"Okay." After Nan Zhan finished speaking, Jian Si ca out carrying the washed fruits, which were all organically grown in the small courtyard, tasting very natural without any odd flavors.
Jian Si handed a peach to him, and when Nan Zhan reached out, his fingertips unintentionally touched hers. She retracted her hand as if shocked by electricity and walked away with her head lowered.
"Did you two have a fight?" Zhengzheng teased with a smile.
"No." Nan Zhan denied it, taking a bite of the peach in his hand. It was truly sweet.
Zhengzheng leaned into his ear, lowered her voice, and said, "My sister is really great. Not only is she pretty, but she also has a good personality, and she’s never been in a relationship. Big brother, why don’t you consider her? I think you two would be quite a match."
Nan Zhan almost choked on the peach and, looking down at Zhengzheng’s earnest little face, he couldn’t help but ruffle her hair, "Oh really? How well-matched are we?"
"You look like a married couple."
"At such a young age, you already know about looking like a married couple." Nan Zhan was amused by her.
"I’m serious, do you want to pursue her? I’ll help you. With my assistance, I guarantee things will flow smoothly for you, achieving results with half the effort," Zhengzheng confidently patted her chest, her deanor bearing quite a resemblance to Nan Zhan’s.
While the two were talking in the yard, Jian Hedong, who was helping out, asked Jian Si, "Sisi, are you and Lawyer Nan...?"
Jian Si knew what he ant and quickly denied it, "Uncle, he is just a friend of mine, perhaps not even that,"
"I think Lawyer Nan is pretty good. You are already twenty-five; you should think about your own happiness. He will definitely be good to you in the future."
Jian Si smiled and shook her head, but her gaze couldn’t help but drift outside the window.
Under the dense foliage, there was a small low table with two small stools, where Nan Zhan and Zhengzheng were sitting face to face. They must have been talking about sothing interesting, both curving their lips into smiles, their expressions so strikingly similar it was like they were two versions of the sa person, casting a complex parade of emotions through Jian Si’s heart.
Nan Zhan hadn’t even waited for dinner before he received a call from the police station. After hanging up, he called Jian Si out, "We need to go."
"Is there a clue?" Jian Si asked excitedly.
"The police have found the first cri scene."
~
Nan Zhan, Jian Si, and Jian Chuan arrived together at the first cri scene found by the police, a small hill that one must pass to reach Jian Si’s residential area. Many tall trees were planted on the hill, along with a gazebo.
The place that police had discovered was beneath a small dirt slope in the forest.
The cri scene had already been cordoned off with yellow police tape, and a few officers were collecting evidence.
"Brother." A sweaty Nan Yu walked over and gave Jian Si a grin when he saw her, "You’ve now beco my brother’s constant assistant."
Jian Si certainly didn’t want to be any assistant. The reason she had been following Nan Zhan was to help solve the case quickly. Although she wasn’t good at deduction, she could sketch portraits, which could maybe unveil the mystery of the case under the right conditions.
"Doctor Jian." Nan Yu nodded at Jian Chuan.
"What have you discovered?" Nan Zhan accepted a pair of white gloves and shoe covers from Nan Yu, putting them on before crawling under the police tape.
Nan Yu said, "We received a call from a sanitation worker this morning. He found a lady’s sandal with dark stains on it while cleaning up leaves here. Suspecting it was blood, he reported it to the police. We tested the blood on the sandal against that of the three victims and found it matched one of them."
"And then?"
"Then we conducted a thorough search of the area and found many residual bloodstains buried in the dirt. Our preliminary assessnt is that this is the first cri scene where the murderer killed the victim before transferring the body using another thod."
"What’s this?" Nan Zhan picked up a sealed evidence bag containing two white plastic buttons.
"These were also found in the dirt, stained with the victim’s blood. However, the color and style of these buttons don’t seem like they’d co from won’s clothing, so we suspect they were torn off by a victim during the cri."
Nan Zhan examined them carefully for a mont, "These two buttons, one is new, the other old. The new one likely replaced an old one that fell off the murderer’s clothing. The murderer is probably around fifty years old, dresses simply, and seldom buys new clothes. This button style has been out of fashion for so ti, and other than in so old-fashioned tailor shops, it would be challenging to find."
"Brother, you an we should check every tailor and button shop?"
"Yes, because not many people would buy this kind of button. The shop owner would most likely rember. Also," Nan Zhan continued, "if the murderer chose to kill here, why didn’t he just dig a hole and bury the body rather than take the trouble to move it to the residential area?"
Nan Yu nodded, "I’ve thought about that too."
Nan Zhan handed the buttons to Nan Yu, "The only explanation is that the murderer intended to bury the body on the spot but soone happened by at that mont. The murderer, being cautious, figured that his actions in such a frequented place would be suspicious, so he devised a way to move the body into the residential area. A person able to carry a corpse into that complex without raising the guard’s suspicions must live there or be a regular visitor, familiar with the security staff."
Nan Yu said, "Bro, what you’re suggesting is... there’s a witness."
"Right, soone definitely saw the murderer at that ti. They didn’t report it for two reasons: first, they might not have known what the murderer was actually doing; second, they wanted to avoid trouble."
"Then, how can we find this witness?"
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