Chapter 204: The Conjecture of the Murder Weapon

Merely speculating couldn’t yield the truth. Thus, Peng Si-jue swabbed the toilet pipe walls for samples and used a blood protein test kit to check for the presence of human blood. Despite the filthiness of the toilet, Peng Si-jue worked meticulously. In the end, the test kits all indicated that there was no human blood present.

“It seems the murderer didn’t throw the murder weapon into the toilet. Lucky…” Chen Shi remarked.

“What’s lucky about that?”

“If he had, you guys would have had to open up the box that stores the excreta and stir it with a stick. Just thinking about that scene is pretty funny!” Chen Shi couldn’t help but laugh.

Peng Si-jue gave him a look, “Excreta, internal organs, or bones, to me, they’re just composed of proteins. The difference is only in their composition.”

“Good mindset.”

Lin Qiupu called them, urging them to come to lunch quickly as they only had twenty minutes. Chen Shi, having washed his hands at the washbasin, urged, “Let’s go!”

“I haven’t finished sampling yet!” Peng Si-jue shouted at his retreating back.

“Hurry up! Don’t expect to handle this case by the book.”

Peng Si-jue also took a sample from the bloodstains at the washbasin before leaving with Chen Shi.

Originally, the plan was for Team One to deliver boxed meals to all members of Team Two, but Lin Qiupu wanted to use the lunch break to exchange information. So, he booked a restaurant within the waiting room, asking everyone to come over.

Seeing Chen Shi arrive, Lin Qiupu noted, “It’s twelve noon now, and the plane departs at three in the afternoon, so eat quickly.”

“And you ordered steamed dishes? Eating hot food will take forever!” Chen Shi commented.

Lin Qiupu glared, “This was the only place we could book. No complaining. Let it cool and eat; we’ll have a quick meeting. I’ve confirmed the victim’s identity. Deng Shi-rong, a manager and shareholder of an insurance company in Jinan, holding 27% of the shares. He retired this year and was living in Hainan. He flew in for an important shareholders’ meeting, hence taking this red-eye flight. As for his interpersonal relations, they’re quite complex, might take days to investigate, but none of the passengers seem to have any connection with him.”

“Did anyone buy insurance from his company?” asked Old Zhang.

“I’ll keep investigating.”

Lin Dongxue suggested, “Let’s include that in the interviews and ask everyone.”

“Good, let’s do that!”

Xu Xiao-dong mentioned, “I heard the passengers are making a fuss. They’re upset that the police haven’t questioned them yet after waiting all morning in the hotel.”

“We need to understand the scene before we ask questions. Old Peng, what about you?”

Peng Si-jue briefly explained the autopsy findings, and then his subordinate added, “Captain, we found quite a bit of aluminum powder in the victim’s wounds.”

“Aluminum powder?” Chen Shi tapped his bowl with chopsticks, standing up, “Everyone, I think I know what the murder weapon is.”

All eyes turned to Chen Shi as he pulled out a knife he had fashioned from foil, “The airline provided a meal wrapped in foil. I experimented with folding the foil into this shape, and it can indeed pierce the skin.” He showed them a cut on his finger.

“Foil?” Lin Qiupu was skeptical, “Isn’t foil too soft to penetrate the skin?”

“Ever heard of using gum to open a coconut or a paper knife to slice a melon? If it’s fast enough, even soft materials can penetrate the skin,” Chen Shi demonstrated by thrusting the foil knife into a chicken leg on the table.

The room gasped in realization.

Peng Si-jue added, “Yes, non-Newtonian fluids can maintain their shape under high velocity, like wet starch. And… could you not use my chicken leg for demonstrations?”

“Great breakthrough!” Lin Qiupu applauded.

A hand raised in the crowd prompted Lin Qiupu to nod, “Xiao-dong, what’s on your mind?”

“Uh, isn’t there a mistake? Isn’t foil made of tin? But the powder in the wounds was aluminum.”

“Foil is actually made of aluminum.”

“Foil is aluminum foil. It’s just called ‘tin foil’ in some places, but it’s all the same.”

Several people corrected Xu Xiao-dong, who sheepishly admitted, “Ah, learned something valuable today.”

“If the murder weapon is this, it’s easy to dispose of,” Lin Qiupu noted.

“Indeed, the murderer could crumple it up, throw it away, or even… eat it!” Chen Shi joked ashe continued to enjoy the chicken leg he had snatched.

“Unbelievable!” Peng Si-jue murmured under his breath.

Chen Shi said, “Everyone got a foil-wrapped meal on the flight, so we can check whose trash bag is missing the foil. That might lead us to the suspect.”

Lin Qiupu had a thought, “What about the flight attendants themselves? They had access to the foil too. Could one of them be the murderer?”

“If you’re worried, you can investigate them. I’ll handle the economy class passengers.”

“Alright, I don’t gamble with probabilities. I’ll take care of first class and the crew. Let’s eat quickly, then get back to work.”

As Chen Shi sat back down, Peng Si-jue inspected the crumpled foil, “If the murderer crumpled up the foil and threw it in the toilet, it’s possible that not a single drop of blood would leak out. Seems like I’ll still need to check the plane’s…protein!”

“Can you not talk about that while we’re eating?” Chen Shi continued to savor his chicken leg.

“Is it good?”

“Delicious, you should try some!”

Looking at his empty plate, Peng Si-jue could only resignedly pick up a floret of broccoli. Chen Shi suggested, “Forget about searching now. Go borrow a metal detector, check the places the passengers visited to see if the murderer might have discarded it there.”

“That’s a good plan, especially since if the foil has fingerprints, they would be easy to lift.”

Lin Dongxue joined in, “Are we getting off track? Didn’t we find DNA under the victim’s nails this morning? Why not collect DNA from everyone and match it?”

Peng Si-jue shook his head, “Our equipment is at the station, and even without the travel time, it would take too long to process DNA for so many people right now. We need to catch the murderer first and use the DNA as conclusive evidence later.”

As people finished eating and started to leave, Chen Shi remarked, “Don’t wait for me!”

Lin Dongxue hurriedly finished her meal and rushed out, but as she stood up too quickly, she felt a strong and persistent dizziness. Then everything went black, and she collapsed…