The crime occurred in a pond next to Lingnan Gymnasium, very close to the school bus stop and the MTR station. When Ho Jiahui arrived at the crime scene, the body of the deceased had been fished out of the pond.

He Jiahui stepped forward and took a look and found that the deceased was a middle-aged man in his forties. His hands and feet were tied, and there was a dumbbell tied to his leg.

"The deceased this time was a bit older. He was in his forties, so he probably wasn't a college student!" He Jiahui thought to himself, feeling a little confused at the same time.

He Jiahui bent down and carefully examined the condition of the deceased.

There was some mushroom-shaped foam around the mouth of the deceased, which is one of the typical appearance features of a drowned person.

When a person drowns, cold water entering the trachea will stimulate the tracheal mucosa, causing the trachea to secrete a large amount of mucus, and then form fine, uniform white foam. Because these foams are rich in mucus and have high stability, they are not easy to burst.

It will eventually attach to the mouth and nostrils.

At this time, the horse army also came closer.

"Has the identity of the deceased been confirmed?" He Jiahui asked.

Ma Jun nodded and introduced: "After identification by alumni, the deceased's name is Cai Zhixiang, and he is the director of the Property Management Office of the Chinese University."

"Cai Zhixiang? Which three words?" He Jiahui asked immediately.

"Cai is the Cai with the surname Cai, Zhi is the ambition, and Xiang is the flying Xiang." Ma Jun replied.

"These three words are not watery!" He Jiahui frowned.

The names of the previous three deceased people all had five elements corresponding to the way of death. According to the order of the five elements, this time it was water's turn. The deceased did die in the swimming pool, but there was no water in his name.

Ma Jun said, "Not only is there no water in the deceased's name, he is not from the student union, which is different from the three previous deceased people."

"Where is Zhang Xingjie? Aren't we monitoring him 24 hours a day? Has he escaped from our surveillance range?" He Jiahui asked.

"It was impossible for Zhang Xingjie to come here to commit a crime last night." Ma Jun continued with certainty: "Last night at about 10:30, Zhang Xingjie was sent to the hospital because of acute appendicitis, and then underwent surgery in the emergency room, so he

Stayed in the hospital all night."

"In other words, the murderer this time is definitely not Zhang Xingjie." He Jiahui fell into deep thought.

Ma Jun then asked: "We have targeted Zhang Xingjie before, but this time it is impossible for Zhang Xingjie to commit a crime. What do you think of this case?"

"I think there are three possibilities." He Jiahui held out three fingers and continued; "The first possibility is that Zhang Xingjie is not the only murderer, he has an accomplice, and this time he is an accomplice in committing the crime.

The second possibility is that we have mistaken the target, Zhang Xingjie is not the murderer, and now the real murderer has come out to commit crimes again. As for the third possibility, that is that someone imitated the crime."

"Committing a crime by imitation?" Ma Jun frowned and began to think about this possibility.

Ho Jiahui continued: "We can think of the Five Elements Murder, and other people may also think of it. And then take the opportunity to imitate the crime. This is possible.

However, we did not announce the detection of sevoflurane in the bodies of the first three deceased people? If it was a copycat killing, then the murderer this time should not know about sevoflurane.

So we only need to test whether there is sevoflurane in the body of the deceased to know whether this case is a copycat killing."

As He Jiahui spoke, he raised his head and looked around, then asked: "Is there surveillance around here?"

"Why is there surveillance at the reservoir?" Ma Jun also looked around, and then said: "There is Zhongzhitang Restaurant and Chungchi College next to it. I sent someone to take a look. I hope the surveillance there can take pictures of the pond.

What’s going on here!”

He Jiahui continued: "This murder case is different from the previous three. There was no fire, no typhoon, and no rain. The traces left by the murderer should not have been destroyed. Maybe it can bring us new clues."

.”

…

The forensic doctor took the body of the deceased back and conducted an autopsy. Forensic evidence also began to collect information from the scene, and the police began to investigate the interpersonal relationships of the deceased.

After some investigation, Ma Jun brought detailed information about the deceased:

"The deceased, Cai Zhixiang, was 44 years old. He was the director of the property management office of the university. He was married to his wife, a bank employee. The couple had a good relationship. They had a daughter who was in elementary school.

The financial situation of the deceased was normal. He and his wife jointly took out a loan to buy a house and repaid the loan on time every month. Apart from the mortgage and credit cards, the deceased had no other debts and had never borrowed loan sharks.

In addition, there was a deposit of more than 200,000 yuan on the deceased's bank card. It can be judged that the deceased's financial situation was good and his death should not be caused by financial disputes.

The deceased did not have any bad habits. He did not gamble, buy horses, or take drugs. He occasionally bought Mark Six lottery tickets with his colleagues, but he had never won a big prize.

The deceased's life was very regular, he went to and from get off work on time, his daily interpersonal interactions were normal, and he never made enemies with anyone. His usual social scope was mainly in school."

"It sounds like Cai Zhixiang is just an ordinary faculty member with no bright spots in his life!" He Jiahui nodded irritably. The more ordinary a person is, the harder it is to determine the direction of the investigation.

Ma Jun continued: "We have contacted the wife of the deceased, and according to her confession, she received a text message from the deceased at six o'clock yesterday afternoon, saying that she wanted to have dinner with her colleagues and there was no need to wait for her to eat.

At about nine o'clock in the evening, she received another text message from the deceased, saying that they would go sing together after dinner and that she should go to bed first and not wait for her.

After receiving the text message, the deceased's wife immediately called the deceased's phone number. The other party did not answer, but hung up directly. Then she sent another text message saying that her phone was out of battery.

At 12 o'clock in the evening, the deceased's wife called the deceased's phone again and was informed that the phone was turned off. The deceased's wife thought it was because the deceased's mobile phone had run out of battery, so she went to sleep by herself.

This morning, when the deceased's wife woke up, she found that the deceased still had not come back. She called the deceased's mobile phone but it was still turned off. She also called the deceased's office, but no one answered. After that, she went to work. She didn't call until she received our notification.

Know that the deceased has been killed."

"Has the deceased's cell phone been found at the crime scene?" He Jiahui asked immediately.

"You really got to the point right away." Ma Jun continued: "We found the wallet and keys on the deceased's body, but we did not find the deceased's mobile phone."

"Could it be that he fell into the pond?" He Jiahui asked next.

"People have been sent to salvage, but nothing has been found so far." Ma Jun paused and then asked: "I also asked the deceased's colleagues, and they said there was no dinner party last night, and everyone left after get off work."

"That is to say, the text messages received by the deceased's wife were probably sent by the murderer. After get off work yesterday, the deceased was already under the control of the murderer, and then the murderer used the deceased's mobile phone to send text messages to the deceased's wife.

In this way, the wife of the deceased would think that her husband was having dinner and singing with his colleagues, so she would not suspect that the deceased had an accident, nor would she come to the school to look for someone or call the police. The murderer would then have enough time to wait until the dead of night to sink the deceased into the water.

pond."

He Jiahui pondered for a few seconds as he spoke, and then asked: "Where's the surveillance? Has any surveillance captured the situation in the pond?"

Ma Jun shook his head: "There is no surveillance on the pond. We could only go to the buildings around the pond to check, but found nothing. No surveillance camera would take pictures of the pond."

He Jiahui continued: "Did the surveillance of nearby roads capture the deceased or other suspicious persons passing by?"

Ma Jun still shook his head and said helplessly: "It's not like you haven't been to the Chinese University. There are not many surveillance systems installed there, and they are basically installed indoors and on the roads outside.

There is surveillance for you to check!"

The density of public cameras in Xiangjiang is not very high, but the Chinese University is built on a mountain. The government allocated the entire mountain to the Chinese University. Wherever there is flat land on the mountain, a building will be built, and the roads in the university will be built.

, are also dug out of the mountains and forests, and there is no monitoring coverage.

Ma Jun continued: "Forensic evidence collected footprints and a set of wheel marks on the shore of the pond. They looked like they were made by a suitcase. It is estimated that the murderer used a suitcase or something like that to transport the deceased.

We arrived at the pond."

"Suitcase? This may be a direction for investigation. If the person pushing the suitcase can be found, there may be clues to the murderer." He Jiahui said immediately.

"This is also difficult." Ma Jun continued: "Next to the pond where the crime occurred is the Chinese University bus stop, and opposite is the MTR Chinese University Station. At almost every MTR stop, there will be people pushing luggage.

It would be almost impossible to check the boxes one by one as they pass by.”

"Can the origin of the dumbbells tied to the deceased's legs be found? The gymnasium is next to the crime scene. Could the dumbbells come from there?" He Jiahui asked again.

"The dumbbells are old, and it is impossible to find the source through sales information. I also asked Cannon to check at the gym. There have been no missing dumbbells in the gym recently," Ma Jun replied.

The two fell into silence at the same time. Although it didn't rain this time and they found traces left by the murderer, these traces still failed to allow the police to identify the murderer.

At this moment, Ma Jun received a text message on his cell phone.

Ma Jun looked at the information on his phone and said, "The forensic doctor has the results. The time of death of the deceased was between three and four in the morning. The cause of death was suffocation caused by a large amount of liquid entering the respiratory tract, that is, drowning.

Moreover, residues of sevoflurane were detected in the body of the deceased!"

"Then we can rule out copycat crimes." He Jiahui nodded solemnly, and then said: "Since sevoflurane has been detected in the body of the deceased, it means that this is also a serial murder case, and the murderer is the same person, or

Same group of people.

But the problem is that this case is quite different from the previous three cases. First of all, the name of the deceased does not contain water, which means that the murderer has changed his previous crime logic.

Secondly, the deceased was not a member of the student union, or even a student, but a faculty member. This is equivalent to the murderer changing his habit of choosing the target of the crime. This is unusual in serial murder cases.

According to my previous inference, the murderer targeted the student union, and then selected people with the five elements of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth in their names, and used the corresponding five elements to kill them. However, Cai Zhixiang's death overturned these two inferences at the same time.

So I have a new idea. The murderer is not targeting the student union organization, but individuals. In other words, the murderer is actually targeting these four people. It’s just that the first three victims happened to be in the student union.

.”

Ma Jun thought for a while and said, "But we have checked the interpersonal relationships of the deceased and they have no enemies. Why did the murderer specifically target the four of them?"

He Jiahui answered: "Serial murders, when committed against individuals, are nothing more than two situations. The first situation is that every deceased person is related to the murderer, and the murderer has a grudge against each of the deceased people, and then kills them."

Kill one by one.

The second situation is that there is a correlation between individuals. For example, a murderer will commit a crime against a group of people with certain characteristics in a specific weather, a specific time, a specific situation, or a specific environment.

Take for example the famous Rainy Night Butcher case, isn't this the case? And this type of criminals often have psychological problems or antisocial personalities."

"You mean, these four deceased people are related? This correlation is the murderer's motive for killing?" Ma Jun thought for a while and then said:

"It's okay to say that the first three deceased were all members of the student union, but the fourth deceased was the director of the Property Management Office. He was not related to the first three!"

"We need to investigate this!" He Jiahui paused and then said; "Although the Chinese University has more than 20,000 faculty and staff, we are all in the same school after all, and we can see each other without looking up.

.

Are there any common points of intersection in the life circles of the four deceased people? Are there any business dealings between the student union and the property management office? These may all be the connections between the four deceased people."
To be continued...