Eyes that are the same as those of evil

Chapter 64 Strange Corpse 2
The interjection "Huh," carrying a sense of doubt, almost always means "Wow! Something's wrong here, folks!" at a criminal investigation scene!

So everyone turned to look at her.

"What, is there a problem?"

“It’s a bit strange,” Tan Jia said, pointing to the two hickeys. “Women rarely leave marks on men’s genitals, and there are also finger marks on both sides of his waist. It’s like the opposite… He probably has a boyfriend, or uh… a girlfriend in a controlling position. These marks look quite fresh, so he’s most likely among that group of people outside.”

Xiao Chen stared at her with his mouth agape: "Wow, you know so much! This is the wild abandon of the New York North Star..."

Tan Ming, his face darkening, looked over. Xiao Chen coughed and stood up: "Your analysis makes sense. I'll go outside and ask."

Tan Jia seemed indifferent in everyone's sight: "What's wrong with this knowledge? It's normal. You'll know it if you watch a couple more movies."

Forensic doctor Lao Li: "That's right, Tan Ming, don't be so old-fashioned. Come on, make way, I need to take the body back for a proper examination."

Watching the body being taken away, Zheng Yan cleared his throat, signaling everyone not to make a fuss and to continue focusing on their work.

He asked the forensic examiner, "Did you find anything that could be the murder weapon?"

The forensic examination showed no trace of the substance.

The place was as chaotic as a bar; balloons and ribbons were everywhere, glasses were rolling around, swimsuits, bathrobes, and cushions were scattered on the floor, and there were even shoe prints. Checking everything would be so exhausting, the forensic examination would give them glaucoma.

Zheng Yan picked up a long, straight black wig from the table and looked at the group of people sitting on the sofa. He couldn't tell who the wig was for.

Xiao Chen had already obtained the deceased's information: "Qiu Chen is the deceased's stage name. His real name is Qiu Chenxing. His boyfriend is Zhong Xiaoyang, the brown-haired guy. He is 23 years old, and today happens to be his birthday. The others are his friends, who are also internet celebrities. The deceased and he are a somewhat well-known gay couple online."

Tan Jia glanced at Zhong Xiaoyang, a handsome guy with a refreshing and sunny disposition, but he was in a terrible state right now, clutching his hair and looking dazed.

The others were the same, stunned and speechless, their mouths tightly shut with fear and anxiety.

Zheng Yan asked the group of people, "Who discovered the body?"

A girl with a deathly pale face raised her hand, her voice trembling: "Me."

"What's your name?"

"Guan Xia".

What was your relationship with the deceased?

"Friends, I guess. We're from the same company, and we're here at this hotel for a get-together today, kind of like a mission."

Once you're involved in a murder case, even the most seemingly friendly relationship will be severely damaged.

Zheng Yan then asked, "Did anyone see when the deceased went into the bathroom?"

They looked around at the other people, and all of them shook their heads cautiously.

"I didn't notice, I was engrossed in playing and the room was dark."

"If Guan Xia hadn't called out, we wouldn't have realized that Qiu... we wouldn't have realized he was gone."

"I only saw him with Zhong Xiaoyang at the very beginning, and then the lights were turned off for a while, so no one could see the other."

"Turn off the lights?" Xiao Chen immediately pressed, "Who turned off the lights? For how long?"

After asking around for a while, someone finally raised their hand hesitantly: "I...I turned it off, I kept it off until the police were called. But it was just to make the atmosphere more exciting, I have nothing to do with this!"

Zheng Yan: "Did anyone see if the deceased was in the room before the lights were turned off? In your memory, who was the last person he came into contact with?" After another exchange of glances, everyone turned their attention to Zhong Xiaoyang.

“They are a couple, he should know best that turning off the lights is to create a romantic atmosphere for them.”

"My last impression of Qiu was that they were kissing, and then Qiu ran away. After that, everyone did their own thing and I didn't pay attention anymore."

"However, it seems that Xiaoyang was playing cards with someone else, and Qiu was on the other side at the time..."

Zhong Xiaoyang's face turned pale. He lowered his head, took a deep breath, and said, "When the lights were off, I was playing cards with Sister Yueyue and the others. Achen was playing with Xiaoqi and a few other girls. He doesn't like to be too intimate with me in front of others, so we weren't together all the time."

What about when the lights are off?

“I went to look for him when the lights were off, but I couldn’t find him. While I was looking for him, I bumped my calf on the coffee table. Then I thought, forget it, if I turn the lights on to look for him, it will affect everyone’s mood, so I just waited for him to come to me… I was a little tipsy from playing cards and singing, and I had been drinking, so I didn’t notice how much time had passed until Guan Xia called out to me.”

It seems that no one knows when the deceased went into the bathroom.

But the murderer must have known very well.

Zheng Yan: "Who went into the restroom during this time?"

Several people raised their hands, both men and women.

However, their accounts were vague about the time, consisting of phrases like "after I drank alcohol" and "when I was singing halfway through," without specifying the exact time. They also all said they didn't see the deceased enter or leave.

There was no other way but to have Tan Ming and Xiao Chen ask them one by one carefully.

We also had them stay at the hotel to await inspection, to have their fingerprints taken and matched with the traces found at the scene.

They didn't discuss anything related to Jia. She glanced around, slung her bag over her shoulder, and prepared to leave.

Zheng Yan was just about to go with the hotel manager to check the surveillance footage to see if there were any other cameras that could capture some useful clues.

As they walked together, Tan Jia, as was his habit, kneaded the dough and asked in a low voice, "Captain Zheng, do you think this case is a crime of passion?"

"Not necessarily. It could be related to a financial dispute. Besides, until Lao Li finds out that the cause of death was homicide, we can't even be sure if there's a killer. What, you think it was a crime of passion? Because of the marks on the victim's body?"

"No, not really. In all the crime stories I've read, the murders involving homosexuals are basically revenge killings out of passion. They often involve wives of gay men, both sets of parents, both sets of girlfriends, and admirers. Oh, and there are also cases where things go too far and result in sexual asphyxiation. It's said that many male hunters use this to attract their victims."

"You really know a lot." Zheng Yan's lips twitched.

She raised an eyebrow: "In the information age, you can learn a lot of knowledge that seems niche but is actually popular by going online more often."

Zheng Yan did not refute this point, and stroked his chin, saying, "I also find it strange. In the past, when we investigated homosexual cases, those people would hide it from us, and we would have to spend a lot of effort to find out about their relationship until the second half of the investigation. They would even ask us not to tell anyone. Today, these two exposed themselves right away, and they were very open about their boyfriends... Society's tolerance has indeed increased a lot."

"It doesn't involve wives, children, or families, so there's nothing to hide... Well, who knows? What if there's a girlfriend hidden among those people? This round of interrogation didn't reveal anyone's motives at all, which is actually a big problem. You might be able to find all sorts of people with different relationships among that group."

Zheng Yan: "What other relationship could there be?"

It turns out there really was an unexpected connection. For example, the deceased's younger brother was also at the scene—oh, now he's called her "younger sister"—and he was in a relationship with another girl who had once pursued Zhong Xiaoyang.

There was another couple where the woman was on top and the man was on the bottom...

Zheng Yan's outdated views on relationships are like a glass window shattered by a typhoon, riddled with cracks.

(End of this chapter)