Chapter 617: Exceptional Memory

“I really don’t know. I fainted, did the killer actually come in? That’s so terrifying!” Zhou Xiao said nervously, facing the questioning.

Chen Shi had just finished dealing with the fish for the old lady and was now standing in Zhou Xiao’s small home with Lin Dongxue, Xu Xiaodong, and two forensic officers. The already cramped space seemed even tighter with so many people inside.

“I checked the door lock just now, there are no signs of it being forced open, which means you opened the door yourself,” Lin Dongxue said.

“Impossible! Impossible! I looked through the peephole, and I was so scared. How could I open the door? Wait, could it be that he had a master key or something, and when he saw me lying on the ground covered in urine, he let me go?”

“Xiaodong, have you ever seen such a thing in all your years as a police officer? An eyewitness making up stories right in front of the police!” Lin Dongxue remarked.

“The so-called master key is just a professional lock-picking tool. Even with that, there would be scratch marks,” Chen Shi debunked his theory.

“I am not lying!” Zhou Xiao was desperate. He took a pair of pants out of the bathroom basin. “Look, these are the pants I wet last night. I heard footsteps and kept wetting myself like a fountain. How could I open the door? Was I crazy?”

“Do you have a history of mental illness?” Chen Shi asked.

“Are you insane?”

“So, you do.”

“I mean, you are insane!” Zhou Xiao retorted, feeling particularly irritated. “Not believing my testimony is one thing, but doubting my mental state? I am very normal!”

“How do you explain the massacre of the family next door?”

“They just died!” Zhou Xiao’s expression was as if he was stating a fact, “They were revived by some unknown force or returned to the previous day. The world is full of unsolved mysteries. Maybe it happened right here!”

“What you are saying sounds like you are avoiding the problem.”

“I remember it clearly. They were silenced! The one lying is the old lady, not me! She shouldn’t be alive! A dead person came back to life, and you don’t doubt her but suspect me instead!”

Chen Shi noticed a movie poster on the wall and asked, “Do you often watch movies?”

“Not often, just every day.”

“Recite a famous movie line that everyone knows.”

“Uh…” Zhou Xiao thought for a moment. “How about ‘Infernal Affairs’? You’ve all seen it, right? Andy Lau on the rooftop said, ‘In the past, I didn’t have a choice. If Heaven gave me another chance, I want to be a good guy. If I must add a timeframe to this choice, I hope it is a lifetime!'”

Everyone laughed, and Chen Shi said, “Recite a Song dynasty poem for us.”

“Let me think… I’ll recite Li Mocho’s ‘Water Melody.’ When will the moon be clear and bright? With a cup of wine in my hand, I ask the sky. I don’t know what season it would be in the heavens on this night. I want to fly home, riding the air, but I fear the ethereal cold up in the high skies. Dancing to my shadow, I feel no longer the mortal.”

Everyone was laughing uncontrollably. Chen Shi said, “Mr. Zhou, it seems like your memory is indeed a bit problematic… Take him in for questioning!”

Zhou Xiao, thinking he was going to be arrested, started screaming as he was taken downstairs.

The purpose of taking Zhou Xiao was to thoroughly investigate his house. Chen Shi asked the forensic officers to carefully re-examine the room, especially the door handle, to see if there were only Zhou Xiao’s fingerprints.

The name “Zhou Xiao” felt peculiar to say.

A few days ago, Lin Dongxue mentioned that Zhou Tianan was dead, and there was no movement from his subordinates. Chen Shi replied that it wasn’t that there was no movement, but that those people were highly intelligent criminals who wouldn’t leave traces when they killed.

The disappearances in Long’an might have victims among them, but investigating those cases would be time-consuming and labor-intensive.

Back at the bureau, the forensic team carefully compared the various traces found in Zhou Xiao’s home. Zhou Xiao was brought to the interrogation room for questioning. He still insisted on his story without changing a word. The interrogating officer asked him to recite the multiplication table, and he got it all wrong.

Chen Shi was in the office, waiting for the results. With nothing to do, he played games on Xu Xiaodong’s computer.

Lin Dongxue and Xu Xiaodong came in together. Lin Dongxue said, “We called his family. Zhou Xiao had a history of mental illness and was sent to a mental hospital, where he stayed for three years.”

“When was this?”

“Seems like it was during his university years. He had to drop out because of the illness, had a big fallout with his family, and was sent there. From the tone of his family on the phone, it sounded like they were dealing with a piece of trash.”

“I guess he isn’t an only child?”

“I checked his household registration. He has a younger brother. Zhou Xiao has been in Long’an for many years and apparently hasn’t returned home.”

“What was his illness?”

“Not sure. That mental hospital caught fire a few years ago, and all the records were burned. Some mental patients took advantage of the chaos to escape, causing some trouble, but it has been settled.”

“Mental patients…” Chen Shi pondered.

Lin Dongxue casually conveyed the forensic team’s findings: there were only Zhou Xiao’s fingerprints in his home, including on the door handle. The bloody footprints were indeed from the scene. There was no explanation other than Zhou Xiao opening the door himself and “inviting” the killer in.

Xu Xiaodong also found something. To be precise, it wasn’t a discovery. He showed Chen Shi a printed picture. It was of a man in a trench coat and a round hat, his face full of wrinkles. This wasn’t a photo but a CGI image.

“This can’t be a restored image of the killer, right?” Chen Shi asked.

“There’s no such technology, and even if there were, it wouldn’t be this fast,” Xu Xiaodong said. “When he described the killer’s appearance, I thought it looked familiar. A quick search confirmed it. Chen, do you know what this is?”

“Stop teasing.”

“It’s the Tyrant from the horror game ‘Resident Evil.’ He’s a boss.”

Staring at the picture in his hand, Chen Shi said, “Zhou Xiao is also a homebody. He must have seen this character somewhere. So, his memory is mixed up, filling in the blanks with things he saw elsewhere.”

“Then why does he think the neighbors were killed?” Xu Xiaodong asked.

Lin Dongxue speculated, “I think that’s his ‘wish.’ The old lady next door was very mean to him, probably always like that, so he hoped that this family would be killed.”

“Could it be that Zhou Xiao is the killer?” Chen Shi’s hypothesis was shocking.

“Applause, applause, Chen is about to start deducing!” Xu Xiaodong said excitedly.

“It’s not deduction, just wild guessing! Mainly, the footprints at the door make me suspicious. The footprints are facing inside the house, only in that spot. Was the killer just standing there? Didn’t he need to turn around to leave? Maybe he never left. Maybe he is Zhou Xiao! Zhou Xiao wore a pair of big shoes to commit the crime, then changed back at the door. As for why he remembers it wrong and is so confident, it’s because he has a dual personality. His main personality doesn’t know about the sub-personality, so he filled in some content to make up for the blank memories.”

Chen Shi remembered something, “By the way, weren’t there fingerprints and hair at the scene? Get Lao Peng to compare them, and we’ll have the answer!”

“I bet fifty cents you’re wrong this time,” Lin Dongxue said. “Luminol reagent is very sensitive. If this is true, there would definitely be other bloodstains on the scene, not just those bloody footprints.”

“It’s best if I’m wrong. That way, we can rule out one wrong option,” Chen Shi said nonchalantly.