Genius Detective

Chen Shi told the security guard to look for the footage from 8PM the night before until 6AM of that morning, as well as asked the colleagues if they had seen suspicious people carrying big boxes or pushing a cart in.

Then, Chen Shi placed the phone with the video call on the stove and picked up a water pipe. Lin Qiupu exclaimed, "Hey, don't use water to flush it!"

"The body has been contaminated for a long time. The body is just covered in waste water. You want to make Old Peng test all of it? Aren’t you worried he’ll die from fatigue?"

Lin Qiupu was speechless. "You need to be careful."

Chen Shi opened the faucet and rinsed the body. The deceased was a man of about 50 years old. He was short, fat, and his hairline was receding. He was only wearing a pair of red underwear and a white sock on his left foot.

Tao Yueyue looked at the body intently. "This uncle seems to be very sad."

"Yeah, being killed, how can you not be sad?"

Lin Qiupu warned through the mobile phone, "Don't make assumptions like that. Can you investigate the case seriously? Why did you bring a child? Is this something a child should see?"

"Captain Lin, you should just look quietly from the side lines. Don't direct me; I’m not one of your subordinates.” 

Lin Qiupu was speechless.

Chen Shi squatted down and looked at the palm of the deceased while wearing rubber gloves. "Captain Lin, please record this down. The deceased should be involved in office work. The wear of his fingers and nails is only seen in those who use computers for a long time. His body figure is also due to not exercising for a long period of time." He approached the face of the deceased and smelled him. "A heavy alcohol scent wafted over; he should have had alcohol or been forced to drink before death."

"Are you sure that it’s not the smell of wastewater?" challenged Lin Qiupu as he acted as the temporary minute-taker.

"You will know when you come over to smell it."

"How can I come over?!"

Chen Shi opened the eyelids of the deceased. The pupils were already cloudy. He pinched the muscles of the upper limbs and deduced, "Because the deceased was moved, the livor mortis was not deposited in one area, but from various other indications, he time of death should be within twenty-four hours.”

"Are you confident about that?"

"Can't be wrong."

"What is the cause of death?"

Chen Shi applied a finger to open the mouth of the deceased. The chefs outside frowned. Tao Yueyue looked at it very seriously while squatting down close by. She also pointed out, "Uncle Chen, there is sand in his mouth."

Chen Shi nodded and raised his voice. "There is a small amount of silt and sand with pink blood and foam in the mouth. The skin is slightly wrinkled. I have just found sand residues in his nails just now. It seems that he died from drowning."

"You just said that he was killed!" Lin Qiupu caught a contradiction.

Chen Shi did not bother replying. He used his hands to touch the bones of the upper body. Because the fat of the deceased was slightly thicker, he had to use some force to touch the bones. Tao Yueyue asked, "How can this uncle drown if he’s so fat?”

"Fat may not float, and there was someone standing on the shore hitting him with a stick."

"What are you talking about?!" Lin Qiupu warned.

"Shoulder blades, ribs, neck bones, and the skull have multiple bone injuries; all of it is concentrated on the top side of the victim. We can deduce that someone stood on the shore and beat him hard, causing him to sink into the water and drown."

"It’s truly murder?!" Lin Qiupu was shocked.

"Wait, there is a bruise on the abdomen, this shape..." Chen Shi heard a crunch and looked up to find that Tao Yueyue was eating a cucumber. He questioned, "Where did you get that?"

"The table. There are a lot of them and I’m hungry." Tao Yueyue responded innocently as she  took another bite.

Chen Shi smiled and instructed Tao Yueyue to give him the newly bought mobile phone. He used flash to take a picture of the deceased's abdomen, and then measured the length and width of the bruise with the mobile phone as a scale. He noted, "It is a shoe print that is 24cm long. The height of this person should be around 175cm to 180cm. He may be male."

He turned over the body and instructed Tao Yueyue, "Turn around. Children are not suited to see this."

"No way!"

Chen Shi did not know what to do with her. He pulled down the underwear of the deceased and found some bruises at the waist. This bruise was more even. He said, "The deceased was kicked towards a wall and his waist hit the wall."

"Shouldn’t he have kicked him into the water?" Lin Qiupu questioned.

"These are the facts though."

"Then the murderer and the deceased might have had a dispute first, and then the murderer tried drowning him."

"And then he fished him out again, took off his clothes and abandoned the body?”

"The facts says so!" 

The security guard came in and told them that he found some clues. Chen Shi nodded and wrapped the body in a few bags. He asked the chefs to help him carry it onto the car and put it in the back seat.

In the back seat were the vegetables he originally bought. Chen Shi estimated that he most likely didn’t have time to cook that night. So, he handed it over to the chefs. “Just then, she ate a cucumber of yours, so you can take these vegetables.”

"We are afraid that we can't open the store today." The chefs smiled bitterly, but took it anyway. "Excuse me, can I ask if the restaurant has to be closed for a few days?”

"Nothing, just conduct business as usual. This was not the murder scene.”

Lin Qiupu, who had been put in his pocket, scolded loudly, "Don't be informing people without permission!"

Chen Shi pretended like he didn’t hear it and said, "Right, leave the wastewater bucket. Cover the lid and don't move it. Police will come by and pick it up later. There might be evidence within it.”

"Understood! Understood! Officer, you sure are efficient and skilled at handling cases."

After the chefs left, Tao Yueyue pointed at the car and asked, "Is this uncle sleeping with us tonight?"

"No, he will sleep in the police station."

"Will the police cut him up?"

"Yeah, that is called an autopsy. It’s done to solve cases."

"Poor uncle."

"Don't say that to children!" Lin Qiupu shouted from Chen Shi’s pocket.

Chen Shi took out his mobile phone and said, "No data left", before he cut off the video call.

Chen Shi confirmed that the car was locked, then took off the rubber gloves and threw them into the trash can. He took Tao Yueyue to the security room. The security guard who had just led the way pointed to a young security guard. "Xiao Wang was on duty last night. He mentioned that he saw two people coming in with a big box last night."

The security guard Wang recalled, "One man and one woman. The woman was wearing mink and had leather pants. Her hair was dyed.”

"What about the man?"

"He looked very ordinary."

"What is the meaning of ordinary? How tall was he?"

"Not as tall as me."

Chen Shi visually measured his height. It seems that the man was less than 170cm. He asked, "You didn't stop them at the time?"

"I... I had something to do at the time."

"Playing League of Legends?"

"It was King of Glory."[1]

Chen Shi chuckled. "Show me the surveillance footage."

After turning on the footage, Chen Shi sped up the playback time and sure enough, there was a man and a woman coming in. The man was wearing a puffer jacket and wearing a hat while the woman was wearing framed glasses. Their faces were very blurry. The two were pushing a very large box.

After about fifteen minutes, the two of them came out again, still pushing the box. However, this time around, it was obviously not as difficult to push around. It could be assumed that the things in the box had been thrown away.

Chen Shi wrote an email on a piece of paper. "Make and send a copy of the video directly to this email. Also, this is a murder case. At the court trial, you may be asked to be a witness. Please cooperate with us at that time.”

"Do we get money for it?" asked the security guard Wang.

"There is no money, but you will go on the news."

"I’ll go! I’ll go!"

---

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wangzhe_Rongyao It’s a League of Legends spinoff mobile game by Tencent, who owns Riot Games - the creator of League of Legends. The base layout in the two games is very similar, and structures use homogenous colouring and design. They also function essentially the same way in both games, although King of Glory‘s base is smaller and simpler (no inhibitors or nexus towers) to promote shorter game times on mobile.

Previous Chapter Next Chapter