Deadly Chain

The suspect’s door was wide open, with two police officers inside collecting evidence. Gu Yuan walked to the bathroom, which was filled with women’s bottles and jars, and a few strands of long black hair had fallen into the sink. Wearing gloves, he searched through the skincare products for any matching evidence.

Mo Lin entered the master bedroom, which looked quite messy. There were piles of dirty clothes and socks on the bay window, unwashed, emitting a sour stench. The master bedroom had a fairly spacious bathroom filled with women’s body lotion, conditioner, and a bunch of other stuff.

Mo Lin noticed an inconspicuous small brown bottle in the corner of the room. The cap was missing, and he shook it to find there was still liquid inside. The bottle looked very familiar, as if he had seen it somewhere before.

“Found it,” Mo Lin’s voice came from the master bedroom’s bathroom.

Gu Yuan checked the bottle, noting that the mouth was still wet. By examining the information on the bottle, he identified it as a dropper-type structure.

“How did you figure it out?”

“Doesn’t Doctor Gu watch TV? This serum is selling like crazy right now.”

“I don’t watch ads when I watch TV,” he replied earnestly.

After collecting the items, the two quickly drove back to the police station. If the lab results showed the same components, it would be a crucial breakthrough in the case.

They submitted the evidence, and the lab personnel immediately took samples for observation. It wasn’t long before the results came out.

“It is indeed the same substance, but unfortunately, no DNA was extracted. If we could find the dropper, it would be great,” the lab doctor expressed regret.

Even though they found the bottle, it couldn’t be used as evidence because there were too many of these products on the market.

Gu Yuan started heading back, “Let’s go to the crime scene and take a look.”

Mo Lin: “I’ll go with you.”

He followed Gu Yuan, pulling out his phone to make a call.

When they arrived at the crime scene community, five young people were standing in the underground parking lot. One was a girl, and the other four were boys wearing glasses.

“Teacher Mo is here!” the girl excitedly shouted to the group.

The five of them were very excited and quickly walked towards them. Gu Yuan almost instantly shrank into the corner of the car’s back seat.

“I found a few students to help out; the police station is short on staff.”

Mo Lin noticed his discomfort, got out of the car, and closed the door. “Wait for me in the car; I’ll go talk to them.”

Mo Lin briefly described the situation to his students, of course, not revealing any confidential information. It was clear that he got along well with his students, showing no airs of a teacher, and the students didn’t treat him with excessive respect either, as if they were peers joking around.

While talking, Mo Lin’s gaze kept drifting to Gu Yuan. The basement had no windows, and he was alone in the car, looking like a pitiful little lamb.

“Enough talking, it’s getting dark, we need to hurry.”

Mo Lin sent the dropper picture to the group chat, and the group dispersed with gloves, targeting the trash bins around the community.

Mo Lin quickly got back in the car, lowered the windows as much as possible, then started the engine, preparing to drive out of the basement. His gaze through the rearview mirror fell on Gu Yuan, noticing that he seemed much better than before.

Gu Yuan’s complexion visibly improved, and he said, “Let’s park here; we can take the elevator from the first basement floor.”

The underground parking lot was quite empty, with Mo Lin following closely behind Gu Yuan, less than a meter away.

They waited a long time for the elevator to come down. Once inside, Gu Yuan pressed the button for the 18th floor and finally couldn’t help but ask, “Why do you keep looking at me?”

He always felt like there were eyes staring at the back of his head.

“You were very nervous earlier, but you’re much better now.”

Mo Lin still looked at Gu Yuan with a smile, his lowered eyelashes slightly trembling, adding a touch of gentleness and reducing a bit of his usual charm.

Gu Yuan avoided his gaze, instead staring at the elevator door’s gap.

As they spoke, the elevator door opened. The crime scene was the room at the far right after turning right, surrounded by yellow police tape, with neighbors gathered not far away whispering.

“Such a well-mannered girl, what a pity!”

“Oh my God, how could something like this happen? I don’t dare to sleep at night…”

The two crossed the police line, searching for traces in the room, but unfortunately, there were no glass fragments at the scene.

They decided to split up, searching along the possible path the perpetrator took.

Gu Yuan, wearing rubber gloves, opened the trash can at the first-floor elevator entrance. Apart from a few plastic bottles, there was nothing else.

It was almost dark, and every morning at 6, someone would collect all the trash from the community, so they needed to find evidence quickly.

Just then, an elderly woman with graying hair but a robust body hurried over with a woven bag, looking at Gu Yuan with a strange expression.

“All the bottles here are ones I picked up…”

Gu Yuan didn’t understand what she meant, his eyes scanning her hand, noticing a fresh cut on her thumb, with bloodstains on the edge.

“You’ve cut your hand; it’s best to treat it, or it might get infected.”

“It’s nothing.” The old woman suddenly became much friendlier when she realized he wasn’t trying to take her bottles. “There’s all sorts of stuff in the trash can, it’s normal.”

“Have you seen something like this?” Gu Yuan showed her a picture he found online, depicting a dropper.

The old woman, with a bit of presbyopia, squinted at it for a long time, then raised her thumb. “Funny enough, it’s this thing that cut my finger…”

“Are you sure it’s this?”

“Of course, the top was broken, and when I accidentally touched it, my finger bled. I remember it clearly!”

“Where is it now?”

“I wrapped it in paper and threw it in the trash can.”

“Take me there.”

“That trash can is hard to find. How about a small tip, and I’ll take you to it.”

“How much do you want?”

“One hundred yuan.”

“Okay, lead the way.”

The old woman thought to herself, this young man seems quite naive; I should have asked for two hundred. She packed the mineral water bottles from the trash can into her woven bag and then led Gu Yuan to find the glass that cut her finger.

Gu Yuan followed her around the community park for a long time, finally finding the trash can the old woman mentioned next to a bench.

Although the trash inside wasn’t full, someone had peeled fruit here, attracting many ants on the ground.

The old woman had a tool for picking up trash, and she used pliers to rummage through it for a long time. “I can’t recognize it; there are so many paper balls here.”

Gu Yuan, wearing gloves, lifted the entire trash can and dumped it on the ground. As he used pliers to sift through the paper balls, he felt something hard. Upon closer inspection, it was indeed the dropper!

Mo Lin received the news and drove up to pick him up. The two rushed to the police station without stopping.

The results came out quickly: “The DNA inside matches the male DNA found during the autopsy, and in addition, two female DNAs were found, one of which belongs to the deceased.”

*

In the captain’s office.

“So, the perpetrator left a male DNA in the deceased’s vagina after her death. The perpetrator wouldn’t expose himself, so this DNA might not belong to the perpetrator,” Li Meng felt a bit confused. “The captain went to the same city delivery to catch someone, but there’s no news yet.”

Li Meng scratched his head. “Why don’t you two go eat first? I’ll go interrogate Zhang Haiyan.”

Zhang Haiyan resisted all questioning, her attitude was terrible, and her cursing skills were top-notch. It’s hard to imagine a woman in her early twenties could be so unruly in the police station, like a seasoned shrew.

When she saw a man in a suit, exuding hormones, appear in the interrogation room, she couldn’t help but take a few more glances. Behind him was a fresh-faced young man in a cream-colored sweater. Their high looks were quite striking.

“Are you two also police officers?”

“Don’t we look like it?” Mo Lin placed the evidence in front of her. “Do you recognize this?”

The evidence bag contained a dropper, and another was the serum bottle found in Zhang Haiyan’s room.

Zhang Haiyan remained expressionless. “What does this mean?”

Mo Lin: “The DNA on this matches the male DNA found on the deceased. We found it in your home’s trash can.”

Zhang Haiyan looked incredulous. “That’s impossible!”

Gu Yuan: “The evidence is clear, still trying to deny it?”

Zhang Haiyan’s eyes drifted to the lower left corner, as if recalling something.

Her every move was under Mo Lin’s watchful eyes.

“Do you think someone might be trying to frame you?”

Mo Lin noticed Zhang Haiyan’s expression changing rapidly, as if trying to appear calm.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

At this moment, Li Meng pushed the door open, looking very serious. “Teacher Mo, Teacher Gu, please come out for a moment…”

Once outside, Li Meng’s voice trembled a bit. “We received a report; a female body was found in the park. Then the hospital called, saying a body was found in the warehouse.”

After speaking, Li Meng took a deep breath. “Is he a devil? Killing three people in one day!”

Gu Yuan turned back to look at Zhang Haiyan in the interrogation room, and she was also looking at him.

Gu Yuan couldn’t read the emotions in her eyes. “Let’s go, we need to get to the scene.”

With such a big incident, even the forensic doctor Lao Yang, who was on vacation, couldn’t sit still.

For the old man, who was retiring in two weeks, he didn’t want to leave the police station with unsolved cases.

Lao Yang, carrying his investigation box, appeared at the police station entrance and formally greeted Gu Yuan.

“I’ve been a forensic doctor here for thirty years and have never seen such an arrogant perpetrator. We’ll split up; you go to the hospital, I’ll go to the park.”

After dividing the tasks, Gu Yuan took his box and rode a police car to the hospital.

The crime scene, like the one in Lianchi City, was in an underground warehouse. The warehouse was not ventilated, and even with the lights on, it felt eerie.

Several medical staff and security guards were standing outside the innermost warehouse, which should be the crime scene.

Gu Yuan suddenly stopped.

The people ahead were all strangers, and in the enclosed environment, he felt a bit nervous.

“What are you thinking?”

Someone patted his shoulder from behind.

Seeing it was Mo Lin, he breathed a sigh of relief. “You came too?”

“Just came to check out the scene, get some inspiration, and help Doctor Gu out a bit.”