The interview ended twenty minutes later.
Su Xiaoqing was helped out of the conference room by her lawyer. Her steps were steady as she walked, but at the doorway she turned back.
"Officer Jiang." She looked at Yin Wuwang. "Find her."
Not a request. A demand.
Yin Wuwang gave a slight nod.
After the door closed, only the two of them remained in the conference room.
Xie Qingyan leaned back in his chair, staring at his notebook for a while. Then he flipped to a new page and began to write.
Yin Wuwang walked over and stood behind him.
"Su Xiaoqing confirmed our deduction from yesterday." Yin Wuwang watched the words on the paper. "Zhang Yunxiang's motive was indeed fabricated out of thin air, and that woman really did spend half a year brainwashing him."
Xie Qingyan looked up at him. "Not only that—Su Xiaoqing provided a new detail: 'Every time he went drinking alone, that woman would come over.'"
"That's what makes this different from ordinary gossip." Yin Wuwang continued. "Precise, purposeful psychological manipulation. Designed to break him."
Xie Qingyan wrote a few words in his notebook, then tapped that line with his pen tip.
Yin Wuwang looked down.
Xie Qingyan had written: Manipulator characteristics—female, highly distinctive voice, familiar with Zhang Yunxiang's behavioral patterns, familiar with Su Xiaoqing's bar-visiting frequency, familiar with bar environment.
"She knew when Zhang Yunxiang would come alone, when he'd be drunk." Xie Qingyan's tone carried cold certainty. "This means she'd been observing the couple's behavior patterns for an extended period."
Yin Wuwang nodded. "Not a stranger. Someone who'd been around the bar for a long time."
"But in the employee interviews, no one mentioned a woman like this." Xie Qingyan closed his notebook. "Either she's very good at disguising herself, appearing completely different from her usual self—"
"Or she normally doesn't draw any attention at all." Yin Wuwang finished.
Both fell silent for a moment.
A image flashed through Yin Wuwang's mind—yesterday at the bar, a woman carrying a bucket and mop crossing the main floor, eyes straight ahead, coming in to work, leaving when done. Ordinary to the point of near-invisibility.
He didn't say it aloud. It was just a fleeting thought, unsupported by any evidence. In the cultivation world, there was an iron rule: suspicion isn't proof. No matter how strong your instinct, accusing someone without solid evidence was a cardinal sin in investigation.
Besides, Fuguang's investigative style had always been to build logical chains link by link, not rely on feelings. He respected that.
"What's the next step?" Yin Wuwang asked.
"Pull the surveillance footage." Xie Qingyan stood. "Internal and surrounding surveillance from the bar. From the night of the incident, and from the past three months."
"Three months?"
"That woman observed Zhang Yunxiang for at least six months. If she was cautious enough, she'd only have increased her frequency in recent months. Three months of footage is already a lot, but it should cover the critical periods."
Yin Wuwang thought: When Fuguang works a case, he's more rigorous than those scattered immortals in the cultivation world who divine heavenly secrets.
He pushed that thought down and switched to a more practical question.
"What do you think," he asked, "is that woman's motive?"
Xie Qingyan had already reached the door. He didn't turn around, but paused mid-step.
"Currently two possibilities." He said. "First, she had a personal grudge against Chen Wan and used Zhang Yunxiang as her murder weapon. Second, she has some connection to Zhang Yunxiang, though we can't see it yet."
"Which do you lean toward?"
"The first." Xie Qingyan said. "Her target for manipulation was Zhang Yunxiang, but her target for elimination was Chen Wan. Zhang Yunxiang was just a tool."
Yin Wuwang considered this.
"That makes her even more dangerous." He said.
Xie Qingyan turned his head.
"A person willing to spend six months manipulating a stranger into committing murder," Yin Wuwang's tone was flat, "is patient, calm, calculating, not impulsive. Someone like that won't leave many traces behind."
Xie Qingyan looked at him.
"Is that your three thousand years of experience talking?" he asked.
His voice was soft, audible only to the two of them.
Yin Wuwang's lips curved slightly.
"More or less."
That evening, Xie Qingyan sat in the study organizing the day's interview notes.
Yin Wuwang placed a cup of warm water on the corner of his desk, as he'd done for several days now. Xie Qingyan didn't thank him; Yin Wuwang didn't wait for thanks. It had become some kind of unspoken understanding, formed without either of them noticing.
"Yin Wuwang."
Yin Wuwang was about to turn and leave when he heard those three syllables and stopped.
"During the interview today," Xie Qingyan didn't look up, his pen still moving across the paper, "you observed Su Xiaoqing's expressions, judged what she was concealing versus where her lies ended, and simultaneously analyzed the evidence that those words had been repeatedly instilled—how did you do it?"
"Do what?"
"Process that many layers of information at once." Xie Qingyan said.
Yin Wuwang paused, not expecting that to be Fuguang's question.
"...Force of habit." He said. "Live long enough, see enough people, and it comes naturally."
Xie Qingyan finally raised his head and looked at him. That gaze held none of the scrutiny from before, nor any perfunctory politeness. It was a serious look, carrying a hint of reassessment.
"Your observational skills," Xie Qingyan said, "are far stronger than I expected."
Yin Wuwang's heart skipped a beat.
He didn't know if Fuguang realized what he'd just said. Three thousand years, and that lofty Sword Sovereign who'd been indifferent to all things had, for the first time, directly acknowledged his intellectual capabilities—not his martial prowess, not his imposing presence, not the Demon Sovereign's pressure. His observational skills.
A Sword Sovereign praising a Demon Sovereign's observational skills.
This was probably the strangest compliment in the history of the cultivation world.
Yin Wuwang suppressed the heat surging up from his chest, forcing his expression to remain normal.
"You're not bad yourself." He said, deliberately keeping his tone casual. "Today you skipped past Su Xiaoqing's marital issues and went straight to the manipulator angle. Good rhythm control."
Xie Qingyan lowered his head and resumed writing.
"That wasn't difficult." He said.
Yin Wuwang thought: Fuguang complimented me.
Then he thought: Should I say something?
Then he thought: No. Don't say anything. One more word and I'll give myself away.
He turned and quickly left the study, pulling the door shut behind him.
Back in his own room, Yin Wuwang stood by the window, looking at his reflection in the glass. The face in the reflection appeared calm.
But he knew his ears were burning.
Late that night, Yin Wuwang lay with his eyes closed, but his mind kept turning over one thing.
Not the case. Not the "woman with the pleasant voice."
It was what Su Xiaoqing had said in the conference room.
"Someone spent half a year telling him, over and over, that his wife was betraying him."
That woman hadn't used a blade, hadn't used poison, hadn't even used any cultivation technique. She'd simply found the thing Zhang Yunxiang was most afraid of losing and forced that crack wide open.
Zhang Yunxiang had snapped and attacked—not out of hatred, but because he cared too much about Su Xiaoqing. Cared so much he'd lost all reason.
Yin Wuwang opened his eyes, staring at the ceiling in the darkness.
He suddenly felt a tightness in his chest.
Three thousand years ago, when he'd believed he would never earn Fuguang's attention—hadn't he also lost his reason then, launching that catastrophic war between immortals and demons?
The word "love" was the same in the cultivation world and the mortal realm. It could make someone take up arms and armor, and it could turn someone into a mad blade to be wielded by others.
The woman hiding in the shadows had seen through precisely this—which was why she'd turned Zhang Yunxiang into a weapon.
He turned over.
The person who wielded that blade was still hiding somewhere. Tomorrow, when they pulled the surveillance footage, perhaps the answer would surface.
[End of V2_Chapter 21]
Next: Three months of surveillance footage, a face that doesn't match, and another suspect enters the frame.