"But Jiang Shian said he didn't know if this Jiang Lei was the Jiang Lei from their village."
"We are from the same village, how could he not know?" Long Jiujiu asked in surprise.
"Jiang Shi'an said he left his hometown more than ten years ago and hasn't been back since. They probably hadn't even seen Jiang Lei's ID card at the time, so they didn't know his household registration," Lin Xiaoman said, recalling carefully. "Jiang Shi'an wasn't very willing to talk about his hometown, so the topic quickly passed."
"I understand leaving to work, but not going back for the New Year is a bit strange. Is there something special going on?"
"Indeed." Lin Xiaoman nodded. "On the first day, while we were still on the road, we talked about Jiang Lei's wife. Later, when we returned to our respective rooms, Sun Lingling told Shi Yansheng that Jiang Lei's wife was ill because their son drowned when he was very young, and she was traumatized."
"Are you sure you drowned and weren't murdered?" Shao Qi asked, obviously thinking of something.
"I don't know about that. Sun Lingling also heard it from Wang Guowei." Lin Xiaoman shook her head, then looked at Shao Qi and asked hesitantly, "Do you suspect that Jiang Shi'an killed Jiang Lei? And the motive for the murder is: Jiang Lei is the culprit who killed his son?"
"This possibility cannot be ruled out."
"Judging from their ages, if Jiang Shian's son were still alive, he would be in his twenties, not much different from Jiang Lei. The two went swimming together, and something happened that led to Jiang Shian's son drowning. Furthermore, his wife became insane from the shock, and Jiang Shian hated Jiang Lei and killed him. This motive for murder is indeed established."
Lin Xiaoman nodded in agreement, but shook his head the next second. "But it doesn't make sense. The time it took for Jiang Shian to go back and get the keys and then meet Shi Yansheng was too short, only a few minutes, definitely no more than 10 minutes. Assuming he got the keys, returned to the car, ran into Jiang Lei, and started fighting with him, at Jiang Shian's age, I don't think he could have killed Jiang Lei."
"Oh, right, how do you explain this?" Long Jiujiu said bewilderedly, then suddenly her eyes lit up. "Could it be that Jiang Shi'an had already recognized Jiang Lei and was secretly planning to kill him? At the time of the incident, before or after getting on the car, Jiang Shi'an had actually spotted Jiang Lei, and then, with the mentality of "a friend's death is better than my own", he deliberately left Shi Yansheng behind and ran away. In fact, he didn't leave, but had been hiding in the darkness, waiting for an opportunity to strike. When he saw Shi Yansheng running out, he sneaked back and took advantage of Jiang Lei's unpreparedness to stab him with a knife?"
"From a visual perspective, when Jiang Shian walked around to the driver's seat, he might have spotted Jiang Lei hiding in the dark in the back seat." Lin Xiaoman got out of the passenger seat, walked around from the front of the car to the driver's seat, and said this affirmatively, then raised a new question, "But I don't understand. Jiang Lei killed someone. Even if Jiang Shian did nothing, Jiang Lei would still go to jail, possibly for life, or even directly to death. Why would Jiang Shian take the risk of doing this?"
"The revenge for killing a son is irreconcilable. It's more satisfying to avenge it yourself! Maybe he feels that he's old and has lived enough." Long Jiujiu tried to guess Jiang Shian's mentality, "If he doesn't succeed, he will die!"
"But there is a risk of being counterattacked, and the risk is extremely high." Lin Xiaoman retorted.
"Uncle Shao, what do you think?"
"Without sufficient evidence, everything is just speculation." Shao Qi said, ending the topic. He raised another object in his hand and said, "I also found this, but I don't think it will be useful."
"Huh, pinhole camera?"
In Shao Qi's hand was the pinhole camera that the team had distributed to the "experiencers," a wearable accessory used to record and photograph scenes.
Lin Xiaoman was surprised. "We're about to go to bed, why would Jiang Lei bring this?"
"Did you take a picture of the murderer?" Long Jiujiu was surprised.
"If my guess is correct, this should be broken. And the surveillance in the monitoring room is also broken. The key clues in the surveillance should have been destroyed."
"Ah?" Long Jiujiu was depressed.
"Yes, that's also very strange. When Shi Yansheng and Jiang Shi'an heard Wang Guowei's cry for help on the headset, they ran downstairs. In the monitoring room, Wang Guowei had already fallen in a pool of blood. There was also a wrench at the scene that looked like the murder weapon. Although Shi Yansheng was very scared, I can confirm that the surveillance was normal at the time. But when she and Jiang Shi'an finally returned to the monitoring room, the screen was black."
Lin Xiaoman added, full of doubts, "Someone definitely entered the monitoring room during this time and destroyed the surveillance. As for the purpose, it should be to hide the evidence of their crime. Could it be that Jiang Shian didn't go back to the third floor of the hotel to find the key? He was afraid that the surveillance would expose him, so after killing Jiang Lei and returning to the hotel, he went to the basement to destroy the surveillance before reuniting with Shi Yansheng. Jiang Shian is an experienced electrician, so it's very easy for him to create a short circuit and burn the storage hard drive."
"But if that's the explanation, doesn't that mean he had even less time to commit the crime? Isn't that even more unreasonable?" Long Jiujiu asked.
"That's right." Lin Xiaoman frowned in distress. The situation was so complicated and her mind was full of question marks.
"Look again and see if there are any other clues."
There was too little evidence to provide a reasonable explanation, so Shao Qi searched for clues again. Lin Xiaoman and Long Jiujiu also started searching.
After searching inside and outside the car, Shao Qi got on the passenger seat and pointed to a spot at the edge of the front windshield. He asked Lin Xiaoman, "Xiao Lin, was there anything here before? Do you remember?"
Lin Xiaoman hurried over and took a closer look at the place he pointed.
There are traces of glue, and it looks like something was stuck on it before.
Lin Xiaoman suddenly remembered, "It's the dashcam!"
Shao Qi's reminder reminded Lin Xiaoman of another phenomenon. "I remember that night, at this location, the recorder was there, and there was a small red light flashing, which means it must have been turned on."
"Using a dashcam in the middle of the night?" Long Jiujiu was stunned. "Is it to prevent theft?"
"Are you sure it's the dashcam? Could it be something else?"
"Uh, I don't know. It was quite dark at the time, and Shi Yansheng didn't have the mind to look so carefully. I just glanced at it a few times and could only see a small red dot. When I took the car here before, there was a dashcam at this location, but I'm not sure if it was the original dashcam at the time of the incident." Limited by Shi Yansheng's perspective, Lin Xiaoman could not see much.
Nodding in understanding, Shao Qi didn't say much. He searched inside and outside the car again, but couldn't find the missing dashcam or any other useful clues. Then he said, "Let's go to the scene of Wang Guowei's death."
After saying that, he strode towards the hotel, and the two hurriedly followed.
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