Card Room

Chapter 3 - Rose Funeral (Middle)

Xiao Lou’s major was forensics and he was best at toxicological identification. However, he liked detective reasoning novels from a young age and loved to play escape room games, making him very familiar with the basic reasoning process.

When the police were dealing with a murder case, it would greatly help the detection if they found the first crime scene.

Xiao Lou judged this wasn’t the first crime scene for a very simple reason.

The heart was the blood supply centre of the human body and was like a powerful pump. The regular beats every minute could send blood to all parts of the body. The deceased’s fatal wound was in the heart and the position of the knife was close to the aorta. If the deceased was killed in bed, the aorta would be cut and blood would splash out on the pillow, sheets and even walls.

The surroundings were very clean and there were no traces of blood splatter.

Her blood only soaked the clothes on her chest. Judging from the amount of bleeding, it was around 100cc. This wasn’t even half a normal person’s blood donation. She was obviously killed elsewhere and only once the blood drained out was she carried to the bed in the bedroom.

Killing, bleeding and then putting the dead on a bed covered with rose petals, this murderer was clearly a psychopath!

Xiao Lou turned to the kitchen to search for other evidence and also to prove his reasoning.

The deceased’s clothes in the bathroom had something like blood stains on them but from his professional point of view, they were more like juice stains. The first thing he thought about related to juice was the kitchen.

Xiao Lou went to the kitchen and indeed saw a watermelon on the table. The watermelon was cut in half. Half should’ve been eaten while the remaining half was now rotten and smelly. The stains on the heroine’s clothes were from the watermelon juice.

There was a fruit knife inserted in the watermelon and Xiao Lou gently pulled it out.

The sharp and slender fruit knife was exactly the same as the fatal wound on the woman’s body when he examined it.

This fruit knife was the murder weapon that killed the woman!

Xiao Lou’s heart beat violently.

He started to search the kitchen carefully. If he wasn’t mistaken, this was the first crime scene!

The kitchen should’ve been cleaned without any visible blood.

He crouched down in the corner to check the floor drain and found some hair on the edge of the floor drain. They were short black hairs around 3cm long, obviously belonging to a man. On the water behind the pipe, there were still a few drops of blood that hadn’t been cleaned.

The discovery of the first crime scene and the murder weapon made the clues collection reach 70% in an instant.

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Xiao Lou routinely turned over the trash can. There were many vegetable leaves, fruit peels, egg shells and frozen meat bags in the kitchen’s trash can. It could be inferred that the heroine was making a meal at home before she died. In addition, it was for more than two people. The vegetables and meat were at least five dishes. She couldn’t eat so much.

Other than that, nothing was found in the refrigerator and the cabinets.

Xiao Lou turned and went out. There was a large bouquet of roses on the dining table facing the kitchen. The glass vase containing roses was very delicate and the water inside was still clear. The roses were very good but some of the petals had been removed. It was probably the origin of the rose petals in the bedroom.

Xiao Lou turned over the trash can of the dining room. The dumped garbage contained some peels and a card. It was the type of heart-shaped card commonly used in flower stores and the strong words read: Happy birthday, your husband will always love you.

The clues collection became 75%. The roses and card were clearly useful in the case’s reasoning.

Xiao Lou walked into the study opposite the dining table.

A bookcase occupied a wall and contained many medical books on them. Several specialized in cardiac surgery.

Next to the bookcase was a very common desk with a desk lamp. There were three drawers on the right side of the table and a small cabinet with doors on the left. Xiao Lou opened a drawer and found a passport and medical practitioner qualification certificate in the first drawer. It belonged to the male of this family. Xiao Lou finally found out the information of the husband&#k2014; Zhao Sen, born on October 26th, 1988, a Han person and a surgeon.

The other drawers contained lists of property fees, bank documents and medical papers which didn’t help the case.

Xiao Lou closed the drawers and opened the cabinet door in the lower left corner.

A black safe was found in the cabinet with a password lock. It was a four row digital numerical lock. From top to bottom, it was 123, 456, 789, *0#. He had seen many similar safes. After pressing the correct numerical password, the # key needed to be pressed again to unlock.

A numerical password...

The numbers involved in this case were only the birthdays of the husband and wife.

The female friend gave perfume to the heroine and said happy birthday. The husband also gave her roses and told her happy birthday on the card. Multiple clues mentioned the ‘birthday’ and this date definitely wasn’t simple.

The man’s birthday could be found on the doctor’s qualification certificate, October 26th, 1988. As for the woman’s birthday, Xiao Lou clearly remembered the date that the female friend’s greeting card wrote on the greeting card, July 17th.

The password of the safe was four digits. He entered 1026 and the password was incorrect. Xiao Lou followed by entering the woman’s birthday 0717 and pressed the # key.

A clear sound broke the quiet of the murder scene and the safe really opened.

The degree of clues collection suddenly reached 90%!

At this point, there were 18 minutes left on the countdown.

The inside of the safe had a structure of a upper and lower floor. A folder was placed on the upper floor. Xiao Lou took it out and quickly read it, extracting key information.

There were two insurance contracts. The first insured person was Zou Xiaomei and the beneficiary was Zhao Sen. The relationship between the two was husband and wife. The second was the opposite. The insured person was Zhao Sen and the beneficiary was Zou Xiaomei.

The couple bought commercial insurance for each other, including medical insurance and personal accident insurance. The annual payment amount was more than 10,000 yuan. If the insured person was hospitalized due to a serious disease such as cancer and cardiovascular disease, the hospitalization expenses within 500,000 yuan would be fully reimbursed. If the insured person was killed accidentally, the beneficiary would directly obtain compensation of up to 2 million yuan from the insurance company.

Xiao Lou saw this insurance contract and was frightened.

He also bought commercial medical insurance for his parents and it was normal for relatives to buy insurance for each other. However, it wasn’t uncommon for murder to occur out of a desire to swindle insurance. He once saw the news about a son killing his mother just for the insurance money.

In this case, the relationship between husband and wife had broken down. Once Zou Xiaomei died, Zhao Sen would get up to 2 million yuan in compensation!

Xiao Lou’s back was cold as he put down the insurance contract and continued to examine the lower level of the safe.

There were several albums on the lower level.

The albums contained many photos of Zhao Sen. From elementary school to junior high, high school and university, he recorded his complete growth trajectory. He should have congenital myopia since he was wearing glasses from a very young age. From the photo albums, Zhao Sen seemed like a very gentle person—because he was smiling in every photo.

In addition to the personal photo albums, there were several wedding photo albums. The husband and wife seemed very loving when they just got married. The man was holding his wife and the woman was leaning into his arms and smiling.

Turn back again...

Xiao Lou saw a photo from the wedding scene.

It was a group photo of four people. In addition the groom and the bride, there were the best man and the bridesmaid.

This photo was obviously taken from the side and none of the four people were looking at the camera. In the photo, the groom and bride were smiling at each other while the bridesmaid was looking at the best man in deep affection. Not far away, the best man stood in the crowd and raised the goblet to make a toast, but his eyes were staring straight at the bride.

Xiao Lou immediately raised his spirits. The fourth person related to the case had appeared!

The best man appeared in Zhao Sen’s personal photo album. In Zhao Sen’s graduation photos, they were posing shoulder to shoulder and should be good friends. Therefore, Zhao Sen invited him to be the best man.

It was reasonable to say that you shouldn’t covet your friend’s wife and men generally avoided a good friend’s wife. Yet this best man was staring like she was prey. It obviously wasn’t an attitude he should have towards his friend’s wife.

Xiao Lou continued to rummage through the safe and found a bag in a hidden location on the lowest lower.

He opened it to take a look and the bag contained a contract that was a secret investigation agreement between Zhao Sen and a private detective. The investigation was about the relationship between his cousin He Yongqiang, this wife Zou Xiaomei and his wife’s friend, Liu Wei. Once Xiao Lou pulled out the contract, a large stack of photos also fell out.

He picked up the photos. All of them were photos of eating together or shopping together. In some photos, Liu Wei and He Yongqiang were holding hands and behaving intimately. In other photos, it was Zou Xiaomei and He Yongqiang holding hands and embracing. He Yongqiang was obviously a scum walking on two boats. He was in a relationship with the young and beautiful Liu Wei while also hooking up with Zou Xiaomei!

The last few photos were very extraordinary. Zou Xiaomei was wearing light silk pyjamas and acting intimately with He Yongqiang in the bedroom...

These photos at home were taken from a bird’s eye view and there was a time stamp in the upper right corner. It was obvious that Zhao Sen had installed a surveillance camera at home to monitor his wife’s movements at any time. These photos were screenshots from the surveillance.

Xiao Lou, “...”

What a dog blood drama!

It wasn’t the husband Zhao Sen who cheated, it was the wife Zou Xiaomei who died in bed!

If he didn’t open the safe in the study that it was likely he would misjudge that the man had cheated and the woman tore up her marriage certificate angrily. No, it was the woman who cheated and the person she cheated with was her husband’s cousin and her friend’s boyfriend.

This reversal came quickly.

The shocked Xiao Lou put down the photos and quickly adjusted his mood. He glanced at the prompt in the suspension box. The clue collection was fixed at 90% and the safe was a big clue that accounted for 15%. Based on the clues of the safe, he knew the names of all the people involved in the case. The deceased Zou Xiaomei, the husband Zhao Sen, the lover He Yongqiang and the female friend Liu Wei.

These four people had a complicated relationship. He Yongqiang was Zhao Sen’s cousin and Liu Wei’s boyfriend. Zou Xiaomei and He Yongqiang cheated, which was equivalent to wearing two green hats for her husband Zhao Sen and friend Liu Wei.

As victims, both Zhao Sen and Liu Wei had reasons to kill her. However, more confirmation was needed to determine the exact killer.

The clues collection was only 90%. The last key clue hadn’t been found.

Xiao Lou turned to the living look and carefully looked through it without discovering anything.

He went to the last child’s room to search and found a mobile phone and charging station next to the pillow in the child’s room. The mobile phone had a pink outer casing and should belong to the deceased Zou Xiaomei.

Such a key clue was actually in the further child’s room that most people wouldn’t search in first.

Xiao Lou’s eyes lit up and he immediately picked up the phone.

He pressed the power button and a line popped up on the screen stating ‘Please enter a password.’ Then a numeric keypad appeared.

Xiao Lou subconsciously entered the woman’s birthday ‘0717’ but a warning popped up. ‘Password verification error. The phone will automatically lock after five errors. The remaining number of attempts: 4.’

He followed by inputting the husband’s birthday 1026. Once again, the prompt appeared. ‘‘Password verification error. The phone will automatically lock after five errors. The remaining number of attempts: 3’

The birthdays weren’t the password? Then what was it?

The countdown in the suspension box was at 15 minutes.

Xiao Lou frowned and fell into thought.

The bedroom, bathroom, study, kid’s room, kitchen and dining room. He had searched all of them. The woman’s birthday was July 17 and the man’s birthday was October 26. Apart from that, there were no other numbers related to the case.

In reality, the mobile phone password of the deceased could be set freely. If the police couldn’t crack it then it would be solved by professional technicians. However, now he was alone in the secret room and found a phone but couldn’t resolve the password. Did he just guess?

Xiao Lou picked up the phone, thought about it and turned back to the bedroom.

If the ‘please enter the password’ prompt popped up on the phone lock screen, most people might be too caught up in the password and waste time looking around for password clues.

However, Xiao Lou had searched through all the rooms at the fastest speed. He was confident that he didn’t miss a single place.

Since the phone’s password wasn’t a birthday and there were no other numbers related clues throughout the house, the prompt to enter the password might be a ‘disturbance.’

Who said that a phone could only be unlocked with a password?

Xiao Lou took the phone back to the master bedroom, walked to the bed of roses, raised the deceased’s right hand and placed her right thumb on the phone’s fingerprint button.

The pink phone and charger left at home naturally belonged to the woman.

The woman was lying in bed. She might be a corpse but her fingers were still there.

Wasn’t it more convenient to unlock with her fingerprints?