Genius Detective - Chapter 273

Chapter 273

Chapter 273: Born Good-looking

“Let me see!” Peng Sijue came over and checked . “Your statement is not very precise . You can only say that they’re not identical keys . ”

“Take the lock and try it,” Chen Shi suggested .

“The keyhole is blocked by wire and cannot be restored . . . Unless the lock is sawed open in the middle . ”

“Go ahead!” Chen Shi snapped his fingers .

“Are you a leader somewhere?!” Peng Sijue snapped at him .

Lin Dongxue said, “Captain Peng, can you check if this key corresponds to the lock?”

Peng Sijue then instructed his team to get tools to saw the lock apart .

At this time, Xu Xiaodong was carrying a cat bag and came in happily . He lowered the cat bag and opened it . The cat was very scared of strangers . When the cat saw them, the cat went into Xu Xiaodong's arms as he kept soothing it .

Lin Dongxue said, “You’re handling this cat quite well!”

“Of course . I’ve got a catnip body!” Xu Xiaodong said smugly . “Didn’t you say we needed to do some tests?”

Peng Sijue cut some of the hair around the cat as samples and then gave it a piece of glass to lick . The cat was indifferent and kept hugging into Xu Xiaodong's clothes . Peng Sijue changed it to a cotton swab and ordered the cat, “Open your mouth! “

“Captain Peng, you can't do it like that . ”

“I need its saliva . ”

Xu Xiaodong opened the cat's mouth and asked Peng Sijue to take some samples . Lin Dongxue saw the cat's mouth full of sharp teeth and dense pink barbs on his pink tongue, but Xu Xiaodong was not afraid .

Dogs are omnivores, but cats are authentic carnivores . It’s said that cats have not been domesticated properly even after millions of years . Lin Dongxue thought that it was incredible that such small carnivores existed around humans .

Peng Sijue went to conduct the test and Chen Shi said, “The victim's cell phone was licked by the cat and we also found a substance that may be the cat's favorite food . Do you have any ideas?”

“Is it sweet?” Xu Xiaodong asked .

Lin Dongxue smiled . “Sweet or salty? Do you think the lab technician would take a bite to try?”

Xu Xiaodong smiled and said, “I mean if it had a sweet fragrance, it might be a hairball remedy cream or nutrition cream . The hairball remedy cream is darker and oilier . Most of these are what cats love to eat . . . Brother Chen, don’t you also have a cat? You don’t know about this?”

“Yueyue takes care of the one at home and I don’t care about it at all . I only get rid of the poo on occasion . ”

“Should we go to the crime scene to have a look?” Lin Dongxue suggested .

“No need to check . Just buy a hair cream and nutrition cream to compare . ” Chen Shi said .

Xu Xiaodong said, “Brother Chen, please buy it at a pet store nearby . If I leave this cat, it would be scared to death . ”

Chen Shi took a trip and came back and Peng Sijue said that the saliva really belonged to this cat . As far as he was concerned, the saliva of the cat was tested for the first time . Then, he compared the hair cream and nutrition cream . The result was out very fast . “The ingredients left on the phone is similar to the ingredients in that nutrition cream you bought . ”

“It seems that someone applied nutrition cream to the mobile phone! Why would they do this?” Lin Dongxue wondered .

“In order to post to Weibo!” Chen Shi asserted .

“Can the cat's tongue really activate the screen?”

“You won't know until you verify . ”

Chen Shi immediately took out his mobile phone, opened an app, and applied the nutrition cream on the screen for the cat to lick it . The cat hesitated for a long time before sticking out its tongue and licking the screen .

Although the experiment was successful, Lin Dongxue still had a hint of doubt . “The cat's tongue isn’t the same as a human finger . What if it doesn't lick the send button?”

“You should think about it from the murderer's standpoint . This 'time-delay mechanism' itself had a risk . The success would be the icing on the cake, but there is not much of a loss if it fails . After all, they have already killed someone . . . It seems that there are certain coincidences in all so-called magical criminal methods . ”

Lin Dongxue mumbled . “So that's the case . This is how the killer delayed sending the Weibo post! So you’re right . The killer killed the victim in advance, set the phone up, and then left the scene . ”

Peng Sijue reminded, “The liver temperature showed that the time of death was about 12:00 . The margin of error wouldn’t exceed ten minutes . ”

“Ten minutes is enough . ”

Lin Dongxue said, “No, we were all standing outside the door at 11:50 . Do you remember Xiaodong? The reporter asked us to record again . ”

“Yes, we stood outside the door for about fifteen minutes . ” Xu Xiaodong confirmed this statement .

Chen Shi thought silently when Lin Dongxue suddenly remembered . “Let’s go and see Miss Jiang[1] . ”

Chen Shi said, “I'm not going . I want to think about it here . ”

Lin Dongxue and Xu Xiaodong took the cat away . Peng Sijue brought Chen Shi a cup of coffee and asked, “This time are you stumped as well?”

Chen Shi smiled . “No, I like this thinking game very much . The more bizarre the case, the more excited I get . . . How about the autopsy?”

“Nothing too impactful was found . The stomach contents showed that the deceased had eaten rice, raw fish, seaweed, chicken, bean sprouts, potatoes, etc . He drank a lot of carbonated drinks in the twelve hours before his death . ”

“I'll go to the crime scene to have a look!”

Chen Shi went to the scene . The police had already investigated here and retrieved the surveillance video of the entrance to the community .

Chen Shi turned around and asked some residents . It was determined that there was only one entrance here . Of course, it was not impossible to climb the wall, so he walked around the community to check for any abnormalities .

At 1:00 in the afternoon, Chen Shi went to a nearby street and saw a Japanese food shop . He remembered that Peng Sijue said that the stomach contents of the victim contained rice, raw fish, and seaweed . Wasn't this Japanese food?

He went to the shop and there weren’t many people at noon . A waitress in a white uniform greeted with a smile and said, “Irasshai[2]!”

“Japanese?”

The head chef yelled out, “No, she and I are both North-eastern people . We only know a word of Japanese . ”

The waitress said, “Guest, please, this way . What would you like to eat?”

Chen Shi smiled . “Is there only one Japanese restaurant around here?”

“Yeah, we’re the only one around these parts,” the chef replied .

“Do you do take-outs?”

“We do . There is a take-out phone number on the wall . Would you like a take-out?”

Chen Shi glanced over and said, “You guys don’t use Meituan[3]?”

“The people who order form us are all around this neighborhood, so we just deliver it by ourselves . Would you like something to eat?”

“Do you sell sashimi?”

“Yes, yes, salmon and tuna . Which one do you want?”

“One of each . Take-away please . ”

“Okay!”

The waitress poured a cup of matcha for him and Chen Shi asked, “How many people are there in the shop?”

“Five . The manager, the chef, two waiters, and a guy who helps the chef . . . Are you a policeman?”

“How do you know?” Chen Shi asked with a smile .

“Wasn’t there a murder case yesterday? I saw the police going in and out of the community early this morning . Did you find anything?”

“I know, I know!” said the chef . “The man who died was the cat-killer who was talking about it on Weibo . Such a stubborn man deserves to be dead!”

The waitress said, “The woman cheated first, so you can’t just blame the man . ”

The head chef said, “You don't know the situation . Last night, the woman and a policeman ate here . I heard her . She said she didn't cheat at all . They were all fabricated by the man . . . By the way, I wonder if you know that female police officer . She was born good-looking . I almost cut my hand when I tried to sneak glances at her while preparing the food . ”

1 . The author is still calling her “Jiang” instead of “Dong” it seems .  

2 . Greeting in Japanese .  The phrase “Irasshaimase!” is a more polite version of irasshai, an imperative form of the honorific verb irassharu (いらっしゃる) which means “to be/come/go” . The phrase was originally used by marketplace sellers trying to bring customers closer to their particular stall .  

3 . A food delivery service .