Solving the case: Combining the police dog's olfactory genes at the beginning

Was she particularly clingy to you when she was little?

Chen Xuanran suddenly sat up straight and turned to look at him.

"how do you know?"

"Guess."

Luo Fei shrugged, but in his mind he remembered the tattered rag doll he had accidentally seen in the Chen family's bathroom last time, with the two characters "Xuanran" crookedly sewn on it.

Chen Xuanran bit her lower lip.

“She loved me so much when she was little. She even secretly made a rag doll and slept with it every night.”

Her voice became lower and lower.

"Later, the doll disappeared, and she cried for a week."

Luo Fei felt a chill run down his spine.

He remembered the doll because it was hidden deep inside the bathroom cabinet, its eyes gouged out and its chest riddled with needles.

"Your sister, she"

Luo Fei carefully considered the wording.

"Are you holding a grudge?"

Chen Xuanran suddenly laughed.

"It's more than just holding grudges. When she was a child, she was bitten by an ant, so she poured boiling water into the entire ant nest."

Her smile gradually faded.

"She hates you now, and she doesn't even dare to mention the word 'shun' at home."

Luo Fei raised an eyebrow.

Why the character '顺' (shùn, meaning smooth or favorable)?

"Because 'Luo Fei' sounds good."

Chen Xuanran imitated Chen Hao's tone.

She said you're a smooth talker who only deceives young girls.

Luo Fei was both amused and exasperated.

What else did she say about me?

Chen Xuanran counted on his fingers.

"Teasing the homeroom teacher, harassing female classmates, peeping at older women taking a bath."

With each word she spoke, Luo Fei's eyes widened a little more.

"and many more!"

Luo Fei interrupted her.

"When did I peep at the old lady taking a bath?"

"Last Wednesday, at the community public bathroom."

Chen Xuanran said in a very serious tone.

"According to witnesses, there was someone who looks like you peering out of the women's bathroom window."

Luo Fei covered his face.

"It's a waste that your sister's storytelling talent isn't used to write novels."

Chen Xuanran suddenly leaned closer and whispered in his ear.

"But I know she's lying."

Her breath brushed against Luo Fei's ear.

"Because you were with me last Wednesday night, remember? At the movie theater, you put your hand on me."

Luo Fei suddenly turned his head and kissed her, cutting off her words.

This was the fifth kiss tonight, and each one was deeper than the last.

Chen Xuanran's lips were soft and moist, with a faint minty flavor.

Luo Fei's hand slid to her waist, pulling her closer.

When they parted, both of them were out of breath.

Luo Fei asked with a wicked grin.

Did your sister ever say I'm a bad kisser?

Chen Xuanran blushed and pushed him away.

She has no idea that I haven't told her about us.

"Then I have to do my best and not let your sister down."

Luo Fei made a move to kiss him again, but Chen Xuanran blocked him with his hand.

"honestly."

Chen Xuanran suddenly became serious.

“My sister isn’t joking. She really will try to break us up.”

Luo Fei's smile faded.

"Then I might as well just marry your sister and be done with it once and for all."

"you dare!"

Chen Xuanran suddenly grabbed his arm, making Luo Fei wince in pain.

"Kidding!"

Luo Fei quickly begged for mercy.

"How could I dare to provoke that female demon?"

Chen Xuanran released his grip, but his eyes remained dangerous.

"Luo Fei, what if you dare to take advantage of me and then abandon me?"

She leaned close to his ear and whispered.

"I will be even more ruthless than my sister."

Luo Fei swallowed hard.

At this moment, Chen Xuanran both moved and frightened him.

He initially thought Chen Xuanran was a novice in relationships, but after spending time together, her sometimes shy and sometimes bold behavior made him suspect that she had a mentor behind the scenes.

"Where are your parents?"

Luo Fei changed the subject.

"Besides liking Shen Lang, what's your opinion of me?"

Chen Xuanran's expression softened.

"Actually, they quite like you. They think you are hardworking and reliable."

She sighed.

“But my sister always speaks ill of you in front of them, and now they are starting to waver.”

Luo Fei gave a wry smile.

"It seems that becoming a son-in-law of the Chen family is not easy."

"Who said I was going to marry you!"

Chen Xuanran blushed and punched him.

Luo Fei grabbed her wrist and said seriously.

"Xuanran, I'm serious. Even though your sister is a problem, I won't give up."

Chen Xuanran's eyes sparkled in the moonlight.

She gently pulled her hand away from Luo Fei's and stood up.

"It's late, take me home."

Luo Fei stood up and hugged her from behind.

"How about we don't go back tonight?"

Chen Xuanran turned around and placed her index finger on his lips.

"It's a beautiful thought."

Her voice carried a hint of laughter, yet it brooked no refusal.

Luo Fei knew there was no chance tonight, so he had no choice but to take her hand.

"Let's go, let's take you home."

On the taxi ride home, Chen Xuanran leaned on his shoulder and pretended to doze off.

Luo Fei gazed at the fleeting street scenes outside the window, his thoughts racing.

Chen Hao's threat was no joke, and Chen Xuanran's performance tonight surprised him as she seemed to have transformed overnight from a shy girl into a skilled and adept lover.

Who was behind her back? Or had she been pretending all along?

"arrive."

The driver's voice interrupted his thoughts.

Downstairs at Chen Xuanran's house, Luo Fei held her hand reluctantly.

"See you tomorrow?"

"Ah."

Chen Xuanran nodded, then suddenly tiptoed and kissed him on the cheek before quickly running into the stairwell.

Luo Fei touched the spot where he had been kissed, grinning foolishly for a while before leaving.

The next morning, as soon as Luo Fei arrived downstairs at the police station, he saw Chen Xuanran walking towards him from across the street.

She wore a light blue dress today, and her hair was carefully styled, shimmering in the morning light.

Luo Fei was stunned. The girl who had been shy in his arms last night was now radiant.

"morning."

Chen Xuanran walked up to him and handed him a paper bag.

"I brought you breakfast."

When Luo Fei opened it, he found a sandwich and coffee. A heart was drawn on the sandwich with ketchup.

He felt a warmth in his heart, and just as he was about to say something, the elevator doors opened.

"Let's talk after we go in."

Chen Xuanran pushed him into the elevator.

There were only the two of them in the elevator.

Luo Fei took a bite of his sandwich and mumbled something indistinctly.

"You look great today."

Chen Xuanran's face immediately turned red, and she lowered her head to fidget with the hem of her skirt.

"I got up at five in the morning to prepare."

Luo Fei's heart skipped a beat.

Five o'clock? Just to make him breakfast and get him dressed? He secretly hooked his finger around Chen Xuanran's and whispered.

"Don't work so hard next time, get some more sleep."

Chen Xuanran looked up at him, her eyes sparkling.

"worth."

Luo Fei suddenly felt a swelling in his chest.

He was about to tell her that he planned to make their relationship public to the group when the elevator doors suddenly opened.

"Captain Luo! Officer Chen!"

Cheng Yunchuan and Deng Yunzhou came running over, panting.

"Something's happened in Beijiang District! Someone's been murdered, and the chief wants us to go there immediately!"

Outside the police cordon, the murmurs of the onlookers rose and fell. Luo Fei pushed through the crowd, showed his police ID, and then bent down to crawl under the cordon.

Chen Xuanran followed closely behind, and the two of them tacitly put on shoe covers and gloves.

"That's quite a show of force."

Chen Xuanran said in a low voice, his gaze sweeping over the busy police officers at the scene.

Luo Fei nodded, his brows furrowed.

"All three teams have arrived; this must be no ordinary case."

On the muddy ground, a dark red drag mark was shocking, like a winding blood snake pointing to the edge of the cliff.

Luo Fei squatted down, his fingertips lightly touching the soil; the damp bloodstains had not yet completely congealed.

"Captain Luo!"

Zhou Hang squeezed through the crowd, his uniform from the third team stained with mud.

"You are here too."

"what's the situation?"

Luo Fei stood up and patted the dirt off his hands.

Zhou Hang lowered his voice.

"The deceased was a male, around forty years old, who was stabbed more than a dozen times before being thrown off a cliff. Even more bizarrely..."

He looked left and right.

"His genitals were cut off."

Chen Xuanran gasped.

"Perverted!"

Luo Fei's gaze followed the drag marks toward the cliff.

"Let's go over and have a look."

The wind howled past the cliff edge.

Six or seven meters below, in a pile of rubble, a twisted corpse lay face down, surrounded by yellow markers from the forensic team.

Luo Fei squinted and noticed that the drag marks stopped abruptly a little over a meter from the edge of the cliff.

"interesting."

Luo Fei squatted down and measured the distance to the end of the drag mark with his fingers.

"The killer wasn't dragged to the edge and pushed off, but right here."

He made a lifting motion.

"They carried the body up and threw it down."

Chen Xuanran frowned.

"What's the point?"

"unless."

Luo Fei's gaze sharpened.

"The murderer had some kind of obsessive-compulsive disorder or a special sense of ritual."

Footsteps sounded behind me, and a man wearing gold-rimmed glasses and a sharp suit walked over.

Luo Fei recognized Di Yifan, the new deputy captain of the team. Even in the muddy scene, the former criminal investigation professor maintained the demeanor of an academic elite.

"Captain Luo."

Di Yifan nodded slightly.

"What did you find?"

Luo Fei pointed to the drag marks.

"The murderer was quite strong; he was able to lift an adult male and throw him off a cliff."

Di Yifan pushed up his glasses.

"Preliminary assessment indicates the perpetrator is between 1.75 and 1.8 meters tall, right-handed, based on the angle of the wounds."

"Professor Di."

Zhou Hang interrupted him.

"Let's go down and check the body first."

Upon reaching the bottom of the cliff, the stench of blood assaulted our senses.

Female forensic pathologist Sister Zou was squatting next to the body, while her assistant, Xiao Wang, kept taking pictures with a camera.

Sister Zou looked up, saw Luo Fei, and nodded.

"coming?"

"Sister Zou, what's going on?"

Luo Fei approached.

Sister Zou lifted the white sheet covering the corpse.

"He died around 2 a.m. He had 38 stab wounds on his front and died from a ruptured heart and massive bleeding. After he died, he was dragged and thrown off a cliff."

She paused.

"Furthermore, the genitals were completely removed and left three meters away from the scene."

Luo Fei squatted down and put on rubber gloves with Chen Xuanran.

The body was a gruesome sight from the front, with dense knife wounds on the chest and abdomen, some so deep that the bone was visible.

"What kind of deep-seated hatred must there be?"

Chen Xuanran murmured.

Luo Fei noticed a ring mark on the deceased's right ring finger.

"Married?"

Sister Zou nodded.

"The ring was taken by the murderer, possibly to interfere with the investigation."

"Do not."

Luo Fei shook his head.

"If it's interference with the investigation, they should have taken the watch and wallet as well. Just take the ring."

His eyes gleamed.

"It may have special significance."

"Turn it over and take a look."

Luo Fei gestured.

Several people worked together to turn the body over. Apart from bruises and abrasions from the fall, there were no other wounds on the back.

"A frontal assault."

Luo Fei pondered.

"The killer is either someone we know, or..."

"Either the deceased was in a state of being unable to resist at the time."

Di Yifan continued the conversation.

"Intoxicated, unconscious, or under control."

Xiao Wang suddenly pointed to the deceased's waistband.

"Sister Zou, there's something here!"

Sister Zou unbuckled the deceased's belt and pulled out a folded piece of paper from the edge of his underwear.

She carefully unfolded it, and there was a line of text printed on it.

"The third."

Luo Fei and Chen Xuanran exchanged a glance, both seeing shock in each other's eyes.

"Serial killer?"

Chen Xuanran's voice was strained.

Luo Fei.

"Looks like we're in big trouble."

Inside the municipal bureau's senior conference room, a projector displayed photos from the scene onto a screen.

Director Meng Haonan sat at the head of the table, his expression solemn.

Luo Fei looked around and saw that almost all the key members of the three brigades were present.

The deceased, Zhu Mingwei, was 42 years old and the owner of the "Shuxinge" massage parlor.

A colleague from the Criminal Investigation Department pointed to the projector.

"She is married and has a daughter studying abroad. There were no signs of a struggle at the scene, so the assailant may have attacked her when she was off guard."

Luo Fei noticed that Di Yifan was taking notes quickly in his notebook, his handwriting as neat as printed text.

"This is the third similar case."

Meng Haonan's voice silenced the meeting room.

"Xiao Zhang, introduce the first two cases to the new colleague."

The projection switched to two more photos of corpses, which were equally gruesome.

"On March 18, 2023, Li Changxing, 45, owner of 'Ye Lai Xiang' KTV, was stabbed 27 times and thrown into Ma Que Gou. His genitals were removed."

Xiao Zhang's voice was calm to the point of being cold.

"On August 12, Chen Guozhu, 43, manager of the 'Jinhaiwan' bathhouse, was stabbed 32 times and thrown into a dry well, where he was also castrated."

Quiet murmurs broke out in the conference room.

Luo Fei noticed that Chen Xuanran's fingers were trembling slightly under the table.

"Common ground?"

Luo Fei asked.

"They are all entertainment venue operators, married men, and of similar age."

Xiao Zhang answered.

"The murderer used ordinary fruit knives, wore gloves, and left no DNA."

"and this."

Meng Haonan held up the evidence bag, which contained three slips of paper, each labeled "First," "Second," and the latest "Third."

"Bird-cutting maniac."

Someone whispered something, which elicited a few dry laughs.

"Snapped!"

Director Meng Haonan slammed his hand heavily on the conference table, making the teacups on the table jump.

The conference room fell silent instantly; everyone held their breath.

"The Li Changxing case, the Chen Guozhu case, and this new murder case yesterday—three cases, and not a single one has been solved!"

Meng Haonan's voice scraped against everyone's eardrums like a knife.

"The Jiangcheng Police Bureau's homicide clearance rate has dropped to 80% this year, which is a full 20 percentage points short of the provincial department's requirement of 100%!"

I was sitting in the second row, and I could clearly see the bulging veins on Meng Haonan's temples.

He is 55 years old this year and will retire in a few years. He obviously does not want to leave a stain on his career at the end of his career.

"The Lunar New Year is less than three weeks away."

Meng Haonan surveyed the entire room, his gaze as sharp as a hawk's.

"If these three cases are not solved, not only will my year-end bonus be halved, but I, as the bureau chief, will also have to go to the provincial department to make a self-criticism!"

The atmosphere in the meeting room was so heavy it was almost palpable. (End of Chapter)