Whether there were ghosts was hard to say, but supporting male role Qu was indeed dead, and his death was quite tragic.
He lay on the bed, completely naked, his face purple and swollen, with obvious finger marks on his neck. This way of dying was scary enough for a horror movie, and even more terrifying was that the entire bed was soaked in bright red blood water.
The rich smell of blood drifted in the air, thick and pungent, flowing from the bed to the floor, dripping, with a strong visual impact.
Director Li poked his head in and nearly died from fright: “What, what is this?”
Jiang BaiYan sincerely shook his head. He was very tactful and didn’t even glance at it, just waiting quietly for Jian Jing to arrive.
She was at the scene of the crime within ten minutes.
The first thing she did was examine the corpse.
Without a doubt, the cause of death was mechanical asphyxiation, specifically strangulation. From the condition of the corpse, the time of death was no more than 2 hours ago.
It was now 1:40 AM, so the time of death should have been between 11:40 PM-1:40 AM.
As for the blood... She put on gloves, dipped her fingers in it and felt it, the texture was strange. She smelled it again, a strong bloody smell.
“This doesn’t seem to be a blood plasma bag,” since Jiang BaiYan could only stand in the doorway and peek in so as not to contaminate the scene.
“Right, it’s blood,” she guessed, “maybe with an anticoagulant added, so it can’t coagulate normally.”
Jiang BaiYan asked, “Human blood?”
Jian Jing: “Most likely not.”
“It’s a ghost!” said the girl who had been pulled outside to sit in the courtyard, shivering in fear, “Definitely a ghost!”
Jian Jing looked at her inquisitively. The girl was very young, no older than 20. She had a bath towel wrapped around herself, with blood stains on her exposed thighs and arms, in the shape of prints.
“You are...”
The girl was pale, with a dazed look repeating: “There’s a ghost.”
“Don’t be afraid, there’s no ghost now, you’re safe,” Jian Jing turned on her Trust Card and held the girl by the shoulders, discreetly observing her, “Can you tell me what you saw?”
The girl swallowed a few times, her lips moving: “The ghost killed someone.”
"Did you see it?" Jian Jing glanced at the girl’s palms, her nails were long with nice manicures, slender finger bones, with a ring set with red and blue gems on the middle finger of her left hand, cute in style.
“She touched my face,” the girl said in horror, “I woke up feeling all sticky, opened my eyes and saw blood - blood everywhere!”
She babbled incoherently: “So much blood, he’s dead.”
Jian Jing asked: “Touched your face? How did she touch you? Are you sure it was a hand?”
"It was a ghost!” she was about to cry, “I thought it was a prank at first, but it turned out to be real...too scary...will I be killed too?"
Jian Jing was at a loss whether to laugh or cry, and quickly soothed her.
But the girl was too shocked to calm down, so Sister Chen could only accompany her to rest on the side.
She and Jiang BaiYan reviewed what happened tonight.
Around 11:30 pm, supporting male role Qu brought the girl back to the room, both seemed to be drunk and making a lot of noise.
At 12:05 am, he fell asleep without turning off the video, so Jian Jing could see him the whole time.
At 1:20 am, a sharp scream that pierced the clouds suddenly came from outside, waking him up from his sleep in fright. He opened the curtains to see what was going on.
At 1:30 am, he found Director Li and they went to supporting male role Qu's room together.
Jian Jing saw the dead supporting male role Qu through the video.
At 1:40 am, she arrived at the scene and examined the corpse, confirming the time of death.
Jian Jing confirmed several questionable points: “The door must have been locked at that time?”
Jiang BaiYan was very certain: “Yes, I tried to open it but couldn’t. It was locked”
The second question was: “Who came by in the 10 minutes before I got here?”
"Everyone came to ask about the situation. After finding out someone had died, they went back to their rooms,” Jiang BaiYan said. “No one went into the room.”
With locked doors and windows, mysterious blood, and a man strangled alive, plus a witness who claimed her face was touched—this killer was quite capable.
Jian Jing thought for a moment and said, “Call the landlord, I saw there were surveillance cameras here. Let’s check first to see if anyone went in and out of this place today.”
Jiang BaiYan gave an “OK” sign and went out to make the call.
The landlord lived right next door and arrived very quickly, immediately checking the surveillance footage: “There are only two cameras here, one at the front door and one at the back. Here they are.”
Then he asked anxiously, “Was it really a female ghost committing murder? No one has ever died here before!”
Jian Jing asked, “Have there been rumors of ghosts before?”
“Yes, it's said that people have seen a pregnant woman in traditional clothes wandering around the scenic area at night. When you glimpse at her, she disappears. A dead person is definitely the first time though.” He felt very ominous, and couldn’t help but ask Director Li, “Director, is the master you invited still here? Please perform an exorcism ritual on my place, otherwise how can I continue running this business? "
Director Li also looked uneasy. For one of the actors in his crew to suddenly die such a tragic death, who knows what the media would rumor it into if they caught wind of this. It’d be fine if it became viral and brought them publicity, but what he feared was... Also, he’d have to explain to the investors...For a moment, he had thousands of things on his mind, and his temples bulged with veins.
“Little Bai,” he called Jiang BaiYan. “Let’s step out for a minute to talk.”
Jiang BaiYan was clever enough to take the hint. He immediately followed Director Li outside.
The two whispered to each other in the courtyard, but Jian Jing didn’t eavesdrop. Instead she focused on fast forwarding through the footage of the homestay.
The layout of the homestay was neat and symmetrical, sitting north and facing south, structured as follows:
.....Room 1....Room 2....
Room 3...Room 4....Room 5
Room 6.....Yard......Room 7
Room 8.....Courtyard..Room 9
Kitchen....Dining..Doorway..
To put it simply, the front yard was divided into three rooms, the east and west side rooms into two rooms each, the back wing into two rooms, and the inverted room used as dining room and kitchen, totaling nine guest rooms.
The guests staying in each room could also be listed:
Room 1: female lead Bei
Room 2: Jiang BaiYan (current residence)
Room 3: supporting male role Qu
Room 4: Bloody Handprint Room, formerly resided in by Jiang BaiYan, now vacant
Room 5: Director Li
Room 6: Photography Director
Room 7: Art Director
Room 8: Production Manager
Room 9: Producer
First, Jian Jing dragged the timeline back to 11:30 pm and, as expected, saw the drunken supporting male role Qu returning with the girl. He had one arm around her waist, gesturing and staggering as he mumbled something.
The Producer was supporting him on one side, seeming to persuade him, but supporting male role Qu was completely ignoring it, laughing and flirting with the girl. Both were quite drunk, nearly falling headfirst as they crossed the threshold.
She made a note of the time in her memo pad: 23:35, last time the victim was seen alive.
Going further back in time, she searched for when each guest returned:
22:15, female lead Bei returned
22:40, Jiang BaiYan returned
23:10, Production Manager returned
23:35, supporting male role Qu, girl, and Producer returned
23:50, Art Director returned
00:15, Photography Director returned
00:40, Director Li returned
Checking the back door surveillance, there was no one going in or out the whole night.
Looking at this, of the nine guest rooms, eight were occupied. One person died, leaving seven suspects.
There was also the “eyewitness” girl who couldn’t be ruled out as a suspect either.
But after examining the handprints on the victim’s neck, they seemed bigger than the girl’s palm, unlikely a female’s hand. Also, upon pressing the sides of the neck, she could feel the hyoid bone was fractured, a typical sign of strangulation.
It would be difficult for a female to accomplish this.
In addition, the nails on supporting male role Qu's fingers were very clean, with no visible skin or fabric residue. There were also no signs of struggling or fighting back on his skin.
He was killed without any resistance.
Of the few guests:
Jiang BaiYan was in her line of sight the whole time, he could be ruled out. Director Li, Producer, Production Manager, Photography Director were all men, under greater suspicion. While female lead Bei and Art Director were women, under less suspicion.
But the possibility of collaborating to commit murder couldn’t be eliminated.
She made a special note of the order each person returned, preparing to inquire with them one by one later.
Next should be investigating the scene of the crime.
But Jian Jing felt like waiting until the police arrived before proceeding. It wasn’t that she was lazy, but rather when she first entered the room to examine the corpse earlier, the chaotic state frightened her.
She had never seen such a messy crime scene before.
The bed was already soaked in blood, and most of the traces could not be discerned by the naked eye. On the floor, in addition to the blood that had flowed down, there were also randomly discarded clothes, bathrobes, underwear, panties, wrinkled, emitting a strong smell of alcohol and sour odor.
The hostel hadn't cleaned the rooms, [glossary]supporting male role Qu[/glossary]'s hygiene habits compared to [glossary]Jiang BaiYan[/glossary] were worlds apart. The trash can was full of tissues, condoms and other trash overflowing, drinks spilled on the bedside table, makeup brushes, beauty eggs, and lipsticks had fallen and no one picked them up.
There were strange stains on the carpet, as well as different hair loss: long curly red-brown hair, long straight black hair, and short smog blue hair.
The bathroom was also a mess, the water in the bathtub had not been drained, there were several crumpled paper balls on the floor, skin care products were left helter-skelter, and the toilet still smelled.
In this situation, it is certainly better to have professionals take responsibility for the cleanup!
However, waiting left and right, the police was late.
"Did you call the police?" she asked [glossary]Jiang BaiYan[/glossary].
He honestly said, "Director Li won't let me."
She glared at him.
"[glossary]Director Li[/glossary] and I talked, I understood his concerns that if the police got involved, gossip would fly everywhere which would greatly impact the crew," [glossary]Jiang BaiYan[/glossary] explained quickly, "So we all compromised, you investigate, and once the truth comes out, we will announce the news from our end."
That made more sense.
[glossary]Jian Jing[/glossary]'s drowsiness had long since vanished, after looking around, she discovered a new face.
"That's [glossary]Qu Jie[/glossary]'s agent," said [glossary]Jiang BaiYan[/glossary].
Better early than late, [glossary]Jian Jing[/glossary] decided to ask him first.
She went up and introduced herself. At first the agent was unwilling to respond, but with [glossary]Director Li[/glossary] and [glossary]Jiang BaiYan[/glossary] speaking on her behalf, he reluctantly agreed.
"What do you want to ask?" The agent started off aggressively, without the slightest hint of grief or panic, but rather irritably.
[glossary]Jian Jing[/glossary] remained calm: "What do you think about [glossary]Qu Jie[/glossary]'s death?"
The agent said, "Accident."
She was surprised. "Strangled to death is an accident?"
"Listen to me, I know this sounds far-fetched, but it's actually quite normal - they got carried away," the agent said calmly. "[glossary]Qu Jie[/glossary] liked to fool around openly, he was well known for it in the industry, so I'm not too surprised he ended up like this."
[glossary]Jian Jing[/glossary] uttered an "oh," and asked, "Do you know that girl?"
The agent said, "Not well. I've seen her, she's [glossary]Qu Jie[/glossary]'s fan, quite generous usually, likes to stalk him. [glossary]Qu Jie[/glossary] doesn't have a girlfriend right now, being with female fans is normal."
"Was it her the last few days too?"
The agent replied indifferently, "No, other fans he met at the bar. Ms. Jian, [glossary]Qu Jie[/glossary] is a celebrity, wherever he goes there are frenzied fans that swarm him everywhere."
"But she was drinking, with her strength how could she strangle a man to death easily," said [glossary]Jian Jing[/glossary].
"When drinking it's easier for things to happen," the agent sighed, sincerely saying, "I don't know what [glossary]Director Li[/glossary] thinks, but our company has more artists than just [glossary]Qu Jie[/glossary]. I will be responsible to negotiate with his family, provide a waiver, so things don't get out of hand."
[glossary]Jian Jing[/glossary] neither agreed or disagreed, but instead asked, "Isn't there anyone who wanted [glossary]Qu Jie[/glossary] dead?"
"Of course, competitors are enemies," the agent paused and smiled, "But [glossary]Jiang BaiYan[/glossary] wouldn't need to."
[glossary]Jian Jing[/glossary] felt he was implying something, not taking the bait, and continued asking, "How about relationship disputes?"
"He broke up with his girlfriend a long time ago," the agent tried persuading again, "This is just an accident, Ms. Jian, you shouldn't complicate a simple matter."
"I don't think so," she said. "In the afternoon he quarreled with quite a few people."
In fact, after being mocked by Master Long in the morning, [glossary]Qu Jie[/glossary] had already been very unhappy. In the afternoon while shooting scenes with the three main leads, he was beaten badly, scolded by [glossary]Director Li[/glossary], laughed at by countless crew members, and his mood had hit rock bottom.
While getting his makeup touched up, he felt his eyebrows were not drawn well. He threw a whole cup of iced coffee at the makeup artist, and said the car that logistics had arranged for him was no good, causing him to not even be able to rest in the car. He mocked the gaffer for playing favorites, saying his skin tone was obviously a whole shade darker than the male and female leads.
In the end he had an argument with [glossary]Director Li[/glossary] and they parted on bad terms, with everyone hearing it with their own ears.
Of course this isn't to say the staff developed a motive from this, but the agent's attitude of smoothing things over left [glossary]Jian Jing[/glossary] very puzzled.
She smiled and said, "Human life is invaluable, I still should investigate carefully. If you don't trust me, you can report to the police yourself."
