Chapter 23: Homicide Case
Monday, sunny weather.
In a place like Songhai, commuting during rush hour is always a headache-inducing problem. Whether on elevated roads or on the ground, the traffic congestion makes people's blood pressure soar.
Ordinary office workers who take the subway don't have to worry about traffic jams, but they have to endure the test of being squeezed from all sides.
In the morning sunshine, Zhang Yuanqing rode a shared bicycle on the bustling streets of Songhai, with a backpack on his back and a jianbing guozi in his mouth.
He easily overtook one private car, business vehicle, and bus after another, his youthful vitality flying with his bangs.
Songhai University is five or six kilometers away from his grandmother's house, and it only takes 15 minutes to ride a bicycle, so he usually doesn't stay on campus.
Thanks to his promotion to a night traveler, he pedaled the bicycle, which was usually tiring to ride, all the way to the university gate without stopping. He took out his phone and looked at it, only taking ten minutes.
If it weren't for the large number of electric bikes in the bicycle lane, he could have been even faster.
Songhai University was founded at the beginning of the last century, 120 years ago, and is a top-tier institution ranked among the best in the country.
In addition to high-quality teaching resources, the two biggest features of Songhai University are: famous beauties are good at finding good husbands, and brave warriors dare to fence.
Grandma used to warn the aunt that girls should know how to protect themselves at school. As she gets older, she warns her grandson that boys should protect themselves at school.
Grandma is very dissatisfied with the current state of the world.
Entering the school gate and passing through the main axis with the statue of the founder, he slowly rode towards the teaching building along the road on the right, which was lined with plane trees.
The environment in the college is elegant and quiet. Students either shoot short videos, sit on benches by the roadside to chat, or rush to class with textbooks in their arms.
The spacious and clean streets, green lawns, and old dormitory buildings at a glance look more like a quiet high-end residential area, with little sense of a school.
Zhang Yuanqing parked his bicycle outside the building, shouldered his backpack, and entered the comprehensive building.
Arriving at the tiered classroom, Zhang Yuanqing swept a glance. The students were scattered in threes and twos, and many of his classmates had skipped class.
He randomly chose a seat, and as soon as he sat down, he heard two male students behind him talking in a low voice:
"I just saw Xu Yingying at the school gate, she's waiting for her sugar daddy again."
"Nonsense, how could my goddess be kept by a sugar daddy?"
"It's true. Every Monday, a man comes to pick her up, driving a luxury car worth hundreds of thousands. I saw it last Monday."
"Did you see clearly? Maybe it was a ride-hailing car."
"Would you kiss a ride-hailing driver?"
"Damn it. When we were in high school, girls liked school tyrants. Now that we're in college, girls like rich men from outside. When will ordinary boys be able to stand up?"
Xu Yingying is a female classmate who is very beautiful and is their class flower.
Zhang Yuanqing couldn't help turning his head and joked with a smile, "The wife in your hard drive can help you stand up."
The two male students seemed surprised that Zhang Yuanqing would interrupt, and were stunned for a moment.
Zhang Yuanqing looked at them and said, "What's wrong?"
The male classmate named Li Lesheng chuckled, "Zhang Yuanqing, what good thing happened to you today? This isn't like you."
Zhang Yuanqing was stunned, "Why do you say that?"
Li Lesheng was about to say something when a teacher wearing black-framed glasses walked in with a textbook in his arms, and the chattering classroom immediately fell silent.
Kangyang District, McLe Hotel.
"Ding!"
On the 16th floor, the elevator doors opened, and Li Dongze, dressed in a formal suit with a black vest and white shirt, walked out of the car with a cane.
His gaunt face was filled with solemnity, and Guan Ya followed behind him.
All the guests on the entire floor had been cleared out, and a police cordon was set up at the intersection of the elevator and the corridor, with two security officers guarding the cordon.
Guan Ya stepped forward in high heels, took out her ID, and gestured slightly.
The security officers immediately made way.
On the way from the corridor to the room, several security officers in uniforms were busy, either taking photos or collecting fingerprints, hair, and other items.
Li Dongze passed by everyone and entered the hotel room, immediately smelling a strong bloody odor.
His gaze swept over the hotel suite, and on the bed lay two corpses covered with white cloth, with large patches of dark red bloodstains on the pristine white sheets.
Li Dongze extended his cane and uncovered the white cloth. On the bed lay a man and a woman, naked.
He was silent for a moment, his voice low, "It is indeed Zhao Yingjun."
Guan Ya carefully examined every corner of the room, with wisps of white mist overflowing from her pupils. After a while, she said,
"There are no signs of a struggle in the room, no traces of manual processing... There are only two condoms in the trash can, but three condoms are missing from the box..."
After saying that, she looked at the female victim with some pity.
Li Dongze re-covered the white cloth and said in a deep voice,
"Guan Ya, you stay here to assist the security officers in collecting fingerprints and hair, and retrieve the surveillance video. I need to contact Chief Fu Baifu and the team leaders, we may need to have a meeting."
Guan Ya nodded slightly, "I will sync the scene details and character information to your phone later."
Zhao Yingjun was an advisor to the Xiangshui Road Security Bureau and a member of the White Tiger Troops, a Level 2 Scout.
The murder of a member of the Five Elements League was a big deal.
Second floor of the villa, small conference room.
The conference room was decorated very elegantly and luxuriously, with the floor covered in soft wool carpet and a solid wood long conference table in the middle.
On the table were exquisite fruit platters, crystal-clear ham slices, expensive imported red wine, boxes of cigars, and delicate desserts and pastries.
At the end of the conference table, a white projection screen was lowered, playing a segment of hotel surveillance video.
In the video, a man wearing a baseball cap and mask walked from the direction of the elevator, reached the door of the guest room, took out the room card to open the door, and entered the room.
40 minutes later, the man walked out of the room with his hands in his pockets and his head down, and left.
The video ended, and Li Dongze pressed the pause button. Looking at the team leaders at the table, he said,
"This morning, we received a call from the hotel. When the maid was cleaning the room, she couldn't open the door, so she went in to check and found that the two people had been killed. Zhao Yingjun was tortured before his death, his body covered in knife wounds, with marks of being tied up on his hands and feet, but the fatal wound was a sharp weapon piercing his heart.
"The female victim was called Liu Xiaoe, and she was also stabbed in the heart with a sharp weapon, but she was not tortured. Based on the missing condoms at the scene, we suspect she was violated by the killer before her death.
"In addition, the Security Bureau checked the two people's cell phones and confirmed that Liu Xiaoe was Zhao Yingjun's mistress.
"We retrieved surveillance from other entrances and exits of the hotel, but did not find how the killer left. He should have special means to avoid surveillance. The preliminary speculation is that the killer is a Spiritual Realm Practitioner."
There were a total of six people sitting at the table.
The chief was a young man in a white suit, with the arrogance and nobility of an aristocratic son, tied in a handsome short ponytail, his face so exquisitely sculpted that it was difficult to look directly at him.
The first seat on the left was empty, which was Li Dongze's seat.
On the right was a woman holding an orange cat, wearing a cheongsam with an ink painting, fully displaying the maturity and charm of a married woman. Her beautifully maintained face was firm and fair, with light makeup, and an elegant and gentle temperament.
Next to her was a middle-aged man wearing a miner's hat and overalls, his dark skin showing the weathering of a worker.
Across from her was a gym coach in a tight-fitting suit, his thick arms comparable to a woman's slender waist, his eyes sharp, and a sense of irritability coming across his face.
The last one was a woman in her late twenties, wearing a white racing suit and tight leather pants, with black wavy hair, an oval face, both cool and handsome.
These five were the team leaders of the Spiritual Realm Practitioner Squad in Kangyang District. A few others were absent for various reasons.
The young master in the white suit looked around, his deep brown eyes as calm as a lake, and said lightly,
"Everyone, what are your thoughts... Team Leader Qingteng, you go first."
The beautiful woman in the cheongsam frowned slightly, "An ordinary Spiritual Realm Practitioner wouldn't dare to kill our official people. Could it be done by an evil occupation Spiritual Realm Practitioner?"
Li Dongze replied, "We are still investigating Zhao Yingjun's recent interpersonal interactions."
If it was the work of an evil occupation Spiritual Realm Practitioner, the severity of the incident would rise to another level.
The muscular Fire Master raised his eyebrows, bursting with anger, "Evil occupation? These stinking rats in the gutter, how dare they kill someone from our Five Elements League, I will definitely make them pay the price."
The others had solemn expressions. The woman in the racing suit, Bai Long, pondered,
"What was Zhao Yingjun's combat strength?"
Li Dongze looked at Fu Qingyang.
Fu Qingyang said, "He had a defensive artifact."
Hearing this, Bai Long's expression became grave, "Although a Level 2 Scout is not good at fighting, with a defensive artifact, it's not easy to kill him, let alone without disturbing the guests in the next room. We can make a preliminary judgment of the killer's strength based on this point."
The construction company boss Tan Guoqiang, wearing a miner's hat, said in a deep voice,
"Very powerful."
The muscular man snorted coldly, repeating his earlier words, "No matter how powerful, they dare to kill someone from our Five Elements League, they must die."
Bai Long silently covered her forehead, thinking in her heart that during a meeting, could they first kick out the idiot from the Chifire Gang.
Li Dongze said, "After our investigation, Zhao Yingjun had many mistresses and especially liked to keep female college students. We are investigating his mistresses one by one."
The muscular man frowned, "Why?"
"The hotels where Zhao Yingjun met with his mistresses were not fixed, yet the killer was able to find the hotel address and lock onto the room number, indicating that he had a certain understanding of Zhao Yingjun's movements. Either it was someone he knew, or he had been following him for a long time." Li Dongze said,
"The ones who know you best are always the women by your side. We may be able to obtain some clues from Zhao Yingjun's mistresses."
The team leaders nodded with solemn expressions.
Li Dongze continued,
"Zhao Yingjun was interrogated and tortured before his death. Think about it, everyone. What was the killer interrogating? What did he find out? Whether the killer committed the murder out of revenge or is an evil occupation, this is a question we must treat with caution."
The expressions of the team leaders present changed slightly.
Evil occupations and orderly occupations have always been incompatible, hunting and tracking each other.
What evil occupations would be interested in, of course, is information about official Spiritual Realm Practitioners, and even their hiding places.
And if the killer is not an evil occupation, a powerful Spiritual Realm Practitioner risking offending the official organization to sneak into a hotel to interrogate and kill, the truth behind it may be even more complex.
Qingteng said in a deep voice, "We must find the killer as soon as possible."
Hearing this, the muscular man looked around and said, "Why didn't Yuan Ting come? Let him devour Zhao Yingjun's spiritual body and obtain Zhao Yingjun's memory. Then we'll know who the killer is."
The importance of night travelers who can control spiritual bodies was instantly highlighted.
Fu Qingyang shook his head and said,
"Yesterday, Taiyi Sect summoned all official night travelers to Beijing for a meeting. Yuan Ting is not in Songhai."
His expression remained calm from beginning to end, as if he would not panic even if the sky fell.
Go to Beijing for a meeting? The hearts of the team leaders sank. If Yuan Ting was not here, the night travelers from other major regions must not be here either.
Isn't this too much of a coincidence? The killer didn't make a move earlier or later, but chose the time when the night travelers collectively went to Beijing.
The muscular man angrily said, "What's going on with Taiyi Sect, not holding a meeting earlier or later, but choosing this time? We should have cultivated our own night travelers long ago."
Li Dongze said helplessly,
"You got the cause and effect backwards. It was the killer who chose this time... Forget it, this is not important. Everyone don't worry, we have our own night traveler."
(End of chapter)
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