Recently, due to a typhoon making landfall, Jiangzhou City has been experiencing continuous rain and overcast weather. Since yesterday evening, a fine drizzle has been falling incessantly from the sky, making the streets wet and slippery after nightfall.
At the end of a quiet residential area, in an empty abandoned warehouse: Light spills out from a window, and in the thick, damp air, someone is hiding in the shadows...
"Hello, are you awake?" A harsh mechanical voice rings out, "Let's play a game."
"Who are you? No, no... don't kill us... please..." The girl, realizing her surroundings, tries to shrink back in terror, but she's firmly fixed to the chair, her hands and feet bound with rope, even her head immobilized by a cold metal frame, completely unable to move.
Her suddenly dilated pupils reflect a young man in a white short-sleeved shirt - her boyfriend. His hands and feet are similarly bound with rope, sitting in a chair. He's now slowly opening his eyes.
"Jie, are you alright?"
"Waa, Ah Chen, what's going on, how did we end up here?"
The young man named Ah Chen struggles violently, "Who are you? Do you want money? We'll give it to you, if it's not enough, I can call my parents and ask for more."
"Don't you want to play my game?"
The constant buzzing of electricity makes the girl's scalp tingle.
"No, we'll play! If... if we win, will you... will you let us go?"
"Of course, if you win, I'll let you go," a hint of amusement creeps into the distorted voice, "Now, let's go over the rules of the game..."
The wail of police sirens breaks the tranquility of Jiangzhou University. Soon, the small woods outside the north gate of Jiangzhou University are cordoned off with yellow police tape.
Jiangzhou University is located in the suburbs and covers a large area. Outside the school gates is a large wooded area, planted with various vegetation, lush and green, with beautiful scenery.
There's also a beautiful artificial lake by the woods, so many people from outside the school often come there for leisure.
At this moment, the edge of the woods is crowded with students, all discussing among themselves.
"Did you hear? A young couple committed suicide together in these woods. The girl was apparently the beauty queen of the School of Literature."
"From the School of Literature?"
"Oh my god, weren't they that famous lovey-dovey couple on campus? Why would they follow the ancients and die together?"
"Don't talk nonsense, this isn't a suicide pact, they were robbed by criminals. Oh, it's not right to gossip about the dead!"
"That's not right, what kind of robber kills people and then digs a hole to bury the bodies? It must be murder! Maybe the killer is a psychopath who specifically targets couples who like to show off their love."
"All you couples out there should tone it down a bit recently. Be careful, or you might be the killer's next target."
"Come on, stop fear-mongering. I think you single dogs are just spreading rumors because you're jealous of people in relationships."
The onlooking students crowd against the police line, all standing on tiptoes to get a better view. Many have taken out their phones to take pictures.
They can see two bodies lying side by side in the muddy pit. The mud obscures their features, but they're wearing matching red hoodies. Their hands are tightly clasped together, each holding a vibrant red rose in their other hand.
The bodies were found in a grove of golden rain trees. The trees are covered in clusters of light purple spherical fruits, looking like beautiful flowers adorning the branches. The ground is also covered in fallen flowers and fruits, giving the scene a romantic beauty.
If one could ignore the pale faces of the deceased, the scene would almost be romantically tragic.
The woods are dense, the ground covered in fallen flowers and fruits. With the heavy rain the night before, the ground is saturated, squelching underfoot. Mu Mian very much dislikes this sensation.
Zhang points at the two bodies in the pit and says, "We have two victims, one male and one female. This morning, a sanitation worker passing through the woods slipped and noticed a tuft of hair sticking out from the fallen leaves. He felt something was off and quickly brushed away the soil layer, discovering a male corpse. He immediately called the police. During the excavation process, we found another female corpse next to the male..."
Zhang continues to brief on the case, "Student IDs found at the scene show that the girl is named Wang Jie, a sophomore from the School of Literature; the boy is Zhang Shuochen, a junior from the School of Law. They were a couple..."
It's been raining recently, with a particularly heavy downpour last night. The rain has washed away any traces around the dump site, and the police haven't found any suspicious footprints or tire tracks in the vicinity.
The wooded area covers several acres, with no surveillance at the entrances or exits.
The victims' clothes are intact, both wearing red couple hoodies, as if they had been carefully dressed.
The victims' IDs, phones, and valuables haven't been taken. It seems the killer wasn't after money.
Mu Mian conducts a preliminary examination of the external features of both bodies. Both victims show severe corneal clouding, obvious autolysis, and have developed putrefaction blisters.
"Initial assessment suggests the victims have been dead for 2-3 days. The exact time of death will require further analysis," Mu Mian says.
Both victims have slight abrasions on their wrists and ankles, likely caused by rope bindings; the male victim has a bruise on his jaw and back, possibly from resisting; both victims have an oval-shaped wound on their arms. However, Mu Mian doesn't find any fatal injuries on their bodies.
"Mu Mian, could they have died from suffocation?" Chen Xue looks at the pit and speculates, "The victims' bodies don't have severe external injuries, nor signs of poisoning. Could the killer have buried them alive?"
The killer didn't bury the bodies very deep, and the recent continuous heavy rain had washed away some of the soil, which is how the sanitation worker who came to clean the woods discovered them.
"It doesn't seem likely," Mu Mian looks at the oval-shaped wounds, a theory forming in her mind, "They might have died from electrocution."
"Electrocution?"
"The victims have an oval-shaped wound on their arms, 8mm in diameter, yellowish-brown in color, with a small opening and larger base, depressed center and raised edges, like a volcano crater. This is typical of an electrical burn mark," Mu Mian explains, "However, we'll need to conduct a thorough autopsy on the victims to confirm the cause of death."
"Why would the killer electrocute the victims?" Chen Xue finds it hard to comprehend. Usually, electrocution deaths are accidental, it's rare for a killer to deliberately electrocute victims.
Moreover, if the killer really did use electrocution to kill the victims, they could have easily disguised it as an accidental electrocution, which would be less likely to arouse police suspicion.
Mu Mian doesn't answer her question, as her attention is drawn to a gelatinous substance on the female victim's scalp. She checks the male victim's hair and finds the same substance on his scalp as well.
Zhang speculates, "Could it be that the killer was jealous of the two victims, so they tortured them with electrocution? There used to be an interrogation method that used electric shocks to question suspects."
Chen Xue thinks Zhang's analysis makes sense: "That's very possible! In any case, this killer must really hate people who show off their love!"
Looking at the two victims, Fang Rui suddenly recalls an unsolved major case. Half a year ago, there were two couple murders in Linzhou City, but the killer was never caught.
