmates clean the lab, and finally them being forced to stay locked in the lab for a day, etc.

A group once full of laughter and apparent harmony—four years of university classmates—in an instant fell apart, fragmented, arguing until their faces flushed red.

"Stop!!! Stop!!! Quit arguing."

Zhou Yunfeng finally couldn't take it, raised his hands, slightly trembling, "I'll say just one thing: I'm not the murderer; last night I stayed in my room the whole time and didn't go anywhere."

"Who can prove it? You live in a single room."

Wang Yan crossed her arms, full of disdain; Ye Shuheng suddenly raised his hand, "Those two went out last night."

As the words fell, all eyes turned to Su Mian and Wei Xiaowei.

Wei Xiaowei immediately retorted, "We were on a mission!"

Wang Yan looked puzzled; Su Mian went out last night? No way she wouldn't know—she slept like she'd passed out.

But it doesn't matter; as long as it's not me under suspicion, it's fine.

"How to prove it?"

Wei Xiaowei instantly flashed her phone, showing the mission-related photo, which depicted the child ghost who came yesterday to fetch the toy train.

Looking at that, it indeed became much more convincing; everyone then turned their gaze to Su Mian.

"And you? How do you prove your mission?"

Su Mian sat with her legs crossed, saying nothing; seeing her like that, everyone assumed she couldn't explain, and Wei Xiaowei immediately switched sides.

"Exactly, she reached the corridor before me; I don't even know what mission she was on—maybe after I left..."

Faced with Wei Xiaowei's sudden change of expression, Su Mian merely gave a cold smile, propping her chin to look at her; Wei Xiaowei, under that stare, broke out in a cold sweat and dared not utter another word.

"If you suspect me of being the Murderer, what's the Murder Motive?"

"Everything you just discussed is nonsense, right?"

She stood up, her gaze sweeping over everyone; no one spoke, because Su Mian indeed had no connection whatsoever to Jiang Hong, and her eyes finally settled on Ye Shuheng.

"Your ability to stir up trouble is indeed impressive, but that's where it ends."

Ye Shuheng's face turned pale, "You… you're saying what? I don't understand."

"You're smart, afraid that anyone would learn Jiang Hong died in the daytime, so you deliberately said he turned on the light and almost blinded you, creating the illusion that you were half-asleep, thinking it was still night when it was actually day."

"It's a shame, because if he died at night, why would Jiang Hong go to the trouble of putting on his sneakers, only to come back to sleep shortly after, just to grab a meal at the dining car? Wearing shoes can only be in the morning, not at midnight."

"But he wasn't wearing shoes when he died?" Ye Shuheng retorted.

Su Mian's eyes lit up, wearing the expression of "I've been waiting for you to ask that."

"Yeah, he wasn't wearing shoes—isn't that strange?"

"This looks like someone took off his shoes and hid them elsewhere, trying to cover up."

"You could say it was the slippers that were removed, but that's pointless; how do you explain that the sneakers aren't in the luggage box but under the bed?"

Upon saying that, everyone suddenly realized.

Yesterday, Jiang Hong's luggage had been opened, and everyone saw his sneakers inside the luggage.

Moreover, to prove he wasn't the knife's owner, he placed the luggage on the hard-seat carriage and didn't bring it back to the room.

And at midnight it would be even less likely for him to come out to change shoes; this is strange, the only explanation being that he woke up in the morning needing to change shoes, went to the hard-seat carriage to do so, then headed to the dining car to beg for food.

Following Su Mian's reasoning, they rushed to Car 12, and indeed saw a pair of slippers where Jiang Hong had placed his luggage.

At the sight of the slippers, the blood drained from his face, his lips pressed tight; Su Mian lowered her eyes, not at all surprised.

All we can say is that he's quite clever, knowing how to exploit information gaps to frame others, and also knowing to take off his changed shoes and put them elsewhere.

Unfortunately, when a person is in a tense state, their thoughts are still too chaotic; if it were Su Mian, she would not have chosen to put it under the bed, but would have put it in the suitcase.

Putting it under the bed means that only they had a motive to commit the crime, after all they share a room.