When they emerged from He Jinsong's place, the sun had reached its zenith.
Yin Wuwang walked ahead, pace quick. Xie Qingyan followed beside him, not pressing him to speak, just waiting quietly.
After half a block, Yin Wuwang stopped.
"This guy isn't the killer." He said.
"I know." Xie Qingyan said.
"You saw it too?"
"Within the first minute of entering." Xie Qingyan's tone was unruffled. "His anger was old. When he mentioned Chen Wan's death, there was a flash of regret—not the expression of a killer reviewing his own handiwork."
Yin Wuwang looked at him.
First minute. He himself had probably taken three minutes to confirm that conclusion. Fuguang was faster.
But that wasn't important. What mattered was—
"But we can't skip over him." Yin Wuwang repeated what Xie Qingyan had said in the office yesterday.
Xie Qingyan nodded. "The convenience store surveillance needs to be pulled. His alibi needs verification."
"There's one more thing." Yin Wuwang shoved his hands in his pockets. "He said he saw a figure in the shadows of the back alley. Matches the surveillance footage. That person was already in position before He Jinsong left."
"She was waiting." Xie Qingyan said.
"She was waiting for the right moment." Yin Wuwang continued. "Waiting until all the unrelated people had left before making her move."
The two walked along the sidewalk toward where they'd parked. The ginkgo leaves on the roadside trees were already starting to turn yellow, and the autumn breeze carried a touch of coolness.
Yin Wuwang waited until they were well away before speaking in a low voice: "You saw it? When I asked him about the repair shop, he completely froze up."
"I saw." Xie Qingyan's pace remained unhurried. "Ask him about the five-hundred-thousand debt, and even his self-deprecating rhythm was perfectly timed. But ask about something outside the script—"
"Like having his power cord pulled." Yin Wuwang finished for him.
The autumn wind blew several leaves onto Yin Wuwang's shoulder. He didn't bother with them.
Three thousand years. This was the first time he'd felt something close to pity for a mortal—not because the man was poor, but because He Jinsong couldn't even hate Chen Wan of his own free will. His anger, his weariness, his self-mockery—every emotion was "correct," but they hadn't grown from within. They'd been forcibly stuffed into a framework.
Like a marionette with all its strings intact, but the hand controlling them was gone.
"So we need to pull the convenience store surveillance and confirm his alibi." Yin Wuwang brushed the fallen leaves from his shoulder. "Finish writing the ending that lousy author never completed. Clear up his whereabouts, and his character logic closes the loop."
"Fixing him is fixing part of this world." Xie Qingyan nodded.
Yin Wuwang paused, then added: "But—he's not this sovereign's target."
Xie Qingyan looked at him.
"The woman in the back alley is." Yin Wuwang said. "He Jinsong is just smoke and mirrors. The real director of this play is still hiding backstage."
Back in the car, Yin Wuwang started the engine.
Xie Qingyan sat in the passenger seat, opening his notebook and beginning to write. His characters came fast, almost no pauses between strokes.
Yin Wuwang glanced over. Xie Qingyan was drawing a timeline in his notebook—the back alley entry-exit record for the night of the incident:
22:28 He Jinsong enters back alley
22:35 He Jinsong leaves back alley (rejected by Chen Wan)
22:52 Zhang Yunxiang enters back alley
23:03 Zhang Yunxiang runs out of back alley
23:18 Unidentified female emerges from shadows, enters employee passage
Beside the timeline, Xie Qingyan had annotated in small characters: When He Jinsong left, he had already spotted a figure in the shadows.
Then beneath the "unidentified female" entry, he drew a circle with a question mark inside. This 23:18 timestamp was something he'd calculated in the surveillance room after watching the footage over a dozen times—deduced from a half-second reflection of a skirt hem in a puddle cast by the alley entrance streetlight. Ordinary police wouldn't have noticed, but with a Sword Sovereign's eyesight, there was no way he'd miss it.
Yin Wuwang drove, eyes on the road ahead, but his mind was elsewhere.
He Jinsong said that when he left the back alley, he'd seen a figure in the shadows. "Not tall."
Not tall.
In this world's context, "not tall" meant most likely female. Or possibly a smaller, slender male.
But combined with the "woman with the pleasant voice" Zhang Yunxiang had mentioned, Su Xiaoqing's "she didn't cheat," and that slender, composed figure in the surveillance—
The probability of female was extremely high.
A woman.
Familiar with the bar environment.
Capable of waiting in the back alley shadows for at least an hour without being discovered.
Knows Zhang Yunxiang's habits and weaknesses.
Has enough patience to spend six months manipulating a person.
Yin Wuwang's fingers tapped twice on the steering wheel.
In the cultivation world, people like this had a name—web-weavers. They never entered the arena themselves; they only set up the board in the shadows, letting others do their dirty work.
He'd seen many web-weavers. Some were schemers among demonic cultivators; some were political masterminds within immortal sects. They all shared one trait—extreme patience, extreme forbearance, and they never exposed themselves until they were certain of success.
But they also shared one weakness.
They were too confident in their own schemes.
Yin Wuwang's lips curved slightly upward.
"What are you smiling about?" Xie Qingyan suddenly asked.
Yin Wuwang smoothed out his expression. "Nothing."
Xie Qingyan looked at him for a second, didn't press further, and lowered his head to continue writing notes.
The car stopped at a red light. Through the windshield, Yin Wuwang watched the intersection ahead—people coming and going, everyone with their heads down looking at phones, no one noticing who was beside them.
In this city, hiding a person was far too easy.
The signal changed. Yin Wuwang eased the car forward into the flow of traffic.
"I'll send Little Lu a message to run over to the convenience store and pull the surveillance, confirm He Jinsong's alibi." Yin Wuwang turned the steering wheel one-handed. "Then—"
He paused. Little Deer Assistant 9527's voice cut in without warning, fragmented and distorted, like a radio signal fighting through dense interference:
"Crackle... warning... crackle crackle... third suspect... crackle... more unstable than He Jinsong... no name... random... crackle..."
Then it cut off again.
Yin Wuwang's grip on the steering wheel unconsciously tightened.
Before entering this world, Elder Mo had indeed mentioned there were three suspects. At the time, he'd stared at that featureless blob of fog and complained "that thing counts as a person?"
What Little Deer Assistant had said last night about "half-developed" was just a concept. But today, sitting face to face with He Jinsong, asking one question outside the script and watching him freeze on the spot—that concept had become concrete, chilling reality.
He Jinsong at least had a name, had the five-hundred-thousand debt setting, had a repair shop, had beer to drink. And yet the man already seemed like an empty shell. So what about the third one?
In the footage Elder Mo had shown them, the third suspect was just a featureless blob of fog.
Something with no name, no motive, not even a fixed appearance, was wandering somewhere in this city.
"What is it?" Xie Qingyan looked up from his notebook.
Yin Wuwang was silent for two seconds.
"That third suspect Elder Mo mentioned." Yin Wuwang's voice was low. "Little Deer just warned—more incomplete than He Jinsong. Doesn't even have a name. In a random state."
The car fell quiet for a moment.
Outside the windows, the city rushed past in reverse—high-rises, shops, pedestrians, traffic lights. Each one clear and complete, parts of this world the author had actually bothered to write properly.
But somewhere they hadn't seen yet, an existence without even an outline was wandering in some incomplete form.
Sometimes like a suspect. Sometimes like a passerby.
Xie Qingyan closed his notebook.
"Then we need to move faster." He said, voice soft, but carrying something in his tone that Yin Wuwang knew well.
The calm urgency a sword cultivator felt when sensing a storm approaching from the distance on a battlefield.
[End of V2_Chapter 28]
Next: A model couple's morning routine, a neighbor's knowing smile, and a nickname that doesn't sound so bad anymore.