Chen Shi got to the bedroom, looked around, and then lay on the ground to inspect the bottom of the cabinet. He pulled out a ceramic shard and said, “There is a fragment here. There isn’t any dust on it so it should have been broken not too long ago.”

Lin Qiupu lectured the police officers, “You should all learn this kind of spirit where you don’t miss even minute details.”

Chen Shi looked around the bottom of all the furniture and instructed, “Remove the bed.”

Peng Sijue ordered people to move the corpse to the living room first and then move the bed away. There was a small plastic dish under the bed with a few apple slices. The apple had already oxidized and had become discolored. Chen Shi beckoned for an officer to bring the knife.

He took the weapon and compared it. The hole in the apple slice coincided with the weapon’s thickness and dimensions.

The shelf near the bed was left empty and seemed to be a random place for debris. Chen Shi put the dish on it, saying, “The weapon should have been placed here at the time, but inserted in the apple slice.”

He turned to the corpse. “Perhaps his sudden killing intent occurred during intercourse...”

“I see!” Xu Xiaodong said excitedly. “He found himself wearing a green hat.”

“Nonsense!” Lin Qiupu shot him down.

“Tell me about it,” Chen Shi encouraged.

Xu Xiaodong said embarrassedly, “Maybe the mistress's new pose is something he hadn't tried before, so he felt like he wore a green hat. He decided to kill her out of anger, and then he decided to kill the other one as well.”

“As a motive, that might be a bit far-fetched. A person wouldn’t normally kill another person so casually.” Chen Shi reasoned.

Xu Xiaodong slapped his head. “This kind of thing can be categorized too?”

“Did they lose anything?” Chen Shi asked.

Lin Qiupu said, “The deceased's wallet was thrown to the ground. Only the ID card was left in it while the card and money were taken away. There was also a drawer which seems to be for jewelry that was emptied too.”

“What card?”

“From the deceased's credit card application documents, it should be a Bank of China card.”

“Contact the bank and see if this card has had money withdrawn from it.”

Lin Qiupu almost said “Okay”, but he remembered that he was the captain. He coughed and said to his team, “Contact the bank and see where this card has gone around.”

There was nothing else to see at the scene. Chen Shi said, “I’ll leave the case to you. I'll find the old lady and the child.”

“Notify us as soon as you find any clues.”

“Rest assured, I will!”

When Chen Shi went downstairs, he happened to run into Lin Dongxue and Tao Yueyue. Lin Dongxue said, “Aye? The investigation was completed so quickly?”

“I'm going to find the old lady and the child. I'll leave things here for you to investigate!”

“It’s a snowy day, so drive carefully.”

Chen Shi blinked. “I’m an old driver. Don’t worry about me!”

As Chen Shi took Tao Yueyue downstairs, Lin Dongxue remembered something. “The surveillance footage of the property shows that at 10:30 last night, a child entered the community. At 10:50PM, an old lady entered as well. The two left together around 20 minutes later seeming a little flustered.”

Chen Shi nodded, “Thanks!”

Lin Dongxue went inside and Lin Qiupu asked, “Did the monitor show a fat man entering the community?”

“It doesn't seem like there was, but the old person and the child were recorded. In addition, the security guard said that he saw Qiuping and a man leave by car last night. She was brought back by the same car at 9:00 pm and the man who drove her back left alone.

“Dongxue and Xiaodong, go and follow this lead...”

“Xiaodong and Little Li can go together. Chen Shi and I will go to find the old lady,” Lin Dongxue suggested.

“Okay! Old Peng, let's go look around the community.”

Lin Dongxue caught up with Chen Shi who had just left. Tao Yueyue said happily, “Sister Lin, you’re back!”

Lin Dongxue nodded. “The captain approved of me going with Uncle Chen.”

Tao Yueyue unfastened her seat belt in the front seat and said, “Then I won’t be a light bulb[1] here.”

“Who did you learn that from?” Chen Shi groaned while smiling.

Lin Dongxue asked, “Where should we go?”

“The police station. It’s too slow to ask about them around the neighborhood. It’s better to look at the surveillance footage directly.”

There was a monitoring network in this area. The three went to the police station and Lin Dongxue explained what they needed. The local police took them to the District Public Safety Experts. The entire wall was filled with monitors that showed everything that was happening on the streets. Tao Yueyue saw it for the first time and was shocked. “Will anything bad be seen by the police?”

“Yeah. If you meet a bad person, it is safer to run into a monitored area,” replied Chen Shi.

The police loaded the monitoring near the Red House Community. At about 11:00 PM, an old lady pulling a child came out and hurried away.

Another set of surveillance footage showed that they spent the night at an ATM and did not leave until five in the morning. Chen Shi muttered to himself, “Is she not scared she’ll get ill when she’s so old out in the freezing cold? Was her money stolen from her?”

He noticed another thing and said, “This is the Bank of China's ATM.”

“What about Bank of China?” Lin Dongxue asked.

“I’ll tell you later!”

The police continued to pull out this morning's surveillance videos. The videos showed that the old lady walked along Fengning Road to Guangxing Road at about five o'clock, and then turned to Dongsanqiang Road. Chen Shi said, “They headed towards the station!”

It always took a lot of time to watch the surveillance, so they were watching at eight times the normal speed. In one shot, the old lady suddenly sat down. The little boy seemed very anxious. Numerous people avoided the two as they passed by.

“The people in the city are afraid of encountering porcelain issues[2],” the officer said.

“Crooks have consumed every drop of people's trust.” Chen Shi lamented.

The old lady and the child sat there for half an hour, went to a restaurant, and came out an hour later. They went directly back to the station. However, instead of buying tickets, the old lady kept talking to strangers.

The surveillance footage stopped there and the local police informed them, “This is the footage that happened just now.”

“They’re still there! Hurry and find them.”

The three left immediately and rushed to the station. Chen Shi told Tao Yueyue to stay in the car as he and Lin Dongxue split up to find them. When they met some police on patrol, they asked them to help find the old lady and the child.

Finally, Chen Shi found the old lady in a dairy store. The old lady was desperately apologizing to a fat man. The fat man was holding her clothes and wouldn’t let go while the little boy was obviously very angry, kicking the fat man's feet. However, he was weak and couldn’t save her.

Chen Shi stepped forward to show his consultant’s credentials and scolded, “What the hell are you doing?”

The fat man saw that the “police” had arrived and plastered a smile on his face. “Officer, you’re here just in time. This old fart spat in front of my shop. Can you see that on the floor? It’s so disgusting. Tell me, how am I meant to do business now? I need to charge a fine.”

“A fine? How much?”

“Twenty yuan. Not too much.”

Old Lady Liu saw Chen Shi had come and was very happy. “It's you, master[3]. I didn’t know I couldn’t spit here. I feel really sorry for this brother, but I really don’t have money.”

Chen Shi looked at the owner and said with a stern expression, “Don’t you understand the law? Only government agencies have the right to fine someone. Private fines are illegal.”

The shopkeeper froze. “It's so dirty though. How can I do business?”

“Be considerate. What family doesn’t have an old person? Who wouldn’t get sick when they get old? Old lady, let’s go!”

The owner then stopped them. “Wait a minute. I want to report that this old immortal[4] is a scammer. I saw her begging for money in the square all morning. Even if she isn’t a scammer, she’s begging illegally.”

1. Third wheel.

2. Scams where you might bump into someone ever so slightly and they’ll try to get you to compensate an amount that’s ridiculously high. There are times when people frame you by dropping to the ground when you even get close to them.

3. People call drivers, carpenters, etc. (usually people who do a trade) “masters” sometimes.

4. It’s a negative expression that means that they’re so old and probably should have just died, but they’re still living. Kind of like “old fart”, but it couldn’t be used in an endearing way.