The Woman I Was Flirting With Turned Out To Be A Chaebol Heiress - Chapter 14

“Chief, the fall case hasn’t been solved yet why did the authorities issue an official notice stating the cause of death was suicide?”

Aoi Kimoto couldn’t hide the anger on her face, though she was trying her best to maintain composure. After all, the person sitting before her was her direct superior the Chief of the Criminal Division.

“Didn’t the autopsy report come out already? There were no other injuries on the victim. Cause of death: falling. If it’s not suicide, what else could it be? What kind of result do you want to see to be satisfied?”

A look of impatience surfaced on the chief’s face.

“But there was a witness who saw a third person at the scene.”

“It was pouring rain that night, and it was the middle of the night. Who knows if your so-called witness wasn’t just seeing things? Besides, there’s no other evidence indicating a third party was present.”

“Kimoto, I know you’re a cautious person, but for this case, I don’t think it’s necessary to split hairs.”

From the chief’s tone, Aoi could actually sense a hint of heartfelt persuasion.

“Kazuko Suzuki had no motive to commit suicide.”

“Enough!”

Finally, the person across from her lost patience.

“This case is closed. Kimoto, the First Investigation Division doesn’t just have this one case to deal with. Obsessing over this won’t do you any good.”

She was dismissed from the chief’s office just like that.

Right before the door shut, she vaguely heard the chief’s leisurely voice drifting out:

“Life is short. Better to be muddle headed, just a little muddle-headed…”

As a detective, Kimoto had her own professional instincts. This seemingly ordinary fall case felt unusual to her. Every step had been arranged too neatly, like a perfectly choreographed play.

Especially the chief’s attitude today and how swiftly the case had been forced to a close only confirmed her suspicions that something was off.

Starting from Suzuki’s own social connections yielded no useful information.

It was as if she had no interest in people. She had been estranged from her family for years and barely kept in touch. No close friends, no romantic relationships.

For someone so disconnected from society, her death appeared logical, yet every part of it exuded a strange unease.

Just as Kimoto had said Suzuki had no real reason to take her own life.

Her limited social interaction allowed her to spend more time on the career she loved. She had excellent grades, was about to graduate, and had already signed with a research institute she admired. She had absolutely no reason to die.

The possibility of homicide was even slimmer. Suzuki’s life was so simple that it left no room for conflict with anyone no financial or emotional disputes.

Unless…

In someone else’s eyes, she had a reason she had to die. And that someone had enough power to silence the upper echelons of the police department.

Suddenly, her phone buzzed in her pocket like a death knell.

Seeing that familiar name in the news, Li Nianyi’s pupils contracted sharply.

Suicide?

How did it become suicide?

Wasn’t the case still under investigation?

A chill ran down her spine. A nameless terror crept over her, as though some enormous malevolence had wrapped itself around her, cocooning her layer by layer.

When the train reached the station, she bolted out like she was fleeing, ran into a secluded corner, and—trembling dialed Kimoto Aoi’s number.

She called several times, but the line kept showing as busy.

A strange sense of anxiety grew with each dial tone.

Finally, the call connected.

“Officer Kimoto, why does the news say Suzuki committed suicide?”

Silence on the other end. But within that silence, Nianyi felt as if she heard something shattering.

Softly.

Yet the dust it kicked up was enough to cloud everyone’s vision.

Kimoto pursed her lips. She didn’t know how to answer Nianyi’s question in a way that aligned with her identity as a police officer. She couldn’t treat a life like a joke the way her boss did.

And yet, there didn’t seem to be a better explanation.

“Miss Li, the case is officially closed.”

She used the chief’s vague, evasive phrase.

“I’m sorry, Officer Kimoto, I don’t quite understand what exactly does ‘closed’ mean?”

Nianyi’s tone was unusually calm serious, even.

That calm surface seemed to conceal a brewing storm underneath.

“Does it mean trampling over the truth? Rushing to a conclusion?”

Her words were sharp, but her tone was eerily detached, as if she were stating something unrelated to herself calm to the point of being frightening.

“…I’m sorry.”

Kimoto could no longer offer anything useful. Before Nianyi could say anything else, she added:

“If you’re worried that your personal safety might be at risk, you can contact me at any time. At the very least… I can still protect you.”

And Suzuki?

Was she supposed to just die so ambiguously?

These words stuck in Nianyi’s throat, impossible to voice because she knew, even if she lashed out at Kimoto, it wouldn’t help. Kimoto was just a low-ranking detective. What could she possibly change?

“Thank you.”

In the end, that was all she could say.

Her hand relaxed around the phone, and a deep sense of helplessness washed over her.

Loss it seemed to be a constant theme of human life.

At least, that’s how Li Nianyi saw it.

In her short 23 years, she had experienced more than a few losses.

She thought that after becoming an orphan, there’d be nothing left to lose. But now, she felt like she was back at her grandmother’s funeral again.

Strictly speaking, she shouldn’t have felt such strong emotions over Suzuki’s death. Even she was surprised by her own reaction.

Perhaps, from the moment she witnessed Suzuki falling, it had been fated there would be no walking away unscathed.

Countless questions swirled in her mind.

Who had Suzuki offended to end up like this?

Was the case really over?

Would she be the next to die?

Or maybe just maybe like the news said, Suzuki really had ended her life because of pressure?

Maybe what she saw that night was just a hallucination from mental strain?

After all, there was no solid evidence to support her testimony.

She felt like she was standing in a thick fog unarmed, isolated, every weakness exposed for others to see.

With a heavy heart, Li Nianyi walked into the grand West Temple residence to begin today’s tutoring session.

In her lessons with Dai, they had progressed from simple spoken language to phonetics, and each lesson now included more practice exercises.

Just as housekeeper Ozawa had said, she really was a persistent girl.

Some of the pronunciations that were hard even for native speakers Dai practiced them tirelessly. She would even send voice messages to Li Nianyi, asking her tutor to help correct her accent.

“Teacher? Miss Li?”

“I’ve finished all these practice questions. Could you check if I got any wrong?”

The girl waved her hand in front of Nianyi’s face, finally snapping her out of her drifting thoughts.

“Sorry, I was spacing out for a bit let me take a look.”

Li Nianyi pulled the notebook over.

“Very good. Aside from a small mistake on the last one, everything else is correct.”

Dai looked disappointed.

“Ugh! If it weren’t for that one mistake, it would’ve been perfect.”

Nianyi originally wanted to say, Why chase perfection so hard? Isn’t enjoying the process of learning and improving good enough?

But on second thought everyone holds themselves to different standards. Someone like Dai, a stubborn perfectionist, likely couldn’t tolerate even the smallest failure.

“I believe in you. Next time, you’ll do even better.”

So instead, she offered a polite encouragement.

“By the way, teacher you seem kind of out of it today. Did something happen?”

Dai’s voice held concern, but Nianyi couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something off about it. Beyond the surface-level care, there was another fleeting emotion hidden underneath subtle, hard to pin down.

Before she could catch that spark of intuition, Nianyi replied:

“Nothing much. Probably just tired from going out yesterday.”

“Oh? Sounds like your date went pretty well.”

When Dai shifted the topic to that, Nianyi’s curiosity about her connection with Jiang Ji resurfaced.

Perhaps noticing the curiosity in Nianyi’s eyes, Dai flashed a sweet smile:

“Are you wondering how I know Jiang Ji?”

But before Nianyi could respond, she went on:

“It’s nothing complicated. She’s kind of like a sister to me an older family acquaintance. Like she said, we’re not that close.”

“I see.”

Finally, the long tutoring session ended, but Li Nianyi still had a thesis to work on.

She had vowed to pursue a relationship with Jiang Ji but now she was being crushed by work and academics before she could even try.

Well, priorities. She’d focus on her thesis for now.

Only she suddenly realized that her video archives were missing a segment. The data Suzuki had stored on her lab computer was also missing the same portion.

Suzuki had a fixed routine for filming her videos. But one day from May was missing. Could something have come up that day, and she just didn’t record?

Suspicion crept in. The missing date was too close to her death. Nianyi couldn’t help but spiral into conspiracy theories.

Could that video have captured something something worth killing over?

Her first instinct was to report it to the police. But with the case officially closed, would anyone even care?

Thinking it over, she decided to check with the other lab members first there was still a chance this was all a misunderstanding.

She typed, deleted, retyped the message carefully, then finally hit send.

“Did Senior Suzuki do any recording on May 28th?”