NOVEL NEXT Chapter 41 - The Chen Yayuan Problem
Even from a distance, I could tell at a glance. Chen Yayuan, who was clearly the ‘contact target’, was lying on the chairs in the audiovisual room, and there was a deep red gash on her neck. Seeing her hand twitch for a moment, I rushed to her, lifted her head, and tore off tape from my hand.
I blocked the wound on her neck with the tape and checked her pulse while shouting:
“What happened! What on earth…”
Her pulse was weak.
Her breath was almost gone. It didn’t seem like it had been long since her throat was cut, but she wasn’t in a state that could be revived just by blocking the wound. Chen Yayuan, whose eyelids were fluttering, started to spout Chinese incoherently.
“If I… die…”
“Who did this? Who on earth did this to you?”
But she didn’t seem to hear my voice. It was questionable whether she was even in a state to see me. Chen Yayuan, the target of the mission I was supposed to monitor, whose identity I was supposed to uncover, left only one last sentence as her dying words and passed away.
“Recapture Nanjing… and save… China…”
I laid Chen Yayuan, who had stopped breathing, back on the chair and looked up at the ceiling in bewilderment.
There was no weapon-like object left in the vicinity. There were no traces of someone touching the body or entering the scene.
An accident? No, that’s unlikely. It doesn’t make sense for someone to die with a deep wound on their neck in this situation.
One hundred percent murder. First, I need to inform the outside about this incident, quickly control the scene, and start an investigation. As I was running towards the audiovisual room door, I was startled and stepped back when I saw someone suddenly open the door and come in.
The hypnotist, Hoang Thi Linh, hurriedly entered the audiovisual room and bowed her head.
“I’m sorry for being late! It took longer to eat than I expected… Huh? Platoon Leader?”
“Hoang Thi Linh?”
“…Why are you here?”
Hoang Thi Linh asked me. It was what I wanted to ask her, but Hoang, who hadn’t seen the corpse yet because it was hidden by my body, nodded with sparkling eyes.
“Were you also called here by that strange Chinese person named Chen Yayuan?”
“…Then Hoang Thi Linh, you too?”
“Yes, yes… I thought she only called me, but to think the Platoon Leader was called too, is Chen Yayuan inside?”
“…She is.”
“Th-then I’ll meet her too. It’s already time you would have finished talking, I forgot about the appointment and ate too late…”
“She’s not alive.”
Only then did Hoang Thi Linh seem to notice the bloodstains on my hands, rolling her eyes and opening her mouth wide. She pointed at me and shouted.
“Y-you killed her!”
“No, it wasn’t my doing.”
“M-murderer! You’re going to kill me too! You’re going to kill me to silence me, right? W-wait, I need to subdue you with hypnosis! Hypnosis, hypnosis!”
Hoang Thi Linh fumbled in her pocket trying to take out a coin tied with string from her bosom, but she seemed too flustered to even take out her hypnosis tool. I bit my lip hard and grabbed her shoulders. Seeing blood get on her clothes, Hoang screamed again.
“Listen carefully. Go outside right now, report that a murder has occurred, and bring an instructor or soldier. I don’t care if you point me out as a suspect, but we need to call the military police for now.”
“You’re… not going to kill me?”
“I’m telling you, I’m not the culprit!”
But for now, Hoang Thi Linh wanted to confirm if Chen Yayuan was really dead, and I stepped aside slightly to show her Chen Yayuan’s body placed in the middle of the audiovisual room. Hoang still seemed to firmly believe that I was the culprit, but once I didn’t seem like I was going to kill her, she quickly turned and fled from the audiovisual room after just seeing the pool of blood on the floor.
It’s concerning that Chen Yayuan called Hoang Thi Linh, but that wasn’t the most important issue right now. I decided to stay at the scene even if it meant being suspected as the culprit. When I approached Chen Yayuan, she was in a state where not much time had passed since the wound was inflicted, enough to leave last words.
There’s a possibility that the culprit is nearby. At the very least, there’s a possibility they might try to come back here for cleanup.
About 3 minutes after Hoang Thi Linh disappeared outside the empty library. In that anxiety where 1 minute felt like an hour and 3 minutes felt like 10 hours, another woman appeared before me.
She was muttering like this:
“Dead… A very strong soul died nearby… Not long ago. But what on earth…?”
The person who appeared this time was Rebecca Katerfeld. She was slowly approaching the audiovisual room while muttering nonsense that even I, with my very limited German, could roughly understand.
“It’s nearby… It’s nearby… A noticeably strong soul… Who on earth is it? I haven’t seen such spiritual power since the Generalissimo…”
“Katerfeld?”
I called out to Rebecca, waving my hand towards her. Rebecca Katerfeld then seemed to notice my presence, raising her head abruptly and waving back at me.
“Shin Eun-young! It’s you! I’m sensing powerful spiritual energy nearby, do you know any clues?”
“Uh, well, that…”
“It’s like… the kind of spiritual energy felt when a very powerful being dies and its soul leaves the body. If you have any idea…”
“Someone has died.”
I said, guarding the door of the audiovisual room. Rebecca didn’t seem very surprised to hear my words.
“In here, Ms. Katerfeld. Someone has died in here. It seems to be murder.”
“Your doing?”
“No. It wasn’t my doing. I’m just the first witness.”
“Hmm.”
Rebecca pushed me aside and walked into the audiovisual room. She approached the corpse without caring about getting blood on her shoes and checked its pulse. Rebecca said:
“It’s still warm.”
“It hasn’t been long since death. When I discovered it, there was barely any breath left.”
“The military police?”
“Hoang Thi Linh went to call them.”
“What was Hoang Thi Linh doing here?”
“This woman called her, it seems.”
“Platoon Leader, did you also come here because Chen Yayuan called you?”
“Yes, but… Huh? Do you know this person? Were you also called here by Chen Yayuan?”
Katerfeld shrugged.
“No. I really just came here following the scent of spiritual energy. The reason I know Chen Yayuan is because I’ve investigated her in advance.”
“What does that mean exactly?”
“On the entrance ceremony day. The magnitude of power this woman possessed was at an outstanding level even among the upperclassmen gathered at the scene. No other student was a match for Chen Yayuan. I remembered her face well and tried to find out as much as I could about who this woman was over the past month. There wasn’t much result, but I at least learned her name.”
“…”
“You say it wasn’t your doing, Shin Eun-young?”
“It wasn’t my doing. It wasn’t your doing either, right, Katerfeld?”
“Of course it wasn’t my doing.”
At that moment, we heard the sound of heavy footsteps, as if the military police were rushing outside the door. I said to Rebecca:
“Step away from the corpse. You might receive unnecessary restrictions.”
“The note.”
“What?”
“If it wasn’t your doing, give me that note. You brought the memo, right? The memo of Briar Churchill.”
“…Is this the time to talk about that?”
“If it wasn’t your doing, you need to give that to me. I can at least create favorable circumstances for you.”
I don’t understand why, but I hurriedly took out the notepad with Briar Churchill’s sleep talk written on it and handed it to Rebecca. Rebecca quickly hid the memo in her pocket just before the military police burst into the room.
With a bang, the door opened and four National Revolutionary Army military policemen carrying rifles rushed into the audiovisual room. The person leading them was a Chinese army major in full uniform with a cap, Zhou Lizhi.
“Hmm.”
Zhou made a short groan as she saw the situation in the audiovisual room.
“It’s been a while since I smelled blood. I’ve heard the situation roughly. Shin Eun-young. I will… for now, arrest you on the spot as the most likely suspect in this murder case. Will you cooperate?”
I nodded. Now is not the time to resist. I’m no match for Zhou Lizhi in a direct confrontation anyway, and there’s no need to fight unnecessarily.
Let’s allow the arrest. Understanding what this situation is comes next.
“I will cooperate. But it wasn’t my doing. I won’t ask you to believe me, but it wasn’t my doing.”
“That doesn’t matter for the arrest itself. Sergeant, keep the handcuffs. What’s the point of handcuffing a superhuman? Follow me, Platoon Leader. I’ll guide you to the detention cell.”
“It’ll be alright.”
Katerfeld whispered to me as I was heading towards the prison.
“If it wasn’t your doing, there won’t be a problem.”