When Xiao Lou and Tang Ci went out together, Yu Hanjiang was waiting for them in the corridor. The man in police uniform was leaning against the window with his arms crossed and his brows furrowed, as if he was thinking about something.
Meeting Xiao Lou's gaze, Yu Hanjiang immediately stepped forward and whispered, "You've already found a lawyer for your friend so quickly? Are you planning to have this lawyer defend you?"
Xiao Lou said calmly, "After all, I don't understand the law, and I don't know what I should say and what I shouldn't say."
Tang Ci glanced at the two of them and said to Xiao Lou, " Professor Xiao, please rest assured, I will definitely clear your name."
Yu Hanjiang raised an eyebrow, his gaze towards Tang Ci calm and sharp, clearly not believing his words.
Tang Ci nodded to Yu Hanjiang, calmly turned and walked away. Xiao Lou was taken back to cell number 1. Yu Hanjiang stood at the cell door, looking at him through the iron bars, and asked, "Have you thought of any new clues?"
Xiao Lou sat on the wooden bed, his expression serious: " Captain Yu, don't you think there are many strange things about this case?"
Yu Hanjiang gestured for him to continue.
Xiao Lou said, "The evidence you have is, firstly, my call records with Ning Xue; secondly, the hair of me and Liu Qiao found at the autopsy scene, combined with the photos of me on Ning Xue's phone, which leads to the inference that my relationship with her is..." Xiao Lou paused, then said with certainty, "However, these two pieces of evidence are not so-called 'ironclad proof'."
"Oh? This is all evidence that is very detrimental to you. Is your explanation still that your phone number was stolen and your hair was stolen?" Yu Hanjiang said coldly, "But this explanation is not very convincing, and you can't convince the judge with this explanation."
" Captain Yu, where was the deceased Ning Xue's cell phone found?"
"At the square where fireworks were being set off on New Year's Eve, she accidentally left her backpack there…" At this point, Yu Hanjiang's brows furrowed sharply. He looked up and met Xiao Lou's calm gaze, and suddenly realized, "At 9:00 PM on the 31st, Ning Xue received a phone call, and then went to the lakeside where she was pushed into the lake. We received the report around 9:15 PM. Her phone was lost in the square. If she received the call there, then she…"
"She simply didn't have time to get back to the crime scene," Xiao Lou said calmly. "Normally, it would only take 10 minutes to get from Central Square to the Music Conservatory by taxi. But on the night of December 31, because of the fireworks display in the square to celebrate the New Year, traffic control was implemented around the square as is customary, and taxis had to take detours, so she couldn't get a taxi at all."
"..." Yu Hanjiang's mind gradually cleared.
The location where the deceased's phone was found did not match the time and place of the incident; this was the first loophole.
The previous reasoning was that Ning Xue answered Xiao Lou's call and was killed by Xiao Lou at the lakeside. However, if she really answered that call on the night of December 31, it would be impossible for her to be at the Music Conservatory at 9:15 after answering the call at the fireworks square.
That proves that the call at 9 o'clock was definitely not answered by Ning Xue herself; her phone must have been in someone else's hands at the time.
Since it wasn't Ning Xue who answered, it couldn't have been Xiao Lou who made the call either.
The mobile phone was merely used as a tool to fabricate a false record of " Xiao Lou and Ning Xue talking on the phone".
Seeing Yu Hanjiang's furrowed brows, clearly understanding his meaning, Xiao Lou continued, "Let me analyze this for Captain Yu. At 9 o'clock, the murderer must have seen Liu Qiao and me at the Music Conservatory. Therefore, he used a pre-prepared 136 phone number to call Ning Xue's number. If the murderer was alone, he would have used his left hand to make the call and his right hand to answer, and then returned to the fireworks plaza after the incident to discard Ning Xue's phone. If he had accomplices, then his accomplices were very likely at the fireworks plaza at the time, cooperating with him in staging a scene."
Yu Hanjiang nodded: " Ning Xue's time of death was before 9 o'clock."
Xiao Lou said with satisfaction, "It seems that Captain Yu has already figured out the key to this case. I believe that with your skills, you will definitely be able to find the real culprit."
Yu Hanjiang gave him a complicated look, then turned and left.
Xiao Lou breathed a slight sigh of relief, lay on the wooden bed, and stared at the ceiling thoughtfully.
The murderer's methods of framing the perpetrator were indeed very clever. Unfortunately, despite meticulous planning, a crucial detail was overlooked: the "traffic control" that night caused a problem with the timing. Furthermore, the entire incident was portrayed as too idealistic, which made it easier to arouse suspicion.
Now that Xiao Lou has pointed out the key doubts, it remains to be seen whether Tang Ci and this " Yu Hanjiang " will be able to deliver.
***
After leaving the police station, Tang Ci immediately took a taxi back to the company.
Liu Qiao stayed in his laboratory because he was now a wanted criminal and it was inconvenient for him to show his face in public. The only relatively safe place he could think of was his own intelligent laboratory.
To avoid police monitoring Liu Qiao's communication devices, Tang Ci did not contact her throughout the journey.
Upon returning to the lab, Tang Ci found the room completely empty. Startled, she quickly called out, " Liu Qiao?"
"I'm here."
A familiar girl's voice reached Tang Ci's ears. Turning her head in the direction of the sound, she saw Liu Qiao had shrunk to the size of a thumb and was perched behind the ear of an intelligent robot. Even if a Hunter came looking for her, it would be difficult to find her immediately.
Looking at the tiny girl, no bigger than a finger, Tang Ci couldn't help but curl the corners of her mouth: "You certainly know how to dodge."
Liu Qiao made a light leap.
He landed on the table in front of him and asked with concern, " How did your meeting with Professor Xiao go? Did he tell you about his next steps?"
Tang Ci sat down, opened his laptop, and typed in a series of URLs.
Liu Qiao was lying next to him, staring at the computer.
She couldn't understand a string of gibberish on the screen. All she could hear was the rapid tapping of Tang Ci's fingers on the keyboard. She waited patiently for a moment, and suddenly, the screen lit up, revealing dozens of surveillance cameras.
The numerous surveillance cameras give it the feel of a police investigation.
Liu Qiao exclaimed in surprise, "You hacked into the surveillance system? Where is this surveillance system located?"
The laptop's soft blue light shone on the man's fair face, making his skin appear almost transparent.
As he typed, he calmly said, " The surveillance cameras at the Music Conservatory and the neighboring Medical School cover most of the school area. We have to check them one by one."
Liu Qiao immediately perked up, transformed back into her original form, and sat down next to Tang Ci: "There are too many, let's investigate them separately."
Tang Ci found another computer, shared half of the video recordings with her, and said, "You're here to check the Medical School. You're more familiar with the Medical School environment than I am. The surveillance cameras near the anatomy lab in the laboratory building have definitely been destroyed, but the cameras on the main road are mostly still there. Look for Zhang Hengyu and see if he's ever appeared in the footage."
Liu Qiao nodded and started fast-forwarding, searching one by one.
Tang Ci was in charge of the Music Conservatory's video recordings. He first checked the footage from the lakeside after 8 p.m. last night—the lakeside cameras were damaged, making it difficult to capture students coming and going; and near the gymnasium, several key cameras were also destroyed, leaving many blind spots that the surveillance couldn't cover.
The murderer was very cunning and had made preparations in advance at the Music Conservatory.
Tang Ci had no choice but to continue expanding the scope of the search.
Balloons. Xiao Lou once mentioned this keyword. At that time, when Xiao Lou and Liu Qiao walked out of the backstage area, they saw a person bending down to sort out the remaining balloons from the event in the corridor.
Tang Ci searched through all the surveillance footage for balloons and, sure enough, found a large number of colorful balloons in the surveillance footage of the "Student Activity Center" building, which should be the same balloons used to decorate the scene that night.
At 6:30 PM, several students rode bicycles, carrying several bags of balloons, banners, and other props, towards the stadium. At the fork in the road leading to the stadium, the surveillance cameras were damaged, and the students disappeared. However, it's easy to guess that they were staff members setting up the finals venue.
Tang Ci zoomed in on the image—
That evening, all the staff members wore blue tags around their necks that resembled "volunteer," and most of them were dressed in black. The footage showed a total of 5 staff members carrying balloons and banners, 3 men and 2 women. They were chatting and laughing along the way, and were probably all students from the Music Conservatory who knew each other very well.
Tang Ci pulled up the surveillance footage from this intersection and checked the recording from when the event ended at 10 PM.
At 10 p.m., the singing competition ended, and a large number of spectators poured out of the stadium. In the minutes after the event ended, the flow of people was so large that it was difficult to find any clues from the surveillance footage due to the dim lighting at night.
Tang Ci had no choice but to zoom in on the surveillance footage and watch it second by second, not missing a single frame.
He didn't know how long he had been looking, but just when he felt his eyes were about to go blind, he suddenly spotted a figure in the crowd—
The person wasn't much different from the other students. She was quite tall, over 1.7 meters, and wore a long black coat with a hat covering her face. Such attire wasn't unusual in winter. However, Tang Ci noticed that her clothes looked somewhat familiar, and she was carrying a large backpack on her back.
Comparing this to the five people he had seen earlier who brought balloons to the event, he found that their outfits were 100% similar.
In winter, there are certainly students wearing the same coat, but this person's coat has a special feature - a deflated red balloon is accidentally hanging on the lower left corner of the hem.
She left alone.
The staff should have finished cleaning up the scene with their colleagues before leaving. Why did she leave early?
She disappeared at the end of the road where the surveillance cameras were destroyed, and no one knows where she went.
In the surveillance footage after 10 p.m., she was wearing a hat and her face was not visible. However, at 6:30 p.m., when she and her companions were carrying balloons to the venue, her face was captured on camera!
By comparing their clothes, it's easy to identify which of the five she is.
Tang Ci took a screenshot of this face, entered it into the Music Conservatory's database for comparison, and quickly obtained the results—
" Chen Mengmeng, 20 years old, is a third-year vocal music student. She is in the same class as Ning Xue and lives in the same dormitory."
Upon hearing this, Liu Qiao immediately leaned over to look at Tang Ci's computer: "Have you identified her as a suspect?"
"Look, in this photo, doesn't the black coat look familiar?" Tang Ci asked.
Liu Qiao recalled for a moment: "I feel like I've seen her somewhere before... Oh right, last night when Professor Xiao and I came out from backstage, we saw someone squatting in a corner arranging balloons. I didn't see the person's face clearly, but judging from her clothes, it should be her!"
" Professor Xiao suspects that someone has been secretly watching you and called Ning Xue when you left the gymnasium, fabricating so-called evidence of the call." Tang Ci narrowed his eyes, looking at the enlarged photo on the computer. The girl had delicate features and a faint black mole on the corner of her lip. He said, "The person who was monitoring you is very likely Ning Xue's roommate, Chen Mengmeng, the real culprit who killed Ning Xue."
Liu Qiao didn't have much of an impression of the name Chen Mengmeng, but after carefully recalling Xiao Lou's retelling of the Police Station meeting minutes, she suddenly...
However, some details came to mind: "I remember that Professor Xiao was hiding at the Police Station at the time, eavesdropping on their meeting. The field team mentioned that when they visited the deceased's roommates, one of them, named Chen Mengmeng, took the initiative to mention that Ning Xue had two boyfriends, and that her ex-boyfriends were still harassing her. He also clearly stated the location where Ning Xue and Zhang Hengyu had their date last night."
Tang Ci said, "Then, the police found Ning Xue's bag and cell phone in the square where they were dating."
Liu Qiao's eyes lit up: "So, this Chen Mengmeng is intentionally or unintentionally guiding the police to find evidence?"
Tang Ci also thought this was highly likely. He frowned and thought for a moment, then said, " Why would Ning Xue go to the lake alone? Unless it was someone she trusted who invited her, and that person even knew which tree by the lake had Ning Xue and Zhang Hengyu's names carved on it. Considering all factors, her roommate is the most likely candidate. As for why the phone was in the square, it's very likely that after the murderer killed Ning Xue and obtained her phone to forge evidence of the call, since you and Professor Xiao had already gone to the lake and the police would arrive soon, she didn't dare leave the phone there. She hid it in her backpack and only threw it away in Central Square after the concert ended."
Liu Qiao thought about it more and more and it made more sense. She continued to analyze: "That night, my roommate Xu Mingyue went to the library and passed by the lake. Her bicycle tire was punctured, and she screamed, which attracted Professor Xiao and me. As her roommate, Chen Mengmeng must have known very well that Xu Mingyue had a habit of going to the library every night, so he put nails on her route in advance?"
Tang Ci said, "Furthermore, Chen Mengmeng was a staff member of the singing competition that night, and she was very close to the lakeside, so she could clearly keep track of what was happening there. If she had invited Ning Xue to chat by the lake at 8:30 pm, pushed Ning Xue into the lake, taken Ning Xue's phone, and then gone backstage to have someone create an alibi for her, then the police initially believed that Ning Xue died after 9 pm, and Chen Mengmeng's alibi was actually invalid. She must have gone out at 8:30 pm under the pretext of 'going to the toilet'."
Liu Qiao: "..."
This girl, hidden in the crowd, was almost overlooked by them.
Liu Qiao asked with a grim face, "Then where is the murderer who killed Zhang Hengyu?"
Tang Ci said, "In this world, since we have teammates, Hunter won't only have one person; she also has accomplices."
Liu Qiao rotated her laptop 90 degrees and pointed it out to Tang Ci: "My surveillance footage shows Zhang Hengyu leaving Medical School at 4:30 PM and returning at 9:00 PM, heading towards the lab building. Since all the cameras around the lab building were destroyed, no other suspicious targets were seen approaching afterward." She couldn't help but wonder: "How did the murderer get in?"
Tang Ci glanced at the surveillance footage and calmly said, "The murderer didn't go in; he just never came out."
Liu Qiao quickly realized: "You mean, the murderer was already waiting for him in the laboratory building?"
Tang Ci said, "That's the only explanation. Otherwise, what would Zhang Hengyu be doing going to the lab building alone so late at night?"
Following this line of thought, Liu Qiao said, "The person who could let Zhang Hengyu enter the laboratory building without any suspicion must be someone he trusts. And the person who can stay in the laboratory building without attracting attention must be... a teacher from the school?"
Tang Ci said, "If a teacher asks a student to help with an experiment, the student naturally won't suspect anything, especially a class monitor like Zhang Hengyu who studies very hard; he might even be proud of it. He and Ning Xue had agreed to go to the square to watch the fireworks that night, so why did he come back early? It's very likely that they each received a message from someone they trust, and had to change their plans."
Liu Qiao frowned and thought carefully—she wasn't familiar with the Forensic Medicine Department, but Professor Xiao seemed to have mentioned that he had a teaching assistant.
I remember back then, Professor Xiao, in order to concentrate on the investigation, even said he wanted the teaching assistant to cover his classes, and went to his office to send an email to the teaching assistant...
Liu Qiao suddenly realized: "Teaching assistant! That teaching assistant often substitutes for Professor Xiao, so it's easy for him to get close to Professor Xiao, track his whereabouts, and steal his phone card!"
The two exchanged a glance and immediately stood up.
Tang Ci picked up his car keys, turned around, and went out: "Find these two people as soon as possible. If they get away, Xiao Lou will be in deep trouble."