The Mystery of the Inner Demon

Chapter 38: Humans and animals are harmless
Zhong Kui smiled but said nothing.

"I know there is someone in Nancheng Investment who knows medicine!" Qi Fei said immediately.

Soon, in the interrogation room, the place where Feng Yi had sat was replaced by Li Jian, the seemingly harmless Dr. Li.

His eyes looked somewhat innocent as he looked at Qi Fei, who was sitting opposite him, in panic and asked in a low voice, "Who did you say died?"

"Pan Ting, don't you know him?" Qi Fei showed Li Jian a photo of Pan Ting.

Li Jian nodded in confusion: "Oh, this person is Pan Ting, I know." Although he admitted that he knew Pan Ting, he still looked unfamiliar with him.

Qi Fei looked at the doctor in front of him. He looked sincere. If he wasn't truly innocent, he must be a ruthless character with frighteningly good acting skills. He stared at the other person's fair face and continued, "According to the current investigation, someone replaced his daily liver protection tablets with a deadly poison. He died of poisoning."

"Poisoned? What kind of medicine did he take?" Li Jian blurted out, his professional curiosity aroused.

"You don't know?" Qi Fei looked at Li Jian with a questioning look.

"How... would I know?"

"We've learned that you originally had a chance to be promoted this year, but because you also signed Pan Ting's joint review of this project, the auditors were investigating you, so you lost the opportunity. You resented him for ruining your future, so you used your medical knowledge to kill him." Qi Fei said.

Upon hearing this inference, Li Jian quickly waved his hands: "That's absolutely impossible! The audit team and I have already explained the joint review clearly. It's just routine. From my department's perspective, there is indeed no problem with his project. If you accuse me of murder, you must provide evidence. I don't even know what poison he was poisoned with!"

Qi Fei listened and threw the medication report to him: "Does it look familiar?"

The moment Li Jian saw the ingredients of the medicine, he suddenly fell silent.

His lips moved twice, as if he wanted to say something but stopped himself.

"This is not easy to buy on the market, and ordinary people don't know such specific ingredients. The dosage for poisoning Pan Ting is measured in milligrams. Without any professional knowledge, it is really impossible to do this. Tell me, where were you and what did you do last Friday?" Qi Fei continued to ask.

However, Li Jian looked at the drug report as if he was possessed by a demon and completely ignored Qi Fei's words.

"Li Jian?" Qi Fei raised his voice and called his name.

"What did you say?" Li Jian raised his head as if waking from a dream.

"I asked about your schedule last Friday."

"I, can't remember."

"Huh? You can't remember anything about the whole day? People in your department said that you were not at the company all day on Friday. Where did you go?" Qi Fei's suspicion was growing.

"I..." Li Jian began to hesitate, "I'm not feeling well, so I asked for leave to rest at home."

"Can anyone prove it?"

"No, I live alone." Li Jian said, and then suddenly seemed to react and said, "You have no evidence to prove that I killed Pan Ting. I studied medicine and would not do such a heinous thing."

After several rounds of questioning without any results, they had no choice but to let Li Jian leave.

Qi Fei knew that Li Jian was right in one thing: they didn't have enough evidence to prove he was the murderer. "He's hiding something from you," Zhong Kui said as soon as she saw Qi Fei.

"You don't need me to tell you, I noticed it too. The moment he saw the drug ingredients, his expression was clearly off," Qi Fei said. "We've asked around, and Pan Ting had a social event Thursday night. The waiter at the restaurant confirmed that he took liver-protecting tablets before drinking, and everyone at the table drank until late at night. So whoever switched the drugs had to have done it at least in the early hours of Friday morning. It seems we need to investigate Li Jian's movements that day."

At this time, Wu Shanqiu ran over from a distance.

Seeing the two people chatting enthusiastically, he pretended to be puzzled: "Hey, Brother Fei, aren't you in a hurry to check the report? Why are you chatting about random things?"

"Mind your own business. We are talking about the case. Is there any new development?" Qi Fei asked, looking at the report in Wu Shanqiu's hand.

"New discoveries were made among Niu Yinzhu's hair found at Pan Ting's death scene."

Qi Fei took the report and frowned, obviously not understanding the content.

Xiao Tao followed Wu Shanqiu slowly and explained: "Intestinal sloughed cells, trace amounts of bacterial metabolites, straw fiber..."

"Speak human language!" Qi Fei was always speechless when Xiao Tao showed off his knowledge.

Xiao Tao slowly pushed up his glasses and said, "We found fecal matter in Niu Yinzhu's hair."

"Excrement? Human or animal?" Qi Fei immediately asked, "Or Niu Yinzhu's own?"

Zhong Kui was more concerned about the meaning behind these words and asked Xiao Tao, "You said there was an important discovery. If it was Niu Yinzhu's feces, it wouldn't be surprising. But it seems that the owner of this feces is someone else."

Xiao Tao didn't know why, but seeing that Zhong Kui and she seemed to have an immediate rapport, she smiled and said to her, "That's right. I tried to extract some DNA, and it worked. However, I got DNA from more than one person."

"Huh?" The three people present made surprised sounds at the same time.

"The detailed analysis is still ongoing. So far, we've found five people. This means that the feces of at least five people was mixed with Niu Yinzhu's blood."

Wu Shanqiu shook her head. "It's too cruel. I can't even imagine what kind of indignity Niu Yinzhu has endured. Could this be a group crime?"

Qi Fei listened, thought for a moment, and then nodded to himself, "Doesn't that make sense?"

"Brother Fei, what are you talking about that is reasonable?" Wu Shanqiu asked curiously.

"It's about the location where Niu Yinzhu disappeared last." Qi Fei said as he took out the timeline he had recently drawn from his pocket. "Let's assume that the other party committed the crime alone. The time when this person used Niu Yinzhu's identity to send a message to Pan Ting was an hour away from Nancheng. If he wanted to deal with Niu Yinzhu, he had to run to this place to send a message to confuse the public. If it was a collective crime, it would make sense."

"You're wrong," Zhong Kui interrupted Qi Fei. "You've forgotten two very important factors. First, Niu Yinzhu is already dead, and second, they disposed of the body, preventing you from finding her. Killing someone and eliminating evidence takes time, but it also requires keeping secrets. Group crime tends to leave more clues. Three years of impeccable results, and now you're suddenly discovering so much DNA. Do you think that's reasonable?"

Zhong Kui's words stunned the two people.

"The way you say that... is as if you've killed someone." Qi Fei muttered.

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(End of this chapter)