Crazy Detective

“You are bleeding heavily! You should go to the hospital!” Song Meili exclaimed as she wiped Ma Laodan’s head with a wet towel. “And… You still want to drink, even now!”

Ma Laodan then said casually, “It’s not a big deal. After all, it’s not the first time that someone has done this to my head. I’m okay!”

He then pointed to Cui Lizhu with his hand and said with a ruthless look, “Cui Lizhu, I know that I caused you trouble before, but you have to admit that my father is good to you, and you haven’t suffered because of him! So, we are even. Today, if it weren’t for the sake of Leader Zhao… What?”

Cui Lizhu raised her middle finger at Ma Laodan, causing him to react in shock. She then said, “Don’t look at me that way! Don’t you know that I’m now a…”

Cui Lizhu wanted to say that she was a special investigator or a policewoman, but when she raised her hand, she suddenly saw her broken finger, which reminded her of her sad past, and stopped her speech abruptly. Ma Laodan’s sharp eyes also saw Cui Lizhu’s little finger, so he stopped talking too.

“Would you like more soup?” At this time, a waiter with a tin pot suddenly came to the door. Because Zhao Yu’s wheelchair was blocking the door, he could not enter the room.

“What happened?” Officer Wang then came over to the door and stood behind the waiter.

Zhao Yu, while holding the phone in his right hand, looked around the room. He then gestured to Officer Wang and said, “Come in and close the door! No one else can come in without my approval!”

“Okay…” Officer Wang immediately pulled the waiter away, pushed Zhao Yu’s wheelchair into the private room, then closed the door.

Although Cui Lizhu was still feeling sad, after seeing Zhao Yu’s serious look, she quickly turned off the hot pot.

“From now on… Shut your mouth! Otherwise, don’t blame me for not being kind to you!” Zhao Yu said coldly, causing the room to immediately fall silent.

“Miao Ying, go on!” Zhao Yu put his phone up to his ear, then said, “You were saying… Lang Xiangyang is the real murderer from the Devil Case?”

When they heard Zhao Yu’s words, Cui Lizhu and Officer Wang were shocked. In order to allow them to hear clearly, Zhao Yu put the phone on speaker mode.

Miao Ying then said from the other end of the line, “Yes! I just sent you a video and photos of all of the evidence! It’s a bit surprising. Now, I’ll tell you about it again… After we got the search warrant, we went to Lang Xiangyang’s home and began to collect evidence. As you said, in order to avoid any misunderstanding, we communicated with his family beforehand about what exactly was going on.”

Miao Ying then said, “Mr. and Mrs. Lang have no children, and Mrs. Lang is old and suffers from Alzheimer’s. So, she can’t remember anything! Lang XiangQian treated his sister-in-law well and hired a nurse and two nannies to take care of her daily. Therefore, our search did not encounter any resistance, and we were quickly able to examine all of the stuff that Lang Xiangyang left behind. But, we did not find anything valuable.”

Miao Ying then said calmly, “To be honest, by that time, we already wanted to give up! So, I didn’t participate in searching the basement. Ran Tao took that responsibility! Unexpectedly, when the basement search was just coming to an end, Ran Tao found a dusty cardboard box.”

She then paused for a moment before continuing, “When we opened it, there was a devil mask in it. That mask was exactly the same as the devil the witness described in the Devil Case, and was the same one that was found in Zhang Jingru’s documents!”

“Ah!” Upon hearing this, Zhao Yu and the others were all stunned. Even Ma Laodan and Song Meili did not know why, but they also had shocked looks on their faces.

Miao Ying continued, “Later, I’ll send it to you. When you see it with your own eyes, you’ll see that it looks even more terrible than you can imagine! In addition to the devil mask, we found several pieces of black clothes and plastic bags that were packed with chemicals.”

Miao Ying then said, “The Forensics Department suspects that these chemicals were phosphorus! Phosphorus has a very low ignition point and is highly flammable when it is exposed to air. So, the ghost that was witnessed at the scene was probably just the phosphorus being ignited! And… If there were some copper-containing compounds in it, it would have turned green when it was burned!”

“Oh…” Zhao Yu said. “It seems that we were making things too complicated before! It turned out to be so simple!”

Miao Ying then said, “Yes! And… Since all of the victims in the Devil Case died in the middle of the night, the murderer must have brought the unconscious victims to the crime scene, then made his arrangements at the scene, while waiting for the victims to wake up. When the victims woke up, he immediately ignited the phosphorus, which looked like a ghost… Or devil.”

She then said, “The victims would have just come to their senses, and their minds couldn’t work properly, so when they saw such a horrible scene, they would definitely choose to run in the opposite direction! The opposite direction in this case was the edge of the abandoned building!”

Zhao Yu then said in astonishment, “So… All of the victims jumped out of the buildings by themselves!”

Miao Ying nodded and said, “Yes! Fifteen years ago, investigative technology was not as developed as it is today, and dandruff tissue extraction technology was not current. So, the police couldn’t know whether the victim had been unconscious before he died, and extracting the residual phosphorus after it was burned was not easy for the police.”

Miao Ying continued, “The police can only rely on the footprints and traces that were left at the scene. But, the murderer must have also thought about this, so he put sand around the victim so that it would be the victim’s footprints that were found at the scene instead. In this way, the police would think that the victim had jumped out of the building himself, forcing them to close the case as a suicide!”

Zhao Yu exhaled heavily, then sighed before he said in a deep voice, “So, the Devil Case, which is one of China’s five unsolved cases and one that the police have struggled to solve for 15 years, turned out to be that simple…”

Miao Ying then said, “The devil mask basically confirms that Lang Xiangyang is the murderer from the Devil Case! But… We still don’t know what role Han Kuan played in this case. And, did he kill Zhang Jingru?”

“This shouldn’t be very difficult to find out, should it?” Zhao Yu asked.

He then said, “As long as you check the evidence carefully, the truth will come out in the end. Fifteen years ago, they did not know that there was a way to extract dandruff tissue. Now, if we can extract Han Kuan’s dandruff tissue from the evidence, it can prove that Han Kuan is involved. If not, it means that he is innocent, and we only need to deal with his wife’s case!”

Miao Ying then said, “All of the evidence has been sent to the Beiqian Police Station, so the results will be out soon!”

“Good job!” Zhao Yu nodded and said. “As soon as the results come out, tell me immediately!”

“Okay, um…” After that, Miao Ying seemed to have something to say. However, after several seconds, she simply hung up the phone.

In fact, although Miao Ying did not say it, Zhao Yu knew what she was worried about. Although they had found clear evidence from Lang Xiangyang’s home, which could convict Lang Xiangyang, there were no other supporting evidence. So, if Lang Xiangyang was really the murderer from the Devil Case, then they should be able to find more evidence in his stuff.

Zhao Yu still felt that Lang Xiangyang’s personal characteristics did not match those of the real murderer from the Devil Case. Also, it was not like the Headless Female Corpses Case, so Zhao Yu knew at a glance that Li Fei was the murderer!

As he thought about this, Zhao Yu had a bad feeling, and he wondered… What if Lang Xiangyang is only an accomplice in the Devil Case, while the real murderer is someone else?