According to their prior plan, the next morning, they informed Chen Ma that they would not be returning that night.
Chen Ma, seeing their affection, assumed they were going out for some private time.
Dressed in low-key dark sportswear and wearing baseball caps, they drove to Jia Nanfang's rural hometown again.
They drove at a normal speed, stopping for meals and rest at highway service areas midway, and only arrived at the village late at night.
As they entered the village, Qin Tianyi turned off the car lights and parked the car at the village entrance.
Getting out of the car, Qin Tianyi cautioned Susu, "Are you cold? Stay close to me."
The cold night wind howled. Susu pulled up her collar and looked around vigilantly, saying, "I'm not cold. Won't the villagers discover us like this?"
"If they do, we'll just say we're Jia Nanfang's relatives. If people see us opening the door with a key, they won't suspect anything," Qin Tianyi said, putting his arm around her as they walked into the village.
Susu had been there before and knew the location of the Jia family's old house. She pointed the way, and they headed directly for the house.
Fortunately, all the houses in the village were shut tight at night, and they didn't encounter anyone on the road, except for the village dogs that kept barking incessantly.
Qin Tianyi used the key to open the door and successfully entered the house.
Susu shone the flashlight around. This was the place where Huo Jin had stayed before the incident. She hoped to find something here to uncover the truth of Huo Jin's accident.
As she was about to touch something in the room, Qin Tianyi quickly stopped her and took out the white gloves they had prepared. "Put these on, so we don't give Shu Yan any leverage," he said.
Susu nodded, put on the gloves, and saw the most conspicuous items in the room: an empty crib and a pile of baby supplies.
She rummaged through the remaining baby supplies and said softly, "This child would be six or seven months old. Shu Yan just abandoned him. Where could the child be now?"
"Where else could he be? Given away or sent to an orphanage," Qin Tianyi said, not paying attention to the baby supplies but searching the house for anything suspicious.
If Huo Jin's death was related to Shu Yan, there had to be clues here.
Susu felt a pang of sadness. She thought about how she herself was also disliked by Ai Shunan and his wife when she was just born, which led to her being sent to an orphanage.
Thinking back now, their explanation that she was switched at birth was probably fabricated.
After all, Yuan Shuna giving birth to a child in a reputable hospital was a significant event. She couldn't leave empty-handed when discharged, so she swapped her with Ai Yiwei.
Raising a child who wasn't their own was better than raising a daughter who brought them shame.
She empathized and speculated that Ai Yiwei's biological parents had voluntarily sold their child, or perhaps were forced to.
Some people in this world are simply unfit to have children or be parents!
"Susu, Susu! Stop spacing out and look at the floor near the door. It's much cleaner than the rest of the floor, as if it's been scrubbed repeatedly."
Susu felt that Shu Yan's child was as unfortunate as her, both not meant to be in this world.
She snapped back to attention and looked at the spot Qin Tianyi was pointing at. "Yes, why clean only this area and not the rest of the place?"
"Perhaps there was something on this spot that couldn't be seen by others, and it had to be cleaned thoroughly," Qin Tianyi said shrewdly.
Susu asked, "What could it be? Did the child often soil this area?"
"No, there's no smell of a child's waste," Qin Tianyi replied, thinking it wasn't the case.
"There's no smell because Shu Yan cleaned it very thoroughly. Does she have OCD?"
Qin Tianyi followed the beam of the flashlight and saw a small, inconspicuous blackish-red stain in the corner, like the mark left by a mosquito being swatted on the wall.
He shone the flashlight on it carefully and said, "She doesn't have OCD. It's just that this spot once had a large patch of bloodstains. Look at this small bloodstain here; it should have splashed onto the corner from this position. She probably overlooked this tiny bloodstain."
Susu was shocked, not understanding why there would be bloodstains near the door. She was about to reach out and touch the corner of the wall.
Qin Tianyi stopped her. "Don't touch it. This might serve as evidence. Hold the flashlight steady, and I'll take pictures."
With that, he took out his phone and took several photos of the corner.
Susu carefully examined the surroundings along the wall. She accidentally bumped into the crib placed in the middle.
The crib slid and moved from its original position. In the beam of the flashlight, Susu saw a shiny star-shaped pendant with a small diamond in the center.
She quickly crouched down and picked up the pendant. "This is a pendant from my best friend's bracelet! It's from Huo Jin's bracelet!"
Qin Tianyi also looked at the pendant. It seemed to fully confirm their previous suspicions and confirmed that Huo Jin had been here before she died.
Susu said heartbrokenly, "Huo Jin really came here. Something must have happened to her in this house, otherwise the pendant on her bracelet wouldn't have fallen off. I have the same bracelet; she gave it to me at her shop. It's a famous brand with very good quality, and the pendants are very secure and don't come loose easily."
Qin Tianyi said, "This only indicates that Huo Jin had a dispute or a fight with someone in this house. The pendant on her bracelet would only fall off if there was excessive force during a struggle."
"Are you saying Huo Jin was injured here and then had an accident while driving away?" Susu clutched the pendant tightly. Huo Jin's accident was indeed related to Shu Yan. She couldn't wait to confront Shu Yan.
Qin Tianyi turned off the flashlight and said, "Perhaps it wasn't just an injury. This might have been the primary crime scene."
In the darkness, Susu couldn't see Qin Tianyi's expression as he said this. Trembling slightly, she said, "Shu Yan killed Huo Jin."
"Currently, this possibility is very high. It's a shame we don't have conclusive evidence. The police have already ruled it an accident, and Huo Jin has been buried. Even if they reinvestigate, it will be difficult to convict Shu Yan."
"Then what should we do? So many suspicious details point to Shu Yan. Are we just going to let Shu Yan get away with it?"
In the darkness, Qin Tianyi fumbled and put his arm around Susu. "You said they were suspicious details, all based on our suspicions from these unprovable details. Without clear evidence, it's not enough."
"The bloodstains on the wall and the pendant from Huo Jin's bracelet, these are evidence," Susu couldn't understand why Shu Yan would do something so heinous to Huo Jin.
"The pendant in your hand can at most prove that Huo Jin was here. Shu Yan could easily say that Huo Jin dropped it here accidentally. As for the bloodstains on the wall, a professional forensic doctor would need to identify if it's Huo Jin's blood. For a forensic doctor to come, the police would have to reclassify this as a homicide case. The problem now is that we can't overturn the previous ruling of an accident." Qin Tianyi couldn't think of a good solution at the moment.
Susu said indignantly, "So Huo Jin is gone for nothing?"