The response crackled back, "Affirmative. But sir, there are a lot of them. The story's already broken online."
Already? Her grandmother had been dead for less than three hours. How was the story already out?
The automatic doors slid open, and Shuyin was hit by an explosion of light and sound that made her physically recoil.
Dozens of reporters and paparazzi swarmed the entrance, packed behind metal barriers that looked barely capable of holding them back.
Their cameras clicked and flashed like a swarm of mechanical insects, the sound overlapping into a continuous buzzing roar.
Video cameras on shoulders, microphones on poles, phones held high to capture every angle. This was such a sensational moment and scene... Who expected this...
It was barely past eight in the morning, but somehow they were all here, already waiting.
Someone had definitely tipped them off. Someone had made sure they would be here to record everything.
"There she is!"
"That's her! That's Lin Shuyin!"
"The one who killed her grandmother!"
"Look at her! Still in her nightgown!"
The shouts came from all directions, building on each other until they became a deafening wave of accusation.
"Lin Shuyin! Did you do it for the inheritance?"
"How much money did you get?"
"Look this way! How does it feel to be a murderer?"
"Were you angry that she loved other family members more?"
"Is it true your wedding was cancelled? Did you blame your grandmother?"
"Did you watch her die?"
"Smile for the camera, killer!"
Microphones on long poles were thrust toward her face from every direction.
Camera lenses pushed as close as the police barriers would allow, some actually making contact with the officers holding her.
The flashes were blinding, disorienting, coming so fast and from so many directions that Shuyin couldn't see where she was going.
She tried to keep her head down, tried to hide her face, but rough hands grabbed her chin and forced her head up.
"Keep your head up," Inspector Wang ordered coldly. "Don't make this harder than it needs to be."
So the cameras captured everything. Every devastating detail.
Her tear-streaked face, still pale and swollen from crying. Her disheveled hair, wild and tangled, uncombed since yesterday.
Her expensive silk nightgown, the one she'd been wearing when she got the call from Zeyan, the one she'd cried in, been sick in, held her dying grandmother in, now wrinkled and stained and completely inappropriate for being out in public.
The handcuffs were binding her wrists behind her back, the metal cutting into her skin. Her bare feet, dirty from the hospital floors, stepped onto the cold pavement.
She was the perfect picture of a fallen angel. Beautiful, broken, wealthy, and guilty.
"Miss Lin! Turn this way!"
"Did you plan this for weeks?"
"Sources say you had a violent argument with her!"
"Was the fifty million yuan worth it?"
"Did you poison her slowly? Did you enjoy watching her suffer?"
"Your family says they're shocked! They say they never suspected you could do something like this!"
That last one made Shuyin's head snap up. "What? What did you say?"
The reporter, a young woman with sharp eyes and a microphone, pressed forward eagerly. "Your family released a statement an hour ago! They say they're devastated and had no idea you were capable of such a crime! They're cooperating fully with the police investigation!"
"No!" Shuyin screamed, suddenly finding her voice. "No, that's a lie! They did this! They set me up! They killed her and they're framing me!"
The crowd erupted in response to her outburst, cameras flashing even more frantically.
"She's blaming her family!"
"The denial continues!"
"Classic narcissist behavior!"
"She's claiming she was framed!"
The officers pulled her forward more roughly now, forcing her toward the waiting police van.
The crowd pressed against the barriers, some of them actually pushing past security to get closer.
"You're a monster!" someone screamed from the crowd.
"Murderer!"
"You killed your own grandmother!"
"I hope you rot in prison!"
As they shoved her toward the van, one reporter managed to break through the police line. His camera was practically in her face, so close she could smell his coffee breath.
"Tell us the truth, Miss Lin," he said with a horrible eagerness. "Did you kill her?"
The van door was yanked open. Inspector Wang pushed her head down and shoved her inside, where she collapsed onto the hard bench seat.
The door slammed shut, muffling the chaos outside to a dull roar.
But through the windows, Shuyin could still see them. Still see the cameras pressed against the glass. Still see the faces, reporters, strangers, people who had already decided she was guilty.
Some of them were smiling. Actually smiling, as if this was entertainment. As if her destroyed life was a show put on for their amusement.
As the van pulled away from the hospital, Shuyin caught a glimpse of someone's phone screen pressed against the window.