Reborn Cat Sheriff

Chapter 366 New Abilities
Lin Ge smelled a burnt smell, a hint of ozone, and a smell similar to that of plastic being scalded by an electric shock.

He didn't know where the smell came from, only vaguely sensing that something was wrong. It was as if his body was instinctively alerting him to something, something that could undoubtedly pose a great threat to him.

"Firearms?"

Lin Ge thought of a possibility, and after considering the usage scenarios and portability, he quickly came up with something called a 'stun gun'.

This thing can attack targets with a sudden release of extremely high-voltage current, rendering even the strongest person instantly unable to resist. As a portable and easy-to-use weapon, it is, in some ways, more effective than knives or daggers.

Of course, most stun guns available on the market today are not very dangerous; their deterrent effect outweighs their offensive power. However, just over a decade or so until a few years ago, some stun guns advertised in magazines, claiming to deliver tens of thousands of volts, were quite popular for self-defense among women and in the hands of criminals. These portable weapons, capable of easily disarming a target, with their rapid effectiveness and lower lethality than knives, enjoyed a period of unchecked growth before being regulated.

Returning to the case at hand, there is still a possibility that Chen Jian was carrying a stun gun for self-defense.

Firstly, he was committing a heinous murder; secondly, sleeping pills couldn't guarantee Xu Yinghui wouldn't wake up midway. Furthermore, although Xu Yinghui was middle-aged and his body had been weakened by the "Red Powder Skull" (a drug), he was still quite robust and appeared much stronger than Chen Jian. Given Chen Jian's painstaking efforts to kill Xu Yinghui, he would certainly be worried about Xu Yinghui escaping or resisting, making it perfectly reasonable for him to carry a weapon capable of quickly subduing his target.

However! Ai Qing was unaware of the existence of this stun gun!
In his confession, he described himself as a manual laborer who didn't need to use his brain, and he didn't mention anything about a stun gun.

In other words, the stun gun was Chen Jian's own spontaneous act! His explanation that he was forced to obey his girlfriend's orders is completely different in nature.

In other words, once the stun gun is found, Chen Jian's voluntary surrender will become a joke. Because he didn't truthfully confess the facts, and even misled the judicial authorities by concealing the truth, placing the blame on Ai Qing, he doesn't meet the legal definition of voluntary surrender. At that point, he would transform from an accomplice into one of the masterminds, and his plan to escape punishment by exploiting Ai Qing's stupidity and the lack of on-site evidence would completely fail.

"Ow!"

Lin Ge turned around and called out towards the door. Shao Yongkang and the other two, who had been waiting impatiently, quickly strode in.

"Mimi, have you found any clues?"

Shao Yongkang looked at Lin Ge expectantly; this cat always managed to bring him some surprises.

"Idiot, look here!"

Lin Ge pointed to a small charred mark in the wardrobe and looked at Qian Weiyi.

This burn mark, the size of a fingernail, is easily overlooked or considered irrelevant to the case. However, in the olfactory world constructed by Lin Ge, Chen Jian, hiding in the wardrobe, had opened the stun gun more than once and tested it against the surroundings to verify its effectiveness. It was obvious that the clothes and the solid wood of the wardrobe were non-conductive, but the sparks jumping between the positive and negative terminals of the stun gun still managed to burn a charred mark on the lower edge of the metal clothes rack.

"These are... burn marks? How did they get there?"

Qian Weiyi was somewhat stunned. Could someone have been smoking in the closet? Although he didn't immediately consider the possibility of a stun gun, he professionally photographed and extracted the scorch mark, and successfully found several strands of hair and fingerprints in the closet. Judging from the length, thickness, and color of the hair, it was more likely to belong to Chen Jian. In other words, this guy had once hidden in this closet, and the scorch mark was very likely related to him.

"Hey?"

Shao Yongkang's phone rang. He answered and paused for a moment: "Xu Yinghui can talk? Did he confess anything? Hmm... He woke up briefly, then somehow passed out again? Hmm... The doctor's diagnosis was that he didn't have enough sleeping pills? Haha... Don't spout nonsense like 'fake sleeping pills,' this isn't the time for jokes! You said Xu Yinghui has an electric shock injury in his waist? What kind is it? Is his renewed unconsciousness related to that injury?"

Lin Ge looked up at Shao Yongkang. Had the doctor also discovered the existence of the stun gun?
If Xu Yinghui had regained consciousness at one point, then was the reason he fell unconscious again the key factor that nearly killed him? In other words, did Chen Jian, who used a stun gun to knock Xu Yinghui unconscious again, have a stronger subjective intent to kill?

If we find that stun gun, we can prove that Chen Jian attacked Xu Yinghui on his own initiative, proving that he was not just an accomplice!
"I just hope that Chen Jian is still hiding it at home, or has left it somewhere that hasn't been disposed of yet."

Lin Ge left the room with a stern face, finally able to breathe in some fresh air, but also feeling a sense of urgency about the upcoming task of finding the stun gun. The last thing he wanted to see was the stun gun being thrown into the trash and transported to a garbage dump. Although it was the dead of winter and the smell wasn't as terrible as in summer, searching through a giant pile of garbage for a small stun gun was something neither the police nor Lin Ge wanted to do.

"You two, keep up!"

Shao Yongkang gestured for Wang Liqun and Chen Liang to follow Lin Ge, while he himself would re-interrogate Chen Jian and Ai Qing.

With new anomalies emerging, new inconsistencies have appeared in Chen Jian and Ai Qing's testimonies. Ai Qing never mentioned Xu Yinghui waking up midway through the murder; was she unaware, or was she stubbornly covering for her boyfriend? The probability of Ai Qing knocking Xu Yinghui unconscious a second time is low; she even mentioned the sleeping pills, so why would she hide the fact that she knocked him unconscious again? If Ai Qing was unaware, then her involvement in the murder was undoubtedly limited. In other words, Chen Jian's involvement is definitely not as simple as his confession suggests! As the case has changed, the probability of Chen Jian transforming from an accomplice into a premeditated murderer is increasing. If these elements and the truth cannot be logically connected, even if the police have apprehended both suspects, their report to the prosecution may be rejected due to incomplete facts and insufficient evidence.

This was something Shao Yongkang certainly didn't want to see, but unfortunately, the evidence at the scene could hardly be altered any further. Therefore, he simply assigned two of his men to help Lin Ge and hurriedly went to interrogate Chen Jian and Ai Qing's statements.

"But for me, there's definitely more new evidence. As long as we find that stun gun and match the fingerprints on it with Xu Yinghui's electrocution marks, Chen Jian won't be able to argue anymore. Even if we give this beast an extra two or three years, it'll be an important thing worth the effort! Damn it!"

Lin Ge arrived at Chen Jian's rented apartment with gritted teeth.

Upon entering, I discovered that the house was quite upscale. It wasn't one of those empty houses; rather, it was fully equipped with all the necessary amenities, even featuring high-end computers with large, water-cooled LCD screens.

The rent for a place like this must be expensive every month, and Chen Jian absolutely could not afford it. In other words, this beast not only squandered the money his girlfriend earned as someone else's mistress, but he was also trying to pin the entire blame for the murder on her.

How can we not severely punish this kind of person?
Lin Ge gritted his teeth, thinking this, while the busy police officers and another investigator all made way for him upon seeing him. Everyone knew how capable this cat was; had it come here specifically to discover some important clue?
"But where would the stun gun be hidden?"

Lin Ge wandered around the house twice but didn't find anything suspicious. Mainly because the stun gun itself doesn't carry any smell, and Lin Ge's search methods weren't much different from those of a regular police officer.

The only good news was that along the way, they didn't find Chen Jian near any trash cans or places where he could easily hide things. Therefore, it's highly likely he brought the stun gun back with him, and that thing is definitely hidden in the room.

"So...where exactly will it be?"

Lin Ge closed his eyes and once again used the new skill he had just learned. He collected and categorized all the scents belonging to Chen Jian in the room, forming different time points in his mind. Which scent appeared first, and which appeared later; where Chen Jian went first after entering the room, and then where else. What did he touch, and what did he do? He reconstructed everything bit by bit through the different freshness of the scents.

This seemingly unbelievable task was also extremely difficult for Lingo. He felt as if his brain had become a large computer, collecting and analyzing all sorts of minute details, and then reconstructing them bit by bit.

What is Mimi doing?

Wang Liqun looked at Lin Ge with a puzzled expression. The cat was standing in the living room with its eyes closed and motionless, as if it were just dozing off.

Before he could finish speaking, Lin Ge moved.

He slowly returned to the front door, tilted his head back, and sniffed the air, imagining Chen Jian lingering there for a long time, seemingly trying to calm the tension after the murder. He then changed his shoes and rummaged through the cabinet next to the shoe rack, seemingly taking something out. Then, he anxiously sat down on the sofa and began fiddling with something. Perhaps he was disassembling the stun gun, or perhaps he was erasing marks from his body. In any case, he lingered on the sofa for a considerable amount of time, getting up several times to search the cabinet again. Hmm? Something seemed to have fallen to the floor. He crouched down and felt around, even rummaging under the sofa?
"It's hidden inside the sofa?"

Lin Ge opened his eyes, bent down and peered up through the gap under the sofa. Sure enough, he saw a dark, blurry fingerprint.

Even in the cleanest house, dust and grime are inevitable under the sofa. The traces left by Chen Jian proved that Lin Ge's judgment and reconstruction of the scene were correct. Lin Ge quickly found a small opening under the sofa, which appeared to have been cut with a knife. Unfortunately, when he tried to pry it open with his paw, he found nothing hidden inside. Clearly, Chen Jian also knew that hiding the stun gun here would be easily discovered, so he chose to give up halfway. "Hmm? There are fingerprints here? And what's the deal with this opening?"

The on-site investigator standing nearby watched curiously as Lin Ge finished his work. After Lin Ge left, he also looked down and finally discovered the previously undiscovered oversight.

Several police officers frantically lifted the sofa, but unfortunately could only take photos of fingerprints and found nothing else. Meanwhile, Lin Ge had followed the smell to the bathroom, and finding that Chen Jian hadn't made any further moves, he returned to the living room and then went to the balcony.

Chen Jian lingered on the balcony for a while, seemingly observing something. Then he returned to the living room and rummaged through the coffee table. Lin Ge came over, pulled open the coffee table drawer, and found only two rolls of garbage bags and some small odds and ends inside.

"He tore off a piece of the garbage bag?"

Lin Ge noticed something was wrong, mainly because Chen Jian had returned to the balcony. Lin Ge suddenly thought of a possibility and quickly leaned out of the balcony to look down. He immediately saw a low, seven-story old house not far below.

Upon closer inspection, one could see countless pieces of trash on the roof of that house. It seemed that many unscrupulous individuals had turned that area into a public garbage dump, repeatedly throwing trash directly onto the roof from above.

Lin Ge even saw scattered sanitary napkins and other items on the rooftop, and immediately frowned speechlessly.

Wrap the stun gun in a garbage bag and throw it down there? If he's done this many times before, practice makes perfect, so the chance of failure shouldn't be high, right?

"Ow!"

Lin Ge turned around and called out to Wang Liqun and Chen Liang. The two followed Lin Ge's gaze and quickly included the entire rooftop garbage dump in their suspicions.

"Heh... If there really is a stun gun, and even Chen Jian's fingerprints on it, there's practically no way the prosecution can back down from this case. Chen Jian's surrender will become a joke, and that scoundrel can serve their full sentence in jail!"

Chen Liang smiled eagerly.

"It's too early to talk about this now. Let's go look for it first! We were just saying not to go through the trash, and now a garbage dump has fallen from the sky! Humph! People who live in places like this don't seem to be very civilized either."

Wang Liqun sighed.

"Be content! Honestly, after going to a garbage recycling station once in my life, I really don't want to go there a fifth time!"

Chen Liang gritted his teeth, and even shuddered with nausea.

"Five times? That means you unlucky guy have already dug through the junkyard four times? Tsk tsk... How pathetic."

Lin Ge shook his head repeatedly, gloating.

Then... Lin Ge was choked by the stench from the rooftop and had to back away, unable to even find a place to stand. He glared angrily at the community manager who had followed him, extremely dissatisfied with this kind of scoundrel who only took money and didn't do any work for the people.

"There's nothing we can do! Every time we finish cleaning, a huge pile of trash is dumped on top of it every few days."

The building manager looked at the pile of garbage and gave a wry smile. Seeing the two policemen and a cat staring at him, he could only explain helplessly, "Our building doesn't have an elevator, so it's not easy to carry the garbage down from the seventh floor. And to be honest, there are only eight of us in the building, including the cleaning staff, security guards, and even myself. Where do we find the time to deal with all this garbage every day? Even if we clean it up diligently, how long can we keep this up if the people in the building across the street don't improve their manners?"

"So in the end, you just decided to ignore it and not care? Since your neighborhood is all low-rise and you can't see the rooftops, you just pretended it never happened, right?"

Chen Liang immediately guessed what the man was thinking.

Of course, it can't be said that the entire community is negligent, since the garbage was thrown by the neighbor across the street, so they are also victims. It's just that the community and the property management companies on both sides haven't been strict enough in their enforcement, allowing some scoundrels to become increasingly unscrupulous.

When was the last time it was cleaned?

Wang Liqun covered his nose, thinking of calling a few more people for help via walkie-talkie. After all, their task was to find something, not to clean it up. If they missed any of this disgusting trash, who knows how long they would have to search through it again and again.

And on another note, it shows a high level of trust in the cat. Otherwise, any police officer would be furious if someone came here to rummage through the trash without any evidence.

"Hehe... The last time, I think it was around the Mid-Autumn Festival? The community organized us to do volunteer work to clean this place up, but unfortunately we couldn't keep it clean for more than a few days. As you can see, it's only been three or four months and so much has been dumped again."

The administrator kept slacking off, complaining and giving up, leaving the police and Lin Ge helpless.

The police officers from Longquan Police Station, who had been called up by Wang Liqun, struggled to climb to the seventh floor and were shocked by what they saw. They truly never expected to see a rooftop garbage dump these days. Weren't people supposed to be quite civilized these days?
"Officer Wang, what exactly are we looking for?"

No matter how dirty or messy it was, there was no way to refuse. The group sighed and went to find another bag of masks, which they shared and looked at Wang Liqun.

"A stun gun, or something similar."

Wang Liqun has already contacted Shao Yongkang and knows how important the discarded stun gun is to closing the case. Even if it was just an attempted murder, regardless of whether anyone died, it is undoubtedly murder.

Even though the hospital has informed Xu Yinghui that he is out of danger, Ai Qing and Chen Jian still need to face legal punishment.

"How long will it take to find this, damn it?"

Another policeman assigned by Cheng Rui complained bitterly, saying that while others were enjoying the New Year by eating, drinking, and having fun, he had to rummage through the trash here.
"Shut up! If you had this much patience, you would have already dug it out."

Chen Liang was already working, searching everywhere for a garbage bag that matched the color of one from Chen Jian's house. Chen Jian had thrown away the stun gun this morning; it should be on the surface of the garbage pile. Why couldn't he find it?

"Hmm...did that kid not even aim properly?"

Lin Ge looked up at the several large camphor trees next to the building, where a few garbage bags were hanging scattered about, looking like stinking banners.

Thank you for the 100-coin reward from Dark Night Chant. I would also like to ask for your monthly tickets and subscriptions.

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(End of this chapter)