Chapter 187: Lie. Lie. Lie.
There was no immediate answer. The Ji couple remained silent, as if their lips were glued together. Liwu’s gaze remained focused on them, unwavering. He Xiao Yi watched the couple during that moment of silence, his eyes flickering over every twitch, every nervous swallow.
He couldn’t help comparing this couple to his own parents at the height of his tragedy back then. They had been defensive like this. They had something to hide, just like these two.
Mrs. Ji scratched her calloused hands, looking down at the floor.
Liwu leaned forward, voice calm but edged with steel. "Let’s start with something simple. You are his mother, why didn’t you report him missing?" She softened her tone at the second question, using deceptive calm to get some answers. "If you have nothing to hide, you need to give me something."
Mrs. Ji’s lips trembled before she forced a weak response. "We...thought he was with relatives. Sometimes he visited his cousins without telling anyone. We just thought he had wandered off."
He Xiao Yi’s system pulsed faintly, feeding him data from the woman’s body language and tone. He scribbled a note: Lie. Pulse elevated. Eyes darting to the left.
Liwu smiled. "Oh, I know, You would not believe how many children we have picked up for such incidents. But just to verify this information, I meed to know these relatives. Who are they? Names. Addresses. Phone numbers."
Mr. Ji cleared his throat, voice rough. "My brother. He lives in the next district. Our son visits him often. He takes the bullet train on his own. Before you accuse us of carelessness, he is old enough to travel on his own. He has done this hundreds of times before."
He Xiao Yi’s pen scratched again: Lie. Hesitation. Fabricated detail. Hundreds of visits!!! I don’t think so.
Liwu tapped the table with a pen, her patience thinning. "As soon as we discovered your son’s identity, we started looking into travel details to see if he was transported to another district or out of the city after he went missing. Every train station in this city is under surveillance. The traffic department has no record of your son leaving this district in the last six months. No train tickets bought in his name. No plane tickets either. Try again"
Mrs. Ji’s hands clenched in her lap. "Perhaps...maybe he went to visit friends. He has a lot of friends we don’t know. He is very private about that part of his life."
He Xiao Yi leaned forward, his system screaming as he took more notes. Deflecting. Avoidance pattern. Very likely concealment, but what?
Liwu’s gaze sharpened. "Mr and Mrs. Ji, I am going to need you to be more honest with me. One minute he left camp to visit your brother and the next, he went to see friends. But you don’t know those friends!" She frowned. "What kind of parent does not know their child’s friends? More so, friends that this child visits often. You are not sounding very responsible to me. At least give me some names of these friends."
Silence. The couple exchanged a glance, their facade cracking under the pressure she was applying. Indeed, when she explained things like that, their answers were foolish.
Liwu pressed harder. "I can tell that you are lying and the only reason I can think of is that you didn’t report your son missing because you knew where he was. You knew he was in that drum."
Mr. Ji;s jaw tightened. "We...we don’t know what you mean. We didn’t put him in the drum."
He Xiao Yi’s pen paused. Not everything in this response was a lie. There was no lie when he said he did not put his son in the drum, but at the same time, he was highly defensive. There was fear in his eyes when Liwu said she had a feeling that the couple had known where there son went to when he disappeared, and this was why they didn’t report him missing.
So, what had happened? Did they kidnap their own son? Sell him? Hide him....what was going on here?
Liwu slammed her hand against the table, the sound echoing like a gunshot. "Enough of the run around. A child was found stuffed in a drum. He was on the verge of death and he is fighting for his life right now. And you...his parents sit here spinning tales."
The couple looked away from her, flinching.
He Xiao Yi asked a question, much calmer than Liwu. "What is your background? What do you both do for a living?"
Mrs. Ji wiped tears from eyes. "We are simple people. Farmers. We have no background."
He Xiao Yi’s system contradicted instantly: Lie. Hands are calloused, but not from farming tools. More like factory work. Clothes reek of fish. Possible link to fishing = drum and body dump at sea. Maybe own a boat?
Liwu was having the same doubts. Her lips curled into a cold smile. "Farmers? Your clothes are old but they were of good quality once upon a time. Mr. Ji, our boots are imported, five thousand dollars a pair, I believe. I have a brother who likes nice shoes so I have seen the shoes on your feet before. You two reek of fish. You are no farmers. Who are you really?"
Mr. Ji’s voice rose, desperate. "How are my shoes any of your business? They were a gift from my....father..friend. We are the victims here! Our boy was taken from us!"
He Xiao Yi scribbled into his notebook: Lie. Tone mismatch. Overcompensation.
More importantly, the couple had not exploded in grief when Liwu told them that their son was fighting for his life. These were not the responses of parents that were scared for the life of their child. Mrs. Ji was sad, but not drowning in grief or fear. Mr. Ji was stoic. He seemed impatient and ready to leave the precinct.
Liwu turned her eyes on Mr. Ji. "Taken? By whom? You never reported it. You never searched. You never sent a text to anyone sharing the news and asking for help. Why?"
He clenched his jaw. "How do you know that we didn’t ask anyone for help. How did you read our texts?"
She shrugged. "We are the bureau, there is nothing we can’t find if we look hard enough. That is why I advise you to talk while we are still in the mood to listen. If you make us dig, we will dig until your lives are turned upside down."
Mrs. Ji broke, sobbing. "We were afraid! Afraid of going to the police or involving the bureau. If they knew..." She stopped abruptly, biting her lip.
Liwu seized on it. "If they knew what? That you were involved? That you hid your son? That you abused him? What is it that you feared exposing?"
Mr. Ji slammed his fist on the table. "We are innocent! Dig all you want."
He Xiao Yi’s system pulsed: Lie. Aggression spike. Attempt to dominate conversation. Probably a tyrant at home.
Liwu’s voice dropped to a whisper, deadly calm. "Innocent people don’t lie. Innocent people don’t act dodgy. Innocent people don’t fabricate relatives and friends. You are lying through your teeth, and I will find out why."
Mrs. Ji’s sobs grew louder. but Liwu remained unsympathetic.
She stepped out with He Xiao Yi for a moment, telling the couple to remain where they were. They joined the chief, Weijun, Xuanji and Su Jin behind the observation mirror. Linlin was still talking to Wuji.
"What does your profile say?" She asked He Xiao Yi.
His eyes flicked as he replied, "High deception markers. Ninety percent of their answers are lies and what is true is vague that it is hard to discern anything useful from it. They didn’t put their son in the drum, they knew where he was, but not an exact location. Their background is inconsistent with their occupation. They are afraid of the police, the bureau more so.
My conclusion is that they are complicit in the boy’s condition. I don’t know what role they played however.
Mr. Ji is likely an abusive spouses. Not physically but verbally end emotionally. His wife flinches whenever he raises his voice. If we see him interacting with his son, it is likely that we will notice the same behavior."
Xuanji rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. "Maybe I should take a turn. You have been good cops, time for fist cop."
"No." Liwu said sternly. "If it comes down to it, I will use bad luck to see if I can pull an answer out of Mrs. Ji. She has shed a few tears. I think she has some love for the boy. And I say some...."
Linlin suddenly burst in, waving a paper. "It is out, the DNA test is out."
Liwu grabbed the paper from her partner. One look at the results, and some things suddenly made sense.
