Through Ye Zeling, Fang Rui and the others quickly learned about the dental clinic where Ye Zeming had his tooth extracted.
"My brother had his wisdom tooth removed about six months ago, I believe it was at a private clinic called Huikang Dental Clinic in the city center. I actually accompanied him there at the time."
Mu Mian went with Fang Rui to visit the dental clinic.
"Mr. Ye Zeming was indeed our client. Our visitor records show that he came to our clinic six months ago to have his wisdom tooth extracted," confirmed the receptionist.
Mu Mian inquired, "Do you have his medical records on file?"
"We should. Mr. Ye is one of our VIP clients, so we keep all of his reports and generate a personal file for him."
The nurse at the front desk opened the system, intending to retrieve Ye Zeming's file, but after searching for quite some time, she couldn't find it.
She apologized with a regretful expression, "I'm sorry, but Mr. Ye's file has been deleted. This usually happens at the client's request. Some clients are particularly concerned about their privacy and ask us to remove their records."
Mu Mian persisted, "Don't you have any backups?"
The receptionist shook her head, "No, if a client requests deletion, we remove the backups as well."
"What about the dental CT scans? Are there no backups of those in the system either?"
"No, we delete those periodically to free up system memory."
"I see," Mu Mian said, feeling a bit dejected. "It's going to be much harder to prove his identity now."
Fang Rui also felt that this case had too many coincidences. Both Ye Zeling and Lin Lan happened to receive calls from the deceased, and several neighbors just happened to see Ye Zeming standing by the window—all of these seemed to emphasize that the person who died in the fire was indeed Ye Zeming.
But now the dental records that could prove the deceased's identity had conveniently been deleted.
This lead had hit a dead end. Mu Mian could only fall back on the next best option: going to Ye Zeling and Lin Lan's homes to find Ye Zeming's personal belongings. Fortunately, both of their homes still retained traces of Ye Zeming's life.
Mu Mian quickly collected numerous DNA samples, and after comparison, all the DNA belonged to the same person. So the deceased was very likely Ye Zeming.
This method of comparison still had significant flaws, but Mu Mian had no other evidence to verify with.
Early the next morning, instead of going to the City Police Bureau, Mu Mian took a taxi directly to Ye Zeming's villa.
Mu Mian lifted the police tape and had just stepped onto the lawn when she saw what appeared to be a person standing on the second floor. The clothing looked like Fang Rui's, but the build didn't quite match.
At that moment, Mu Mian received a phone call from Zhang: "Dr. Mu, look at the second floor. Do you see the boss?"
"You mean that person on the second floor? That's not Fang Rui!" Mu Mian's tone was certain.
"Ah, I knew you'd be able to tell," Zhang said, then turned to mutter to the others, "This doesn't count! I told you this test wouldn't work on Dr. Mu!"
Mu Mian went straight to the second floor. She saw a familiar-looking police officer wearing Fang Rui's clothes, apparently impersonating him. Fang Rui himself was standing right next to him.
"Aside from Dr. Mu, who's a special case, no one else realized that the boss was being impersonated by Jian Guo. So if someone were to wear Ye Zeming's clothes and stand on the second floor, passersby might also think it was Ye Zeming," Zhang excitedly concluded. "This could prove that on the morning of the explosion, what the neighbors and Ye Zeling saw might not have been the deceased, but rather the killer in disguise."
Mu Mian couldn't help but pour cold water on his enthusiasm: "Ye Zeling loves her brother so much. Are you sure she would make such a mistake?"
"..."
The villa complex where the deceased lived was an upscale neighborhood that placed a high value on privacy. This resulted in very few public surveillance cameras within the complex, with most cameras being installed by the homeowners themselves. The only surveillance cameras were at the entrance to the neighborhood.
The villa area was nestled against a mountain and bordered by a forest, in a secluded environment. This meant that if the killer didn't use the main entrance but instead came through the forest to enter the villa, they could avoid the surveillance cameras.
There were cameras installed around the deceased's villa, but the surveillance footage wasn't backed up to the cloud and was instead saved on the deceased's computer. The massive fire had destroyed all the electronic devices in the deceased's home, and the technicians had no way to recover the data.
This added significant difficulty to the investigation.
There were still a few technicians at the scene, working to determine the cause of the explosion.
The entire second floor of the villa was open-plan, serving as the deceased's studio. It was filled with his artworks, as well as large quantities of paint, varnish, and plaster powder. After the intense fire and explosion, the place was in complete disarray. The floor was covered with debris.
Fang Rui asked, "Has the center of the explosion been determined?"
"We've pretty much pinpointed it. The explosive force radiated outward, with the epicenter as its focal point. The distance objects were thrown correlates with their proximity to the epicenter. In other words, the closer to the center, the shorter the distance objects were thrown. Based on the distribution of body parts, we can determine that the epicenter was the workbench behind where the deceased was standing."
The deceased's workbench faced the floor-to-ceiling windows, measuring three meters long and two meters wide, occupying a considerable area. The workbench was made of high-quality pear wood, now reduced to a pile of charcoal by the fire.
Technician Feng said, "However, we didn't detect any explosive residue here. Our initial guess is that the explosion was caused by the large number of aerosol paint cans stored in the house, which exploded under high temperatures. We also found a large amount of paint thinner in the air, which might have rapidly evaporated and accumulated, leading to a deflagration when it encountered a source of ignition."
Fang Rui asked, "Are you suggesting the explosion might have been accidental?"
"At this point, we can't prove it was deliberate. There were too many flammable and explosive items stored here. Once they encountered an open flame, an explosion was highly likely."
Feng pointed to the left side of the workbench: "The carbonization is most severe here, so this should be where the fire started. We also detected accelerants in this area. From the combustion products, it's likely to be paint. We've sent samples for physicochemical analysis, and we should be able to determine the specific accelerant soon."
Captain Fang, wearing gloves, rummaged through the pile of debris. The ground was covered with various charred objects, broken plaster fragments, utility knives, an old-fashioned alarm clock, batteries... Fang Rui noticed the burnt-out battery, picked it up to examine it for a moment, then placed it in an evidence bag.
"What's this?"
Mu Mian had originally come to look for body fragments, but she discovered something strange.
Fang Rui and the others all turned to look at Mu Mian.
Mu Mian was holding a small piece of charcoal, black and unremarkable. From its shape, it appeared to be a wooden clothespin that had been burned by the fire.
"Dr. Mu, isn't that just a wooden clothespin used for hanging socks?" Zhang glanced at it, his tone disappointed. He had thought Mu Mian had found something important.
Fang Rui took the clothespin and examined it carefully. The front end of the clothespin had two thumbtacks nailed to the upper and lower sides respectively, with the two thumbtacks touching each other and wire wrapped around them.
Mu Mian explained, "The burnt material on the clothespin appears to be glue. It likely had something attached to it."
Fang Rui remembered the battery from earlier. He took it out and placed it on the clothespin.
"If there were two wires, this could make a simple ignition device," Mu Mian said quietly. "A closed circuit would cause a short circuit, generating heat that could ignite flammable materials. This kind of device is quite simple, something an ordinary person could probably make."
Everyone present was startled by this revelation. It meant that the killer might have been able to start the fire remotely. This invalidated all the previously established alibis.
The technicians conducted another sweep of the villa and quickly made a new discovery.
"This villa was equipped with an intelligent fire suppression system. In the event of a fire, this system would immediately sound an alarm and spray water to extinguish the flames. However, we found that the electrical system of this setup had been tampered with."
This discovery proved that the villa fire was not an accident, but a deliberate act of arson.
Mu Mian searched the crime scene for a long time and found some more fragments of the body. However, she still couldn't find the deceased's genitals.
Based on the angle between the epicenter and the body parts on the ground, it was possible to deduce where the severed limbs should have been. The positions of the other body parts generally matched Mu Mian's predictions, but she just couldn't find this particular part.
Therefore, Mu Mian speculated that it was highly likely that the evidence had either been taken away by the murderer or destroyed by them.
