It was late at night, and the guests in other rooms had all gone to bed.

Jian Jing rested her head on her arm, and sleepiness was slow to come. In her mind, various clues were like entering a nightclub, dancing endlessly.

What exactly was the murder weapon?

Why did it disappear?

Reporter Chai took the drink to the kitchen to freeze it. Does it mean that she originally chose this as the murder weapon? But the waitress's behavior ruined the plan, forcing her to consider other methods.

What could she find in such a hurry?

There was another point that concerned her. Why did Reporter Chai go into the kitchen at 15:30? At this time, she was going to put the key, but why did she go to the kitchen to take a look?

Is there an excuse to explain going downstairs? No, this is not a careful plan.

Jian Jing asked herself, if she were to play the role of an accomplice, would she choose to be the one who found the body? This way, she could return the key and control the time of exposure, which would give her more room for maneuver.

After several encounters, she thought that reporter Chai was more alert and courageous than the man with a broken bone who actually did it. How could she not think of such a method?

There must be a reason.

So, let's make a bold assumption: what if she was originally going to "find the body"? But before the action, she had to go to the kitchen, and she saw Huangmao, so she had to put the plan on hold.

Kitchen... Why go to the kitchen?

There is only one possibility, to deal with the murder weapon.

What is the murder weapon? It's not ice, so what else can be dealt with?

Kitchen, what's in the kitchen, fruits, vegetables, meat... It can't be frozen meat, right? Uh, I could hide the reaction of Lumino by hitting people with pork legs and then putting them back, but the waiter said there was nothing to eat at home. No,

let's go down and take a look!

Jian Jing couldn't sleep and sat up suddenly.

She didn't want to disturb her companions, so she tiptoed to put on her slippers, picked up her mobile phone and prepared to go out.

But after taking two steps, Ji Feng woke up: "Teacher Jian, what are you doing?"

"Going to the kitchen." She said.

Ji Feng looked at his phone and was surprised: "Going to the kitchen at 1:30? Are you hungry?"

"I want to find the murder weapon." She replied, "You sleep, don't worry about me."

"...Okay." He sighed helplessly, got up and dressed, "I'll go with you."

"No need." She said, "Even if the murderer finds me, he will be the unlucky one."

"It's so boring to be alone." Ji Feng said so, squeezed in front of her and opened the door to go out, "Let's go, keep it down."

The dark corridor was very quiet, as if everyone was asleep, and it seemed that no one was asleep, so no one could hear the slightest whisper or snoring.

The two of them lightened their steps and quietly walked down the stairs.

The wind and rain had not stopped. Through the wall, the sound of rain outside could still be heard. The wind blew through the dense forest, making a strange whistling sound.

Jian Jing couldn't help but laugh softly.

"It's late at night," Ji Feng yawned and said lazily, "Stop playing Liao Zhai."

"Don't you think it's very atmospheric?" She walked lightly, as light as a cat. "The wasteland of the English countryside, the ancient and dilapidated temple, the hotel on a rainy night in the mountains... There is always something missing when a murder happens in the city. Only in this kind of place is it particularly interesting."

Ji Feng glanced at her, feeling subtle.

To be honest, he had done the work of searching for clues and catching criminals in the middle of the night many times. Usually, his mental state was "so fucking tired" and he would finish the work quickly and go home.

Interesting or something like that is completely the imagination of laymen.

The person in question just wanted to sleep.

But at this moment, he was walking in the dark hotel. It was stormy outside, eerie and scary. He was still sleepy, but there was also an indescribable feeling that quietly emerged in his heart, making him seem to return to his childhood, hiding in the quilt and reading detective novels.

Perhaps, everyone who loves reasoning has similar blood. No matter

how hard, tired, or sleepy it is, it is difficult to offset the "interesting" in the heart.

"What do you think about the murder weapon?" he asked.

Jian Jing raised the corner of her lips. Under the dim light, her skin was as white as snow, and her eyes were bright, just like the flickering phantom in the detective novel.

"My intuition says," she said firmly, "the murder weapon is in the kitchen."

"Kitchen..." he thought, "It's not impossible to store rice and flour. A blow of that magnitude will more or less seep in."

Jian Jing pressed the switch, and the incandescent light illuminated the kitchen.

She checked the refrigerator first.

Just as the waitress said, there was not much in it. There were only a few ribs, some vegetables, two boxes of eggs and a few canned drinks in the refrigerator. There was even less in the freezer, with almost no meat. The most were quick-frozen dumplings, glutinous rice balls, soup buns, and some ice cream.

They were all covered with a uniform layer of white frost, the result of long-term freezing. If they had been used by someone, they would not be so intact.

Next was the food.

"I remember the waiter said that there was a lot less flour." Jian Jing went straight to the sink, "Will it be poured into the sewer and flushed away after use?"

Ji Feng commented objectively: "Flour is very fine, and the force is dispersed, so it may not cause such a wound. How about the sink?"

She carefully observed from multiple angles for a long time, and sighed with regret: "No, there are no flour particles on the edge and inner wall of the sink. If you pour it in to flush it out in a hurry, some powder will definitely spill out."

"Rice?"

Jian Jing shook her head: "It doesn't look like it from the wound."

Ji Feng checked containers such as bottles and found no problems, so he could only use bags. However, rice particles are larger, and under gravity, the surface must have a granular feel, but the wound looks like it was caused by a smooth weapon.

But just in case, she still checked the rice bag with Luminol.

No reaction.

If this approach didn't work, she would try another approach. Jian Jing said, "Show me the photos of reporter Chai again."

Ji Feng handed her the phone.

She swiped through the photos one by one, examining every detail.

Reporter Chai had a lot of luggage. Her clothes were organized in storage bags, her makeup bag was full of bottles and jars, and she also had a camera, a laptop, and two power banks.

"I guess the person hit by the deceased was a girl." Jian Jing suddenly said. Ji Feng held back his yawn : "Why?"

"She brought a straight clip, but she had just curled her hair." Jian Jing said, "It must be used by someone else."

Ji Feng sighed: "It looks like a hit-and-run."

Jian Jing nodded, and her tone was more certain: "This means that the murder weapon was prepared on the spot." She repeatedly checked the photos, zooming in and out, and combined with her previous visit to 201, she finally found a suspicious point.

"When we went to her room in the afternoon, was there something hanging by the window?" she asked.

Ji Feng: "Personal items, I didn't look closely."

Jian Jing tried to recall: "It was underwear and stockings... Stockings? Could it be this?"

"You mean there is blood on the stockings?" He closed his eyes and thought, "If there is a hard object inside, it is possible to hit by swinging."

Her tone was slightly deep: "That's what you said, but I bet you, even if blood can be detected on the stockings, there is no way to convict. Don't forget, she came to me to borrow something."

When reporter Chai came to see her at 14:10, he was not only covering for the man with a broken bone, but also perhaps arranged a backup plan at the same time.

She had her period, and asked Jian Jing to borrow a sanitary napkin.

Is it strange to have blood on the stockings? After washing, it is difficult to collect blood for DNA verification. What's the problem if she says it's her own?

In order to convict her, the murder weapon hidden in the stockings must be found.

There would not be so much flour missing for no reason.

Jian Jing squatted in the corner and untied all the bags. The hotel had a rich inventory, and the bags of grain contained flour, rice, starch, and cornmeal.

Only one-fifth of the flour was left, half of the rice, two-thirds of the starch, and the cornmeal was almost full.

She touched them one by one in a huff.

There was a slight abnormality at the fingertips, and her brain had not yet analyzed it clearly, but her intuition had already been triggered.

"Ji Feng!" she called, "Come here."

Ji Feng hurried over and squatted: "What is it?"

"This bag is a little..." Words cannot describe the intuitive shock, so he can only say in general, "Something is wrong."

Ji Feng turned on the flashlight and picked up a handful of starch.

The feel is wrong, and the color seems to be a little subtle.

He raised his head and met Jian Jing's eyes, and they both reacted at the same time.

"The flour is here!"

"It's starch!"

Joy was like bubbles in an ice cola, bubbling up in clusters. Jian Jing laughed and shook her head: "Awesome, the reporter is worthy of being a reporter, she is knowledgeable."

Ji Feng also said: "It's a pity that she could think of such a murder weapon in a detective novel."

Jian Jing agreed deeply.

She was confused by the flour and thought that the lack of flour was due to the use of flour. In fact, she should have thought one step further. The lack of flour was because someone put it in another bag to cover up the lack of another thing. What

was missing was starch.

Starch is the weapon.

As for the principle, not everyone may have heard of it, but everyone has come into contact with non-Newtonian fluids. I won’t talk much about physics. Simply put, non-Newtonian fluids have a characteristic that they are very soft when touched slowly and extremely hard when hit quickly.

With this thing, you can float on water. There was such a plot in Conan.

Of course, that requires a lot of starch.

You don’t need so much to make a weapon, a ball is enough.

After solving the most difficult puzzle, Jian Jing was not sleepy at all: "Let's sort out the case?"

Ji Feng dragged out a chair and sat down, very supportive: "Please let the leader speak."

"Is it the leader who reports the case for you?" She was suspicious.

Ji Feng remained calm: "Yes, no?"

Believe him, there is something wrong.

But Jian Jing didn't bother with him, and said to herself: "The evening of the day before yesterday, the deceased and her companion drove at night, hit a girl to death, and drove away. Her two companions decided to avenge her, found out the whereabouts of this group of people, and followed them to this hotel.

"The deceased did not admit that he hit someone to death, and made up a lie about a zombie, which angered them. So, they decided to kill him with the same excuse. They pretended to have seen a zombie last night and killed a chicken at night to create confusion. The car of the deceased and others might have been their doing.

"At noon, the plan officially began. Reporter Chai paid close attention to the deceased and confirmed that he returned to his room. The others were away because of their own business, so he tried to make an appointment with the deceased to meet at the warehouse.

"From 13:40 to 13:50, in addition to taking pictures, the reporter should have made a weapon and hid it near the warehouse. At 14:05, the man with a fracture left from the emergency exit under the pretext of going to the restroom. Because Reporter Chai told him that the waitress was in her living room, he probably went through the back door and made a detour before going to the warehouse.

"There, he murdered the deceased. But because the deceased did not bring the note with the information about the encounter, he had to take the room key away."

Speaking of this, Jian Jing paused for a moment and thought, "How did they pass the key?"

"Put it on the ground and kick it over." Ji Feng said, "These are all trivial matters."

Jian Jing made a "then you do it" gesture to him.

He then said, "Reporter Chai got the key, entered the room, and destroyed the note. At this time, Huangmao came back and asked the deceased for something. She suddenly had an idea and used instant noodles to create the illusion that the deceased was still alive. Thinking of the coincidence of the rain stopping and Huangmao coming back, she decided to frame someone and temporarily decided to take the umbrella away."

"Why did you have to wait an hour before going down?" Jian Jing asked.

"It takes time to find the note. Maybe they are waiting for Huangmao to come out and clarify the extent of his suspicion." Ji Feng pondered, "However, it is indeed a bit long. The key can be put back when pretending to find the body. The murder weapon is not disposed of, which is too dangerous."

Jian Jing thought for a while and said, "The key was an accident. In the original plan, she should be the one who found the body, so the murder weapon had been disposed of by then and only needed to be recovered."

"It makes sense. The murder weapon was placed in the open air to let the rain dilute the starch inside." Ji Feng agreed with her judgment, "She just needs to hide it. If it takes too long, it will easily arouse suspicion."

"Yes." Jian Jing nodded. "The rain was not heavy in the afternoon and it stopped for a while. The weapon was not cleaned up, so I went to the kitchen to clean it temporarily. But I ran into Huangmao unexpectedly, so I had to change my mind. I dropped my key, took the umbrella, and went back to the room directly."

Ji Feng: "The last question, where is the umbrella?"

"I threw it far away."

Because of the weather, Ji Feng's search range was only indoors and in the backyard. He had not had time to search the area near the hotel, so it was not surprising that it was missed.

Jian Jing exhaled: "Let's go, don't worry about the umbrella, finish the last thing and go to bed."

The umbrella is a smoke bomb from beginning to end, misleading time, concealing the weapon, and diverting attention, but unfortunately, it is not important.

At least when it comes to identifying the murderer, no one cares about absence.