The elevator doors abruptly opened, and Sanfu called out to Jiayi again, but the young policewoman seemed not to hear.
In the next instant, she even crouched down to the ground, closely sniffing near the bottom of the iron-barred gate.
Fang Zhenyue stared at Jiayi for a few seconds, waved his hand at Sanfu, and then walked over to Jiayi’s side, crouching down to ask seriously, “What’s going on?”
Jiayi turned to look at the man crouched beside her, her brow furrowed in concentration as she said, “Brother Yue, I smell a very strange odor.”
“…” Fang Zhenyue looked into her eyes for a moment, then silently bent down to sniff as well.
The D unit had a double-layered door, an outer iron-barred gate and an inner large gray iron door. The inner door seemed secure, but there was a thin gap at the bottom, probably caused by the door frame of the lower level door warping downwards over time.
He sniffed hard for a while before suddenly furrowing his brow.
Indeed, there was a strange smell inside, a very pungent scent of perfume. It’s normal for some residents to use aromatherapy at home, but who would use such a strong, overpowering fragrance in their living environment, so strong that just approaching the gap by the door was irritating?
It was hard to imagine how intense this smell would be inside the house.
And moreover…
He glanced sideways at Jiayi, trying to ignore the smells of rust and dust while sniffing, and seemed to detect a hint of a foul, fishy smell mixed with the perfume.
Jiayi kneeled at the doorway, suddenly remembered something, and stood up straight to pull out her small notebook from her pocket. She tore off a piece of paper and, with effort, pressed down on one corner of the paper, stuffing it into the crack in the door, sliding it from one end to the other, then pulling it back to check if the paper had picked up any suspicious substances.
The first time, it only picked up dust, but Jiayi did not give up and tried a second time.
Fang Zhenyue took the piece of paper from her hand, his fingers longer, able to reach deeper into the iron-barred gate gap.
Sanfu stood a couple of steps away, watching Sir Fang squatting in front of unit D and the kneeling Jiayi, silently pursing his lips.
Compared to these two, he seemed to be lacking something.
What was it?
The piece of paper was stuck by Fang Zhenyue along the inner door’s gap, reaching the deepest part, rubbing from left to right.
When pulled out, both people in front of the door suddenly widened their eyes.
Eyes wide open for an instant, Fang Zhenyue stood up and immediately said, “Break the door.”
Jiayi still knelt on the ground.
Looking up high, directly meeting Sir Fang’s puzzled downward gaze, she complained, “My legs are numb.”
The previously tense atmosphere suddenly dissipated, and Fang Zhenyue couldn’t help but chuckle, reaching out his large hand to her.
The little girl’s hands are so soft, it feels like they could be crushed with just a little pressure.
Gently lifting her up, the young policewoman was pulled back to her feet.
As she withdrew her hand from Fang Zhenyue’s palm, the sensation of being enveloped by a strong, warm hand faded. Jiayi glanced at Fang Zhenyue and quickly looked away.
With her legs feeling numb, she stepped back and waited to see the tall and strong Officer Fang perform a classic movie scene: the fierce cop smashing through a door!
However, the scene she imagined did not unfold. Instead, Fang Zhenyue pulled a bunch of keys from his pocket, and selected a wire bent into the shape of a rabbit from it.
He brought the rabbit-shaped pendant to his mouth and with a bite, it transformed into a straight piece of wire.
He bent the wire and immediately inserted it into the lock.
“…” Jiayi.
So it wasn’t brute force but skill.
“…” Sanfu:”Brother Yue, this isn’t exactly legal…”
“Just make a call to madam later,” Fang Zhenyue casually replied, focused on picking the lock.
What are leaders for, if not to take the blame?
Sanfu glanced over at Unit C. The peephole was dark, obviously blocked by someone’s face.
He stood between Unit C and D, blocking any prying eyes, and sighed helplessly.
Officer Fang and Little Eleven, a detective chief who ‘doesn’t sweat the small stuff’ and an imaginative agent, were an unconventional crime-solving duo.
Biting his lip, Sanfu moved behind the two and also looked at the paper Jiayi was holding—it had blood on it.
He took the paper and examined the blood pattern.
From the viscosity, the degree of drying, and the color, it seemed to have been shed from the body about ten hours ago. And the amount of blood on the floor inside must be substantial.
No wonder Officer Fang was eager to break in, “Shall I borrow a phone from next door to call back to the station?”
“Wait until we open the door and see what’s inside,” said Fang Zhenyue. As soon as he finished speaking, the gate lock clicked open.
He opened the gate and then bent down to work on the second door inside.
Sanfu and Jiayi stood side by side, holding their breath like two guardian statues.
Holding her bag, Jiayi stared unblinkingly at Officer Fang’s hands, which were large yet nimble. Was being a detective chief supposed to involve such high-tech skills, including picking locks of a hundred doors?
Rubbing his fists and waiting, Jiayi stared at the blood stains on the paper in her hand, silently praying: Hopefully the new prey of the red-haired murderer can still be saved!
“Click!”
This sound was like music from heaven.
Fang Zhenyue couldn’t wait to open the door; a pungent fragrance wafted in, causing the three of them to cough repeatedly.
Sanfu instinctively wanted to step forward but was stopped by Fang Zhenyue.
Stimulated, Jiayi’s tears streamed down; she squinted and looked inside, freezing on the spot with her mouth agape in shock.
The room was in disarray; an aromatherapy bottle had fallen and shattered into countless pieces, with the thick fragrance liquid spilling all over the floor, mixing with the blood.
A person was sprawled on the floor, but contrary to what Jiayi had thought — this person was slender but not a man.
Her messy, shoulder-length hair gleamed wine-red in the morning light.
How could this be?
The one on the ground was not the hunted man but the hunter herself?
The next instant, a heartstream image clearly answered her question:
A burly stranger was holding a rag and a screwdriver, wiping the windows while tightening the blinds.
But his body was noticeably swaying, seemingly drunk, beginning to falter in standing.
She Jingjing, who had been sitting on the sofa observing the man, finally stood up, approached him from behind, and gently caressed his back.
“Qin Xiaolei…” she whispered his name softly.
The man turned around, his body swaying even more, his eyes gradually becoming dazed.
The woman’s other hand, hidden behind her back, suddenly flashed — the knife she gripped tightly slashed swiftly, fiercely, and precisely towards the man’s throat—as if practiced many, many times, shockingly adept.
Qin Xiaolei’s reaction was also incredibly fast, perhaps because of his especially strong build, the drug was not potent enough to completely incapacitate him. He instinctively blocked; after the dagger cut his arm, she quickly stabbed again.
Yet this second strike still did not succeed, Qin Xiaolei unexpectedly fierce. He suddenly roared, glaring and baring his teeth as he grabbed the woman’s wrist and struggled to seize the knife, instinctively striking back.
The next moment, his body lunged forward, knocking the woman, whose neck was cut, to the ground. His heavy body shook a few times, no longer able to support itself, and finally collapsed on the woman’s back, falling unconscious.
The woman was not yet dead; she covered her gushing neck wound, trying to crawl up to stop her own bleeding. But the man on her back was too heavy; she struggled for a long time without breaking free, eventually weakening and becoming motionless.
……
If you walk by the river often, it’s hard not to get your shoes wet.
The snake catcher eventually gets bitten by a snake.
She Jinglei drugged Qin Xiaolei to incapacitate him, yet she still lost and was killed in retaliation.
Jiayi collected herself and managed to escape the grip of the mind-altering imagery.
If She Jinglei had successfully killed Qin Xiaolei, who, like him, came out to work odd jobs without a stable job, even if he died, no one would notice.
Parents wouldn’t even know where to start looking, and even if they reported him missing after several months or half a year, by then, anyone who might have seen Qin Xiaolei with the murderer would have forgotten.
When She Jinglei chose Qin Xiaolei, she must have thought she had calculated everything.
Jiayi took a deep breath, refocused on the scene, and began to closely observe her surroundings:
“This amount of blood, the person is likely long dead. Moreover, there appear to be livor mortis on the palms, and judging from the stiffness of the limbs, he has been dead for over a dozen hours, but not more than 30 hours as rigor mortis has not softened.”
She tried to recall what she read daily in forensic science and scientific forensic books, then looked down at the blood that had flowed to the doorway and continued:
“The coagulation of the blood is wrong… It must be because it mixed with the scented liquid.”
“You keep this up, and both forensic expert Sir Xu and the brilliant Brother from the forensic department will be out of jobs,” Fang Zhenyue complimented her, then turned to Sanfu and said:
“Go borrow a phone from Unit C, ask for military police support to set up a police line, and call our forensic and medical examiner colleagues.”
“Yes,” Sanfu nodded, went to the front of Unit C, and knocked once before the door opened.
“What’s going on, ah sir? Is there trouble?” The housewife peeked out curiously, craning her neck to catch the action.
“I need to borrow your phone.”
“No problem, this way.”