Knowing that she would lose her freedom when we returned to the police station, Xiaotao insisted on going to Officer Ma’s house. On the way there, she wondered aloud, “I don’t understand why Li Wenjia had to go to such lengths to eliminate me. She could’ve just stopped me on my way to work, hypnotized me, and killed me!”

“That’s not how psychopaths think,” I replied. “She didn’t want you to just die. She wants to savor the joy of seeing you in misery. She wants you to betray the people around you, scare you, and humiliate you. She wants to rob you of everything you hold dear, just like what you did to her.”

“When have I done anything like that to her?”

“She was orphaned at a young age. Her brother was all she had left. You captured him and put him in prison, where he died. You can imagine just how much she’d hate you for that.”

“And you said you don’t know much about human psychology!” Xiaotao glanced at me and smiled.

We finally arrived at Officer Ma’s residence, which was in an old apartment building. As we went upstairs, Xiaotao told me, “Officer Ma has been an upstanding police officer all his life. His only son was killed by a mobster for revenge. Now Officer Ma and his wife only have each other to depend on. If anything happened to them, I will never forgive Li Wenjia!”

When we reached Officer Ma’s door, we could both smell a thick stench of blood. Color drained from Xiaotao’s face. She began to wildly kick the door. The door’s lock gave in after a few kicks, and Xiaotao rushed into the house shouting, “Teacher! Where are you?”

There was no response. The only person in the house was an old lady lying very still in a pool of blood on the floor. There was a knife sticking out of her chest and a DVD propped on a tripod next to her body.

I looked around and saw that the house was furnished in an old-fashioned way. There were police badges and medals decorating the walls. There was also a big family portrait which was the centerpiece of the room.

I stepped forward and knelt down in front of the old lady, then checked her pulse and temperature with my fingers.

“She’s been dead for a day…” I stated.

“This is Officer Ma’s wife…” Xiaotao told me with trembling lips. “Li Wenjia, you demonic bitch!”

While Xiaotao was kneeling by the old woman’s body, I took the DVD and played it on the TV in the living room. It was a video of the old lady getting stabbed multiple times with a knife by a woman. At one point, the assailant lifted up her head and smiled at the camera. It was Xiaotao.

Thankfully, Xiaotao didn’t see what was in the video. I quickly ejected the DVD. Xiaotao asked me what I saw, I replied, “Nothing!”

“You’re hiding something from me. Play the video!”

“N-No! You shouldn’t watch this! It’s too gruesome!”

“Play the video now!”

I knew there was no way I could stop her from seeing the video, so I warned her not to worry too much because I was sure that the video was definitely fake. But having said that, there was a twinge of doubt in my heart about it. I might have been with Xiaotao all night, but the old lady had died about 24 hours ago. I couldn’t be a hundred percent sure what Xiaotao could have been doing these last 24 hours.

Perhaps she had been hypnotized. Perhaps Li Wenjia didn’t aim to kill her after all, but instead wanted to frame her as a murderer and condemn her to spend the rest of her life in prison!

Xiaotao’s eyes widened when she saw the video. She kept saying, “This isn’t real! This isn’t real!”

Then she stood up abruptly and pulled out her gun. I froze. Could she really be hypnotized?

Fortunately, I was wrong. Xiaotao just removed the bullets from her gun and handed them all to me.

“I don’t know what to believe anymore, Song Yang,” she told me. “You should keep the bullets.”

“You really don’t need to worry too much,” I assured her. “If Li Wenjia really hypnotized you at one point, you would’ve committed suicide by now. I’m sure the video was fake. She must’ve done it to throw suspicion on you.”

“Still, I want you to keep the bullets, just in case. I trust you more than I trust myself.”

Her remark warmed my heart. Instead of driving back to the police station, we decided to call them and wait here until some officers arrived to take care of the murder scene.

While waiting, I took a glass from the table and placed it on the old lady’s body to perform Organ Echolocation. There was no air-conditioning in the room, and the windows were open. This meant that the temperature inside was almost the same as the temperature outside. Through this, I was able to pinpoint the time of death more accurately around twenty hours ago. At that time, Xiaotao was definitely somewhere else, so the killer in the video was unquestionably not her.

Still, that was all I could do right now since I didn’t have my tools with me. There was no other choice but to just wait until we got back to the police station.

Soon after, Sun Tiger arrived. When he saw my arm in a sling, he gasped and yelled at Xiaotao, “Didn’t I tell you to protect Song Yang at all costs?”

I quickly explained to him that I was fine, and that it was only a shallow wound. Then I changed the subject and showed him the video. As Sun Tiger watched it, Xiaotao kept her head bowed and bit her lips anxiously.

“Xiaozhou, take the DVD and analyze the video later,” ordered Sun Tiger.

You could glean many clues from video evidence. It could be checked if it had been edited or forged; you could also learn many things from the background noise in the video.

“But, sir,” the officer replied, “all of the IT team members are off-duty.”

“Then call them all in!”

“Wait, Uncle Sun,” I interjected. “I know a better person to work on this!”

The person I alluded to was of course Lao Yao. Editing and forging videos was, in fact, one of his hobbies. Sun Tiger agreed immediately, so I gave Lao Yao a call.

“Hello, Little Song!” chirped Lao Yao as he answered the phone. “I’ve got lots of information about what you were looking for!”

“Great! Tell me when we meet later. I need you to go to the police station. Bring your equipment with you. Also, drop by my room on your way and get my backpack from my closet.”

“What? Now? At this hour? I know I’m a night owl, but how do you expect me to get there? There are no more buses or taxis this late at night!”

I told Sun Tiger that he’d need a lift to get to the police station, to which he replied, “No problem. I’ll send an officer to go get him.”

When I informed Lao Yao that a police car would pick him up, he excitedly shouted, “Awesome! I’ll pack up right away! By the way, please send a handsome officer to pick me up. If he’s not cute enough, I’m not gonna get in the car!”

I relayed his ridiculous request to Sun Tiger. He laughed and ordered one of his officers who looked exactly like Tony Leung to pick up Lao Yao. I could imagine how delighted Lao Yao would be.

Sun Tiger then ordered several police officers to track down the missing Officer Ma. Then, the old lady’s body was packed into a body bag and sent back to the police station. I borrowed an ultraviolet lamp from Xiaozhou to scan the ground, but all I found was the old lady’s white hair. This was unexpected. No matter how cautious the killer was, there was always something left behind. But here, I couldn’t find any shoe marks or hair at all.

After searching for a long time, I finally found a strand of hair. To be honest, it felt less like human hair judging from its texture and thickness, but I gave it to Xiaozhou for further testing anyway. Xiaozhou being much more experienced than me, immediately noticed something different about the hair.

“This isn’t human hair at all, Song Yang,” he commented. “It’s some kind of organic fiber.”

“Could you test it and find out what it’s made of?” I asked.

“Sure, will do,” he replied.

I could’ve detected more clues if only I had my tools with me. But, alas, there was nothing more that I could do here.

Xiaotao had to sit in the backseat of a police car on the way back to the police station because she was now a suspect. She wasn’t handcuffed, though. I was right beside her.

“Don’t worry,” I comforted her. “I’m sure the killer in the video isn’t you.”

Xiaotao sighed heavily.

“I don’t care about that,” she said. “I’m just afraid that she implanted some sort of violent commands in my head.”

“No matter what happens, I will always protect you.”

“Thank you!”

Xiaotao leaned her head softly on my shoulder. My cheeks flustered. She’d suffered too much in one night. I realized that she needed a shoulder to rely on very much right now.

Perhaps because it had been an exhausting night, Xiaotao fell asleep not long after that. As I stared at her sweet innocent face, I vowed to myself that I must protect her no matter what!