Eyes that are the same as those of evil

Chapter 85 The Case of Burning the Corpse 3
Tan Jia went home to take a shower and change her clothes.

I just threw on some random clothes when I went out in the middle of the night, and then I went up and down the hillside, making a mess of everything. I felt uncomfortable if I didn't wash myself.

She finished at 9:30 and went out covered in dampness, also grabbing a set of dough, kneading half of it in her hands.

Sculpting dough has long ceased to be a simple form of psychological therapy; rather, it has become a habitual action she takes when she is thinking.

The door slammed shut, and when I turned around, I saw Lin Zhiyue again.

He had also changed out of his pajamas, and holding an apple in his hand, he quietly watched her approach step by step, offering it to her as she passed by.

"Give it to me?" Tan Jia's gaze shifted from his hands to his face.

There is a difference between a quiet gaze and a meaningful scrutiny.

Lin Zhiyue avoided her gaze and nodded, saying, "Auntie has prepared a lot."

Tan Jia smiled, said "thank you," and gave him two portions of dough in return.

"Here you go. It's a color made using the same proportions of the maple red you gave me last time. You can use it to make a maple leaf."

Then continue walking towards the elevator.

As she stepped into the elevator, she took the first bite, then raised an eyebrow at him through the slowly closing elevator doors, turning her head to show the bite mark on the apple, indicating that it was quite sweet.

Lin Zhiyue wanted to respond, but the elevator doors closed completely the next second, blocking his attempt to open his mouth and his instinctive steps to chase after them.

She didn't seem to care about his reaction.

He retreated to his front door and looked down at the dough that had been handed to him.

Does she want maple leaf dough figurines? He should be able to make two when she gets back.

……

Tan Jia went to the police station.

The criminal investigation team has found many names related to Zhou Qiaox and is investigating them one by one.

Although there are guesses about the birth year, the population base is too large. There are actually five or six Zhou Qiaox born in the same year, 1974, in the entire city.

“Zhou Qiaojie, Zhou Qiaoan, Zhou Qiaoshen, Zhou Qiaoya… Only two of them are from the same village; the others are scattered individuals.” She looked at them one by one, and almost forgot the name Zhou Qiao.

“Be content,” Xiao Chen said. “At least we have two characters and the year of birth. If we only had bones, we could have investigated hundreds of people. In the case of the unidentified female corpse we handled before, it took more than twenty days from filing the case to solving it. Just confirming the identity took twenty days. We checked dozens of missing persons, which made us dizzy.”

Tan Jia gave him a dough egg the size of a thumb: "Thank you for your hard work."

Xiao Chen picked up the miniature dough egg and examined it closely: "In the Middle Ages, Leonardo da Vinci painted eggs and became famous throughout history. In the 21st century, you are making eggs and catching up."

"With a bit of literary talent, he can recite a couplet without thinking."

"What couplet?" Zheng Yan asked as he approached.

Xiao Chen instantly became serious, his brows furrowed as if he had been racking his brains for dozens of hours over the difficult task.

"Captain Zheng, of the six Zhou Qiaoxes we've shortlisted, two are from the same village. They might be twin brothers or members of the same Zhou family. Moreover, their village is only a few kilometers away from the crime scene."

Zheng Yan: "First, we'll check the situation of these six people one by one, and contact the local police station to ask their families if Zhou Qiaox has gone missing. If he has, we'll go to the local area to investigate."

"What if there are two or more missing people? The bodies have no faces, the families can't recognize them, the bones are severely carbonized, and melted clothing is stuck to them—it's a messy, black mass. Can the testing technology handle it?" Tan Jia asked curiously. "Although Lao Li said that the remaining human tissue on the remains is more difficult to test than on a normal corpse, it's only a matter of time. We'll continue investigating. Once the DNA test results are in, we can match them with the victims' families to see if there's a kinship."

The investigation cannot stop and wait. Even if the direction of the initial investigation is found to be wrong in hindsight, the investigation must still continue.

After Zheng Yan finished speaking, he glanced at Tan Jia and noticed that she carried a lump of dough with her wherever she went, kneading it. He took the opportunity to ask, "Have you really fallen in love with this craft?"

She was still kneading and slowly said, "I've just gotten used to it. I've found that kneading dough can indeed help relax the brain and calm emotions, and it can also unconsciously bring back details that were overlooked in my dreams."

"What details?" They all turned to look at her.

"Regarding the question of whether the deceased was cremated after death or burned alive."

Tan Jia brought dough, intending to sculpt scenes from her dream, with the deceased being the main focus.

Clay sculpting is an advanced version of drawing; before sculpting, one must first consider the state, facial features, and posture of the figure.

She focused her attention on the posture of the deceased in her dream, trying to make it more lifelike. As she thought about it, she suddenly remembered something—the deceased was engulfed by flames, but his hand had reached out midway.

"Although it was far away and I couldn't see clearly at night, the fire was burning fiercely. When he reached out his hand, the flames flickered, as if he was trying to grab something and climb up."

"But it only stretched out its hand and did not make any other struggling movements, so it does not seem like it was burned alive. Therefore, the deceased must have been seriously injured before being burned to death."

Zheng Yan reiterated his conjecture: "He was hit by the murderer's car."

“It’s possible, but I don’t think it was a random killing by a stranger. The killer stood there watching the victim being burned for a while, then calmly left without showing any fear. I tend to think that the killer knew the victim and killed him for revenge.”

Since it was revenge, and the victim was seriously injured before being doused with gasoline and pushed off the cliff, there must have been a murder weapon.

Whether it's the hood of a car or something else, it will leave traces of the deceased.

Zheng Yan immediately instructed Xiao Chen and Tan Ming: "Have the police officers at the scene expand the search area and look for anything that could be used as a murder weapon. Also, please have the traffic police check the cars that passed through Guilingpo last night, especially the cars themselves, for blood on the tires and inside. Also, check any cars that have just been repaired or washed."

This time, he showed none of the gloomy look he had when handling the previous series of cases, and even encouraged everyone.

"Although it involves a wide range of aspects and a lot of work, the results will definitely be found in these clues. As long as everyone takes action and investigates thoroughly, we can draw a conclusion smoothly. It's better than fighting wits with a serial killer."

Unexpectedly, before the investigations into the vehicle, the murder weapon, the body, and the names had yielded any definitive results, the cyber security department sent a new message—

There's a blogger online who explains this case, and he did so last night.

Everyone in the criminal investigation team was astonished: "How is this possible?"

The Cyber ​​Security Department stated: "According to the blogger, he received firsthand information immediately after the incident and then began his commentary. Some netizens who watched the video passed by Guilingpo this morning and happened to see that the road was blocked by a bunch of police cars. They wondered how the blogger could publish the video before the police arrived, so they contacted us."

Zheng Yan's furrowed brows started working again as he listened to the video of the blogger explaining "The Heinous Burning Case".

The car crash, the body dumping, and the victim trying to climb upwards after being set on fire all seemed to fit the case description.

But there is a very serious problem.

"He said the murderer committed the crime at 11 p.m., and a while later the victim's body caught fire, and then the video was released at midnight. So when he released the video, the victim wasn't even dead yet."

How did he manage to explain and analyze the case as if it were already completed, when no one except the murderer knew that a murder had occurred?

How did you find out those case details?
When Jia returned home that evening, she found that Xiaolin had handed in two maple leaf clay sculptures as her homework.

Kobayashi, this is a gift for you, not a mission for you. (Although he seemed quite happy to accept the mission.)
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(End of this chapter)