"In that case, why didn’t the neighbors hear any screams that night?"
"Because they were playing cards; it was already noisy, and the neighbors were used to it, so no one paid attention."
Li Xiang nodded thoughtfully.
Then, looking at the chalk outline on the ground marking the victim’s position, and comparing it with the photos of the cri scene at the ti, Li Xiang slowly lay down, aligning himself with the dead body’s posture.
"Team Leader Li..."
Ding Youqiang was surprised that Li Xiang, despite his young age, was so brave. This was where a dead person had lain; the black dried blood on the sumr ground still emitted a putrid sll, yet he lay down there.
Moreover, this wasn’t just any dead person, but a violently deceased one, rumored to have turned into a vicious ghost after killing soone.
Of course, these were just rumors, not to be believed. However, whenever he thought about them, they still made him uneasy.
Li Xiang paid no heed to such matters. If they were real, he would be curious to see what this apparition looked like—whether as stunning as on TV—and then see if it could compete with his system.
Anyway, while working, he remained very serious and ticulous. Observing so spatter patterns of blood on the ground, he ignored Ding Youqiang’s peculiar gaze and continually adjusted his own posture as he lay down.
With Grandmaster Level forensic dicine skills, he could reconstruct the cri scene using drip and spatter bloodstains to aid him in understanding the incident.
First, he used formulas to calculate the angle of incidence for these bloodstains and then extended lines along these angles to take multiple points using this thod. The intersection point of these lines was the point of bleeding, indicating where the victim was attacked.
"According to the current investigation direction, the suspect might be a traveler from outside looking for cheap travel options. Now, assu you are this outsider, let’s simulate what happened on the night of the cri."
"Uh, okay!"
Ding Youqiang didn’t quite understand how this simulation would help; could it really lead them to the culprit?
Although skeptical, he decided to cooperate when necessary: "What should I do?"
"It’s simple. First, imagine you’re a budget traveler. Under what circumstances would you choose to rob and murder soone?"
"In a dead-end situation!"
"Be more specific. Perhaps he’s very thirsty or hungry, yet has no money, leading him to commit robbery at a small store out of desperation."
"That’s the logic." Ding Youqiang nodded in agreent.
"But there’s a logical gap here. If he was so thirsty or hungry, why didn’t he take food from the shelves? Look at these shelves—they are organized neatly without signs of ravaging. This doesn’t align with our initial assumptions."
"We discussed this before. It’s inconvenient for a suspect to carry a lot of food while fleeing. He would only need a small amount to stave off hunger temporarily. So spots on the shelves might have been cleared out by him, and then he would take all the cash from the register, allowing him to buy food wherever he fled."
"This is your post-fact assessnt. I believe the suspect’s primary motive was monetary, not murder. This becos evident from his use of the victim’s kitchen knife as a weapon; he didn’t bring a murder weapon with him, indicating he did not plan to kill from the outset.
Instead, he was caught in the act of theft, panicked when the victim appeared, saw the knife, and under sudden impulse, killed her. After a spontaneous act of violent cri, could he really calmly collect items from the shelves?"
"This..." Ding Youqiang was montarily at a loss for words.
They, too, had been puzzled about this back then, but they exhausted all the potential leads and found none. Without other clues, they reluctantly shifted their focus to outsiders. However, despite a lengthy investigation, no valuable clues erged.
"There’s another issue here."
"Another one?"
"Yes, reconstructing the scene from these bloodstains, the victim had walked seven or eight steps from inside the room before the assailant stabbed her for the first ti. Then, during her escape towards the door, she was stabbed multiple tis; yet, there were no bloody footprints on the ground. This suggests the assailant didn’t return but rather, after realizing the murder, quickly fled the cri scene. By this ti, he had already stolen the money; his initial goal, after all, was financial gain."
After Li Xiang’s thorough analysis at the cri scene, the nature of the case beca increasingly clear.
"This wasn’t a case of ho invasion leading to robbery and murder; it was a burglary that escalated to a spontaneous murder out of fear of exposure, and the perpetrator was from this village."
"Oh, how so?"
At this mont, Ding Youqiang felt certain of his abilities. The team leader dispatched from the provincial level indeed had impressive skills, his analysis being logical and well-founded, highlighting nurous issues they had overlooked.
Li Xiang astonishingly narrowed down the suspect to a local, surprising him, as they had initially ruled out local involvent for various reasons, directing their investigation to outsiders.
But now, Li Xiang suggested they had discounted the correct answer from the very start, leaving him at a loss on how to process this revelation.
"According to your investigation, on the night of the cri, the neighbors didn’t hear the victim’s screams because late-night card gas were common, and the noise was usual to them. But if the victim found a stranger sneaking around her ho, wouldn’t she shout for help? Yet, she didn’t—why not?"
"She knew the thief?"
"Exactly, she knew the thief. When she discovered the thief, she didn’t imdiately call out for help but approached to see what he was doing. Not wanting his theft to be exposed, the suspect then ford the intent to kill."
Ding Youqiang had to admit that Li Xiang’s speculation was logically consistent, though he still had a question: "We investigated all the locals, everyone relevant to the case was interviewed, except Qiao Liangfu, who had no alibi during the cri. Later, we conducted a thorough search of his ho and found nothing suspicious. Could we have missed sothing?"
Their initial investigative direction indeed aligned with Li Xiang’s assessnt; he rely highlighted details they had overlooked, but their direction wasn’t incorrect.
Yet, their investigation ended with no conclusive findings.
"We need to adjust our investigation, focusing again on locals. We should re-evaluate all the locals’ movents that night, consolidate all suspicious clues, and verify each point of doubt."
In any case, if the investigation’s direction is wrong, no amount of effort will yield results.
Li Xiang tily redirected their investigation, steering them back to focusing on villagers.
He believed that clues would erge soon.
After all, this village had only a few hundred households. With divided investigations, it wouldn’t take long to cover them all.
"Alright, I will arrange that right away."
"Wait a minute. I have a rough guess on the suspect’s profile. The perpetrator is male, aged between 20 to 50, and stands over 1.75 ters tall. Concentrate your investigation on this demographic, and you should find sothing."
"Uh, why would the suspect be taller than 1.75 ters?"
The first two criteria for the suspect were not difficult to understand. The victim had little chance to resist before being killed, indicating the suspect had superior strength, adequate to overpower Qin Qinglian. Thus, the theory of a young and robust suspect was plausible.
But how was the suspect’s height deduced?
No footprints were found at the scene to assist in this deduction.
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