Chapter Ten: The Locked Room Murder

  "Where is it?!" Only after the four of them ran to the entrance of the teaching building at their fastest speed did Zheng Hanfei discover a problem - they all didn't know where the scream came from.

  "Let's search every floor!" Zhong Lixue'er suggested, "Just waiting here isn't a solution."

  "Alright!" Zheng Hanfei thought for a moment, and now that things have come to this point, there's no other way out. He nodded, glanced at Gu Jie and Nan Ruoxuan, the meaning was self-evident.

  "Wan Er, where are you?" Ou Yang Xiu's voice suddenly rang out around the four of them, causing those who were just about to rush into the building to stop in their tracks and look around in confusion.

  At this time, Zhong Li Wan'er thought of something and hurriedly took out a badge from her pocket. The badge was round in shape and bronze in color, with a large pipe painted on it. Below the pipe were four black letters "ICPO".

  "Ah! President, I'm here! What's going on over there?" Zhong Liyu shouted loudly at the chest badge.

  "It's not clear what's going on." Ou Yang Xiu's voice came from the badge, "First take Zheng Han Fei to the sixth floor of the teaching building, something has happened... Ah!" Before he could finish speaking, a woman's shrill scream came from the badge, startling everyone. Zheng Han Fei's face turned somewhat gloomy, it seemed that what he least wanted to happen had still occurred.

  "Director, what's going on?" Zhong Liyuanyu cried out in a panic.

  "Damn it! Anyway, you guys go to the sixth floor chemistry lab first, something's happened!" Ouyang Xiu hastily said a few words and then hung up.

  "Let's go! First to the sixth floor!" As soon as he finished speaking, Zheng Hanfei rushed into the teaching building. At the moment when Ouyang Xiu hung up, Zheng Hanfei heard a faint sound of footsteps, which indicated that the case mentioned by Ouyang Xiu was not as simple as imagined...

  "What...what is this?" The four of them ran to the entrance of the chemistry lab and were stunned by what they saw. A man who appeared to be in his thirties was hanging from the center of the room, with a ferocious expression, his pupils dilated, and endless fear in his eyes, his mouth slightly open. At the foot of the deceased, there were some overturned cardboard boxes.

  "Is he dead?" Zheng Hanfei looked at the scene with some solemnity and asked Zhong Liyu behind him, "Have you called the police?"

  "Ah!" Zhong Liwen hung up her phone and nodded, "It seems that the president had already reported to the police beforehand."

  No wonder it's Ouyang Xiu! Zheng Hanfei couldn't help but admire him in his heart, while at the same time feeling a little puzzled about Ouyang Xiu's sudden departure. What could have happened that would make Ouyang Xiu temporarily ignore this murder case?

  "What are you doing here?" The sudden voice interrupted Zheng Hanfei's thoughts, and upon hearing it, he looked up to see a female teacher in her twenties or thirties slowly walking towards them, with a hint of disgust in her eyes. "Don't you know that floors six and seven are off-limits?"

  "Teacher... here... a murder has occurred." Nan Ruo Xun's trembling finger pointed towards the chemistry lab, stuttering as he spoke.

  "What?!" The female teacher's face showed some disbelief, but she quickened her pace and rushed to their front, then looked towards the chemistry lab, her pupils shrinking as she exclaimed: "Arajan!"

  "Teacher, don't go in!" Zheng Hanfei timely stretched out his hand to block the female teacher's impulse to enter. "The scene cannot be destroyed before the police arrive!"

  "Don't stop me! Let me go in! How could he possibly be dead?" The female teacher seemed to ignore the advice and still wanted to enter the scene.

  "Teacher!" Zhong Li Wan'er took out the badge again and placed it in front of the female teacher, saying, "Please calm down. If you still want to enter the scene, I have the right to list you as a suspect."

  "Badge of Sherlock Detective Agency!" The female teacher exclaimed in surprise again, then sat on the ground dejectedly and cried: "How could he possibly be dead?"

  "Xiao Xun, comfort the teacher; Wan Er, don't let anyone else in; Xiao Jie, come with me to the scene." Zheng Hanfei finished arranging everything and took out two pairs of gloves from his pocket, handing one pair to Gu Jie before pulling him into the murder scene.

  "Hey... is this suicide?" The two partners moved the body down, and Gu Jie looked at Zheng Hanfei, who was squatting beside the body, observing it carefully.

  "No, it was murder!" Zheng Hanfei pointed to the marks on the deceased's neck and said, "The deceased's neck has two strangulation marks, one deep and one shallow. This shows that he was strangled to death and then disguised as a suicide by hanging."

  "Ah!" Gu Jie looked at the cardboard box that had been kicked over on the ground and said, "It seems like the murderer wanted to disguise it as a suicide scene, but they overlooked the most crucial step."

  After finishing speaking, Gu Jie suddenly remembered something and walked around the chemistry lab, saying: "Xiao Fei, everything is locked up here!"

  "I see!" Zheng Hanfei nodded first, then looked at the deceased's eyes, lifted up the deceased's clothes, and finally stood up, analyzing, "The cornea of the deceased is transparent, with no livor mortis or rigor mortis. The estimated time of death is about an hour ago, between 11:00 and 12:00."

  "To be precise, it was between 11:20 and 12:00. A familiar voice came from outside the door, "Because at 11:10, there was an eyewitness who saw the deceased."

  "Ah, you've finally arrived!" Zheng Hanfei glanced at Ouyang Xiu and said, "Where did you go? You actually left the crime scene, aren't you afraid that the murderer will return to destroy the evidence?"

  "Heh heh, I heard a scream from upstairs and ran up," said Ouyang Xiu with some embarrassment. "As for the murderer returning to the scene to destroy evidence? I'm not worried about that. After all, it would take you guys at most one minute to run from the teaching building entrance to here. What could the murderer do in such a short time? Even if he did something, wouldn't he have bumped into you guys?"

  "Do you have confidence in us?"

  "It's you." Ouyang Xiuzhi corrected, "You and I are the same kind of people, as long as we encounter a murder case, we will definitely rush over at the fastest speed."

  "So you're the one who told Wan'er about the murder case!"

  "That's right!"

  "Then tell me," Zheng Hanfei said with a hint of helplessness, shrugging his shoulders. "The situation at the scene before we arrived."

  "No problem." Ouyang Xiu nodded and recalled, "When we arrived here, the door was locked. Since the key to the chemistry lab was only worn by the deceased, and I had a bad premonition about this unresponsive knocking, I kicked open the door and found the deceased hanged. Just after using the intercom to call you, I heard screams coming from upstairs, so I ran up, as for what happened afterwards, you already know."

  "Could it be a locked room murder?"

  "What?"

  "Gujie just made a round on the scene and found that all the places that could be exited were locked, and I also found this key from the deceased's waistband." As he spoke, Zheng Hanfei took out the keys for Ouyang Xi to see. "I've already asked Gujie to try them earlier, and they're all the keys in here."

  "So that's how it is." Ouyang Xiu smiled and said, "I remember this key didn't have a backup, it was completely in the deceased's hands. In that case, adding to my previous experience, that would be a true locked room murder."

  "Huh, I didn't expect Di Luo to have performed a disappearing act in the secret room earlier, and now there's a murder in the same secret room. What kind of logic is this?"

  "Stop complaining!" Ouyang Xiupai patted Zheng Hanfei's shoulder and said, "For now, let's just focus on solving this case. After all, it happened in Quinlan Academy, if we can't solve it well, it will tarnish the reputation of Quinlan Academy and Sherlock Detective Agency, and even more so, your own reputation. You definitely don't want that to happen, do you?"

  "That's also true! By the way, you just said 'you guys', are you and this club's vice president?"

  "There's another person! His name is Li He, a physical education teacher, that is, the eyewitness I mentioned earlier. At 11:10, he saw the deceased walking in here."

  "I see." Zheng Hanfei nodded, a hint of disappointment in his eyes. Up to now, the information he had grasped was not enough for him to determine who the suspect was.

  "May I ask, what exactly happened when you ran up to the seventh floor?" At this time, Zheng Hanfei thought of Ouyang Xiu's experience of running to the seventh floor and asked further, here it is very likely that there are clues related to the murder case.

  "It seems that a computer in the computer room upstairs suddenly caught fire, so the teacher there suddenly shouted loudly. She looks like a newcomer, and her name seems to be Lin Jiarui."

  "Ah!" Zheng Han pinched his chin, although this clue had nothing to do with the case, he somehow felt that it was closely related to the case, and it could be said that this was his sixth sense as a detective.

  "Wait, the police have arrived, and Director Zhou is also inside." Just as the two were thinking, a gentle voice sounded in Zheng Hanfei's ear, giving him a sense of familiarity, and he couldn't help but look towards the door.

  The next moment, his pupils contracted slightly, his breathing quickened, and he shouted: "Menghan?!"