Forensic Chapter Down

  "Are you busy? Why are you always texting?" Tongtong asked the man with glasses.

  "Something's come up, it'll be fine in a bit." The man with glasses smiled apologetically. "Since you both like each other, why don't you get married?"

  "You know, Sanqi is a proud person. His parents are so rich, but he doesn't want a single penny from them. He says he wants to give me a fairy-tale wedding all by himself. Haha, don't you think he's like a child...?" As she spoke, Tongtong glanced out the window, as if she had already seen Sanqi's figure.

  "Do you know what I admire about him?"

  "What?"

  "That childlike persistence and that kind heart of justice..."

  The door of room 1320 was finally opened. Sanqi and Ouyang Xuan walked out from inside, looking at each other as if to say "what's going on?". At this time, the two had finished questioning Ma Chao. From any aspect, this man matched the characteristics of a murderer, and his behavior was indeed very suspicious, making it hard to imagine he was an innocent person. However, today he had an appointment with a client at 4 pm in the hotel's restaurant to discuss cooperation matters, and until 1 pm today, his people were all in S city. It takes three and a half hours to get from S city to D city by car. Ma Chao made a call to room 1221 of the hotel from the train station in S city at 1 pm. If this is confirmed, he would have a perfect alibi.

  "Now shouldn't we go and verify it?" Sanqi looked at Ouyang Xuan.

  "Looking at him like that... I have a premonition. We've encountered a very strong opponent."

  The two arrived outside room 1221 and Ouyang Xuan knocked on the door.

  "Dong... Dong... Dong..."

  "Who's there?" A shrill man's voice came from inside the door.

  "Heh heh, Dongfang Bu Bai lives inside! Hehe." San Qi whispered to Ouyang Xuan.

  "Hello, I'm a police officer. Can you open the door?"

  The door creaked open a crack, and the person inside peeked out.

  Sanqi smiled slyly and said: "Don't worry, we're not good people... no! I mean, the two of us are bad people... that's not right either! Ah? How did that sentence go again?" Sanqi was stuck on this simple sentence.

  Ouyang Xuan took out his police badge "We are police. But would you like to ask some questions?"

  That person hesitated for a moment and opened the door.

  "Thank you for your cooperation." As he spoke, Ouyang Xuan and Sanqi had already entered the house.

  "Hey, officer. Is this waiter also a policeman?" The man pointed at Sanqi.

  Sanqi looked up and down at this person. This person's slender figure, standard 'Gong Hanlin' version of the body type. A pair of eyes were both black and round, revealing an extraordinary sharpness, his gaze kept shifting, with a guilty conscience.

  Sanqi whispered in his ear, "I'm an undercover agent. This time it's to investigate this case. We suspect... Hehe, you understand. Remember! I didn't say anything to you."

  "Yes, yes, yes. I remember." The man's face changed color.

  Ouyang Xuan's heart was about to burst out laughing, thinking: "This Sanqi is really too much! In fact, you didn't say anything at all, yet you still want to put on an air of mystery and profundity."

  "May I ask your surname?"

  "Exempt Gu... Ah! Can't be exempt, my surname is Gui."

  "Hehe~ No, sorry about that, couldn't help it." Sanqi covered her mouth and slipped away to the side to secretly laugh.

  "Ah-choo! The toilet is next to you, don't make a sound like that!" Ouyang Xuan glared at him fiercely. "Where were you between 1 and 2 pm this afternoon?"

  "I'm going out to take care of something."

  "Hasn't it been here all along?"

  "Yes, yes."

  "Do you know Jia Yanping?"

  "We've met a few times."

  "Do you have any appointments with anyone today?"

  "Uh...yes, I have a meeting with Manager Ma from Huaxia Real Estate at 4 o'clock to discuss the contract revision."

  "Revision of contract?" Sanqi interjected at this time.

  "Because of our company's recent poor cash flow, I hope to reduce the investment in Huaxia Real Estate. Therefore, we want to revise the contract again."

  "May we take a look at your phone?" Ouyang Xuan pointed to the phone on the desk.

  "Okay."

  "There is a message now."

  "Ding..."

  "This is the front desk of Chengyue Hotel, room 1221. The guest in this room is not here right now. After the beep, the system will automatically transfer to the answering machine."

  "Ding..."

  "This is Ma Chao from Huaxia Real Estate. I'm still at S City train station right now. Something came up and I might be delayed until 4:30 to get to your place. Ah... what are you doing? Sorry, I'll hang up first."

  "Ding..."

  "May 22nd, 13:02"

  There is the sound of a bustling train station in this recording. It seems that Ma Chao indeed has a perfect alibi. However, San Qi still can't forget Ma Chao's eerie smile.

  "... Ah, what was your name again?" Sanqi seemed to have remembered something just as she was about to leave.

  "Long life."

  "Oh." Sanqi opened his book but didn't write anything. "Hehe, sorry about that. Can you write down your name?"

  "It's nothing." As he spoke, Gu Tianchen took the pen from San Qi with his right hand and signed his name. "Alright."

  "Thank you for your cooperation. If you remember anything else, don't hesitate to contact us."

  "I will."

  "What do you think?" San Qi said to Ouyang Xuan after seeing the door closed.

  "There seems to be something strange about it, and there's also a feeling of uncertainty." Ouyang Xuan pondered with his chin in hand.

  "To catch Ma Chao, we must crack his alibi. How did he manage to make a phone call at the train station in S City while also killing Jia Yanping who lived here?"

  The two returned to the 13th floor of the hotel.

  "Can you be certain that the person you saw was indeed Ma Chao?" Ouyang Xuan began to sort out his thoughts from the starting point.

  Sanqi carefully recalled, "All I can say is that Ma Chao and the person I saw had a similar build. Ma Chao's height was not much different from mine, and he was slightly chubby. My shoe size is 40, and after roughly measuring, our shoe sizes were about the same, and he was a man with the ability to move corpses."

  "It's not easy to find a companion who can chat...". A piece of music started playing, and Ouyang Xuan opened his phone.

  "Hey, hello. I'm Ouyang Xuan... Oh, it's Dr. Hao! ... What? You're saying... Alright, I understand. ... Let's just leave it at that."

  "What's wrong?"

  "Just now, the forensic doctor called me and said that a small piece of the knife tip that stabbed the deceased in the back was clamped between the deceased's ribs. Moreover, it was found that the knife that cut off the deceased's neck and the one that stabbed into the deceased's back were not the same knife. I just saw that Kobayashi sent me a text message saying that a Swiss Army knife case was found in room 1321. Combining these two points..."

  "In other words, the murderer had prepared a knife before committing the crime, but accidentally damaged it during the crime, and then randomly picked up the deceased's Swiss Army knife to kill him." Sanqi analyzed this clue.

  "That's what I mean."

  "We're going to Ma Chao's room." The two of them took the elevator again to Room 0204.

  "Dong~ Dong~ Dong~"

  "May I ask who is it?"

  "I am Ou Yang Xuan, captain of the municipal police force."

  "Ah, it's Captain Ouyang!" As soon as the words were spoken, the door opened and Ma Chao's round face appeared. "...Please come in." Behind a detective, there is always a waiter following, which makes anyone feel somewhat awkward.

  "Manager Ma, you can still write calligraphy with a brush! Wow, that's not easy. Can you also write one for me?" Sanqi looked at the half-written brush characters on the table.

  "It's just written for fun, actually not very good."

  Ma Chao couldn't withstand Sanqi's enthusiasm, picked up a brush with his left hand and wrote the character "Jing". Sanqi and Ouyang Xuan nodded in unison as they saw him holding the brush with his left hand.

  "Is this a recorder?" Sanqi picked up a delicate square-shaped recorder from the table.

  "Yes. I'm a forgetful person, so..."

  Five minutes later, Sanqi and Ouyang Xuan walked out of the door. Sanqi handed the paper in his hand to Ouyang Xuan.

  "It's yours."

  Ouyang Xuan looked at Sanqi's tightly furrowed brow and smiled lightly "I know what's going on now."

  "Finally found you!" Little Lin panted and ran over. "Sanqi, I have something to ask you. What is your responsibility in this hotel?"

  "I'm in charge of room service on the 13th floor. What's wrong?"

  "Who arranged this?"

  "Xiao Xiao Jie ya."

  "Why are you asking this? Ah, where did you go?" Ou Yang Xuan asked Xiao Lin.

  "It's Deputy Captain Kong, let me go investigate something."

  "Is that the new deputy captain? I heard he's a genius! Hehe." At this time, Ouyang Xuan noticed that Sanqi was a bit strange.

  "Is his surname Kong? Genius? His name can't be...". Sanqi had a bad premonition.

  "Kongming." Little Lin replied without hesitation.

  Sanqi grabbed Lin's clothes "What the...! That bastard is back?"