Chapter 21 - Slower is sweeter

"What do you mean?" Mrs. Qin was even more anxious.

Leo wasn't listening to her. He was busy studying Shera. No way. She couldn't possibly be that little girl. That girl had died years ago.

It must be just a coincidence that she said something close to what that little girl had said to him before. The words were not even identical so it could be a coincidence. Besides, that little girl's name was Lola.

So if Shera was not that little girl, just what did she have against the Qin family? Had the Qin family messed up with so many people that some of them could just appear from thin air and start wrecking trouble?

...

Cece couldn't be bailed out no matter how hard the Qins tried. For such a major crime, the only way to get her out was to prove her innocent.

Which was logically impossible, unless the evidence Shera provided was fake.

In the interrogation room, Cece kept her mouth shut. She would not speak in the absence of a lawyer.

No one forced her to speak either. The interrogation was in fact just a formality. The court would sentence her as soon as she pleaded guilty or was proven guilty. They had already asked trustworthy experts to check the video.

~~

The case was of a girl who was murdered two years ago, in her apartment. She was a student in Imperium University. She had died of gas suffocation, and it had been concluded as suicide.

However, her family had constantly believed that Sandra Qian didn't have any reason to take her own life. They had requested for an autopsy.

Shockingly, the pathologist had found out that the girl had been taking large quantities of sleeping pills in the month before her death.

It wasn't too suspicious at first, but none of her medical records showed that she had been having trouble sleeping. There were no sleeping pills in her apartment when they checked, but there were some in the canned food that they later uncovered she had recieved as a present from someone whose identity they couldn't figure out.

All this pointed towards one direction.

She had been murdered.

Not only that, it was organized murder that had been planned for a long time.

After investigating it properly, they had indeed found tiny details that were out of place.

They had used these details to try and trace the suspects but they only came up with the people she was close to. That was her classmates and her family.

This had gone on for two years and they were just about to close investigation when Shera suddenly popped up with a video.

In the video, Cece had entered the house and left within a minute.

Once she left, she took off gloves from her hand and shoved them into a trash can, being careful not to touch anything.

She couldn't explain what she was doing in that house and what her suspicious act meant. She also couldn't explain how she had the key to Sandra Qian's apartment.

Further investigation had shown that while Cece was engaged to the mayor's son, he had been secretly cheating on her. the other woman was Sandra Qian.

Their relationship had been hidden so perfectly that not even her closest friends had known about it. It turned out Cece must have known, and they hypothesized that this could be her reason for murdering her. The key was probably taken from her fiancé.

Since Cece was now the current main suspect and there was a lot of evidence, the case was reopened and she was charged in court. The hearing was set to happen in a month.

...

The Mansion of Black.

Shera was looking through some documents she had asked Purple to bring home.

"Now this is interesting." Her eyes hovered over a file for a while before she picked it up. "The Qins have more enemies than I thought. Of course I will grab this chance."

"Master, I heard..." Purple, who was sitting some distance away from her, fumbled with her words.

"What?" Shera's attention was piqued.

"Cedric Qin tried to bribe some of the jurors."

"Pfft." Shera scorned. "The Qins think they have the court in their pockets, don't they? How pitiful..."

She paused from her work to scratch her cheek with one of her long acrylic nails. "What a coincidence... Cedric Qin was next. Oh... he must be so impatient to recieve his own retribution. Nevertheless, I will have to disappoint him..." she drawled devilishly. "I like it slow. It's sweeter and more fun that way. He might have to wait until I'm done with his darling little sister."