Wang Shen looked at the pile of number cards in his hand, and then put them back on the original cabinet one by one.

"I have a pretty good idea of ​​how the murderer switched Acheng's clothes," Wang Shen replied to Liang Zichen after installing the number plate.

"What do you mean?" Liang Zichen's eyes widened as he looked at Wang Shen with curiosity.

Wang Shen took out his phone and opened the photo of the entire cabinet he had taken back then. "Take a look at this photo and see if there are any differences between it and the cabinet in front of you now."

Liang Zichen took Wang Shen's phone, carefully examined the photos on it, and then looked at the cabinet in front of him. Liang Zichen frowned, his gaze shifting between the cabinet and the phone. After a while, Liang Zichen glanced helplessly at Wang Shen and shook his head. "Captain Wang, aren't all these cabinets the same? And the numbers match up too. I really can't see anything wrong." With that, Liang Zichen tried to hand the phone back to Wang Shen.

Wang Shen waved his hand. "Look at that photo, then look at this row of cabinets." Wang Shen didn't take back his phone, but instead walked to cabinet number 16 and asked Liang Zichen to compare them. After a while, Liang Zichen still didn't seem to figure out the secret.

Wang Shen shook his head and said, "Look closely, this row." He pointed to cabinet number 16, then slowly moved his finger to the left, starting to count again: "One!" As he counted one, his finger landed on cabinet number 17 on the left. "Two!" Wang Shen's finger continued moving to the left. "Three! Four! Five! Six!" By the sixth number, his finger had landed on the last cabinet against the wall.

"Zichen, zoom in on the photo and count how many cabinets are next to cabinet number 16 on the left side," Wang Shen prompted Liang Zichen.

Liang Zichen seemed to understand Wang Shen's meaning. He nodded, zoomed in on the photo on his phone, and started counting from cabinet number 16 to the left. "One! Two! Three! Four! Five!" After counting, Liang Zichen looked at Wang Shen in surprise, seemingly not quite believing his own counting ability. "One! Two! Three! Four! Five!" Liang Zichen counted again, with the same result.

"Captain Wang, there are only five cabinets to the left of cabinet number 16 in the photo." Liang Zichen looked at Wang Shen in surprise, then looked at the cabinet in front of him.

“Yes, someone is using a deceptive tactic,” Wang Shen nodded and said.

"Transplanting flowers into trees?" Liang Zichen asked back.

“If you hadn’t reminded me just now, I wouldn’t have discovered the secret of these number cards.” Wang Shen smiled at Liang Zichen. “Look at these number cards next to cabinet number 16. I just tried them, and they were easily removed. At first, I also thought that was how these number cards were designed. So I tried to take the number 8 card, which is farther away from cabinet number 16. Strangely, the number 8 card was attached very firmly, unlike the number cards near cabinet number 16 which were loose. Why do you think that is?” Wang Shen stopped, looked at Liang Zichen, and waited for Liang Zichen’s deduction.

Liang Zichen glanced at Wang Shen, then walked to cabinet number 16 and pried off the number 16 plate. He carefully examined the plate, then brought his eyes closer to the cabinet, observing the latch. Liang Zichen noticed that the thin sheet metal at the latch seemed to be flared outwards, making the latch larger and causing the plate to loosen.

“Someone has dismantled these number plates, and in a very violent way,” Liang Zichen replied after reinstalling number 16 back into the cabinet.

“Yes, that’s right. This is the killer’s method of substitution. Observe the numbers around cabinet number 16.” Wang Shen paused and pointed to the cabinets. “The arrangement of the numbers around cabinet number 16 hasn’t changed. However, the killer moved all these cabinets one position to the left. Moreover, this photo was taken on the day of the incident. So Acheng must have used the arranged cabinet, which is cabinet number 17 in front of us now.”

As Liang Zichen listened to Wang Shen's explanation, he admired Wang Shen's observation and deductive abilities. However, upon closer examination, Liang Zichen realized there were still many problems. "Captain Wang, your guess is reasonable, but this assumption still has many fatal flaws. You said the murderer's method of substitution was to move cabinet number 16, along with all the surrounding cabinets, one space to the left, so that A-Cheng would think that cabinet number 17 was his own cabinet number 16. This is reasonable. And the probability of it succeeding is extremely high. Because even I observed it for a long time and didn't find any problems. But to open cabinet number 17, you must use the key to cabinet number 17, which presents a fatal contradiction."

Halfway through his sentence, Liang Zichen took the key down from cabinet number 16. "Captain Wang, look, this key was found on Acheng. He must have used this key to open the cabinet door, right?" Liang Zichen asked Wang Shen.

“That’s right, Acheng will only use his own key to open his own cabinet.” Wang Shen nodded at Liang Zichen.

“That’s right, that’s the problem. This key opens the real cabinet door number 16. If Acheng used this key that day, how did he open cabinet door number 17, which is the switched version of number 16?” Liang Zichen said, inserting the key into the lock of cabinet door number 17. The key went in, but wouldn’t turn. “Captain Wang, look, this key can’t open cabinet door number 17 at all.”

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