Deadly Chain

“Is your brain broken?”

“It’s hard not to get broken when you’re with Doctor Gu.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re cute.”

“I don’t like the word ‘cute.'”

“Then what do you like?” Mo Lin’s words might work to flirt with girls, but sitting behind him was Gu Yuan, who simply said five words: “I like you to shut up.”

Mo Lin thought to himself: Quite the debater.

Gu Yuan, the conversation terminator, still packs a punch.

Suddenly, Mo Lin got serious: “How do you think the killer got into the house?”

“Through the door.”

The victim lived on the 18th floor of a high-rise building, making it impossible to climb from the outside, so the only way was through the door.

“There are surveillance cameras at the entrance and in the elevator. If he entered through regular means, the cameras would have caught him.”

Talking about the case, Gu Yuan finally spoke more.

“You haven’t finished reading the files from Lianchi City, have you?” Mo Lin said as he made a 180-degree turn with the steering wheel.

“Not yet.”

“In the previous cases, the surveillance was destroyed. This time, if nothing unexpected happens, he’ll use the same method.” The car smoothly parked in the space, and Mo Lin pulled the handbrake: “We’re here.”

The conference room was packed with people, with a few media staff standing in the last row.

Once everyone was present, the police began explaining the entire case process.

Gu Yuan already knew this from Mo Lin.

“To prevent another murder, we need to leverage the media’s publicity power. Kindergarten teachers and nurses are now listed as high-risk groups…”

After the meeting, everyone’s faces didn’t look too good.

The body was discovered by the victim’s relative, who was now in the interrogation room giving a statement. Li Meng stood by the glass outside the interrogation room, sighing helplessly.

He canceled his train ticket back home: “The killer is blatantly provoking us, using the same method again. If we can’t catch him, where will we put our police reputation?”

Just then, Xiao Ze came out of the office and witnessed this scene: “Still have time to complain? Is your work done?”

Li Meng returned to his workstation, dejected, and began investigating the social media accounts of the deceased flight attendant, Yuan Hui.

“Teacher Mo, come with me.” Xiao Ze called Mo Lin away.

The lab sent a message: They found a male’s semen in the victim’s vagina, and her blood contained a lethal dose of sleeping pills. Additionally, there was indeed a note in the wax block, which read: “First Night.”

“It’s exactly the same as the Lianchi City case!”

In previous cases, the killer left no DNA, and everyone thought it would be the same result this time. But unexpectedly, there was a new discovery.

This excited everyone.

The deceased flight attendant lay on the cold autopsy table, her face covered by a white cloth. It’s hard to imagine that just yesterday she returned from work at the airport, eager to take a hot bath and sleep well, only to be met with death the next day.

Gu Yuan began preparing to autopsy the body. He skillfully cut open the victim’s skin, muscles, and fascia, used an electric saw to cut open the ribs, lifted the sternum, and isolated the heart and entire lungs.

The bottom of the lungs had a large amount of dark red substance.

“Could this be from smoking?” asked the police officer taking photos behind him.

“This is postmortem lividity in the lungs, you’re overthinking it.” Gu Yuan’s response was cold, making the already serious atmosphere even more solemn.

Due to the media and leadership attention on this criminal case, no mistakes were allowed, so Gu Yuan performed the autopsy very carefully.

After opening the victim’s abdominal cavity, there was little content in the intestines, indicating that the victim hadn’t eaten well before death, and the stomach had shrunk into a small lump.

Gu Yuan cut open the stomach, which was empty, and he extracted some gastric juice and stomach tissue for testing.

Since the victim died from an overdose of sleeping pills, which must be metabolized by the liver, the liver dissection was particularly important. Gu Yuan cut down the entire liver to send to the lab for testing.

Because male DNA was found in the victim’s vagina, Gu Yuan used a speculum to open it and carefully examined it. The outer opening of the vaginal wall had marks of being scratched by a hard object. Normally, the area around the wound should be red and swollen, even bleeding, but this wound showed none of those signs, appearing to have been caused postmortem.

“Take a photo.”

Gu Yuan shone the flashlight on the wound so the person behind him could take clearer pictures.

He cut two strips of vaginal tissue and carefully placed them in a bottle.

After finishing everything, Gu Yuan covered the body with a white cloth and pushed it to the freezer.

After sending all the organ tissues for testing, Gu Yuan washed his hands many times at the sink, then meticulously recorded the autopsy report.

Afterward, he slung his backpack over his shoulder and went home.

This time, Xiao Ze didn’t stop him, letting him go.

He noticed that this new forensic doctor always needed to go home and take a shower after an autopsy before returning to work, a request he could accept.

*

The case was still under further investigation. The police compared all the DNA from people with criminal records but found no matches. On the day of the incident, the apartment building’s surveillance was deliberately destroyed, making it impossible to track the killer’s movements.

Just as the case hit a bottleneck, Li Meng, who was investigating the victim’s social media, made a new discovery.

“The night before the incident, the victim browsed a large number of women’s bags on a second-hand luxury goods online store and added a few to her shopping cart. When communicating with the seller, she revealed that she was a flight attendant. I saw this black Gucci small square bag at the crime scene!”

“Pull up the photos for comparison!” Xiao Ze immediately perked up.

It turned out that the bags shown in the two photos were indeed the same, even the tiny scratches on the metal were identical.

Based on this clue, the police immediately launched a manhunt.

Since the website required real-name registration, it wasn’t hard to find the seller’s detailed address.

The seller lived in the outskirts, where the security wasn’t great, and the apartment buildings were quite rundown. The police stood in front of a rusty iron door, holding guns, able to hear each other’s breathing.

Xiao Ze knocked on the door a few times and pressed his ear against the iron door to listen for any movement inside. The sound of a toilet flushing came from within.

Soon after, the door opened, revealing a woman with disheveled hair.

The woman looked listless, her complexion sallow, cheekbones prominent, not particularly attractive, and about 165cm tall, with a slightly plump build.

“What’s up?” She opened a crack in the door, with a thick anti-theft chain hanging inside.

The police on both sides were hidden behind the door, so the woman only saw Xiao Ze.

“I’m here to inspect the gas pipes.” Xiao Ze said, showing the prepared credentials: “May I come in?”

“Oh, come in!”

The woman opened the door, only to see the numerous armed police behind Xiao Ze. She took a step back, looking surprised: “What are you doing?”

A group of police officers stormed into the room, conducting a thorough search. Besides the woman, there was no one else in the room.

“You’re suspected of murder, please come with us!”

“What murder? I didn’t kill anyone! Let me go!”

The woman was taken back to the interrogation room, looking completely clueless: “What murder? How could I be involved in murder? You must be mistaken, I’m innocent…”

In the interrogation room, the woman’s loud voice was piercing, almost penetrating the soundproof glass.

“This woman is quite something, even looks stronger than some men!” Li Meng remarked.

Twenty minutes passed, and the woman only provided her name and ID information, completely resistant to other inquiries. It wasn’t until Xiao Ze presented the photo of the Gucci bag and the evidence that she finally stopped protesting.

Zhang Haiyan stared at it for a long time before softly saying: “I see, the woman who bought the bag died, so you suspect me?”

“How did your bag end up in her house?”

“Is this how you police conduct investigations? In this day and age, don’t you know about same-city delivery services? I sold the bag to that flight attendant, but I didn’t go to her house. I spent fifty yuan to hire a same-city delivery guy to help me deliver it. If you’re going to arrest someone, arrest that delivery guy!”

Zhang Haiyan said as she took out her phone and found the order from this morning: “It’s this delivery guy. Can I go now?”

“Your suspicion hasn’t been cleared, you can’t leave yet.”

Xiao Ze left the interrogation room, rubbing his temples: “This woman is too noisy. Li Meng, go in and help Xiao Wang with the statement. I’ll take people to this delivery platform to catch someone.”

Mo Lin had just finished a video conference and saw Gu Yuan entering from the door as he came out of Xiao Ze’s office.

He had changed out of his police uniform into a simple white round-neck sweater and beige casual pants, with soft hair resting on his forehead, looking like a little lamb.

After understanding the case progress from his colleagues, Gu Yuan walked to the glass in front of the interrogation room, seriously observing the expressions on the woman’s face.

At some point, someone appeared beside him.

“Doctor Gu, have you discovered anything new?”

“Yes.”

“Oh? Let’s hear it.” Mo Lin always maintained a keen curiosity about Gu Yuan.

“The victim wasn’t sexually assaulted before death. Someone injected male semen into her vagina using a tool, likely a woman’s skincare dropper.”

Gu Yuan took out his phone and showed the latest report from the lab.

It indicated that the semen was mixed with a small amount of niacinamide and salicylic acid, both components found in skincare products.

“Moreover, the microscopic state of the victim’s vaginal wall showed no signs of friction, so the killer is framing someone.”

Mo Lin reached through the sweater to grab Gu Yuan’s wrist: “Let’s go, let’s search her house.”

“Let go first.” Gu Yuan, like a stubborn lamb.

Mo Lin naturally let go, putting his hands in his pockets: “Sorry.”

Then he smiled again, noticeably brighter than before.

Gu Yuan suspected he did it on purpose.

The two got into the car one after the other, and this time they were quite in sync, with no arguments along the way, mainly because Mo Lin didn’t speak.