Hairpin

Lin Xiaosu didn't rush into the room. Standing by the door, he first activated Time Reversal.

Four full days had passed. His Time Reversal seemed to have pushed its limits. As his eyes began to sting slightly, he finally saw the scene he wanted: an old man with white hair lying on a grand tutor's chair, gazing at the ceiling, leisurely tapping his foot on the ground.

This scene absolutely did not look like someone about to die suddenly.

However, the next moment, something changed…

Lin Xiaosu's heart jolted…

Three meters away from him, Chang Ye and Zhou Mei were both staring at him.

Zhou Mei whispered, "Sister Chang, I think even if he has a way to detect scents, this is impossible. Four days have passed, the wind on the mountain is strong, and the windows have been open all day, blowing in the breeze. Any scent would have dispersed…"

Chang Ye's eyes, however, lit up, and she stepped forward.

Her step was silent.

Lin Xiaosu suddenly felt a chill down his spine. He withdrew from the Time Reversal state and turned around, only to see Chang Ye appearing silently behind him. Lin Xiaosu was startled. Was this girl a cat?

"Did you find anything?"

Lin Xiaosu replied, "I can't see anything from here. I'll go in and take a look. Oh, right, do you have any photos of the original scene?"

"We were waiting for you to ask!" Chang Ye raised her hand and put on a pair of glasses. "Display photo number 1352!"

As soon as she spoke, a layer of light and shadow appeared on her glasses – a three-dimensional diagram, a holographic projection, an extremely clear image. Every detail was visible. Lin Xiaosu saw the old man he had seen through Time Reversal, sitting in the grand tutor's chair, his head tilted back, his mouth slightly open…

Lin Xiaosu exclaimed, "Your police investigation technology is amazing. This is too clear."

"Tell me, which part do you need magnified?"

"I'll go in and take a look first, no rush!"

He entered the meditation room and observed carefully. At least, in the eyes of the two female police officers, he was observing meticulously.

Ten minutes, twenty minutes…

Lin Xiaosu came out of the room and shook his head gently. "During the time of his death, there was no one else in the room!"

Tch!

Zhou Mei felt a little disdainful.

Observing seriously for twenty minutes and getting such a pointless conclusion?

Now they had to face a problem: could this be considered fraud? Taking ten thousand yuan and spending twenty minutes here, was the money too easy to earn?

"Are you sure it was a normal death?" Chang Ye asked.

Lin Xiaosu shook his head slightly. "There's one more point that needs to be ruled out."

"Which point?"

Lin Xiaosu raised his finger and pointed outside the window. Outside the window was a high bank, about ten meters away.

The vegetation there was lush.

Chang Ye frowned slightly. "You suspect a remote attack?"

"Are there any attack methods that can cause symptoms like a cerebral hemorrhage?"

"No!" Zhou Mei said. "So-called remote attacks only cause external injuries, and cerebral hemorrhage has nothing to do with external injuries… right, Sister Chang?"

Chang Ye didn't speak, her eyes showing a thoughtful expression. "Go and take a look there first!"

"Okay!"

Lin Xiaosu went to the bottom of the high bank and looked around. He climbed up from a nearby bank. After a lot of effort, he finally reached the top of the high bank. Suddenly, he let out a soft exclamation…

Chang Ye had appeared behind him at some point. "Did you find something?"

"Look!" Lin Xiaosu pointed at the ground.

Chang Ye stared at the weeds under her feet, unable to see anything. "What?"

"This blade of grass was broken by someone four days ago!" Lin Xiaosu said.

Chang Ye's eyes lit up. The grass was broken four days ago, and no one would normally come here. "Are you sure it was a person?"

"There are no direct footprints on this grass, but if you observe carefully, you can still judge the human footprints by the compression of the grass. You can also judge the time it was stepped on by the dryness of the grass!" Lin Xiaosu's finger drew the shape of a footprint in the air.

The more Chang Ye looked, the more it resembled a footprint.

"If you can't see this clearly, look here. There's something more interesting here!" Lin Xiaosu gently raised his hand and pointed at a leaf.

In the center of the leaf was a small hole, the mark of a needle.

Chang Ye's expression completely changed.

She wasn't very confident about the footprints, but she was a true expert when it came to a needle piercing a leaf, because she used needles herself!

With her vision, this was the mark of a needle piercing through the leaf, and the direction was exactly towards the head of Qu Taiqing, who was lying on the grand tutor's chair!

"Xinyue!" Chang Ye called out softly.

"Sister Chang Ye, what is your command?" a delicate female voice came from the glasses.

"Immediately check the body in pathological room 37. On the right side of the forehead, beneath the scalp, is there a 'hairpin'?"

"Received!"

On the other end of the phone, a rapid investigation began. Chang Ye stood on the hillside, her gaze locked onto that window. Her eyes were infinitely deep at this moment; Lin Xiaosu had never seen such an expression before.

Time ticked by, minute by minute...

Five minutes later, Chang Ye's glasses brightened slightly, and a voice came from within: "Sister Chang Ye, you're amazing! There's a hairpin in his right brain! The hairpin penetrated seven inches into the brain, with no external marks, which is why it was overlooked during the initial examination. The hairpin has neurotoxin on it. It's T30!"

"T30, its sole purpose is to instantly coagulate blood in the area, forming an obstruction!" Chang Ye said.

"Yes! This is the true cause of death for 2198!"

The light from Chang Ye's glasses vanished.

She slowly turned her head. At this moment, she resembled a night hawk soaring through the air. Her entire being seemed to have chilled by two or three degrees.

"Now, only one question remains: can we track down the person based on these traces?"

Lin Xiaosu turned, staring at the messy grass at his feet. He crossed the road, and on the other side, a smile appeared on his face. "Good luck. He didn't take the main road; he took the jungle path..."

Coming down the small path, he would inevitably leave traces of his movement.

Even though these traces would be invisible to ordinary people, compared to the miracle of finding a needle hole in a pile of leaves, these traces were considerably more conventional to Lin Xiaosu.

Rounding a mountain spur, even Chang Ye spotted a relatively clear footprint. The pattern on the sole was perfectly visible—thank goodness it hadn't rained for the past four days.

She aimed her glasses at the footprint and took a picture.

They continued their pursuit.

They traveled through mountains and over ridges, finally reaching the main road of the county town. Lin Xiaosu stopped, his brow furrowed. "Now we really have to rely on luck. Are there any cameras around here?"

His difficulty was never in finding the killer.

The killer wore a floral plaid windbreaker, and his build and appearance were etched clearly in his mind.

However, it wasn't enough for him to know; he had to present this image to her in a reasonably plausible way.

This required cameras.

And cameras, in fact, were clearly visible to his divine eyes. There was one a hundred meters away, hidden under the eaves. From this camera's angle, it should be able to see the man in the floral windbreaker getting into a car...

He didn't want anyone to know how good his eyesight was.

So, he asked for help.

Chang Ye's glasses lit up again. Countless grids appeared in the void, and three light spots emerged – three cameras. In addition to the one Lin Xiaosu had already discovered, there were two more that were not exposed to their sight at all, yet she had found them using her miraculous technological means.

"Retrieve the footage, time..." Chang Ye said.

The aerial projection immediately changed, showing the night from four days ago.

Lin Xiaosu's eyes widened. Holy crap!

When the police retrieve footage, don't they ask the owner of the footage?

You're just retrieving it directly?

Is this hacking?

Setting him aside, even Zhou Mei's eyes were wide open. As a police officer, her daily work involved investigation and evidence collection. She had performed the task of retrieving footage hundreds of times, if not thousands. When had she ever seen a method of retrieval that didn't disturb residents, didn't alert others, and was completed silently?

Although the method of retrieval was miraculous, it still lacked the final step to directly pinpoint the suspect.

This footage had its limitations. The area where the man in the floral plaid windbreaker came down from the mountain was a blind spot for the cameras.

Even if the footage showed him getting into a car, what was wrong with getting into a car by the side of the road? Too many people get into cars by the side of the road!

If you couldn't connect the line from him coming down the mountain, it was all for naught.

Just as the footage showed the man in the floral plaid getting into the car, Lin Xiaosu shouted, "Stop!"

The footage was paused.

"Look at this person's shoes!" Lin Xiaosu said.

"Shoes? The sole pattern isn't clear..." Chang Ye replied.

This was the drawback of civilian cameras. They could clearly show a person's face, but to precisely see the pattern on the sole of their shoes required a bit more.

"You don't need to see the sole pattern. You just need to look at the logo on these Warrior shoes, and you can find detailed product features."

Chang Ye's eyes lit up...

"Search!"

With the command of two words, countless shoes were compared in the void above her glasses. In a short time, a pair of shoes appeared, brand: Du Li, development date... manufacturer... product features...

The sole flipped over, identical to the relatively clear footprint seen on the mountain path earlier.

Zhou Mei exclaimed, "Found him!"

The light on Chang Ye's glasses flickered. "Search for this person!"

Instantly, it was as if the vast world unfolded before her. Countless figures flashed by, with similarity scores continuously increasing: 80%, 85.2%, 96%, 100%!

As the green text of 100% appeared, a person emerged before them.

"Ding Haichun, male, 48 years old, from Fengcheng County, Dongchu Province. Founder of Huanggang Science and Trade Company, serving as its legal representative..."

Lin Xiaosu was dumbfounded. "Your system is too powerful. Can you find anyone if I just give you a face?"

"It's not that miraculous. The effectiveness of this system depends on the completeness of the database. The database has undergone eight upgrades. Currently, precise information can only cover civil servants at all levels, registered business personnel, and individuals with criminal records. It cannot fully cover ordinary people. Of course, if you've been to a train station or an airport, your information will also exist in the database. However, it can only show when you were there, not your name or family information..."

As Chang Ye explained, the system continued to operate.

Finally, it stopped. A red dot displayed the target's location, no more than ten li away.