第八章

Shen Rui said that a few months after the end of Bai Anning's case, the police returned Shen Ran's phone to the Shen family. Xiaoman immediately wanted to see it. The two entered Xiaoman's room. Shen Rui handed her the phone. The phone was already charged.

Xiaoman first looked at the call log. On the day Shen Ran died, there were many missed calls on his phone. His parents, Shen Rui, Fang Na, Jiang Lei, and some numbers not saved in contacts were all looking for him. Xiaoman continued scrolling back to the day Bai Anning disappeared. That evening, Shen Ran had two missed calls. One was from He Mingxuan at 7:19 p.

m. The other was from Bai Anning at 8:54 p. m. That is, shortly before she disappeared, Bai Anning had called Shen Ran. Shen Ran didn't answer. Xiaoman then looked at the calls Shen Ran made.

After Bai Anning disappeared, Shen Ran kept calling her. From Saturday morning to Tuesday morning, he called 112 times. Each call was very short, probably going straight to voicemail. Xiaoman thought this was very important. If Shen Ran killed Bai Anning and hid her phone on himself, why would he keep calling her?

Shen Rui said he had asked the police the same thing. The police said Shen Ran was pretending to be innocent. Xiaoman thought this explanation was weak. If Shen Ran really wanted to pretend innocence, why didn't he get rid of Bai Anning's phone? That was the most dangerous piece of evidence.

Next, Xiaoman looked at the text messages. After Bai Anning disappeared, Shen Ran sent two messages. One told her to come home, saying everyone was worried. The other told her to at least call someone and let them know she was safe. Going further back, there was a text message from 9:01 p. m.

on the night Bai Anning disappeared. Shen Ran wrote that he didn't want to talk to Bai Anning for now, until she stopped something. Neither Xiaoman nor Shen Rui knew what Shen Ran wanted Bai Anning to stop. Then, Shen Rui showed Xiaoman the last text message. It was from the morning Shen Ran died, sent to his father Shen Guoqiang. The gist was: 'I did it, I'm sorry.'

This was what many called the 'confession text.' But Shen Rui made Xiaoman notice the writing style. Shen Ran usually wrote texts casually, didn't like punctuation, and didn't care much about capitalization or grammar. But in this last text, the punctuation was complete, and it was written too neatly. Xiaoman looked at it several times.

She also thought it was off. This text might not have been written by Shen Ran. Maybe someone imitated him but didn't do it well. Shen Rui said he had thought the same thing before. But the police hadn't taken it seriously, and his parents dared not believe this possibility.

They were all afraid of being disappointed again.

Xiaoman continued checking the phone. There were no photos from the night of the incident, nor any obviously useful reminders. Finally, Shen Rui showed her the notes. Inside was a license plate number: R009 KKJ.

This entry was written on April 18, 2012, two days before Bai Anning disappeared. Shen Rui didn't know whose license plate it was. He had tried to look it up before but had no results. Xiaoman noted down the number. There were not many clues in the phone, but each one made the case stranger.

Afterwards, Xiaoman told Shen Rui what she had found so far, including the problems in Fang Na's statement. After reading, Shen Rui thought that after Shen Ran left He Mingxuan's house, he was probably alone. He had no alibi, which was why he was scared and had his friend lie for him. Xiaoman agreed. If so, the alibi path was a dead end for now.

Their next step was to investigate Bai Anning herself. Was there anyone in her life who wanted to harm her? Who did she have conflicts with? Who wrote the threatening note? Whose license plate number was it?

Xiaoman also raised several questions. If Shen Ran really killed someone, why didn't he wash the blood off his hands? If he wanted to hide the truth, why did he still keep Bai Anning's phone? The fingerprints on the car didn't mean much either. Shen Ran was Bai Anning's boyfriend; he had been in her car before, so leaving fingerprints was not unusual.

Xiaoman looked at Shen Ran's old phone. The phone didn't directly tell her the truth. But it made her more certain of one thing: this case was far from as simple as the townspeople said.