Strange Murder Case

The wailing of sirens had fallen silent before noon. By this time, the villa was also silently surrounded by yellow and white police tape.

Old Chen stood like a wall blocking the doorway to the master bedroom, his hands behind his back, his gaze sweeping over every inch of the room like a scrubbing brush from a street-side barbecue stall.

To be honest, at times like these, he really misses the old-fashioned personal gas mask he used to have when he was young.

It's a bit bulky and often makes my neck uncomfortable, but once you put it on your head, the insulation effect is really good.

Right now, the air is filled with a unique, sweet, metallic smell of blood mixed with the smell of rust, which is quite unsettling.

The on-site investigation has been going on for nearly three or four hours, with inspection personnel coming and going in waves, but the number of suspicious points keeps piling up.

"Captain Chen, stop what you're doing there and come take a look at this first."

As I was deep in thought, I heard the voice of forensic doctor Old Zhou coming from the center of the room. He was kneeling on the carpet, fully equipped, with the deceased lying in a pool of blood beside him.

"This situation is a bit complicated."

"What's wrong?"

Carefully examining the situation on the ground, Old Chen had also changed his shoes and gloves beforehand, strolled over.

The deceased, a robust man in his forties, was wearing a dark nightgown that was torn and in disarray. He eventually collapsed on the floor between the bed and the wardrobe, in a curled-up, side-lying position.

The only fatal wound was on the corpse's neck, a clean and precise cut that severed the victim's carotid artery and trachea.

From Captain Chen's perspective, it was clear that a large patch of blood had spread from beneath the body, soaking the obviously expensive wool carpet and eventually forming a large dark brown area.

It has already dried up.

The gruesome, blood-draining wound was truly chilling.

However, what first caught Old Chen's eye was not the shocking wound, but the condition of the deceased's exposed skin.

"Look here, at his wrists and ankles."

Old Zhou pointed to the area exposed below the sleeve of the deceased's pajamas, which had been slightly rolled up.

Aside from a few dried bloodstains, there were several clear, deep purplish-black indentations, indicating severe subcutaneous bleeding. However, the edges of the bruises looked quite neat, clearly indicating that they had been tightly bound by some kind of band-like object.

"The victim was tightly bound, but the external injuries to the skin and flesh were not severe enough, or rather, the signs of struggle were not obvious. Theoretically, either it was an act committed by someone known to the victim, who could make the victim feel that their life should be safe and therefore not struggle vigorously, or—the victim was already too weak to struggle when they were bound."

Hearing this, Old Chen carefully examined the state of the corpse in front of him for a few more moments.

"A near-death weakened state due to massive blood loss? No, that shouldn't be the case. He should be dead soon after this cut; there's no need to tie him up any further."

"Or is it drug anesthesia? Or something like electric shock?"

"Let's wait for the test results. Anyway, it doesn't look like an accident; it seems like a premeditated act."

Just then, another officer came from the direction of the bathroom, his expression also quite grave. "Captain Chen, there are signs that the bathroom has been cleaned extra, but small amounts of human skin tissue and blood were extracted from the cracks in the walls and the drain filter under the sink, which matched the deceased's DNA."

"Based on the morphological analysis of the body, it is suspected that the cause was repeated impacts to the face or mouth/nose area with a hard object."

Old Zhou, standing nearby, nodded in agreement, corroborating his statement, "The deceased did indeed have extensive swelling on his face, especially around the eye sockets and lips, with clear organic damage, consistent with the characteristics of having been beaten before his death."

"In addition, the person on the ground had more than one broken fingernail. Besides some biological residue and carpet fibers, trace amounts of an unknown gray residue were also found under the fingernails. These have been sent for emergency testing along with the blood sample."

"But the main problem is that, if I'm not mistaken, two or three of his fingernails seemed to have been forcibly 'plucked out,' with a hint of sinister energy."

The experienced forensic doctor made a "pincers" biting gesture, which made the police officer next to him unconsciously shrink his neck.

"This is troublesome—this isn't the kind of method an ordinary person would instinctively use to vent their anger. Of course, it shouldn't appear in a typical burglary either."

Old Chen simply mumbled something, his gaze sweeping across the room once more.

The bedside table was overturned on the floor, the lamp on it was smashed to pieces, and the bed itself was a mess. The blankets and sheets were torn and askew, some even hanging down to the floor, covering the deceased's legs.

Dark red stains were also splattered on it.

"Furthermore, judging from the pattern of the bloodstains," Old Zhou stood up, stretched his numb knees, and pointed to the ground and the wall, "Look here, there are a lot of dripping bloodstains, along with some low-to-medium speed splattering blood, mainly concentrated around the body and in the direction leading to the bathroom."

"And the clues found in the bathroom—I'm starting to think that the deceased may have been subjected to brief periods of control and interrogation in the bedroom and bathroom before his death."

After a pause, the old forensic doctor pointed to the fatal neck wound, "Especially this one, clean and precise, the cut must have been fatal, possibly when the victim was in a weakened state, struck quickly from the side."

Such a cut is, in fact, closer to "execution."

"Judging from the almost intact spray marks on the wall, the killer even deliberately brought him to the blanket to commit the crime, and tried to avoid getting blood on his own clothes."

"Old Chen, you guys better watch out. Ordinary people don't have the awareness or specific techniques to avoid blood splatter like this. This guy who did it—he's probably not only incredibly mentally strong, but also extremely professional."

This inference makes the room temperature seem to drop a few degrees.

It didn't seem like a spur-of-the-moment act, nor did it resemble an impulsive crime; rather, it looked more like a meticulously planned, "professional" attack.

Action—that doesn't sound interesting at all.

"Any other discoveries?"

Old Chen spoke again, his voice even heavier than before.

"Yes, Captain Chen, and it's very strange."

The technicians also got up from the corner of the room and carefully walked over, avoiding the bloodstains, clearly having overheard their discussion.

The man was holding an evidence bag in his hand, which he held up to show it. Inside was a small piece of light-colored anvil. Old Chen glanced at it briefly and it looked like a sample of a carpet that had just been cut.

"On the carpet below the deceased's right hand, we found an unusual burn mark."

Old Zhou nodded at the man, then continued, "The mark Director Chang, covering an area less than the size of a palm."

"However, preliminary testing suggests that the carpet fibers in the area underwent instantaneous carbonization. According to residual analysis, the instantaneous temperature may have exceeded 1,000 degrees Celsius, but the duration of the reaction was extremely short, probably less than a second."

"A thousand degrees?" Old Chen's usually impassive face finally cracked. "What could have caused these marks? Did the killer bring in high-voltage electricity or a blowtorch?"

"None of these seem likely. Furthermore, the company has already checked the power supply to this apartment, and no high power output has been detected recently."

Old Zhou shook his head, "Besides, if it were just a simple external high-temperature source, this mark wouldn't actually be a big problem."

He casually pointed to the deceased's right hand, "But the strangest thing is that the high-temperature mark was initially covered by the edge of his right palm in his original, intact posture, and its shape almost perfectly matched the side of his palm."

"Even when we first started taking panoramic photos as evidence, we still thought that high-temperature mark was simply a bloodstain left by the victim."

Touching his dwindling hair, the forensic doctor was clearly puzzled.

"Judging from the actual positional relationship, that trace—it seems more likely—was left when he finally fell to the ground and his right hand touched the carpet?"