Duan Nanqi also found it quite strange.
He stood with his hands behind his back, frowned and said in a deep voice: "After investigating this case, we have a better understanding of Zhou Sen's character. He has no sympathy for the dead and can almost be called cold-blooded. Such a person must be extremely crazy or selfish. Why would he commit suicide?"
The Imperial Guards have seen too many people like this. They will not stop until they achieve their goal. Let's not talk about Zhou Sen's purpose for now. Just look at the fact that he still can't help killing people after fourteen years. He will definitely not commit suicide out of shame for strangling his daughter.
Duan Nanqi's voice was very cold: "People like this don't deserve to be called human beings. They can't feel guilty, and they can't give up their lives at will. They regard themselves as more important than anything else."
Jiang Lingyao's brows also showed a bit of coldness. She said, "I think he must have a reason for being a human skin lamp. It's impossible that he did it just for the sake of making that lamp. If not, he wouldn't have to drag his feet and kill people again after so many years. So if he wants to achieve his goal, is one human skin lamp enough? I think it's not enough."
Let’s not talk about whether the two deceased people were made into human skin lamps. Even if they were, where did the two lamps go? If two lamps were enough, why did Zhou Sen make a third lamp?
Who were the two dead people? How did Zhou Sen kidnap, imprison and kill them? Why did he stop after killing two people and wait for fourteen years before coming out again? How did Rong Ya die? Why did Zhou Sen kill his own daughter?
With Zhou Sen's death, this series of questions became unsolvable problems that no one can answer.
Although Jiang Lingyao is not a bigot who insists on getting to the bottom of everything, there are still so many details in this case that have not been solved. She always feels that if she gambles on this, she will not be able to get through it, and she will not feel the joy of solving the case.
For a moment, Jiang Lingyao and Duan Nanqi both had cold expressions, and neither of them felt happy.
Jiang Lingyao looked at the lights that filled the room, and she couldn't help but think of the human skin lamp.
Jiang Lingyao searched the warehouse and finally set his eyes on the big wooden box in the corner: "Master Duan, shall we take a look?"
The two men came to the wooden box. As soon as they searched the warehouse, they saw two dead bodies. The Jinyiwei did not disturb the crime scene. They just turned on the lights and waited for their superiors to investigate in detail.
Therefore, this big wooden box has never been moved.
Duan Nanqi looked at the wooden box and touched it with his hand. He found that the wooden box looked very old, but there was no dust on it. It was obvious that it had been wiped and used recently.
Duan Nanqi's face froze. He took a step forward, held Jiang Lingyao behind him, and then used the scabbard of his Xiuchun Knife to open the wooden box from two steps away.
With a creaking sound, the lid of the wooden box opened. The two people were two steps apart, but they could still see what was inside the box.
Unlike the bloody scene they imagined, there were four lights quietly placed inside the large wooden box.
After seeing that there was no danger inside, the two stepped forward and looked inside with the lantern.
The four lamps inside are almost the same as the human-skin lamp in the Quiet Night Garden, but that lamp is made of paper, while the four lamps in front only have lampshades and lamp stands. There are no paper-cut figures inside, only a figurine.
Jiang Lingyao said, "Sure enough, there won't be just one cup."
She looked at Duan Nanqi: "If we count the cases from last year, there will be seven lanterns. If we don't count them, there will be five. This means Zhou Sen has to collect enough human skin lanterns to fulfill his wish."
Duan Nanqi followed and said: "Seven Star Lantern?"
Jiang Lingyao felt a flash of inspiration in her mind. She grabbed Duan Nanqi's wrist and looked at him with great excitement.
"Sir, the Seven-Star Lantern!"
Duan Nanqi didn't know what she was thinking, and could only look at her in confusion.
Jiang Lingyao made a gesture with her eyes, sorted out what she was going to say, and then looked at the four lamps in the wooden box.
"Sir, have you ever heard of Zhuge Kongming's Seven-Star Life-Extending Lamp?"
Duan Nanqi raised his eyebrows, and he immediately understood what Jiang Lingyao meant, but he still said: "Master Qiao, I have only heard of it occasionally, and I don't know the details. Please teach me."
Jiang Lingyao's mind was now filled with the Seven-Star Life-Sustaining Lamp, and she had no idea that she was holding Duan Nanqi's arm tightly. Duan Nanqi was afraid that she would get too excited and fall, so he let her support him.
So the two of them stood side by side very intimately.
Jiang Lingyao tilted her head and looked at him, her beautiful eyes filled with starlight, bright and passionate.
Jiang Lingyao said: "Legend has it that Zhuge Liang failed in his fifth northern expedition. He knew that his fate was coming to an end, so he wanted to use battle formations to forcibly extend his life. He set up seven-star lamps, placed them in the positions of the seven stars in the north, and then began to dance the Tiangang dance. As long as the seven-star lamps did not go out before the Tiangang dance was over, his life would be extended."
Jiang Lingyao paused and said, "But in the end, Zhuge Liang failed to extend his life and died halfway through. Therefore, only the legend of the Seven-Star Life-Extending Lamp was left, but there was no successful attempt."
"This is just a story among gentlemen in teahouses after dinner, but now that I see so many glass lanterns, and the human-skin lantern also depicts Zhuge Liang, I think of this story."
Jiang Lingyao's eyes sparkled. She looked up at Duan Nanqi and said, "Master Duan, do you think Zhou Sen did this to save his life? Or maybe..."
Jiang Lingyao turned around and glanced at the mask covering Zhou Yi's face. She was moved and asked, "Or maybe he wants to bring someone back to life?"
Duan Nanqi finally understood what Jiang Lingyao meant. His eyes lit up slightly. He said in a deep voice, "He wants to revive Rong Ya?"
Jiang Lingyao nodded, took a breath and calmed herself down.
"It seems that Rong Ya should have passed away when Zhou Sen killed the first victim fourteen years ago. Zhou Sen himself is cold and selfish. He does not regard others as human beings. After Rong Ya passed away, for some reason, he wanted to resurrect Rong Ya. Or maybe he just wanted to kill the dead who looked like Rong Ya. After the murder, in order to satisfy his own preferences, he arranged a complicated scene and made the Seven-Star Life-Extending Lamp, which gave him an excuse to kill people wantonly."
"This excuse is so perfect and touching. In this beautiful excuse, the last bit of humanity in his heart is also erased, because to him, those dead are nothing more than tools for him to fulfill his dreams."
"If a tool dies, it dies. Who would feel guilty?"
Jiang Lingyao's voice became increasingly cold and silent. Zhou Sen, the murderer, was different from the murderers in other cases. The nature of his killings was that there was actually no reason at all.
"If he really wanted to revive Rong Ya, he would not have interrupted his life for fourteen years. No matter what the reason was, he would be sad and regretful, and would rather die than be the good father who was silent and raised his daughter alone in the eyes of his neighbors."
Duan Nanqi said: "A murderer is a murderer. No matter how gorgeous a coat he puts on, he is still a sinful executioner."
Jiang Lingyao turned around and looked at Zhou Sen, who had been dead for a long time, with only disgust in her eyes.
"The lamp was not yet fully lit, so why did he die?"
As soon as Jiang Lingyao finished speaking, another breathless and appealing voice rang out: "Then I'll have to take a look."
Zheng Sanji was dragged into the warehouse by the Jinyiwei. Now he was standing at the door coughing, breathing heavily like a bellows, and his face was pale.
The young Jinyiwei standing next to him was helpless and handed the water bag to him. Zheng Sanji took two big gulps before he felt better.
He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and put on gloves, then walked around the bloodstains on the ground to check on Zhou Yi.
He first looked around carefully before saying to the young disciple behind him, "Start memorizing."
Zheng Sanji gently pinched Zhou Yi's limbs, looked at the marks on her hands and feet, and then said, "The body spots on the deceased have begun to appear. You can see that the most obvious body spots are on the deceased's wrists and the strangulation marks on her neck. In other words, the deceased should have been dead for more than two or three hours. The deceased's hands and feet are stiff and rigor mortis has appeared. The whole body has not eased. I think the deceased should have died today, no later than last night, and no later than the evening hour."
"The clothes on the deceased should have been worn when she died, and not put on later. The clothes were intact and wrinkle-free, which shows that the deceased did not fight with the murderer when she died, or she was too weak to fight. Only the nail on her right index finger was broken, which should have scratched the murderer in the final struggle."
As soon as Zheng Sanji arrived, the circumstances of the deceased's death became clear.
He wrote down the entire story of Zhou Yi's death, and then looked at Jiang Lingyao and the others: "Master Duan, Master Qiao, I'm opening my mask."
Jiang Lingyao nodded: "Brother Zheng, please."
Zheng Sanji wiped his hands on the towel again and gently undressed Zhou Yimian.
To everyone's surprise, Zhou Yi's face was not as peaceful as her body looked. Her eyes were round and bloodshot. Her face was sad and frightened, and her face was full of disbelief.
Ignoring her expression, she really looks exactly like Zhou Ru.
Perhaps Zhou Yi couldn't imagine why her biological father wanted to strangle her, so she didn't struggle at first. It was not until she was finally desperate and realized that she could not survive that she grabbed him hard.
Zheng Sanji instructed his apprentice: "Draw the face more accurately. The facial expression of the deceased can sometimes identify the murderer."
After that, he said to Jiang Lingyao and the others, "Sir, the preliminary examination of this deceased has been completed. The cause of her death is clear, that is, she was strangled. I will re-examine her later to see if there are other clues to the murderer."
Zheng Sanji did not know the latest case, nor did he know the relationship between the two deceased, but after yesterday, he could clearly judge that the deceased and yesterday's deceased were most likely killed by the same person.
As he spoke, he walked towards Zhou Sen.
Zhou Sen's death was rather bloody. Zheng Sanji squatted down and checked his body, then said, "Sir, these two people should have died at a similar time. Their rigor mortis is the same, and it should not have been more than half an hour. However, the deceased was sitting on a chair after death, so his upper body is stiffer and the bruises on his legs are clearer. He died of excessive blood loss. The two knives in his abdomen are the murder weapons."
Zheng Sanji said: "Look carefully at the wounds on the victim's waist and abdomen. The knife stabbed him without hesitation. It was almost fatal. It was fast and fierce. It seems that the murderer was determined to kill him and showed him no mercy."
Hearing this, Jiang Lingyao and Duan Nanqi looked at each other and asked, "Brother Zheng, can you tell whether he killed the victim or committed suicide?"
Zheng Sanji frowned slightly, he was unable to judge for a moment.
Finally, he said, "If he killed someone, the murderer must have hated him to the core. If he committed suicide... then he was truly cold-blooded and merciless, showing no mercy to himself."
"I can't tell based on this initial test. Sorry."
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