Chapter 89: Hot on The Trail (1/2)

Dali noticed how I ignored him yet answered Xiaotao’s question immediately.

“Jeez, dude! I’ve been asking you so many questions and you didn’t even bat an eye,” he complained. “But Xiaotao-jiejie only had to say a few words and you answered her immediately? Dude, are your ears selectively deaf?”

“Okay, okay, I’ll answer your questions later!” I told him. Then I turned to Xiaotao and said, “The handprints on the body and the fingerprints on the plastic bag look very similar to each other. I wonder if there is any possibility that the murderer and the one who discarded the body are the same person?”

“The same person?” Xiaotao raised an eyebrow. “But one is cautious and efficient while the other is sloppy and messy. How could they be the same person?”

I took off my gloves and took a pair of Vernier calipers from my handbag and compared the handprints and fingerprints. The fingerprints on the bag were muddled and fuzzy. I could only find three complete fingerprints. But the results were clear—the three fingers and the ones left on the body were of the same length!

But this was all very curious. When the murderer killed the victims, he was calm and cautious, and he wore gloves. Yet when he discarded the bodies, he became careless and left a lot of fingerprints on the plastic bag. It was obvious that the person who threw away the bodies was scared and nervous.

Xiaotao’s doubts were exactly the points in this case that I couldn’t figure out the solution for. I had a hunch that this was the key to everything, but it was now shrouded in a thick fog. It nagged at me like the way a fish bone stuck in one’s throat might.

“Do you want to continue examining the corpse?” asked Xiaotao.

“No, there’s nothing left to do here.”

I took out a piece of yellow joss paper and burned it. I chanted a Reincarnation Mantra in honor of the victim. A gust of wind blew from under the bridge and carried the ashes into the river while the police officers looked on.

Xiaotao seemed to have become accustomed to this scene, and she barely batted an eye at it.

“You should go back first, Song Yang,” she suggested. “I’ll stay here to clean up the crime scene. There’s nothing to investigate for the time being. We’ll just summarize all our findings together tomorrow morning.”

I wanted to offer to stay and help, but there really was nothing else I could do here. Plus, I had been busy working since four in the morning, and I was dog-tired. So, I agreed to go back to my dorm, all the while admiring how strong and resilient Xiaotao was compared to me.

Once I returned to college, I skipped afternoon class and went to the library instead, looking for more information. I stayed there until the library closed at night.

Even when I went back to my dorm room, I lay in bed and pondered about the case. Dali sat on the edge of my bed and asked, “You’re still thinking about the case, aren’t you? You shouldn’t overexert yourself, dude. You should go to bed early tonight. We’ve got to hurry to the police station for the meeting tomorrow morning, right?”

“Yeah, okay. I’ll stop thinking now.”

“By the way, you didn’t fetch some water from the water room, did you? I got a kettle of hot water for you, and there are a few packets of instant noodles in my drawer. You can cook them up if you’re hungry.”

Dali’s words warmed my heart. I realized that he didn’t just tag along with me because he wanted the bonus money. In fact, I realized that he had been taking care of me since the beginning of our freshman year. I had always been this way, too. I’d often forget about sleeping and eating whenever I get serious about something. Dali was always there to fetch water for me and bringing me food. I thought of how lucky I was to have made such a good friend in college.

I thanked Dali, to which he replied, “Come on, dude. We’re bros. There’s no need to say thank you!”

I lay in bed and thought about the case until finally falling asleep at around three in the morning. I had strange nightmares that night, and it made me wake up in a confused daze.

The next morning, Dali and I arrived at the police station early. Some police officers weren’t there yet. Xiaotao bought breakfast for everyone as usual. I noticed that Wang Yuanchao wasn’t there, so I asked Xiaozhou about it. He told me Wang Yuanchao came very early this morning and had gone to Ma Jinhuo’s house to investigate the case.

At about eight o’clock, Xiaotao officially began the meeting.