CH 235

“I’m not sad about that.”

Wang Chao interrupted the conversation.

Lin Chen was taken aback and asked, “What do you mean by ‘that’?”

“That refers to what you just said to comfort me. You mentioned that although there are bad people in this world, there are also many good people.” Wang Chao sighed, sitting in the shade of the camphor tree, holding the plastic lunch box, and staring at the dumplings inside. “I don’t have the tendency to generalize. It’s meaningless to judge the moral level of society based on a small-scale event.” The teenager spoke with a proud tone.

Lin Chen glanced at Xing Conglian in surprise. Just a second ago, this teenager seemed on the verge of tears, but now he was analyzing social psychology. Before Xing Conglian could react, Lin Chen directly flicked the back of Wang Chao’s head and prevented the teenager from using his dirty hands to pick up the dumplings.

“You have chopsticks.”

Wang Chao rubbed the back of his head and looked at him with an extremely incredulous expression. Then he said word by word, “A’Chen Gege, you hit me! You hit me!”

“What else should I do? Kiss you instead?” Lin Chen said irritably.

“You can only kiss me.” Xing Conglian chimed in.

With the two gentlemen causing a commotion, Lin Chen felt that the previously brewing atmosphere of sadness had dissipated a lot.

Of course, Lin Chen didn’t truly believe that these two individuals were unaffected by the hidden secrets of decades ago.

Clearly, the smile on Xing Conglian’s face wasn’t genuine. His eyes were cold and devoid of amusement, and even Wang Chao, holding the bowl of dumplings with trembling fingers, seemed to be trying to conceal his true emotions.

Lin Chen unwrapped a pair of disposable chopsticks and handed them to Wang Chao, then asked, “So, what is the reason you’re actually feeling sad?”

“I think Shen Lian is a pervert.” Wang Chao paused before emphasizing, “a psychologically disturbed one.”

“Mm.” Lin Chen emitted a short and concise syllable. “Go on.”

“But according to your analysis, so many people indirectly caused the death of the old man. Why is it that, in the end, it was Shen Lian who mustered the courage to reveal the truth? It doesn’t feel right. Shen Lian should have been the worst one.”

“You’re still simplifying things by categorizing people as either good or bad. In reality, humans are complex beings, and there are no simple categories of good or bad people, simply right or wrong people, especially in this case.” Lin Chen patted the back of Wang Chao’s head. “One simple question, even if she was truly sexually assaulted, why did she never mention it, even when facing the police?”

“Yeah, it’s strange. Why did she lie?!” Wang Chao slapped his thigh. “Because she said it before, but her parents didn’t believe her?”

“I tend to believe that Shen Lian didn’t tell the truth from the beginning in order to protect her own interests, indirectly leading to the death of the old homeless man,” Lin Chen said.

Wang Chao opened his mouth, his expression turning from confusion to panic.

Just then, Wang Chao’s phone rang.

The teenager scrambled to retrieve his phone, seeing an unfamiliar number. He paused for a moment, quickly searched the caller on the laptop, and nearly threw the phone away.

“Why would that dumbass Huang Ze call me?”

“Because we both blocked him,” Xing Conglian stated matter-of-factly.

“You guys are setting me up!”

Wang Chao held the phone as if it were a hot potato, unsure whether to answer or not. In the end, Lin Chen said, “Answer it. Put it on speaker.”

Sure enough, Huang Ze’s gloomy voice came through the receiver.

“I heard you guys were chatting outside the dumpling restaurant?”

The atmosphere in the high-level office of the city bureau was obviously tense. Led by the provincial department, an official task force had been formed.

The round table in the meeting room was filled with laptops, and the room was filled with suffocating smoke. In just two hours, the ashtray on the table had been emptied several times. Not to mention the numerous phone calls and video conferences, countless leaders wanted to hear the details of the case that even he regretted reporting the incident for a moment.

He couldn’t reveal what he knew, so he could only talk about some trivial details and claim that a large number of police forces were already conducting a thorough investigation. At that moment, he mentioned Xing Conglian and Lin Chen.

Due to the wide-ranging and far-reaching implications of the case and the need to consider various opinions, he could only use “under investigation” as an excuse. But just a moment ago, a certain officer he wasn’t on good terms with mentioned that the so-called investigators were leisurely chatting outside a dumpling restaurant. This made Huang Ze burn with anger, but he couldn’t express it.

The previous meeting had come to an end, and he walked out with his phone in hand. What was even more infuriating was that Lin Chen and Xing Conglian had blocked his number, so he had no choice but to call Wang Chao’s phone.

This was no longer a simple matter of frustration.

Lin Chen sat on the flower bed, quietly listening to Huang Ze vent his anger and drift off-topic on the phone. It had turned into obvious complaints. Lin Chen felt that Huang Ze had vented enough, so he interrupted him.

“We came here to investigate the case. Doesn’t Inspector Huang want to hear the latest progress in our case report?”

Huang Ze was stunned, and there was a sudden silence on the other end of the phone. Huang Ze sarcastically said, “You’re still willing to talk to me?”

The statement carried an ambiguous meaning.

Xing Conglian propped his legs up and took out a cigarette, raising an eyebrow at him.

Lin Chen handed the phone over to Xing Conglian.

Xing Conglian took the call without greeting Huang Ze and simply summarized the key points of their investigation, including the tragedy that happened in Xiaolin Lane years ago.

On the other end of the phone, Huang Ze sneered again. “So, this is Lin Chen’s way of handling the case. You dig into Shen Lian’s past, but does it help with dealing with the most difficult current situation?”

Lin Chen glanced at Xing Conglian.

Xing Conglian made a gesture to him, indicating that this person was too annoying.

“Shen Lian is also psychologically unstable.” Lin Chen stared at the bustling street not far away. The more Huang Ze questioned these meaningless analyses, the calmer and more meticulous he became. “Not only Shen Lian’s parents, but even other adults on that street believed that Shen Lian had ‘mental issues’ before. And based on Shen Lian’s current condition of retaliating against society, she was likely born this way. People like her probably have a probability of 2% among the general population.”

Wang Chao shuddered. On the other end of the phone, Huang Ze remained stubborn. “And then? Does labeling Shen Lian as a psychological abnormality have any meaning for us in apprehending her?”

Lin Chen patted the back of the teenager’s head and continued, “This is a normal phenomenon within the entire human race. Since birth, Shen Lian’s brain functions, serotonin, dopamine, and monoamine neurotransmitters have naturally been at an abnormal level, different from ordinary people. This predetermined her to exhibit obvious differences from normal children in many sudden moments, causing panic in her parents.”

Lin Chen paused, remembering Shen Lian’s appearance with double ponytails when she was a child. Although she stared into the camera, it was as if she was looking into the distance through it.

Although he couldn’t gather too much specific information about Shen Lian’s upbringing from the data, even from small details, it was evident that Shen Lian’s parents were not the type to care for and protect their child diligently and unconditionally. And in school, her peculiarities led to her being out of sync with the overall environment.

As a result, Shen Lian’s academic performance had always been average.

That was the basic state of Shen Lian before experiencing that cold winter night.

And then…

“At that time, the homeless man who saved Shen Lian from danger must have had a conflict with Chen Jianguo. The argument escalated. As the person involved and a middle school student with full narrative ability, if Shen Lian had clearly stated what exactly happened at the time, there wouldn’t be so many people in the world that would blindly defend a neighbor who tried to molest a young girl.” When he thought of this, Lin Chen couldn’t help but feel a chill, and he said, “So the most likely possibility is that on that night, Shen Lian didn’t say anything.”

Although Huang Ze kept urging, Lin Chen couldn’t help but ponder.

What was Shen Lian thinking in her mind?

First of all, she couldn’t have been frightened. Based on Shen Lian’s repeated statements to the police about the incident while deliberately avoiding mentioning the molestation, it could be seen that Shen Lian was intentionally hiding this fact. Therefore, she made the choice that was most beneficial to herself after weighing the pros and cons.

The old man was shouting, and the silent Shen Lian was taken away. It was originally an incident caused by people who were only trying to maintain neighborhood harmony but ended up inflicting harm on others due to certain irreparable flaws in human social behavior, resulting in an extremely dehumanizing event.

When Lin Chen reached this point, he finally couldn’t continue.

He stopped and felt that the summer sunlight seemed to have lost its effect. Under the camphor tree, the wind felt cold and piercing.

But Xing Conglian continued the topic. “So, what you’re saying is that everything Shen Lian did was only to protect her own interests?”

Lin Chen nodded.

Xing Conglian sneered, “She wasn’t seeking justice for the old man; she just wanted to punish those who had hurt her. As Lao Bian just mentioned, the relationship between the Shen and Chen families was strained, which indicates that Shen Lian’s target for revenge was always clear—Chen Jianguo. When she realized that her personal power was insufficient, she began seeking external help. First, her parents, and then the police. She persisted tirelessly until she suddenly discovered that she herself had become one of the murderers. She’s like an extremely dangerous combustible material ignited by a spark and has been burning ever since.”

“That’s probably it.” Lin Chen nodded, looking at Xing Conglian approvingly. “Captain Xing, if you keep going like this, I might end up unemployed.”

“Unemployment is good. I’ll support you.”

Lin Chen shook his head helplessly. Police officers began to enter the dumpling restaurant, but Xing Conglian nonchalantly hooked his shoulder, with a comforting expression. If they weren’t discussing an extremely dangerous individual and dark matters, Lin Chen would even have the illusion that they were enjoying aimless love under the sun, with the wind blowing