You went on a blind date and presented an A-level wanted criminal as a meeting gift?

"Spontaneous human combustion".

Su Qingge parted her red lips slightly, and the four words she uttered instantly froze the ambiguous atmosphere that had lingered in the Audi RS7's cabin, causing the temperature to plummet.

The playful smile on Lin Chen's face disappeared.

He leaned back in the passenger seat, his eyes sharpening, the cowardly demeanor he had shown before, terrified by the chaotic scene, completely gone.

Tell me about it.

"The deceased was named Wang Erlai, a notorious local thug in the western shantytown area. He was a gambler, womanizer, and extortionist, and the neighbors all hated him to the core."

As Su Qingge drove at high speed, she quickly explained the case details, her voice regaining the cold and stern tone characteristic of the head of the serious crimes unit.

"An hour ago, someone called the police, saying they saw Wang Erlai walking in the alley when he suddenly caught fire and was burned to ashes within minutes."

Her fingers tightened slightly around the steering wheel.

"The strangest thing is that the initial forensic examination found no accelerants at the scene except for the deceased, and even the cardboard box half a meter away from him was intact."

"It's like... fire, burning from inside his body."

After listening, Lin Chen didn't say anything, but instead turned his gaze to the rapidly receding street scene outside the window, his fingers unconsciously tapping lightly on the car window.

Fire burning from within the body?

interesting.

……

The western part of the city is an old shantytown.

The Audi RS7 executed a beautiful drift and came to a smooth stop at the alley entrance.

This place is like a forgotten corner of the city, with narrow alleys, tangled wires like a spider web, and a damp and rotten smell in the air.

Outside the glaring red and blue warning lines, a crowd of elderly men and women had already gathered to watch the spectacle. They craned their necks, pointing and gesturing inside, their faces displaying the same mixture of fear and superstition.

"What retribution! Heaven has finally opened its eyes!"

"That's right! That beast Wang Erlai bullied so many neighbors, and now look what happened, he's been taken down by Tianhuo!"

"I've lived for seventy years, and this is the first time I've ever seen anything like this. A person just disappears like that; they must have done too many wicked things, and even the King of Hell couldn't bear to watch!"

Rumors spread like wildfire, growing increasingly outlandish.

Lin Chen and Su Qingge walked through the chattering crowd and lifted the police tape.

A strong, burnt smell mixed with a strange, foul odor wafted towards us.

The scene at the center of the crime was horrific.

On the ground, a human-shaped mass of black ash lay quietly, with faint wisps of smoke rising from its edges, as if telling the story of the terrifying fire that had just taken place.

The ground around the ashes was eerily clean, with no trace of spilled liquid, no signs of an explosion, and even the flammable cardboard piled up nearby was only slightly curled at the edges from the heat.

That one person, however, was burned so thoroughly.

So utterly destroyed that only a relatively intact, inexpensive sneaker remained at the very end of the ashes.

Li Mingyu, wearing a mask, was standing to the side with his hands behind his back. When he saw Su Qingge arrive, his eyes lit up. He immediately waved impatiently to the police officer taking notes next to him to make way, and rushed over to greet her.

"Qingge, you've come!"

His gaze swept right past Lin Chen, as if he were just a transparent follower.

"I have a clear understanding of the case."

Li Mingyu adopted a confident demeanor, as if he had everything under control, and began to offer his "brilliant insights."

"The deceased was a scoundrel with enemies everywhere, but the surveillance footage shows that there was no one within a hundred meters of him at the time of the incident."

"I believe this was an accident!"

He cleared his throat and raised his voice a few decibels, seemingly wanting to show off his "erudition" to Su Qingge.

"The shantytown has a high concentration of methane gas, and the weather was dry today. Wang Erlai was wearing synthetic clothing, and the static electricity generated by walking ignited the methane gas in the air, leading to this tragedy!"

"I've already suggested to the bureau that it be treated as an accident and the case closed as soon as possible to avoid causing public panic!"

After saying that, he glanced at Su Qingge smugly, waiting for her praise.

However, Su Qingge merely frowned and turned her questioning gaze to Lin Chen.

Lin Chen ignored Li Mingyu's performance from beginning to end.

He walked straight to the pile of human-shaped ashes and slowly squatted down.

Under everyone's astonished gaze, he took off his mask.

Then, he closed his eyes, tilted his head slightly forward, flared his nostrils, and gently sniffed the stinking ashes.

The enhanced senses brought about by the [Advanced Physique Enhancer] were brought to their fullest potential at this moment.

Countless mixed odor molecules flooded into his nasal cavity, where they were rapidly analyzed, stripped away, and recombined by his brain.

The pungent smell of burnt protein from a charred corpse, the acrid smell of burning plastic, the putrid odor of the surrounding environment...

Underneath these strong smells, he precisely detected a faint, easily overlooked, sweet and sour scent, like that of a rotten apple.

Carbon disulfide.

Lin Chen's brows furrowed almost imperceptibly.

He opened his eyes, his gaze sharp as a knife. He took out a pair of evidence tweezers from his pocket and carefully picked up a small piece of clothing that was not yet completely carbonized from the edge of the pile of ashes.

After doing all this, he slowly stood up, turned his head, and looked calmly at Li Mingyu, who was still rambling on.

"Static electricity ignited biogas?"

Lin Chen's voice wasn't loud, but it carried clearly throughout the quiet alleyway.

"Vice Captain Li, did your physics teacher teach you PE?"

One sentence instantly froze the smug smile on Li Mingyu's face.

His face flushed red, and he shouted angrily:

"Lin Chen! What do you mean? This is a reasonable deduction based on science! What right do you, an unofficial consultant, have to point fingers here!"

Lin Chen was too lazy to waste words with him.

He simply raised the tweezers in his hand and displayed the charred piece of cloth to everyone.

"This is neither divine retribution nor an accident."

His voice was cold and resolute, carrying an unquestionable authority.

"It's chemistry."

The entire room fell silent.

All the police officers, including Su Qingge, focused their attention on him.

"To make someone spontaneously combust in full view of others without igniting surrounding objects, all you need is a simple chemical formula."

Lin Chen looked at Li Mingyu's face, which had turned from red to white, and a mocking smile appeared on his lips.

"Dissolve white phosphorus in carbon disulfide to make a solution."

"white phosphorus?"

Su Qingge's phoenix eyes narrowed, and she immediately grasped the key words, her voice becoming serious.

"That's a military-grade contraband item; it has an extremely low ignition point and is extremely difficult to transport and use!"

"That's right."

Lin Chen gave her an approving look and continued.

"Then, using some method, such as a modified high-pressure water gun, this solution is sprayed onto the target."

"Carbon disulfide is highly volatile and evaporates rapidly. It also absorbs a lot of heat during evaporation, so the victim may not even feel anything unusual for a short period of time, only a slight chill."

He paused, his icy gaze sweeping across the room, each word like a heavy hammer blow to everyone's heart.

"When the solvent evaporates completely, the white phosphorus particles attached to the clothing fibers will be exposed to the air."

"White phosphorus has an ignition point of only 40 degrees Celsius."

"It will spontaneously combust instantly, releasing terrifying temperatures exceeding 1000 degrees Celsius, enough to burn an adult to ashes within minutes, leaving no trace of bones!"

"Because the burning time is short and the heat is concentrated, it is simply not enough to ignite a cardboard box half a meter away."

boom--!

Lin Chen's explanation stirred up a storm in everyone's minds!

The "heavenly fire" mentioned by the onlookers, and those seemingly inexplicable supernatural phenomena, were stripped of all their mystery in Lin Chen's few words, revealing the cold and cruel scientific principles behind them.

Li Mingyu stood there dumbfounded, his face turning pale and then red.

His proud "scientific inferences" became a complete joke in the face of Lin Chen's textbook-like explanation!

Su Qingge looked at Lin Chen's profile, which appeared particularly cold and aloof in the afterglow of the setting sun, and at the all-knowing, profound light in his eyes. Her heart began to pound uncontrollably.

This man always manages to reveal a side of himself that makes her feel unfamiliar and even awe-inspiring, just when she thinks she knows him well enough.

That feeling is a fatal attraction.

Lin Chen ignored the shock of the crowd.

He looked around, his gaze sweeping over the intricate alleyways and rooftops, his eyes as cold as frost.

"This is not an accident."

"This was a meticulously planned and brutal murder."