"Officers, do you suspect that I killed Ye Zeming?" Liu Jiale suddenly became agitated. "If I wanted to kill him, wouldn't I have done it long ago? Why would I set fire to the house? Why do you suspect me? I'm an innocent, upstanding citizen..."
Fang Rui interrupted him: "Upstanding citizen? Just a moment ago, you tried to harm Ye Zeling."
"I..." Liu Jiale lost his confidence for a moment, but he quickly recovered, saying, "That day, I was at the city library reading books for inspiration. I was there from 7 AM until 5 PM, staying inside the whole time. I even ate a sandwich there for lunch. You can check the security footage. There's no way I could be the murderer!"
Fang Rui had someone retrieve the library's security footage. Whether by coincidence or not, Liu Jiale's reading spot was directly in view of the camera, which captured his actions clearly.
Liu Jiale entered the library at 7:05 AM. He found a few art books and then sat down to read. He was very focused on his reading, only leaving his seat once to use the restroom.
When Liu Jiale saw Fang Rui and Zhang return, he displayed a smug smile. "Officers, have you proven my innocence now? Can I go home? I'm just a bit short of finishing my sculpture, and I need to get back to complete it as soon as possible."
Zhang was irritated by his smug expression, but they indeed had no evidence linking Liu Jiale to Ye Zeming's case.
Fang Rui gave him a cold look. "I'm sorry, but you can't leave yet."
"You're not trying to frame me, are you? This is a society governed by the rule of law. You can't detain me without cause."
"Yes, this is indeed a society governed by law, which is why assaulting a police officer is a crime! We need to detain you first. Once the hospital provides a report on the injuries, we'll decide whether to press charges against you!"
Liu Jiale's smug smile instantly crumbled.
As soon as they left the interrogation room, Zhang analyzed, "Chief Fang, I think this Liu Jiale is the killer. Look at that smug smile of his, he's so arrogant he might as well confess to being the murderer. Plus, the library camera was pointed right at him. He must have done that on purpose to create an alibi."
However, Fang Rui found Liu Jiale's sudden attack on Ye Zeling strange. Even if Liu Jiale was desperate for money, there was no need to resort to such extreme measures to get it.
Fang Rui returned to his office to find Mu Mian sitting in his chair, waiting for him.
"Fang Rui, I declare that from now on, green is my lucky color," Mu Mian said excitedly, her face clearly saying: Ask me why.
Fang Rui obliged, "Why?"
"I've reached a conclusion. It's not entirely rigorous, but I think it could help with your investigation," Mu Mian handed Fang Rui a report. "The victim likely died on a Thursday."
Fang Rui recalled the green cake that had piqued Mu Mian's interest. The sign next to that cake seemed to say it was a Thursday special.
"Because of that green cake?"
"Yes. We found partially digested green cake in the victim's stomach. At the time, I thought the color was unusual, not like matcha or food coloring. But I couldn't pinpoint what was special about it. Then I saw that green velvet cake at Lin Lan's Shop. I've compared them, and the ingredients are the same."
The fire occurred on June 12th, which was a Monday.
"This cake is only sold on Thursdays, but the fire happened on a Monday. Logically, the victim shouldn't have been able to eat that cake on a Monday."
Mu Mian continued to explain: "So I reasonably suspect that the victim's actual time of death was likely the previous Thursday, which would be June 8th."
Fang Rui suddenly remembered that Liu Jiale had disappeared on June 8th.
"Of course, this reasoning isn't entirely rigorous. That's why I'm only telling you."
If the victim's time of death was moved earlier, many people's alibis would be invalidated.
"Dr. Mu, you're so biased. You discover a clue and only tell the boss, not us," Zhang suddenly chimed in.
Mu Mian was startled. When had Zhang appeared?
"I was here when you said the first word."
"..."
Zhang analyzed, "Dr. Mu, according to your reasoning, if the victim had been dead for several days, the body should have decomposed, right? Shouldn't you have noticed that immediately during the autopsy?"
"Yes, and this leads to another of my not-so-rigorous conclusions," Mu Mian sighed. "I suspect that after killing the victim, the murderer immediately froze the body. By using extremely low temperatures, they prevented changes in the body's condition. Then they used the fire to destroy the body's surface features, interfering with the forensic examination."
"The body was likely still frozen when the explosion occurred. That's why I felt the body was as fragile as a sculpture at the time."
Mu Mian felt her analysis was correct, but there was no concrete evidence to prove her deductions. Unfortunately, by the time she performed the autopsy, the body parts had already been frozen once in the morgue refrigerator.
Mu Mian then thought of Ye Zeling, blaming her for delaying the examination by clinging to the body.
Zhang listened in astonishment. "This killer is incredibly clever!"
But Zhang quickly noticed another issue: "Then how do we explain that several people received phone calls from Ye Zeming? The tech department analyzed the call recordings and confirmed they were real human voices, not synthesized."
Fang Rui instructed Zhang, "Zhang, go check Ye Zeming's electricity bills. See if there have been any fluctuations in power usage recently."
"On it!"
The investigation results came back quickly. Ye Zeming's power usage had spiked abnormally on June 8th and remained at that elevated level for the following days.
Fang Rui recalled that when they examined the scene, they found a freezer in the blast area, which was used to accelerate the setting of plaster molds.
All of this indirectly supported Mu Mian's deductions. Ye Zeming was likely murdered on June 8th, and the killer staged the fire and explosion on June 12th in an attempt to destroy evidence.
Fang Rui went to the security office of the villa complex to retrieve surveillance footage from around June 8th.
The video showed that on June 8th, Ye Zeling first drove to Ye Zeming's house, then Liu Jiale arrived by taxi. Later, Ye Zeling left in her car, followed shortly by Liu Jiale, who nervously left the villa complex and took a taxi at the entrance.
Fang Rui first questioned Ye Zeling.
"Miss Ye, do you remember what you did on June 8th?"
"June 8th? I can't quite recall. I'm busy every day, how can I remember what happened on a specific day?"
"Your theater company said you took a day off. Don't you remember why you took that day off?"
"Oh, that day. I took time off to visit my brother. He said he was sick, so I specifically took a day off to check on him."
"Did you see Liu Jiale that day?"
"Yes, I did. He came to my brother's house, quite angry. My brother didn't want me involved in their business, so he asked me to leave first."
"After June 8th, did you see your brother?"
"Yes, I talked to my brother on the phone every day. On the morning of the day he died, I even received a call from him..."
"I mean, did you see your brother in person, not just talk on the phone?"
"No, I didn't. Our theater company was about to have a performance, so I was rehearsing every day and didn't have time to meet with my brother. He was supposed to have dinner with me, but I was kept for rehearsal, so we didn't get to meet. If I had known my brother would die, I would have gone to see him even if it meant missing the performance..."
Ye Zeling seemed to be on the verge of an emotional breakdown.
"I'm sorry, I'm having trouble controlling my emotions. Could you give me a moment to calm down?"
Fang Rui then interrogated Liu Jiale again.
Fang Rui played the surveillance video showing Liu Jiale hurriedly leaving Ye Zeming's villa.
"Mr. Liu, do you remember when this happened?"
"I don't remember. The video is a bit blurry. Is that even me in there?"
Fang Rui paused the video, freezing the frame on Liu Jiale's panic-stricken face.
"Does this jog your memory now?" he asked.
"Yes, I did go to see Ye Zeming that day. I was pressuring him to pay me back, but he threatened me, saying he knew a lot of people in the underworld. He warned that if I kept bothering him, he'd kill me and dump my body in the sea to feed the fish.
I was so terrified that I ran away immediately. After that, I didn't dare to ask him for the money again. Officer, do you think it's possible that those gangsters Ye Zeming knew might have killed him? He owed so much money, surely many people wanted him dead!"
"Did you see Ye Zeming again after that incident?"
"No, I was too scared to approach him. However, I did try calling him once. He answered, but only to hurl more abuse at me. After that, I didn't dare to call him again."
