Chapter 1
"We received a report that the deceased, Tang Shuang, was a 26-year-old female from Beihai who worked at the front desk of Beihai Bank. Around 10:00 am on May 23, a neighbor passing by called the police. When 110 arrived, they found that she had been hanged in her home in Yuqing Garden. Her neck was severely bruised, and there were no signs of a fight around her. The doors and windows were locked. It was initially determined to be suicide. The body has now been handed over to the technical department, and the specific cause of death still needs to wait for the final result."
Near the security line outside Yuqing Garden, a man in a black windbreaker opened the security line and walked in quickly.
As he walked, he asked the person next to him, "Why would a suicide be handed over to our criminal police team?"
"The 110 police said this was the third suicide case in the city in the past six months, and they asked our police force to investigate the cases together."
Jiang Aichen did not dwell on the previous question too much. He asked, "Have you investigated the social relations of the deceased?"
Jiang Nan glanced at the notebook in his hand and read: "Reporting to Captain Jiang, according to our investigation, Tang Shuang had just joined the bank's front desk. His interpersonal relationships are still under investigation, but according to relevant colleagues, Tang Shuang was a kind person when he was alive. They think he would not have made any enemies."
Jiang Aichen asked casually, "Have you checked the surveillance?"
Jiang Nan said awkwardly: "This is an old neighborhood, and the surveillance is not perfect."
Jiang Aichen raised his eyes and stared at him coldly through his sunglasses: "Where are the surveillance cameras around?"
Jiang Nan hesitated for a second and replied, "Du Lan is checking."
Jiang Aichen ordered: "Turn on all the surveillance cameras around here, and don't let go of any suspicious people."
Jiang Nan responded: "Yes."
Jiang Aichen walked into the crime scene, showed his ID to his colleagues who were maintaining order around him, and then walked in.
"Captain Jiang."
"Captain Jiang."
The criminal police who were busy with their work around saw Jiang Aichen and greeted him naturally.
Jiang Aichen didn't say anything, just nodded silently, and took out a pair of white gloves from his pocket and put them on.
He glanced around the scene.
This is an old residential complex. The room is a standard two-living room with a long corridor. The living room is large and clean. There are two bedrooms on each side of the corridor on the right side.
Jiang Aichen walked to the corridor connecting the living room and bedroom and looked at the yoga chain hanging on the ceiling.
"This is where the body was found." At this time, a woman in police uniform came over, holding a stack of information and said through a white mask, "But after we finished the examination, our colleagues from the Forensic Department took the body back."
"What did you find?" Jiang Aichen asked coldly.
Meng Qirang had long been accustomed to Jiang Aichen's habit of never saying a word, so she said calmly: "As you can see, when we found the deceased, the hemp rope that strangled her was hung on this chain."
Jiang Aichen: "Time of death."
Meng Qirang: "The preliminary estimate of the time of death is around five in the morning."
Jiang Aichen didn't say anything. He squatted on one knee and picked up the white foam on the ground with his fingers.
Jiang Aichen: "What is this?"
Meng Qirang took a look and explained, "It's the wall dandruff from the ceiling. It should have fallen when the yoga chain was installed."
Jiang Nan, who had been following Jiang Aichen and remained silent for a long time, seemed to have discovered something was wrong. He asked, "A woman living alone would install aerial yoga at home by herself?"
Meng Qirang said: "No, for this kind of difficult nailing work, when you buy yoga equipment, there will usually be a corresponding nailing master to help with the installation."
Jiang Nan pursed his chin and analyzed, "The foam residue on the ground indicates that the chain was most likely installed recently. It was recently installed, but there were no fingerprints or footprints of the installer in the room. So is it possible that it was not suicide, but the murderer disguised the scene to look like suicide?"
Jiang Aichen ignored Jiang Nan's unreasonable and blind speculation. He continued to ask, "Anything else you found?"
"The whole house was very clean. Apart from a piece of used dry toilet paper in the trash can in the living room, nothing else was found." Meng Qirang finished speaking and added, "Also, apart from the deceased's fingerprints, we did not find anyone else's in the room."
Jiang Nan further analyzed: "It is impossible that the deceased usually cleans the house, or does not live here often."
Meng Qirang rolled his eyes at him: "But, would you install a yoga machine in a house that you don't often live in?"
"So it is very likely that the deceased had just finished cleaning when the installer came to install the chain for her. He was wearing gloves at the time, so there was no fingerprint left."
Meng Qirang said in a disappointing tone: "What if there was no installer at all, and the deceased was the only one doing it from beginning to end?"
Jiang Nan continued, "It would be difficult for a woman to complete a difficult stapling task. I prefer that the stapling master wears gloves when doing the work."
"If there really was a binder, where would his footprints be?" Meng Qirang hugged the documents in his arms tightly and said, "He can't be barefoot."
"What if," Jiang Nan said, "the owner of this room is so clean, maybe he'll see that Master's shoes are dirty and ask him to take them off before entering the room."
Meng Qirang rolled his eyes at him and continued expressionlessly, "Then, the master who installed the chain felt that this was the first time in his career that he had been insulted like this, so he got angry and killed the deceased?"
"Doesn't that make sense?" Jiang Nan said half-jokingly.
"That makes sense," Meng Qirang said bluntly, "If he came in barefoot, he would definitely leave traces. We forensic doctors can identify DNA by collecting the marks left by the feet touching the ground. This is easier than guessing the murderer's age and height based on shoe prints and then eliminating suspects."
"If we really find this kind of mark at the scene, why would I discuss whether it was suicide or homicide with you if I don't collect DNA?"
Meng Qirang and Jiang Nan had worked in the same police force for many years. They knew each other's tempers very well and also knew each other's bottom line of tolerance. After a few words, the two started arguing with each other.
Jiang Nan: "Who knows if you are really bored?"
"Jiang Nan, you're itching for trouble again, right? Believe it or not, I'm going to put you on the forensic operating table and do a cadaver dissection for you."
"Who is the cadaver teacher trying to scare?" Jiang Nan was not afraid at all. "As a police officer who has been in the profession for many years, I must know how to abide by the law!"
The two of them were arguing loudly, and Jiang Aichen was in no mood to stop them. He silently scanned everything in the room.
After a while, he seemed to have a plan in mind. He looked up at the yoga chain above his head again...
The whole house seemed to form a complete three-dimensional model in his mind, from the doors and windows, to the hemp ropes, to the wood chips on the ground.
He passed by every corner and carefully observed any strange place.
He walked to the window and was about to observe whether there were any signs of damage on it when there happened to be a female police officer and the reporter outside the window recording the case.
"Hello, are you the person reporting the case? Please tell me what happened." The female detective said politely.
Her voice was soft and totally non-aggressive.
Jiang Aichen, who happened to hear it, had no idea what he was thinking. He didn't say anything, but just stared at the female detective who looked timid.
"It's me," the person being questioned was a middle-aged woman. She looked a little flustered and obviously still in shock. She said quickly, "I'm telling you, female officer, when I went out to buy groceries this morning, I passed by the door of this house and saw that little girl hanging there. It was so scary."
"And then?" The female detective asked as she silently wrote down the sentence completely in her notebook.
Including interjections such as "ah" and "yo" used by the person reporting the crime.
The reporter continued to dance with joy and said: "Then I went to the market to buy vegetables. When I came back, she was hanging there. I was so scared that all the vegetables I bought were scattered and the eggs were broken all over the floor. Look, it's just a pile on the floor. It's really a waste. The price of eggs has increased now. They are very expensive. On average, they cost one dollar each. Now they are all broken. It's really unlucky."
Before the policewoman could say anything, the middle-aged woman was afraid that she would get into trouble if she talked so much to a criminal police officer, so she quickly added: "Female police officer, I didn't go in to destroy the scene. I called the police from outside."
The female detective seemed to have a good temper. She waited patiently for her to finish and wrote down every word: "When was the first time you noticed something dropped?"
"Is it ten-thirty? No, it should be ten-fifteen," the woman said, obviously seeing a dead body for the first time. She was terrified. "As soon as I found out someone was dead, I was scared to death. I immediately called the police."
The female detective felt that what she said didn't seem to be an exact time and was useless, but she still wrote it down carefully: "Ten thirty... or ten fifteen."
"The police reported the case at 10:07 a.m.," a cold voice said word by word.
The woman clapped her hands quickly: "That was before half past nine. I was so scared that I didn't have time to check the time."
Jiang Aichen asked: "When was the last time you saw the deceased?"
"She died just before I reported the case, officer. I didn't kill her. I didn't lie." The woman said anxiously.
Jiang Aichen: "I'm asking you when was the last time you saw her when she was alive."
The woman thought for a moment and said, "Last night, around 9:30, when I came back from square dancing, I saw the lights in this house were on."
After saying that, the woman suddenly had an idea: "Oh, yes, she was still cleaning at that time."
"Cleaning?" Lin Anyu shouted in surprise.
Jiang Aichen glanced at Lin Anyu, then turned around and asked the reporter, "Where was she cleaning at the time?"
The woman pointed to the sofa in the room and said, "She was mopping the floor under that sofa."
Jiang Aichen looked back at the house and immediately frowned: "Are you sure?"
The woman was very sure: "I am sure."
"How do you know he was mopping the floor and not looking for something?"
"I saw her sticking the rag out from under the sofa. Hello."
Jiang Aichen: "What time do you usually go out to buy groceries?"
"At seven o'clock, I sent my grandson to school, came back, took my bag and went out."
"Okay," Jiang Aichen called out to a male criminal police officer who was checking not far away, "Li Tang."
The criminal policeman named Li Tang came over immediately: "Captain Jiang."
"What's next, you ask."
"yes."
Li Tangyingwan really took the reporter to another place for questioning.
Lin Anyu pointed at Li Tang who had inexplicably taken his job, then pointed at himself: "Isn't that my job? Xiao Li, why are you…"
"Lin Anyu."
When Lin Anyu, who was originally indignant, heard Jiang Aichen calling his name, he felt the hairs on his back stand up and he dared not breathe.
She turned back tremblingly and smiled flatteringly: "Captain Jiang."
"Next time, when we question the reporter, we will just record it, and the criminal police team won't have to come back."
Hearing that there would be another chance, Lin Anyu immediately made a promise: "Yes, Captain Jiang."
Jiang Aichen hooked his finger at her: "Give me the notebook."
"This is not good," Lin Anyu immediately hugged his notebook tightly like a child, as if he was not going to cooperate, "This is the testimony I asked for."
Jiang Aichen seemed to have lost his patience. He repeated, "Give it to me."
Lin Anyu hesitated for a while before he obediently handed the notebook to him.
Jiang Aichen glared at her, snatched the book away without mercy, and flipped through a few pages.
Every word on the notebook is crooked, giving people the feeling that it is written by an elementary school student who has just learned to control the pen but cannot master the technique, and writes with difficulty and stiffness.
I don’t know which word in the notebook annoyed him, but Jiang Aichen, who had originally had a serious expression, looked even more unapproachable.
He frowned and slammed the book shut.
Jiang Aichen seemed to be born with facial paralysis. Even if the sky fell, there would be no reaction on his face.
Lin Anyu didn't know why he had such a big reaction just by taking a look at his notebook.
It was as if she had written something heinous in it.
Even though he had just come out of the crime scene, he didn't react so strongly.
Lin Anyu didn't dare to say a word, but just carefully observed Jiang Aichen's expression.
Is it because her handwriting is ugly?
It’s not a big deal if your handwriting is ugly. Is it necessary to be so angry?
Lin Anyu smiled awkwardly and joked in a flattering manner: "Captain Jiang is the absolute perfectionist in the world. If his handwriting is not good, he can make you speechless with ugliness. Look at this matter, it's really... hehe..."
As he spoke, Lin Anyu laughed awkwardly.
Before he could finish laughing, Lin Anyu suddenly met Jiang Aichen's cold gaze.
Her laughter died down instantly, and the expression that had been frightened by the dry laugh also immediately retracted.
She lowered her head, looking obedient, as if she was ready to accept a reprimand from her leader at any time.
It was rare that Jiang Aichen did not scold him. He handed the notebook back to Lin Anyu.
Lin Anyu: "Captain Jiang, don't worry, I will practice calligraphy well in the future and will never bring shame to our criminal police team with my cultural level."
"Yeah." Jiang Aichen rarely gave a response.
Lin Anyu breathed a sigh of relief. Just as he was about to be thankful that he had escaped a disaster by admitting his mistake in time, a deep commanding voice came from above his head: "Report to the traffic police team this afternoon."
Lin Anyu:?
How can one report to the traffic police if one's handwriting is ugly?
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com