Shi Dazhuang received the call at 3 a. m.
He quickly washed his face and rushed out of his house, making a phone call to Captain Sun of the security team at the same time.
Prostitution is typically handled by the local police, and criminal investigations usually don't get involved. But this case is unusual; someone is using mind control to organize prostitution, and it involves kidnapping and illegal restriction of personal freedom. Most importantly, a murder has occurred, although it hasn't been confirmed yet whether it was murder.
He drove along, giving instructions over the phone. When he called Hu Xing, it rang a few times but she didn't answer. He thought to himself, "It's not easy for a rich girl to be a detective," and didn't call again.
Upon arriving at Spring Moon Garden, Shi Dazhuang showed his identification and entered row house number 11. Inside, in addition to the police officers, several criminal police officers who lived nearby were also present.
He immediately spotted Qingmu sitting in the living room, being questioned.
" Teacher Qingmu!" Shi Dazhuang walked over and greeted him, then asked, "What happened?"
The team members who had arrived earlier replied, "It's like this: a girl who sings at the bar where Teacher Qingmu went missing. The bar owner and the waitresses came here and were illegally detained. Teacher Qingmu called the police, and together with the officers from the local police station, they came here."
"That's right," the police officer taking statements added. "When we arrived, they—" he pointed to two women sitting next to him, "were all tied up in the room, and him—" he then pointed to a young man lying on the sofa, "He was a bartender, lying unconscious on the floor of the next room."
"Who died?" Shi Dazhuang asked.
"Oh, it's a pimp. Forensic doctor Chen is already here, upstairs," the officer said.
Shi Dazhuang apologized to Qingmu and hurriedly went upstairs.
In the central hall on the second floor, police officers from the local police station were taking a statement from a young woman shivering in her pajamas. Most of the criminal investigation team members were in the rooms.
A naked male corpse lay on the bed in the room. Forensic pathologist Chen Jianzhong was conducting a detailed examination of the body. Seeing Shi Dazhuang enter, he stood up, shook his head, and said, "It should be sudden death. We'll need to go back to the team to confirm the specifics."
Shi Dazhuang nodded, patted Chen Jianzhong on the shoulder, and said, "Thank you for your hard work!"
Chen Jianzhong smiled but didn't say anything. He'd been a forensic doctor for so many years; he was used to it.
Other officers from the Criminal Investigation Detachment also arrived one after another. Based on the work done at the police station, they conducted supplementary investigations and evidence collection at the scene, and the work proceeded in an orderly manner.
Shi Dazhuang then went to the secluded hall on the first floor and frowned as he looked at the rows of large mirrors.
The mirrors were taller than a person and wider than two people, with mirror surfaces on both sides. The mirrors were spaced about two meters apart, arranged in a Bagua (Eight Trigrams) formation that didn't quite resemble a Bagua formation. Shi Dazhuang counted them; there were twelve in total.
He walked around the mirrors and found some of them strange. He could see many overlapping images in them, some of which looked distorted. He knew this was due to optical principles, caused by the angle of the mirrors or an uneven surface on one of them. But seeing such images in the middle of the night still made him feel uneasy. He felt a little dizzy, his chest felt tight, and his breathing became a little difficult.
His attention was focused on the mirror when he suddenly heard a "crash" under his feet, as if he had stepped on something. He looked down and saw many shards of glass, only to realize that a mirror next to him had been broken, leaving only an empty frame.
The dizziness disappeared, and my breathing became easier.
He reached out and pushed the edge of one of the mirrors, and the mirror began to rotate along the center point of the ground, like a revolving door at the entrance of a hotel.
"Report to the bureau and request the provincial department to send over experts in mental control," Shi Dazhuang said, looking at the constantly changing reflection in the slowly rotating mirror.
After a night of work, Shi Dazhuang returned to his office. As he leaned back in his chair to rest, he mentally reviewed the case. This was a habit he had developed over the years; no matter how complex or simple the case, he would always calm down and go through the details of the case after returning from a crime scene.
The deceased was named Liang Kai, a local from Wuzhong, who had previously been detained for gambling and pimping. The temporary landlady of the row house was named Li Qian, a music student and the roommate of the victim Mo Yu.
According to Li Qian's confession, she met Liang and *Tu*Shukai while working at a nightclub. The two conspired to start a pimping business. Liang Kai was responsible for finding clients, while Li Qian was responsible for finding pretty female students from music academies and art schools who were willing to sell their bodies for money.
Later, Li Qian met a man named Situ and learned some basic hypnosis techniques. The mirror maze in that row house was designed by Situ. With the help of hypnosis and the mirror maze, she controlled some female students.
At first, they only earned some commission by pimping, but later they found that the female students were being controlled and had no idea what they were doing, so she and Liang Kai simply pocketed all the money the girls earned from prostitution.
Mo Yu was one of the girls they controlled, but according to Li Qian, her hypnosis of Mo Yu was not very successful. She had to come back every night to reinforce it, and then Liang Kai would send her to the client.
That day, someone asked Mo Yu to sing at a bar to fill in for someone. Li Qian agreed because she was afraid of arousing suspicion, as long as she was back before midnight. But then trouble broke out.
Shi Dazhuang knew a little about this matter. Qingmu had approached him about it, mentioning that the girls singing at their bar might be under mental control, and asked them to help investigate Li Qian and a man named Situ. Shi Dazhuang helped investigate out of consideration for his friend, but honestly, he didn't take it very seriously.
After learning the truth about being forced into prostitution, Mo Yu went back to confront Li Qian, only to be restrained again. Fortunately, the bar owner and a waiter came to her aid.
Regarding what happened later, Li Qian's testimony was somewhat inconsistent. At one point, she said they tied up Mo Yu and Bi Shenghua and took them to the client, and at another point, she said Liang Kai was beaten to death by thugs sent by the client. But the facts at the scene were that the two women were tied up in the downstairs storage room, and by the time the police arrived, they had already been rescued by Qingmu, while Liang Kai died on Li Qian's bed.
Although Li Qian's statements were incoherent, the entire course of events became clear when pieced together from the testimonies of Qingmu, Mo Yu, the bar owner, and the waiter who was unconscious until the early hours of the morning.
There are only two things that are still unclear.
The first question is about Liang Kai's cause of death: was it sudden death or homicide?
Secondly, what's the mystery behind those twelve mirrors, and who exactly is this person named Situ?
The experts from the provincial department estimate they won't arrive until at least tomorrow, while Chen Jianzhong's autopsy report should be available today.
And those girls who were forced into prostitution—it's unknown when they'll all be found. Although Li Qian was the organizer, Liang Kai found all the clients. Now that Liang Kai is dead, they can only slowly search through his phone contacts.
If Liang Kai's death was murdered, then things become complicated!