The black object was lodged firmly in the skeleton's chest cavity. Fang Rui had to exert some effort to remove it from the ribcage.
"Fang Rui, be careful! Don't break it," Mu Mian watched nervously. "Fang Rui, you're being too careless! You've broken one of its ribs. Oh no, you've broken another one!"
"I'm sorry, Mu Mian. I didn't mean to. Since it's damaged now, why don't we just throw it away?" Fang Rui felt that the skeleton's presence was seriously affecting Mu Mian's work efficiency, and he needed to set things right.
"It's okay, I'll glue it back together later. I'm going to dress it up anyway, so the damage won't be visible." But Mu Mian still felt heartbroken. After all, this was the first gift Fang Rui had given her!
Fang Rui extracted the black object, and they discovered it was a black backpack. A hexagram pendant hung from the zipper.
The bag was flat, containing only a book and a pen, with nothing else inside.
"This looks like the bag Liu Xiaonian had when he disappeared," Mu Mian said. "Look, it has the same hexagram pendant. So it was hidden here all along. But in the video, it looked full. Why is it so flat now?"
"Someone must have taken the contents out."
Earlier, Fang Rui and his team had searched the skeleton bride, but they had only looked at the lower half. They hadn't imagined that the victim's backpack would be hidden in the skeleton's chest cavity.
Fang Rui found it strange. Why would the killer hide the bag inside this skeleton bride? Wouldn't it have been safer to take it out and dispose of it?
Or was he afraid of being caught on camera carrying the bag? But the bag wasn't very thick; it could have been easily concealed under clothing to avoid detection.
Fang Rui suddenly had a very outlandish theory. He wanted to share it with Mu Mian, but she was sadly stroking the broken rib of the skeleton, completely ignoring him.
Mu Mian found some glue in the cabinet and carefully glued the rib back. She even considered buying paint to cover up the crack, but it was work hours, and she couldn't leave.
Mu Mian dressed the skeleton in a black wizard's robe and put a wizard's hat on it.
The skeleton's joints were movable, so Mu Mian adjusted the angle of its hand to hold a magic wand made from a radius bone.
In an instant, it transformed from a beautiful bride into a cold, evil wizard. Mu Mian was very satisfied with its new appearance.
"Mu Mian, what are you doing... Wow, it looks so cool now!" Chen Xue couldn't help but exclaim. "Is it an evil wizard now?"
"Yes, it's a necromancer. It can turn corpses and bones into minions to fight for it. When I was little, my dream was to become a necromancer so I could summon many undead to be my friends. Ah, it's a pity there's no magic in this world."
As a child, Mu Mian wasn't so scientifically minded and was even obsessed with studying magic. It was only after her magical worldview collapsed that she became passionately in love with science. Because, in a sense, science is modern-day magic.
"So that's why you became a forensic scientist?" Chen Xue asked.
Mu Mian didn't answer her because she noticed that her necromancer's wand-holding pose looked unnatural, so she adjusted the position of its fingers again.
Chen Xue was exasperated. Ever since Mu Mian got this thing, she had lost interest in socializing and barely talked to her anymore.
Chen Xue suddenly had a wicked thought. She desperately wanted to steal this skeleton wizard and throw it in the trash!
Fang Rui examined the black backpack. It wasn't damaged and contained only a book and a pen.
The book was a recently popular detective novel, "The Home Where I Died Before." Fang Rui flipped through it casually and found two blank envelopes inside. The envelopes had no writing on them and seemed to have been used as bookmarks.
But the envelopes were thick, as if they contained something. Fang Rui opened one of the envelopes and found only a folded white paper inside. He opened the other envelope and found the same thing - a folded white paper.
It was strange. Why put a blank piece of paper in an empty envelope? Fang Rui put the paper back in the envelope and placed it in an evidence bag.
Fang Rui checked the compartments of the backpack and found nothing. But suddenly, he noticed some red substance stuck to the inner lining of the bag, which looked like paint or lipstick marks.
It seemed his guess was correct.
Fang Rui went to find Wang Yang again and asked him to send him the design sketches drawn by the designer.
After comparing the two sketches, Fang Rui noticed some differences.
The most obvious difference was that in the designer's sketch, the bride and groom appeared as a pair, while in Liu Xiaonian's sketch, there was an additional lone groom, just like at the crime scene.
"Zhang, take this bag to the Technical Department and have them analyze what this red substance is," Fang Rui said to Zhang.
"Alright." Zhang looked at the red marks that resembled bloodstains. "This looks like makeup, probably lipstick or eyeshadow or something like that."
At that moment, Fang Rui saw that Lin Sen had come to work.
"Consultant Lin, weren't you borrowed by the neighboring city to solve a case?" Zhang was a bit surprised to see him. "Did the case end so quickly? That's incredibly efficient!"
A serial killing case had occurred in the neighboring city, where the killer had abducted young girls and cruelly steamed them. The case had remained unsolved, so the bureau chief had generously lent Lin Sen to help solve it.
"Mm-hmm."
Fang Rui looked at Lin Sen for a moment. "Has your heartbreak healed as well?"
"..."
"What heartbreak?" Zhang immediately became curious. "Consultant Lin was dumped? My goodness, who would dump Consultant Lin? They must have no taste!"
"Zhang, quickly take this bag for analysis. Let me know the results as soon as they're out," Fang Rui sent Zhang away.
"Alright."
Fang Rui told Lin Sen the details of the case and then shared his speculations.
"Do you think my deduction is reasonable?"
"Very reasonable."
Fang Rui asked, "But don't you think it's far-fetched? I can't figure out what his motive could be for doing this."
"Could it be that you're overthinking it?"
Fang Rui took out the two blank envelopes again: "These two letters couldn't be meant for us, could they? But there's not a single word on them. What was his purpose in leaving these two letters?"
Although Lin Sen didn't know Liu Xiaonian very well, he had a general idea of his personality. Lin Sen said, "This is probably a puzzle that we need to solve."
"How do we solve it?"
"I'm sorry, but I'm currently suffering from severe heartbreak and don't have the energy to help you solve puzzles."
"... Lin Sen, do you have to be so petty? I was just teasing you earlier, I didn't mean to mock you."
Lin Sen gave him a cold glance, "I'm sorry, but right now I'm just a petty, heartbroken person."
"Fine, I'll go find Mu Mian later. She's much smarter than you!"
"Are you sure she has time to pay attention to you right now?"
"..."
