CM | Chapter 29

The scene where Lian Qiyun died suddenly was in a villa in the suburbs of Jiangcheng. The villa was registered under “Jiangcheng Gene”, so it belonged to the company’s assets and was usually used as a place for executives to vacation and rest.

Right now, yellow police tape had already been set up around the villa. The front gate was closed, but not locked, making it easy for the relevant personnel to come in and collect evidence at any time.

Xu Shuo drove the car right into the villa’s garage without any attempt to hide it, then took an aluminum alloy briefcase and a large plastic bag containing some unidentified object from the trunk, and strolled in just like that.

Gu Yao hesitated for a second, then did the same. Only after she followed him one after the other and slipped past the police tape did she ask, “Unauthorized personnel entering a scene to collect evidence, if anyone finds out, this could be a big deal or a small one. Why didn’t the gate guard at the villa entrance stop us just now? Did you submit an application?”

Xu Shuo walked through the small courtyard and stopped at the porch, then took out two pairs of shoe covers and rubber gloves, handed Gu Yao a set, and said, “I showed the guard my lawyer’s license.”

Gu Yao took the shoe covers and put them on. “But you’re not even Tian Fang’s lawyer.”

Xu Shuo smiled. “But the guard doesn’t know that, does he? Look here, people must have come through a lot, and most of them were probably here to collect evidence. The guard’s seen so many that he’s used to it by now. He’d only think of you and me as relevant staff. What, did you think we were some influencers here to check in and take selfies?”

Gu Yao didn’t make a sound. Xu Shuo never did anything by the book, and she shouldn’t have been surprised.

Xu Shuo went in first with the box and the large plastic bag. Gu Yao followed. The two of them stood at the porch and looked inside, only to find utter chaos. Everything was a mess. Fortunately, the windows were all shut, so the rain and wind over the past few days hadn’t gotten in. Otherwise, every last piece of evidence would have been ruined.

Xu Shuo opened the box. Inside were not only rubber gloves, but also plastic bags of all sizes, test tubes, cotton swabs, straws, tweezers, evidence markers, and some kind of unknown spray.

Gu Yao asked, “What are you bringing all this for? Are you really acting like an evidence tech?”

For once, Xu Shuo didn’t bicker with her. Instead, he went into the living room and found that several areas had been disturbed. He immediately took out evidence markers from the box and labeled them one by one.

A patch of carpet had been cut out. It was probably because the technicians had found suspicious traces there, like drugs or bloodstains, and taken it back for testing.

Xu Shuo placed a marker labeled “1” beside it, took a photo, then went to look at the area marked “2”. At first glance, there was nothing there, just bare floor. But when he brushed it with a cotton swab, a few tiny shards of glass came up.

Xu Shuo put the glass fragments into a test tube, then went to “3”.

At that moment, Gu Yao suddenly said, “Actually, I’ve watched Forensic Heroes too.”

Xu Shuo didn’t even turn around. “Oh?”

“I remember one scene in it was about the luminol test, where they spray around a substance called glowing ammonia, then close the curtains and make the room dark. Then anywhere that had bloodstains before would glow blue. I just saw a spray like that in your box. Why aren’t you using it? Maybe Tian Fang was assaulted in the living room and there could be blood left behind.”

Xu Shuo paused, then looked back at her. “It is called luminol, yes, but who taught you that? Oh, right, your boyfriend works in pharmaceuticals. He must know a lot of chemistry.”

Xu Shuo stood up and took a photo of the area marked “3”. He unlocked his phone gallery and carefully examined the trace in the photo as he said, “The chemical name for luminol is 3-aminophthalhydrazide. The way it glows is basically the same as a concert glow stick, it stabilizes unstable compounds. For example, the iron ions in hemoglobin can drive hydrogen peroxide in luminol to break down and trigger the luminescent process. So even blood traces too tiny to see with the naked eye can still make it show up.”

As he spoke, Xu Shuo looked up at Gu Yao and smiled faintly. “But this miraculous luminol has one very fatal problem.”

Gu Yao froze, staring at that smile as if she suddenly understood something.

Then she asked, “You just said it was kind of like a glow stick… does that mean this test can only be used once?”

“Bingo!”

Xu Shuo snapped his fingers in the air. “If it’s a completely ‘clean’ crime scene that hasn’t been processed for evidence at all, luminol is absolutely effective. But the hemoglobin activated by luminol will also be damaged, so further testing can’t be done afterward. That’s why real professional technicians won’t use this method lightly, unless all the non-destructive evidence collection methods have already been exhausted and they have no choice but to resort to this last-ditch move. If something like those TV shows, where they spray luminol everywhere, happened in a real case, the technicians would be suspended for review.”

Gu Yao listened carefully. “What do you mean by no choice?”

Xu Shuo said, “For example, if someone used bleach to clean up blood at a scene, then luminol would be useless. But if you wait a few days and then use luminol while keeping the surroundings dark, the direction of the washed-away blood spatter will still show up. Unfortunately, bleach destroys the DNA in blood.”

Gu Yao frowned as she listened. For a second, she doubted whether what he was saying was true, but Xu Shuo’s expression didn’t seem like he was making it up.

Xu Shuo went on, “From what I can tell, I believe this room hasn’t been sprayed with luminol yet. Since the technicians haven’t damaged the scene, how could I have the nerve to make trouble for them?”

As he spoke, he walked to the area marked “4” and took another photo, saying, “Besides, luminol isn’t all-powerful. Every chemical has its limits, and oxidizing substances in daily life aren’t limited to hydrogen peroxide. Take toilet cleaner, for example, it will also glow when it comes into contact with luminol. So if you blindly trust this kind of unreliable chemical test, all you’ll do is mislead your own judgment.”

By then, a long silence had settled in the room.

Xu Shuo turned and glanced at Gu Yao. Seeing her staring straight at him, he raised a brow and asked, “What, are you scared by my professional knowledge?”

Gu Yao was surprisingly honest. “A little. I’m seeing you in a new light. Did you memorize all this on the spot, or did you already know it?”

“This kind of basic common sense still needs to be memorized?”

Gu Yao: “…”

The thing to fear most was a thug with brains, especially one who liked showing off.

Xu Shuo smiled. “You don’t really think I’m some useless thug of a lawyer, do you? The people I deal with are all criminals who’ve violated the law. If I didn’t have some real skills and a bit of superiority, how could I ever keep those lawbreakers in line? Isn’t it the same in your criminal psychology too? The prerequisite for dealing with criminals is to resonate with them. You have to know both yourself and your enemy to win every battle. If you can’t even guess what a criminal is thinking or what they’re going to do next, then you’re only fit to write after-the-fact papers.”

Gu Yao froze again. “You actually know that.”

The moment she said it, she regretted it.

Maybe she shouldn’t have underestimated this man. Maybe those shameless, vulgar acts were just his protective color. After all, wearing a skin of a “decent gentleman” would never let him deal with criminals. Only by appearing to be “the same kind of person” on the surface could he get those criminals to talk to him willingly.

Thinking of that, Gu Yao asked, “Then after looking around for so long, have you come to any conclusions? I have to remind you, the real scene of the crime should be in the bedroom. The news said Lian Qiyun died on the bed. What use is it for you to keep wandering around the living room?”

Xu Shuo lifted one brow, then raised his noble, precious long leg and went back to the doorway. He pointed at the low cabinet on the porch and said, “Take a look at this. What is it?”

Gu Yao stepped closer and looked. There was a small dried mark on the cabinet, like a water stain.

Xu Shuo used a damp cotton swab to pick up a little of it, then gently dropped iodine on it. The swab turned blue instantly.

Starch turns blue when it meets iodine.

Gu Yao was stunned. “Saliva?”

Xu Shuo smiled. “Yeah. But why would there be a puddle of saliva here? Judging from the height, it should have been an adult at the time, bent over like this against the low cabinet…”

As he spoke, Xu Shuo mimicked it for her, throwing himself onto it. The suit pants immediately tightened over his ass, outlining a round, lifted curve and the neatly defined lines of his thigh muscles.

Gu Yao turned her face away at once.

Seeing that, Xu Shuo said in mock surprise, “Oh, do you think my pose is improper? Actually, I think so too. With my height, doing this isn’t very reasonable, so the person leaning here should have been a woman, someone… about your height.”

Gu Yao immediately shot him a glare.

Xu Shuo tactfully stepped back two paces and muttered, “Fine, fine, I know you’re a respectable young lady,” while crouching down to pull something out of the large plastic bag he’d brought in.

When Gu Yao looked closely, she was even more speechless.

That damn thing was a blow-up doll, and a very crudely made one at that, with distorted features and messy, flying hair.

If the timing hadn’t been so wrong, Gu Yao really would have laughed from anger.

This man… he was truly absurd!

But Xu Shuo looked innocent and even placed the doll on the low cabinet, making it lie face-down. The doll’s face was just right against that dried stain.

Gu Yao: “…”

While pressing the doll’s head down, Xu Shuo said, “See? This height and posture fit. So the question is, why would this woman be leaning here spitting?”

Gu Yao: “…………”

Another long silence.

Gu Yao folded her arms across her chest and glared at Xu Shuo without blinking.

Xu Shuo, meanwhile, was calm and unhurried, looking back at her with a somewhat harmless expression.

Only when the quiet air was broken by Gu Yao’s intake of breath did she finally speak. “Obviously, there was a man and a woman who couldn’t even wait to get upstairs, and they were so impatient they had sex right here.”

Xu Shuo nodded seriously, then used a clean cotton swab to take a little of the saliva and put it into a test tube, sealing it.

“Then, let’s assume this person was Tian Fang. She and Lian Qiyun did it here once, which means Lian Qiyun was already very ‘worked up’ before he even came in. So maybe on the drive over, the two of them had already done some unmentionable things?”

Gu Yao fought the urge to roll her eyes. “That’s possible.”

Xu Shuo curved his lips, grabbed the blow-up doll, and walked into the living room. This time he went even further. He not only wrapped his arms around the doll and lay down on the sofa with it, entangling his limbs with the doll’s, he even rolled onto the carpet together with it.

Gu Yao just stood there, staring in disbelief at his performance, and even forgot the saying about not looking at what you shouldn’t.

Then she realized that the spot where Xu Shuo and the doll had fallen was exactly where the carpet had been cut out.

Gu Yao immediately asked, “Do you think they did it a second time here?”

Holding the doll in his arms as he sat there, Xu Shuo gave a dazzling, coquettish smile. “My guess is that the thing on this cut-out patch of carpet isn’t bloodstains, but Lian Qiyun’s body fluid.”

That was indeed a possibility.

Xu Shuo stood up and pointed at a few other spots. “I checked the other places. They should have nothing to do with sex. But I also found a bit of dried white residue on the floor in front of the floor-to-ceiling window. I don’t need to say what that is, do I?”

Gu Yao: “…”

Xu Shuo lifted the doll and stood up, looking around the room. “Wow, three rounds in the living room. Should we go upstairs and take a look?”

Gu Yao: “…………”

The two of them went upstairs one after the other.

Along the way, Xu Shuo was like a search dog, looking for evidence all the way up the stairs, only to come up empty-handed.

Gu Yao even mocked him once. “So, did you find any unknown liquid this time?”

“None at all.” Xu Shuo stood up, raked a hand through his hair, then threw the question back at Gu Yao. “I wonder, in a psychologist’s eyes, what can the place where Lian Qiyun chose to have sex reveal about his psychology?”

Gu Yao paused. If he hadn’t reminded her, she might have almost overlooked this point. She said, “The stairs aren’t a comfortable place. If they did it on the stairs, Lian Qiyun would definitely have to kneel down, which would wear on his knees. If he just wanted stimulation, the porch or the area in front of the floor-to-ceiling window would be more suitable than here. Obviously, Lian Qiyun pursued sexual stimulation, but he was also someone who cared a lot about comfort. And the low cabinet, sofa, carpet, in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, and the bed in the bedroom, those spots are all less strenuous than the stairs.”

Xu Shuo walked ahead, listening to Gu Yao’s analysis as he crossed the hallway and headed toward the bedroom, casually saying, “Mm, you’re pretty down-to-earth.”

Gu Yao: “…”

By the time they finished speaking, they had already reached the bedroom door.

The furnishings inside were obvious at a glance, an oversized bed, a television facing the bed, a large wardrobe, and a door leading to the bathroom.

Xu Shuo went in first and made a round. His gaze fell on the bed, which only had a mattress left. Clearly, the sheets and bedding had already been taken away to collect evidence, like hair, skin flakes, fingerprints, blood, and even body fluid.

There was also a human outline drawn on the mattress, clearly tracing a human shape. That should have been the posture in which Lian Qiyun died suddenly.

Gu Yao came to the bed and studied the human outline closely.

Xu Shuo had already walked to the television and picked up two remotes from underneath it. After examining them for a moment, he basically determined that one was for the TV. So what was the other one for?

He pressed a few buttons at random.

In the next second, the lighting in the room changed. Blue, then red, blue and red light and shadows interlaced, instantly turning the whole room into the kind of erotic themed room commonly seen on television.

Gu Yao froze and subconsciously met Xu Shuo’s eyes.

Xu Shuo switched the lighting back and grinned. “City people really know how to play.”

But Gu Yao walked straight over and took the remote away, trying the other buttons.

The functions really were abundant. Not only could it adjust the bed position, it could also open and close the curtains and play surround stereo sound. One of the buttons was even more outrageous, directly opening the concealed panel in the ceiling to reveal a giant mirror facing the bed.

The two of them looked up at the same time, staring at the mirror, and their gazes even met inside it.

Xu Shuo: “Tsk, tsk, tsk…”

Gu Yao: “…………”

Then Xu Shuo set the blow-up doll from his hands onto the mattress and arranged it into the outline of the human figure, but no matter how he positioned it, it always ended up outside the lines, as if it were hard to align properly.

Gu Yao was still staring up at the mirror, and naturally she also saw the blow-up doll on the mattress. She suddenly said, “No, pull the left arm in a little more. Put both hands over the position of the heart.”

Xu Shuo paused, then did as she said.

Gu Yao said, “Bend the right leg, let it brace the mattress under the bed.”

Xu Shuo continued.

After a moment of adjustment like this, the blow-up doll finally fit snugly inside the human outline, though the pose was extremely twisted and absolutely against human ergonomics.

Xu Shuo folded his arms and tilted his head to study it for a moment, then concluded, “If I slept in this position, I’d definitely end up with a crooked neck and back strain.”

“This is the posture of his desperate struggle in the final moment of his life.” Standing on the other side of the bed, Gu Yao stared at the doll’s pose as well and said, “The three sexual acts downstairs were all led by Lian Qiyun. By rights, he should have been very exhausted already. After going upstairs, he should have let Tian Fang take the initiative, which means, Lian Qiyun below, Tian Fang above. During that process, the chance of Lian Qiyun suddenly dying was relatively high.”

Xu Shuo sucked in his cheeks. “Well, no kidding, this guy’s parts were way too active.”

Gu Yao looked up. “You mean he was too frequent?”

Xu Shuo began calculating the time. “They stayed in this villa for seven hours. That time also includes the time Tian Fang spent finding the people from Likun to clean up after them, so shorten it to five hours. Based on our earlier deduction, the two of them started getting intimate as soon as they came in. On the way here, Lian Qiyun was already getting worked up. After they entered, they did it three times in the living room, and then who knows how many times upstairs. That’s not even counting the breaks in between… Lian Qiyun was thirty-eight this year, not eighteen. That kind of ‘consumption’ is absolutely not something a man nearing forty could withstand.”

Indeed, it was highly abnormal.

Gu Yao followed up, “Once a week can help relieve stress. Normally, twice a week is good for healthy blood circulation, and the longer the interval between the two times, the more it helps reduce the risk of heart disease. There’s also data showing that three times a week helps improve the immune system. Any more than that starts to burden the body’s energy consumption. But Lian Qiyun had more than four times within a few hours. Unless he took medication in advance to stimulate his parts into overperformance, it would be impossible to do that.”

After a beat, Gu Yao looked at Xu Shuo and went on, “And with Lian Qiyun’s job and position, his pressure must have been greater than most men’s, so he chose to relieve stress this way. Also, this happened at night, and that day wasn’t a holiday, which means Lian Qiyun should have come here to unwind after a full day of high-pressure work. His body and mind were already overworked. Add in the stimulation from the medication, and his body would have shown abnormal reactions from overexertion, yet he still didn’t rein it in. Blood supply to the heart couldn’t keep up, and at that point it would be very easy to trigger a cardiovascular or cerebrovascular disease, or even die from kidney failure. But the exact cause of death will only be known after you get Tian Fang’s authorization and see the forensic report.”