SES Chapter 119 Part 2

Excited, he blurted, “I got it, Little Luo! Let me say it. I just need… give me a second to put it into words.”

For once, his brain was moving faster than everyone else’s, and he was proud of it—nervous, too, afraid someone else would steal the spotlight.

“Just… let me organize it.”

His thoughts spun, heart racing. Luo Ren gave him an encouraging smile.

That steadied him.

Carefully, he began: “Just now you said Luo Wenmiao completely changed because the Fierce Talisman had full control of him.”

“The talisman’s power is fixed, right? Like adding a spoonful of sugar to a cup of water—you get sugar water. But if you pour that same spoonful into a whole barrel of water, you might not even taste the sweetness.”

Luo Ren chuckled. “Exactly.”

Cao Yanhua grew more confident. “So if your theory is right, Ma Chao and those witnesses were only influenced by the talisman. This time, it spread its power across a lot of people. It didn’t have enough left to make any one of them lose themselves completely, like your uncle. So it could only nudge them in small ways.”

“That’s why Ma Chao and the witnesses still seemed normal in personality and behavior. The only thing off was that when a specific event happened, their testimony was totally different.”

Wan San caught on. “And their testimony sounded completely sincere—like they really believed it, not like they were lying.”

Hongsha thought she understood, but when she tried to process it, she got lost again. She pulled a face. “Can someone explain it in terms I can actually follow?”

Mu Dai laughed and flicked her on the forehead. “Silly girl.”

Luo Ren said, “Let’s put it another way. Take Mu Dai, for example.”

“That night, Mu Dai never even went near the bridge. But three different people swore they saw her there. They even claimed they recognized her face and could describe what she was wearing.”

“But their descriptions had holes. That night, Mu Dai had her hair tied up. What they ‘saw’ was her with long hair flowing down.”

He picked up an egg. “It’s like this—someone had seen Mu Dai earlier, so an image of her formed in their mind.”

Then he lined up three buns in a row on the table. “That image was embedded into a ready-made scene, like a slide in a projector, slipped in and swapped into their memories.”

That’s why, when the witnesses recalled that night, aside from Song Tie, Mu Chao and Wu Yuping both described Mu Dai suddenly appearing out of nowhere.

Mu Chao, for instance, turned around to avoid Zhang Tong relieving himself—and when he looked back, there was Mu Dai. That’s an inserted image.

Wu Yuping rode her bike onto the bridge, saw nothing, fell, then looked up—and suddenly Mu Dai was standing there. Another inserted image.

Only Song Tie’s sighting was smooth: he was walking along the riverbank and saw Mu Dai coming toward the bridge. His timing was perfect, and the implant blended almost seamlessly.

So to investigators, Mu Dai looked irredeemably guilty: Mu Chao as the eyewitness, plus Song Tie and Wu Yuping as corroboration.

Luo Ren sneered. “But a forced insertion is still a forced insertion. If you really scrutinize it, the flaws jump out. First, how abruptly Mu Dai ‘appears.’ Second… Mu Chao never called the police.”

“I believe if Zhang Tong’s death was tied to Mu Chao, then out of guilt and fear, he absolutely would’ve avoided reporting it. That night, he must’ve left the bridge terrified, gone home praying the cops wouldn’t suspect him.”

Yi Wan-san let out a breath. “But then after a night’s sleep, things were different. A new memory fragment had been swapped in—so real he himself believed it. Now, in his mind, it was Mu Dai who killed Zhang Tong.”

Luo Ren nodded. “That kind of testimony is deadly. The words, the expressions—completely sincere. Not even a polygraph could expose it.”

Right. A polygraph works by recording physiological changes—breathing, pulse, and skin conductivity. When people know they’re lying, nerves betray them even if they stay calm. But what if they don’t know they’re lying?

Yan Hongsha sighed. “No wonder, back at the Bureau, when I was sparring with those witnesses, they looked like they wanted to eat me alive—thought I was twisting facts and spouting lies.”

Maybe they truly believed they were on the side of justice, bravely speaking up, while Yan Hongsha was the shameless liar.

Luo Ren continued, “The trap for Mu Dai was a carefully arranged setup after the fact. But Yi Wan-san’s case felt improvised, so poking holes in it wasn’t too hard.”

He tapped the egg, making it wobble upright on the table. “The fourth cursed slip of bamboo—or rather, the person it’s attached to.”

“First, that person must’ve seen Mu Dai before. Otherwise, they couldn’t have implanted her image so precisely.”

“Second, they had to be near the bridge when Zhang Tong died. That way, they knew Song Tie and Wu Yuping would pass by and could be turned into eyewitnesses.”

“Third, they happened to be on scene during your scuffle with Mu Chao, Yi Wan-san. That’s how they pulled off that sloppy, spur-of-the-moment frame job.”

“We need to get our hands on the surveillance footage. Even if things were chaotic, I’m certain the video will show one person—a person we’ve never confronted directly—carrying the fourth cursed bamboo slip.”

A brief silence fell. Mu Dai lifted her soy milk and gulped it down. “I’m more wronged than Dou E.”

Yi Wan-san shared the same bitter laugh. “Good thing for surveillance cameras. Fifty years ago, I’d probably have gone down with Dou E too.”

Luo Ren chuckled. “Back to the blood question—why Yi Wan-san’s blood worked but mine didn’t. My guess is, his blood isn’t nearly enough to counter the cursed bamboo itself. But against someone merely influenced by it? More than enough. By the time I tried, the bamboo’s influence had already left Mu Chao. So to him, my blood was just ordinary blood.”

Cao Yanhua cut in, “We can test that.”

With a flourish, he slapped four wallets onto the coffee table. “Those four punks—we’ve got IDs, addresses. If the bamboo still has its hooks in them, we’ll know soon enough.”

Yi Wan-san groaned inwardly: You knew, I knew, that was enough—why wave the evidence around like that…

Sure enough, Yan Hongsha raised her head. “And where exactly did those come from?”

Luo Ren turned to Mu Dai. “Master, shouldn’t you say something?”

Mu Dai paused, then gave in with a line.

“My guess… Fatty Cao picked them up off the ground?”