Chapter 270: Locked Room Murder

Lin Dongxue’s face turned crimson, and she quickly covered it with her hands. Chen Shi entered the car from the other side, holding a bag of food. “I brought you some breakfast,” he said.

Lin Dongxue kept her hands on her face. They had been so close earlier, he must have heard her. She felt mortified that her thoughts had been exposed.

“How about some century egg and lean pork congee?” Chen Shi opened a container.

“…”

Chen Shi scooped some congee and held it to her lips. “Open up.”

Lin Dongxue opened her mouth and swallowed.

Chen Shi fed her half a bowl, then wiped a bit off her lips with his thumb and sucked it off.

“You don’t look like a police officer,” he teased.

“Mind your own business!” Lin Dongxue opened and closed her hands like a door in front of her face.

“Whose jacket is this? It looks like a police uniform!”

Lin Dongxue finally lowered her hands, her face still burning. “There was an officer with me yesterday. Well, I was with him.”

“He seems to care about you,” Chen Shi noted, seeing the leftover fast food containers in the car.

“I don’t care…” Lin Dongxue mumbled.

“Want to take a walk? Sitting all night must have made you stiff.”

Lin Dongxue nodded silently.

After getting out of the car, Chen Shi accompanied Lin Dongxue for a walk around the apartment building. Lin Dongxue summarized the case for him, and Chen Shi nodded as he listened. “A locked room murder, huh?”

“Yeah, do you think it’s possible?”

“All locked room murders are either suicides or fake locked rooms.”

“So, do you think you can solve this one?”

“The stranger the case, the easier it is to solve. It’s the clean-cut ones that are tricky. I think we’ve got this.”

“Shall we check out the scene?”

“Let’s wait for Peng to get here.” Chen Shi stood outside the window of the crime scene, examining it.

Lin Dongxue wondered if he had heard her “I miss you” earlier. He probably did and was just pretending he hadn’t. Older guys are definitely smoother, she thought, getting annoyed. She raised her fist to punch him.

Chen Shi turned around suddenly, and Lin Dongxue quickly hid her fist behind her back. Chen Shi said, “Don’t be so silly. Staying up all night at the scene alone—what if the killer was nearby? Call me next time.”

“I thought… you’re not a cop. You don’t have to go through this.”

“Don’t assume what I think without telling me. Maybe I want to be with you.”

“Why would you want to be with me?”

“Because you’re pretty!”

“How shallow,” Lin Dongxue pretended to be angry.

Chen Shi checked the bathroom window. The apartment was on the first floor, and both the bay window and bathroom had stainless steel bars. Chen Shi noticed the dust on the bathroom window bars. “The dust has been disturbed.”

“Could the killer have come in through here? Impossible. There were people standing there,” Lin Dongxue pointed behind her.

“Weren’t the reporters noisy?”

“Not only noisy, but their lights were also very bright…” Lin Dongxue suddenly had an idea. “Could the killer have sneaked in while we were distracted by the reporters’ lights?”

“If that’s the case, the killer must be tall and strong.”

“Those reporters are really something. If they hadn’t shown up to interview, maybe this could have been resolved earlier without any deaths.”

“Speaking of reporters, who called them?”

“I thought they came on their own.”

“I think someone tipped them off. Two rival TV stations showing up at the same time is no coincidence. The killer probably called them. Did anything unusual happen during that time?”

“Someone splashed water on the equipment in one of the TV vans, causing a short circuit. They suspected it was the other network. They almost fought, delaying everything by two hours… So that was the killer’s doing?”

As usual, once Chen Shi analyzed the case, everything became clear to Lin Dongxue. The sudden appearance of the reporters was a deliberate distraction by the killer to buy time.

“The victim was likely killed around midnight. When we saw the Weibo post, the killer might have still been there.”

“You don’t use Weibo much, do you? It has a scheduled posting feature!”

“Really?”

“If the killer posted and then escaped, it would be too risky. It was probably scheduled.”

“When the door opened, a crowd of reporters rushed in. Could the killer have escaped then?”

“We’ll check when we get inside.”

At 7 AM, several police cars arrived. Xu Xiaodong jumped out and said, “Chen, you really stayed here all night. That’s love!”

“No, I just got here,” Chen Shi corrected.

“Ew, Dongxue, you stayed here all night?”

“It’s no big deal. Let’s get to work!” Lin Dongxue felt a bit tired but could hold on for a while longer.

They followed Peng Sijue and the forensic team into the scene and began collecting evidence. The footprints left by the reporters made things difficult; the entrance to the living room was covered in prints.

Chen Shi glanced at the spot where the body was found. “Judging by the blood spatter, it looks like the victim was killed with a blunt object… probably a hammer. Peng, I think the killer came in through the window. Let’s check it out.”

Peng grunted and followed Chen Shi to the bathroom. Chen Shi noticed that Peng seemed a bit off today.

The window was right above the toilet, which had a curtain. Chen Shi examined the toilet and the tank from all angles. “No footprints, but there’s a patch where the dust has been wiped away. Odd.”

“If someone stood here, there would be footprints.”

Peng brought a UV light, which confirmed no footprints but found traces of blood on the bathroom tiles. The marks seemed to be from the killer’s bloody footprints.

Peng ordered the tiles to be removed for analysis.

Chen Shi returned to the living room, looking around. “This was done by a pro. It’s so clean!”

“Can’t solve it?” Lin Dongxue asked worriedly.

“Don’t worry. We’ll get there. Xiaodong, contact Weibo and see if the account used a scheduled post. Find out when it was posted and if the posting location can be altered.”

“Got it, I’ll call them now!”

“Where’s the victim’s phone?” Chen Shi asked.

They asked around, but no one had found it. The phone wasn’t on the victim either, so it might have been taken by the killer.

They left the scene, planning to return to the station with Peng. Lin Dongxue said, “Have you noticed something off about Captain Peng?”

“Maybe he didn’t sleep well,” Chen Shi guessed.