Indeed, just as Li Ang had suspected, the final perpetrators of the case were none other than the victim's father-in-law and mother-in-law, who lived with the deceased. The father-in-law, taking advantage of his son's absence for work, had harbored improper intentions toward the deceased and coerced her multiple tis. The victim sought help from her mother-in-law, yet the latter, for the sake of "not airing dirty laundry in public," remained complicit, even joining her husband in imprisoning her daughter-in-law. During one instance of humiliation, the victim declared she would tell her husband everything upon his return from work. In a panic, her father-in-law and mother-in-law strangled her to death and attempted to stage the scene as a suicide by hanging to evade responsibility. Throughout this process, the two couldn't bear to look directly at the corpse with its eyes open and even deliberately covered her face with a cloth.
Watching the tearful confessions of the two elderly murderers on the TV program, their faces pixelated, Li Ang couldn't help but scoff. "These people are just comical."
"Hm?" Wang Fengnian cast a questioning glance.
Li Ang spread his hands. "I don't think their tears are a sign of genuine repentance.
"Throughout their cri, they had countless opportunities to stop harming the victim.
"Did they stop? No.
"The tears of criminals who actively harm the innocent, after putting on prison garb, are nothing but regret for getting caught and fear of the impending punishnt.
"Scum will always be scum."
Wang Fengnian nodded noncommittally and asked, "Xiao Li, you have quite a knack for deduction, haven't you? Shan Shan ntioned that you read a lot of detective mystery novels in the past?"
Li Ang certainly couldn't tell him that he had devoured a pile of detective novels at Xinhua Bookstore back in junior high and had begun using the internet to study a series of books like "Criminal Science Technology," "Criminal Investigation Science," "Trace Examination," and "Investigation Jurisprudence" (available online, with physical copies also for sale).
He smiled and nodded. "Yes, my childhood dream was to beco a nesis of cri, to maintain social order, and to safeguard the lives and property of the people."
"Hmm." Wang Fengnian nodded. Then, as if recalling sothing, he went back to the study and returned with several docunts.
These docunts were cases officially reported to Yin City recently. In the past few months, all sorts of strange occurrences had been happening one after another, leaving grassroots officers frazzled. Frontline officers like Wang Fengnian hadn't been able to go ho and have a normal al with his family for a long ti.
He took out more than twenty photos from the docunt bag. "What do you make of these photographs?"
Li Ang took the photographs and discovered that the cri scene captured was in an ordinary residential building. In the living room of the two-bedroom apartnt, the male and female hoowners lay dead on the floor with several deep knife wounds on their abdons, surrounded by a large pool of blood. All the cabinet doors in the room were open, and miscellaneous items were piled on the sofa; there were no blood-soaked footprints or other bloodstains on the floor. The murder weapon, a steel dinner knife with a short handle and a smoothly curved blade, was soaking in the sink of the narrow, lit bathroom. Beneath the light switch box—located on the wall to the right of and sowhat below the washbasin—there was also a trail of blood droplets.
Li Ang, looking at the photographs without raising his head, asked, "A break-in robbery?"
"Right." Wang Fengnian nodded. "A firefighting ladder was standing outside the window. The perpetrator sneaked into the house at night and murdered the hoowners during the robbery. The entry and exit point was precisely in a surveillance blind spot, so he wasn't captured on cara."
"Hmm...." Li Ang flicked a photo with his finger and said, "How long has this case been open?"
"Two days ago."
Li Ang laid the photos on the table and said, "I can't be certain, but I suggest going to the hospitals and clinics near where the incident occurred to look for recent admission records.
"See if there's a patient who has a deep cut on the palm of their right hand."
"Oh?" Wang Fengnian furrowed his brows. "Why?"
Li Ang spread out the photos on a glass coffee table laden with fruit and tea leaves and pointed at several of them. "The bathroom in this residence is quite cramped and dark. The light switch box, in particular, is located on the wall to the right of and below the sink.
"The only bloodstain here is right below the light switch box, and the blood dripped vertically.
"This shape of bloodstain clearly indicates the suspect dripped it while pressing the switch.
"The light switch box is on the right side of the sink. This would make it awkward for soone to use their left hand to press it; they would most likely use their right. This ans the blood ca from the suspect's right palm."
He glanced at Wang Fengnian and smiled. "So, does this blood belong to the suspect or the victim?
"I'm more inclined to think it's the suspect's own blood.
"If it were blood the murderer got on themselves from the victim, the drip stains should go from thick to thin, top to bottom.
"However, the concentration of these bloodstains is consistent, which ans it must have co from a wound on the murderer's own hand.
"Furthermore, based on the shape of the dinner knife, I'd guess the murderer was injured. The knife has a short handle and a long blade.
"When gripping the handle and stabbing forward with force, their hand likely slipped, and the blade cut their right palm.
"As for why there are no other bloodstains in the living room and all the miscellaneous items are piled on the sofa...
"I guess the murderer went to the bathroom to quickly treat their hand, then returned to the living room to wipe up any blood before fleeing the scene.
"Finally, judging by the amount of blood below the light switch box,
"I suspect the hand injury was quite severe, requiring professional dical attention—stitches at a hospital or clinic.
"It should be easy to find them by checking recent patient records for anyone treated for a cut on their right palm."
Having said that, Li Ang looked at Wang Fengnian's calm face and smiled. "Uncle Wang, you must have already confird through lab tests that the blood belongs to a third party in the room—the suspect themselves, right?
"Once you have a DNA sample, catching the suspect is just a matter of ti."
Li Ang had another thought he didn't voice: he speculated that a series of strange incidents had recently occurred on a large scale in Yin City. This ho invasion and murder case was actually quite simple. Even without following his suggestion to check hospitals and clinics, or using a DNA sample for a search, the authorities could find the murderer through a large-scale review of surveillance footage, relying on sheer manpower. Typically, homicide cases are always solved. The fact that this case was already two days old suggested that Yin City's official manpower was likely stretched thin.
Was this situation caused by supernatural factors randomly generated by the murder ga, or was there another reason?
Li Ang's face maintained a calm smile, while his mind buzzed with thoughts.
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