[Zhongyingmei] The clown is actually me

"The doctor lied in one place,? You won't say he's faking paralysis, are you?" Jason glanced at him calmly, "I found that too, but I'm not sure,? He's been using a blanket Wrapping his legs,? I don’t know if there are any signs of atrophy in his leg muscles. Moreover, even if his legs can still walk freely,? I estimate that his height should be more than 1m75,? Same as the road killer captured by the camera The height does not match."

"No, I'm not talking about that." Jack still had a tricky smile on his face. The smile was all cunning and persuasive, maybe with a bit of ridicule, like waiting for the prey to walk into the trap. old hunter.As he said, he likes to make others unwilling but has to be manipulated by him: "It's another place,? Are you interested in listening?"

"Tell me."

Jack shook his head. "It's not free—I want the carousel music box."

Jason stood still,? He looked in the direction of his finger, there was a simple roadside stall, the ground was only covered with a layer of dry plastic sheet,? Several shapes were displayed on the plastic sheet Exquisite little toy,? The music box that Jack wants is on the right side of the last row.The guard of the stall is an ordinary man with nothing to do, he is yawning lazily.Beside him are a pile of colorful plastic rings and a stand-up sign that reads "Loops to get toys $10 a pop."

Jason looked at the cheap music box, it wouldn't cost more than 15 dollars in the supermarket.Immediately, I felt that Jack's smile was extremely angry, "I became Batman's Robin to uphold justice, not to let you watch sideshows!"

"That's okay,? Although you lost a clue,? But you maintained Robin's dignity." Jack shrugged.

Jason took a few steps forward, but finally stopped, turned his head as if admitting defeat, and gave Jack a hard look.He took out a few brand-new banknotes from his wallet and handed them to the man who was dozing off while guarding the stall: "Give me that music box."

Jack grabbed his wrist and said firmly, "No, I want you to do it."

"Are you sick?!" Jason couldn't bear it any longer. As a professionally trained Robin, an ordinary street stall game certainly wouldn't bother him, but he hated the feeling of being led by the nose.

"I won't tell you if you don't set me up."

Jason was defeated by his shamelessness. In the end, he had to pinch his nose to get a bunch of rings from the stall owner, and the first one slipped firmly into the music box with the carousel.He returned the rest of the ring to the boss, threw the music box to Jack, and said angrily, "Tell me, what did you find?"

"That Mr. Milton has never been to Europe?"

"Where's the evidence?"

Jack was fiddling with the old music box. He snapped off the base of the music box and took out a bunch of mechanical parts: "I told him a joke when I was chatting with him. According to the English pronunciation of Europeans, Europeans ( European) is the same as Urine?peeing, so 'European in the toilet' is a pun, mocking European accents. But he didn't get it, it's not like a guy who's lived in Europe for months people."

No, I think it’s possible that he just doesn’t want to answer your homophonic bad jokes… Jason was thinking in his heart, and Jack’s next sentence made him abandon this idea: “And he said too many details about the European tour .He's as good at lying as you are, Redbird, and I guess he got those details from travel magazines. And there's one more thing that bothers me."

"What is it?"

"I want the monkey toy that claps."

here we go again!Jason paid again to play a boring game of rings, throwing Jack's finger monkey toy to him: "Tell me."

"When I asked him 'where were you at the time of the incident', he was not surprised, nor did he ask me 'why did you ask this', but fluently answered 'in Europe', which shows that he has long been prepared for this question. In fact After he finished speaking, he also found that he had a flaw, but he probably memorized it too smoothly, and he couldn't pretend it for the first time. He knew what we were here for, and why we found him, and—"Jack After pondering for a while, "If my guess is correct, he knows the process of the police subpoena, interrogation, and confession, and he also knows how to counteract it, so he is calm. To do this, he must either have been in this system Internal employment, such as military, police, forensic, clerical, etc., or he has been in prison or detained for a crime."

"Documents show he didn't have that experience."

"Maybe his companion has." Jack smiled, and stuffed the monkey toy into his pocket. "Maybe, we came at the wrong time, and they have already finished their confession."

"If the road killer had two people..."

"What is impossible? Is it rare for victims to unite for revenge? Hatred is like a bond, locking two completely different people together and turning them into an unbreakable alliance. Just those lovers/children I don't think there's anything surprising about the nasty things you do, even if the entire population of Yankee Town united to kill them, just like "Murder on the Orient Express."

Jason and Jack leave the doctor's mansion to visit a second suspect: a reporter.

The mist gradually dissipated, and from the depths of the deep sky, there was a drizzle like cow hair, and the clouds in the sky were like lace on the skirt of a lady, and the wind was whimpering like waves, and the sound of an accordion was faintly heard from the depths of the hustle and bustle. The sound is like the breath of the wind.The walls of the marble church are covered with ivy like fish scales, which rise and fall like waves when the wind blows.The statue of Christ hangs high on the top of the church, the stained glass windows cast colorful shadows, on the high hanging cross, the loving Son is suffering, the pale skylight outlines the outline of the sculpture, so gentle, so compassionate...

"Song of Solomon, the Song of Songs. May he kiss me with his mouth For your love is better than wine. Your anointing oil is fragrant and your name is like a poured out ointment, so all the virgins love you... ...*”

(from "Bible Song of Solomon")

Jack, who was sitting in the back row of the church, said to Jason beside him, "Aren't you a reporter? What are you doing in the church?"

"When the priest of this church was killed by a road killer, the reporter worked part-time as the priest here, leading believers to worship every Sunday. Did you carefully read the file I handed you?" Jason said among the believers Amen lowered his voice.

After the believers left, the two of Jason repeated their tricks and introduced their disguised identities to the priest.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Johnson Eddie, and I'm also a reporter who contributes to "Gotham Stories" all the year round." Johnson shook hands with Jason, "Is Valentina okay?"

He is shorter than Milton.Jason calculated in his heart that this Mr. Johnson Eddy was almost the same size as the road killer...

"Well, Ms. Valentina is in good health. Are you interested in telling me about your own experience? As far as I know, you were not a direct victim of the sex/children case." Jason pushed up his glasses and made a gesture A gentle and harmless student.

"Well, yes. I have never been violated. The victim is my sister. She is 3 years older than me. Because of her beauty, she was raped by those scum... I didn't know these things at the time, and she always loved me. , I still remember that the candies she gave me were liqueur chocolates begged from those big people. But when I was 13 years old, I went home, opened the door, and saw my sister’s body hanging on the beam, Like a piece of paper. At that time, she had a very serious STD/disease, and she was bedridden for a month before she died. We don’t know where she got the strength to hang herself. I didn’t go to my sister’s funeral.” Father Johnson said with a wry smile, as if chewing on the old pain repeatedly, and finally even the loss of taste of this pain became a new pain, “to this day, I I still think of my sister, and I think of it in my dreams. I want to get justice, so I have been running around to collect donations for the children who were victimized back then. As long as we collect enough money, we can hire the best lawyers and bring those scum Sent to jail. But... it doesn't seem to work, I've given up hope. I wrote a book about it last year, but it didn't get published."

He took out a beautifully bound book from the briefcase he was carrying, on the cover was a young child, the lower half of her face was tightly covered by wrinkled adult male hands, only those The eyes are crystal clear.

The title of the book is Lockdown Town - About a Long Murder That Lasted 20 Years.

"Aren't there any other victims in Yangktown who stand in solidarity with you?"

"That's the most embarrassing part. There's no support for us, the town is silent, it's perpetually foggy, isolated, the outside world never hears from Yonkerstown. Sometimes I feel like, Our "Childhood Return" organization is like a group of people lost with the nomadic army, constantly shouting and groping their way in the deserted wasteland, and the only response to us is the howling of wolves in the distance." Father Johnson said. As he spoke, a drop of tear suddenly fell, he was stunned for a moment, then wiped away the tear with a handkerchief, and said in a low voice, "Sorry, I lost my temper."

"According to Ms. Valentina, you wanted to be an engineer when you were young, and you won the first prize in the Gotham City Robot Design Contest. Even Gotham University was willing to recruit you, but you still chose something else. Professional, become a reporter." Jack gestured, "Do you want to report these?"

"Yes, back then I thought that as long as I became a reporter, I would be able to overthrow all this. Words are the levers that move the world, just like in the story: the honest reporter made a report, and the whole country was shaken by it, and the harmful regime was suppressed. Eradicated, the criminals were thrown into prison, and the victims were able to rest in peace. However, I failed to do anything, to move the world... It was not as simple as I thought. Now I am idle, living on a meager manuscript fee. If I had known this, I might as well be an engineer." Johnson lowered his head, he was younger than Milton, but in those clear eyes, the flame of ambition belonging to young people was extinguished early, leaving only a burning silence white ash.Maybe the rope that hanged his sister was also around his neck, tightening slowly but firmly from childhood to adulthood.The title is like a sad metaphor - it's a long murder that lasted 20 years.