Shi Ting put on his gloves, picked up the bronze candlestick and examined it, then opened the white bedsheet that had been used to wrap the bloody clothes. Printed on one corner of the sheet were the words ‘Qingyuan Villa.’

“Go check the rooms on the second floor,” Shi Ting said, closing the bundle and handing it to the police superintendent beside him. “Whichever room is missing a candlestick and a bedsheet — that is the room this bundle was thrown from.”

“Wait a moment.” Meng Xiangyang suddenly called out to Shi Ting. “Perhaps the killer murdered someone and then stole these items from a room to frame someone?”

Shi Ting glanced at him coolly. “Chief of Staff Meng, you were in your room the entire night — Miss Feifei can confirm that. Would anyone truly be so brazen as to sneak into Chief of Staff Meng’s room and steal things? And even if they dared, how would they get in without anyone knowing?”

“Even so, how can you be sure these items were thrown from a room on the second floor?”

Shi Ting said, “From the scene of the crime to the artificial lake, there is only one path, and that path runs through the busy dance hall. The killer would not be so foolish as to walk past everyone covered in blood. So there is only one possibility — this bundle was thrown from upstairs.”

Having said his piece, Shi Ting ignored Meng Xiangyang, who was on the verge of an outburst. “Go search.”

The second floor had four rooms in total, arranged along an L-shaped corridor. The lake below lay beyond the two rooms on the vertical wing; from the two rooms on the horizontal wing, one would have to lean out and look left to catch even a glimpse of the lake’s edge.

Bai Jin tried from both of those rooms and found it impossible to accurately throw the bundle into the lake from either.

That left two rooms: room 204, belonging to Meng Xiangyang, and room 203, belonging to a fabric merchant surnamed Sun.

Shi Ting entered room 203 first. After a thorough search, everything in the room was in order — candlestick and bedsheet both intact.

When Shi Ting entered room 204, Meng Xiangyang, trailing not far behind, furrowed his brow deeper and deeper.

It was a luxury suite. In the master bedroom, a large carved bed sat unmade, the duvet crumpled and thrown to one side.

At the foot of the bed stood a low rosewood cabinet, its surface decorated with ornaments.

On the two nightstands flanking the bed sat two wine glasses, each containing a small amount of red liquid.

“Brother Seven, the candlestick is gone.” Bai Jin searched the room twice; the small table where the candlestick should have been placed was completely empty.

Shi Ting walked over and lightly brushed his finger across a circular mark on the surface. The candlestick had stood there as a decorative piece for so long that over time it had left a faint circular impression, subtly different in color from the surrounding wood.

Shi Ting took the candlestick from Bai Jin and set it into the impression — a perfect fit.

“Director, the bedsheet is still here,” a police superintendent said, pointing to a neatly made white sheet on the bed.

Shi Ting glanced at it. “Bring the attendant.”

“Shi Xingzhi, what do you mean by this?” Meng Xiangyang said, furious.

“Why should Chief of Staff Meng be in such a rush to lose his temper? Was it not Chief of Staff Meng himself who told me the bedsheet had been changed?”

“Nonsense. When did I ever tell you that?”

“Chief of Staff Meng spent last night with Miss Feifei, yet this sheet shows not a single mark on it — not even a wrinkle. Is that not strange? Could it be that Chief of Staff Meng and Miss Feifei were lying, and the two of you were not actually here last night?”

Meng Xiangyang was left speechless by Shi Ting’s questioning, and could only glare at him with blazing eyes.

After a moment he let out a cold snort. “The sheet was indeed changed. Feifei, you spilled wine on the bed last night, didn’t you?”

Feifei had not expected to be brought into this again, and could only steel herself and admit, “Yes, I spilled wine on the bed.”

At that moment the attendant arrived as well, and at the sight of a roomful of people immediately shrank back in fright.

Bai Jin walked over and leaned in close with that smile of his that could charm anyone — young or old, man or woman. “Miss, please think carefully — did you change the sheet in this room at any point last night or in the early hours of this morning? And where is the sheet you removed?”

Faced with that handsome face suddenly in front of her, those pleasantly curved brows and eyes, the attendant could not help blinking, and with her eyes fixed on Bai Jin’s face she said, “Last night, around one in the morning, the guest staying in this room suddenly asked for the sheet to be changed. I brought a new one. Normally when I put on a new sheet I take the old one away, but the gentleman said he had thrown it out, and he slipped me a silver dollar, so I just put the new one on and left.”

“Is this the gentleman?” Bai Jin indicated Meng Xiangyang, standing not far away, his face ashen.

The attendant nodded hurriedly. “Yes.”

Bai Jin smiled with understanding. “Thank you for your cooperation, miss.”

Then he turned toward Meng Xiangyang. “Chief of Staff Meng, may I ask where the sheet you discarded ended up?”

“I threw it out, so it’s gone — how should I know where it is? Perhaps a rubbish bin collected it.”

Bai Jin replied, unhurried, “In that case, let us look through the villa’s waste collection station. I believe the villa’s rubbish is not sent down the mountain for processing every single day — it must accumulate for some time.”

The villa owner, upon hearing this, immediately chimed in, “The villa’s rubbish is all at the waste station. A special vehicle processes it every Friday.”

In other words, if Meng Xiangyang had thrown the sheet into a rubbish bin, it would certainly still be found at the waste station.

Meng Xiangyang’s complexion turned unmistakably pale.

“Chief of Staff Meng, where are your pajamas?” Shi Ting glanced at him. “They were nowhere to be found in this room. Were those discarded too? What a coincidence then — how did your candlestick and sheet end up in the lake wrapped around a bloody pair of pajamas and a murder weapon? If the killer stole items from your room to frame you, why would they have been wearing your pajamas while committing the crime? Can Chief of Staff Meng explain that?”

Shi Ting was not genuinely waiting for an explanation. His eyes hardened and his voice turned cold. “Meng Xiangyang is implicated in a deliberate homicide. He is to be taken back to the Military Police Bureau for investigation.”

Shi Ting gave the order to arrest him directly.

Meng Xiangyang was shocked — he seemed unable to believe Shi Ting would actually arrest him. “Shi Xingzhi, all the men outside are mine. You are welcome to try taking me out of here and see what happens.”