The following morning, on a rare sunny day, Gao Ang continued his data collection task, only this time with a companion: Xiao Hua.
"Let me tell you, you can go out, but don't act recklessly. If you see something you want to eat or play with, you have to tell me in advance. Don't act on your own, understand?"
Just before leaving, Gao Ang, holding Xiao Hua's cat ears, gave a righteous and stern warning.
"Meow!" The impatient sound showed that Xiao Hua didn't care about his instructions. She slapped away the broken hand that was grabbing her with one paw, kicked her little legs, and got into the car first.
"Hey, you've got a temper now."
...
Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau.
"Xia, has my junior brother returned?"
Cao Kun couldn't forget Gao Ang and would ask him from time to time if he should just call or text Gao Ang. He felt it was a bit strange, since he was Gao Ang's senior, and if he took the initiative, wouldn't he be losing face?
"It arrived last night." Perhaps thinking of something, Xia Weiwei secretly pursed her lips into a smile.
Cao Kun was stunned by Xia Weiwei's expression. It wasn't that he hadn't seen beautiful women before, but rather that he rarely saw Xia Weiwei with such an expression.
Since her parents' accident, this girl has become a different person. I heard from Lao Xia that she used to be very lively and playful, and she was very kind to everyone. When she went abroad to study, she was even named an outstanding international student by her school.
It seems there's potential between these two. Cao Kun increasingly felt that his judgment was unique and that he had foresight.
"Well, could you ask him to come over? To be honest, it's been a long time since I've had his cooking." "A long time" is a bit of a stretch; it's only been two days.
Xia Weiwei hummed in agreement and casually sent Gao Ang a message: "Braised pork."
Simple and clear, without any unnecessary details.
Upon receiving the message, Gao Yang replied with an ambiguous "hmm." You're cold and he's arrogant; asking him to fawn over women is something he'd never do.
I bought some pork belly, which is for making braised pork; I also bought a few fresh cucumbers, which I can make into a garlic-flavored frozen cucumber salad to cool down in the summer heat; I have some mung beans at home, so I can make a frozen mung bean porridge; I also bought a few bitter melons, and with the remaining pork belly, I can make a bitter melon stir-fry, which is also good for cooling down in the summer…
"Meow." Seeing Gao Ang turn to leave, Xiao Hua meowed anxiously and scratched his neck with her paw, of course, using her paw pads.
Following Xiaohua's gaze, Gao Ang saw an aquarium. "You want to eat fish?"
"Meow."
"Alright, it's my fault. I almost forgot about you. Looks like I'll have to give you an extra dining spot from now on."
This trip gave Gao Feng a very different feeling. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but he felt as if his senses were clearer.
The maximum distance he could hear hadn't increased much, but for every sound he heard, a scene or object would be simulated in his mind. For example, the sound of a cleaver chopping meat when it hits pork belly, the sound of a sharp tool cutting meat into minced meat, the sound of a cleaver hitting a wooden block, and so on. These sounds were no longer independent entities, but formed a three-dimensional 3D simulated image.
Combined with his sense of smell and previous visual memories, he could quickly visualize in his mind the butcher chopping up the pork belly, bagging it, pressing a few buttons on the calculator to give the customer a discounted price, the customer paying with WeChat, picking up the bag with one hand, and thanking him, and so on.
Moreover, he now somewhat enjoys the convenience of being bald. At least he doesn't have to style his hair. In addition, the warm feeling of sunlight shining on his scalp is very enjoyable, just like having a good meal.
"A bald head is fine, but what about the eyebrows?"
He touched the hairless eyebrows above his sunglasses frame, and Gao Yang looked a little unhappy.
Baldness is alright; at least he looks quite tough. Coupled with his muscular build and nearly two-meter height, he can greatly suppress the arrogance of some bullies who prey on the weak.
But without the eyebrows, it looks really funny.
Most people are afraid of a burly man with a menacing face, but if that man had no eyebrows, their first reaction would probably be to burst out laughing, right?
To maintain his dignified and solemn image, he wore sunglasses. This way, when people looked at him, their first attention would be drawn to the sunglasses and his bald head, while his eyebrows would be the last thing they noticed, or they might even be completely ignored.
While cooking, he was still pondering a question: had the lightning strike awakened him?
Or perhaps it accelerated its own mutation process?
Or perhaps they purified the mutated cells in their own body?
He was certain that his body had changed again, because he could clearly feel it when he was chopping vegetables.
His knife skills were decent, but far from being as smooth and effortless as a knife. He originally intended to smash the cucumber, but to verify his understanding, he directly cut it into cucumber strips.
How thin are these cucumber strips? You could say they're the thinnest cucumber strips can get. Saying they're as thin as hair would be a bit of an exaggeration, but they're as thin and even as a row of data cables, that's for sure.
Moreover, when he was cutting cucumbers, he could see the phantom of the knife cutting up and down. Only when he held his breath and concentrated slightly could he see the normal cutting speed.
In other words, without realizing it, the frequency of some of his movements can also increase, and it is still controllable.
Does this mean that some of his usual actions can be seen as 'fast forward' by others if he wants to?
To verify his hypothesis, Gao Ang did not immediately deliver the food to Xia Weiwei after finishing cooking. Instead, he locked himself in his bedroom, turned on his phone, and repeatedly recorded several videos of himself.
The videos show him walking around the bedroom, doing small tasks like tidying up the closet or cleaning the bathroom.
While doing these things, he deliberately sped up his pace, no longer in his usual relaxed state.
The video content did indeed match his guess. Playing it at one speed, it looked like he was fast-forwarding, with every movement precise and fluid, like a fully wound-up toy.
He only felt that he was a normal person in the video when he turned the playback speed down to 0.25x.
Gao Ang was well aware that his speed in the video had not reached its limit, and there was still a lot of room for improvement.
It seems that this is another mutation brought about by the white sphere, or rather, it is not a mutation ability, but a qualitative change reaction formed after the overall physical quality has been improved to a certain stage.
Just like breaking through in basketball, before breaking through, you dribble at a constant speed. When facing blocking players, the dribbler will try their best to increase their dribbling speed and movement speed. In that instant, many professional athletes' explosive power will far exceed the limits of ordinary people.
However, his power is different from that of those athletes who can only unleash it instantly. He can maintain this explosive state for a long time because his body is abnormally strong.
He deleted the video, packed lunch and Xiaohua, and drove the MINI that Xia Weiwei had already repaired, arriving at the Municipal Bureau with a calm expression.
Cao Kun and Yan Bing were both delighted by his arrival. Although the food in the municipal bureau's canteen was not bad, it was still a little lacking compared to Gao Yuan's private kitchen.
Indeed, with his semi-super brain, learning a recipe would be a piece of cake for him.
He can learn a lot just from the videos. For example, he can instantly judge the appropriate temperature of the oil pan by the size of the flame, and instantly determine the appropriate proportion of seasoning to put in his pan by the amount of seasoning.
With proper cooking time, flavor, and decent knife skills, how bad could the food possibly taste?
"Wow, Chef Gao's hairstyle is quite unique."
"You also got your eyebrows done?"
When Cao Kun and Yan Bing saw his new look, they were both stunned, and then they began to laugh at him mercilessly.
"Do you shave your eyebrows off when you get them done?"
Gao Ang rolled his eyes at them, then decided to ignore them and went outside to get food on his own.
"Tell us about it, I really want to know why you so heartlessly cut off your three thousand strands of hair."
Yan Bing, the little girl, propped her chin up and asked curiously, her gaze darting back and forth between him and Xia Weiwei.
"Repent and start anew, are you satisfied now? Isn't that your mantra for educating those who have gone astray? Why can't it be used on me?"
"Fine, fine, whatever you want."
Cao Kun laughed for a while and then stopped dwelling on the topic, immediately changing the subject.
"Junior brother, can you tell me your speculation on the modus operandi of the 'Wu Mei murder case'?"
"This case is still pending."
"That's right, she just won't say how she committed the crime. Whenever you ask her, she starts to play dumb. Now I even think she's innocent."
Cao Kun was also annoyed. He had never met this stubborn suspect before. The motive, location, and time of the crime all matched up, but the details of the crime and the tools were missing, and they couldn't find them at all. They couldn't get any information out of him either. If the case was closed so hastily, he would have a knot in his heart.
"Let's talk after we finish eating. Your case files..."
See you at the training center later.
After reviewing the files brought by Cao Kun, Gao Ang felt something was amiss.
"That shouldn't be the case. Has she never contacted anyone else? Has she never bought anything online? Has she never withdrawn money or anything like that?"
"No, she said no, and we've checked. We've checked her bank cards, Zhang Jianping's, and even her ex-husband's and son's bank cards, and there were no unusual transaction records."
"That's really strange. Where did she get the tools she used to commit the crime?"
Gao Ang was also a bit confused. He could guess Wu Mei's crime process, but without finding the murder weapon, the chain of evidence was still incomplete.
"Let's go to the scene."
Since this incident, almost the entire neighborhood where Wu Mei lives has been affected, with many homeowners starting to sell their properties at half price, intending to get away from this unlucky place.
On the way, Gao Ang roughly explained his guesses to Cao Kun, including the function of those expansion bolt holes.
"Based on your deduction, Wu Mei's modus operandi doesn't seem to be typical of Chinese people."
Cao Kun suddenly realized and said, "Could there be other hostile forces behind this?"
Gao Ang glanced speechlessly at his senior brother, never expecting that someone as righteous as him would have such a childish idea.
"I can understand you saying 'mastermind,' but the term 'hostile forces'... isn't appropriate here?"
"Hey, that's the gist of it, don't interrupt, but what is their or his purpose?"
"You're asking me? Who should I ask? We're here to investigate the scene again... And besides, I never said there was a mastermind behind it all."
Cao Kun smiled but didn't reply. He especially enjoyed working with his junior brother, and he wished that this guy could get into the Municipal Public Security Bureau.
He's quick-witted, has a good personality, passed the background check, and looks to be in great shape—a perfect frontline worker.
Fortunately, this guy has finally stopped doing any live streaming. It seems I still need to put in more effort to get him back on the right track.
Gao Ang had no idea what kind of crazy ideas his senior brother was having. He had already blocked out other smells and retrieved Zhang Jianping's blood sample from the database to begin a careful search.
He had already checked the storage room once, so this time they came to Wu Mei's house.
This was Gao Ang's first time visiting this place, and unfortunately, there was no smell of Zhang Jianping's blood anywhere in the entire house.
"It can be determined that the storage room was the first dismemberment scene, but as for whether it was the first crime scene, I don't know."
Gao Ang sighed helplessly, and could only make this judgment.
Why not say the storage room was the primary crime scene? It's simple. Wu Mei could have easily used various methods at home to knock Zhang Jianping unconscious or kill him, and then taken him to the storage room to dismember his body. Alternatively, she could have lured Zhang Jianping to the storage room before dismembering him.
The forensic report in the case file also stated that Zhang Jianping's specific cause of death was unknown, and no toxic substances or other sedative components had been found in his skin and flesh tissue. As for whether anything would be found in the future, that was also unknown, because that was all they could provide.
"Senior brother, to put it bluntly, this case may become a cold case."
"Why?"
"The current chain of evidence is simply insufficient to support Wu Mei's complete crime loop. The judge will not believe our unfounded inferences. Moreover, we haven't even figured out the cause of Zhang Jianping's death. How can we close the case?"
"Moreover, I also believe that Wu Mei is innocent."
Hearing this, Cao Kun was stunned. "What do you mean? Did we arrest the wrong person?"
"It's unlikely they arrested the wrong person, but there's definitely something fishy going on. Look at the furnishings in their house, especially these pairs of shoes with layered soles that they're sewing. The size is exactly Zhang Jianping's. Layered soles! How many people in Shanghai still know how to make that? If she didn't really care about this man, would she make layered soles for him?"
"What if she's deliberately trying to mislead us?"
“A single detail can be misleading, but look at the wardrobe, the shoe cabinet, and the dressing table. Zhang Jianping has the most clothes in the wardrobe, and they are the most neatly organized. The same goes for the rest of the wardrobe. You can see that this woman takes care of her husband’s clothes at home and even makes him his own soles… This loving relationship, you say she’s the murderer? I don’t believe it, unless love doesn’t exist in this world.”
At this point, Gao Ang was slightly saddened. The couple should have been living a very comfortable life, but for some reason, they had such a tragic ending.
Just as he was feeling sentimental, he was suddenly drawn to an item in a basket on the second shelf of the coffee table.
Baskets are not common in Shanghai, a city with a strong contemporary style, and this particular item is completely out of place with the style of the basket, which is why it attracted so much attention.
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