Noticing his unusual expression, Yan Qing set down the book in her hand. “Found something?”

“The telephone is silent.” An ordinary telephone, when picked up, would emit a dial tone — but this one was completely silent.

As Yan Qing wheeled herself over, Shi Ting had already nimbly ducked under the desk. He found the telephone line and, sure enough, discovered something suspicious.

The telephone line had been cut from one side with a sharp instrument, leaving only a thin strip of insulation connecting the two ends.

“The killer cut the phone line?” Yan Qing frowned. “He had already killed Song Zixian — why bother with the extra step?”

Shi Ting stared at the severed phone line in his hand, as though something had occurred to him. “Liu Cui mentioned that when she opened the study door and found Song Zixian collapsed on the floor, she went to the telephone in the ground-floor hall to call the police. I assumed she had done so out of fear, not wanting to make the call from inside the study. Thinking about it now, she may well have picked up the telephone and found it dead, and only then ran downstairs.”

“The killer cut the phone line so that she would run downstairs to make the call?”

Shi Ting climbed out from under the desk and dusted himself off. “We’ve been wondering all along how the killer left the scene while the doors and windows were locked from the inside. Let’s think differently — what if the killer never left the scene at all?”

“You mean the killer stayed in this room the entire night after killing Song Zixian?” Yan Qing was startled. “But you arrived at the scene after receiving the report and found no one — and Liu Cui was the first to enter the room, and she didn’t see the killer either.”

Shi Ting lightly tapped his forehead, as though a piece of logic had fallen into place. Instead of answering Yan Qing directly, he strode over to the window curtain.

“Liu Cui said that when she entered, the curtains were drawn. Because the light was dim, she turned on the electric light.” Shi Ting lifted the heavy cotton curtain. “Later, when the Military Police Division personnel arrived at the scene, they opened the curtains.”

He looked carefully at the wall behind the curtain, and a glint of certainty flashed in his eyes. “Just as I thought.”

Shi Ting pulled the curtain aside. On the snow-white wall, faint bloodstains were clearly imprinted.

“Wiping off blood?” Yan Qing seemed to understand. “The killer was actually hiding behind the curtain the whole time. When he committed the act, Song Zixian’s blood sprayed onto him. His clothing brushed against the wall by chance, leaving this bloodstain.”

“The killer was still in the study when Liu Cui entered it.”

Yan Qing imagined the scene and felt a chill. The killer’s nerve was truly remarkable.

Shi Ting let the curtain fall and brought Yan Qing to the ground-floor sitting room.

“When Liu Cui entered the study and found Song Zixian collapsed on the floor, her instinct was to pick up the telephone on the desk to call the police. But because the line was dead, she had to run downstairs. At that moment, the killer stepped out from behind the curtain and followed close behind Liu Cui. The telephone in the sitting room was positioned beside the sofa — when making a call, one’s back would naturally face the front door. And with a folding screen near the entrance, the killer could slip out in plain sight while Liu Cui turned away.”

“Bai Jin said no suspicious footprints were found at the scene.”

“The killer wore Song Zixian’s slippers.” Shi Ting gestured toward the shoe rack by the door. “Do you notice anything missing?”

“Slippers.” The answer came out of Yan Qing’s mouth immediately.

On the shoe rack, in addition to several pairs of men’s leather shoes, there were two pairs of women’s slippers — one belonging to Liu Cui and one to Song Meimei. What was absent was Song Zixian’s own pair.

“Liu Cui said Song Zixian used to wear slippers when he came home, but recently had been wearing leather shoes instead — likely because he had received personal threats and wore leather shoes in case he needed to flee at any moment. After the killer entered the home, he put on Song Zixian’s slippers. When leaving, he had no time to put them back, so he had to take them with him.”

“I see.” Admiration rose in Yan Qing’s heart. “Director Shi truly lives up to his reputation.”

Shi Ting glanced at her, then suddenly leaned in — this movement startled Yan Qing and she immediately edged backward.

He raised his finger and lightly flicked it across the bridge of her nose. “Whether my deductions are accurate is easy enough to verify — we’ll check with Liu Cui.”

Yan Qing wheeled her chair back a short distance to prevent him from “making his move” again.

“There’s still one unanswered question.” Shi Ting stopped teasing her and returned to the matter at hand. “Where is Song Zixian’s money?”

“It wasn’t found at the house?”

Shi Ting shook his head. “Song Zixian’s career had always been smooth, and his income was substantial. On top of that, he was notoriously frugal — he should have accumulated considerable wealth. But we searched the entire two-story building and found nowhere that money could be kept.”

“Could the killer have taken it?” Yan Qing asked, then felt it was unlikely. “Song Zixian guarded his money with his life — he wouldn’t have let anyone find his hidden stash easily. Besides, there were no signs of the scene being ransacked.”

“Two possibilities. First, the killer was extremely familiar with the place and knew exactly where Song Zixian kept his money. After killing Song Zixian, he went straight for it and took the funds. Second, the killer’s motive for killing Song Zixian had nothing to do with his money.”

“Which do you lean toward?”

“If we’re talking about someone extremely familiar with the place, it can only be Song Meimei.”

“Don’t forget — he also has a son who went abroad.”

“The son has been abroad for seven or eight years without contacting Song Zixian. Would someone as tight-fisted as Song Zixian tell him where he kept his money?”

“Song Meimei can’t prove she wasn’t at the scene, and she has a financial dispute with Song Zixian…”

At that moment, a sharp ring suddenly shattered the silence, making Yan Qing jump.

Shi Ting patted her on the shoulder and strode to the telephone in the sitting room.

The phone rang twice more before he picked it up.

“Seventh Brother, I knew you’d still be there.” Bai Jin’s voice came through urgently from the other end. “Song Meimei has had an accident.”

Shi Ting’s expression darkened.

After hanging up, Shi Ting walked to Yan Qing. “It seems we need to pay a visit to Song Meimei’s home.”

Song Meimei lived in apartment number 85 on Yi Lin Road. The apartment building had three stories, two units per floor, with an average area of around one hundred square meters per unit.

Song Meimei lived in Unit 1 on the ground floor. Her neighbor was a family of three — the husband was a university lecturer, the wife a full-time homemaker, and their child had just turned six that year.

This mischievous boy had a small dog. That morning, the dog had run outside to play, and while searching for it, the boy climbed in through the window bars at the back of Song Meimei’s unit.

He could see that Song Meimei’s bedroom had the curtains drawn, though a gap had been left at the side. The boy peered through the gap and saw a figure lying on the floor beside the bed.

The boy went home and told his mother that the auntie next door was sleeping on the floor.

His mother paid it no mind — until his father came home, heard about it, and felt something was wrong. He went to Song Meimei’s rear window to look, and then called the police.

When Shi Ting and Yan Qing entered, a nauseating smell hit them immediately.

Yan Qing thought to herself: not good. Judging by the smell, the body had most likely begun to decompose — and the kind of corpse she least wanted to autopsy was a decomposing one, especially a highly decomposed one. The stench from those was something you never forgot.

Song Meimei’s apartment had a fairly typical layout. The hundred-plus square meters were divided into a two-bedroom, two-living-room structure. The entrance opened onto a foyer with wardrobes on either side, followed by a dining room of about five square meters, and then the kitchen.

To the left of the foyer was the sitting room, furnished with a set of fabric sofas, a coffee table, and a combination of low redwood cabinets.

A plate of grapes sat on the coffee table. When someone touched it, countless small flies rose up from it.

Bai Jin and two officers were in the process of collecting trace evidence. When he saw Shi Ting walk in, he immediately came forward to report.

“Seventh Brother, there’s something to show you.”

He led the way, turning into Song Meimei’s bedroom.

Yan Qing saw Song Meimei lying face-down on the floor at the foot of the bed, her long hair fanned out, covering her fine-featured face.

Beside the nightstand was a small combination-lock box. It was currently open, and the documents that had been stored inside were scattered out — the box itself was completely empty.

“I looked through these documents,” Bai Jin said. “I can confirm that this combination-lock box belongs to Song Zixian.”

Shi Ting and Yan Qing exchanged a glance. They had been searching everywhere for Song Zixian’s belongings, and had not expected to find them here at Song Meimei’s place.

Could it be that Song Meimei had indeed killed Song Zixian and taken the combination-lock box?

“Suspicious footprints other than Song Meimei’s were extracted from the scene,” Bai Jin said gravely. “Very likely the killer’s.”

Shi Ting pointed at the box. “How was the box opened?”

“No signs of forced prying or damage. It was likely opened using the correct combination.” Bai Jin continued. “There are signs of a struggle at the scene — Song Meimei was engaged in a physical altercation with the killer before she died.”

Shi Ting looked toward Yan Qing. Yan Qing nodded, and wheeled herself over to the body.

“Where is Dr. E’Yuan?”

“He’s sick — took the day off.” Bai Jin quipped. “That guy’s luck is remarkable. Every time he takes a day off, there’s a case.”

Yan Qing asked Bai Jin to turn Song Meimei’s body over. This woman, whose temperament and looks could be considered exceptional, now had a cyanotic face, bulging eyes, and blood and decomposition fluid seeping from her nose and mouth — a truly alarming sight at first glance.

Yan Qing had someone lift Song Meimei’s body onto the bed, then accepted the gloves Bai Jin handed her and put them on.

Song Meimei was dressed in a peach-pink silk sleeping garment. The clothing was intact, with no signs of violation.

Her feet should have been wearing a pair of silk slippers, but these slippers were “separated from their owner” — one had fallen near the window, the other near her body.

Yan Qing lifted her top garment and on her abdomen saw patches of mottled greenish-brown network-like blood vessels, dense and intricate, like a tangle of tubes.

“What’s that? How revolting,” Bai Jin said with a frown.

“Decomposition vascular network,” Yan Qing explained. “Decomposition gases cause the subcutaneous veins to dilate. The venous blood vessels are filled with decomposed greenish blood. Seen from the outside, it looks like a network pattern.”

“What does that tell us?”

“Song Meimei’s time of death was between 48 and 72 hours ago.”

Yan Qing turned Song Meimei’s head to one side, pushed aside the long hair — matted and stained with decomposition fluid — that had spread across her chest, and gave a soft smile. “So that’s how it is.”