The moment he saw the knife, Wang, the cameraman, looked at President Hu with an incredulous look: "Old Hu, this is your..."
President Hu's face was as black as the bottom of a pot, and he neither said "yes" nor "no".
Zuo Xin asked in surprise: "The president's?"
"He bought a high-quality imitation military knife, saying it was made exactly like the original. He even showed it off to us." Wang, the cameraman, was no longer indifferent and impatient as before. He looked at his friend with a complicated expression, "I won't be mistaken. It's yours."
President Hu's face flushed: "It's not me! I have no grudge against her, why would I kill her? Am I crazy? It's not me!!"
He waved his hands vigorously, his limbs swaying constantly, and veins in his temples throbbing. "Someone must have taken my knife and deliberately framed me. Many people know that I have this. How could I use such an obvious thing to kill people?"
Deng Daoju asked, "You mean, this wasn't put there by you?"
"Of course not!" President Hu retorted.
"No matter if it's him or not, he must be the murderer." Zuo Xin said confidently, "This is the murder weapon. There must be fingerprints on it. We can find out who it is by checking."
President Hu insisted on defending himself: "I want to kill someone, and I use my own knife to kill her? Besides, I didn't even take a knife when I went downstairs, unless I had wanted to kill her a long time ago. What's the motive? Do you think there is anything wrong between me and Tang Yuran? I still hope to make this drama well. Who can I find to shoot it if I kill the heroine?"
He has a point, but this alone cannot prove that he is the murderer.
"I'll keep the murder weapon for now." Jian Jing wrapped the murder weapon in a plastic bag and held it in her hand. "Look for anything else you guys missed. Luo Jun, please take me to the place where the butterfly was found."
Luo Jun nodded: "No problem."
They went downstairs holding umbrellas and walked towards the small garden in the misty rain.
Jian Jing let him go ahead and asked, "Do you think he is the president?"
"It's hard to say. He has a point. It's a bit stupid to use your own things as a murder weapon." Luo Jun used his mobile phone to light the way ahead. "But if it's not premeditated murder and it was done on impulse, it's normal to use your own things, right?"
Jian Jing hummed softly and agreed, "He has plenty of time. I am also quite suspicious of him."
Luo Jun smiled and walked forward with one foot deep and one foot shallow.
After a while, they arrived at the small garden. The dense tree trunks blocked most of the view, and the soil was soaked by the rain, and their shoes were full of mud.
"It's probably here." Luo Jun pointed to a place casually. "When Deng and I came here before, we didn't find any footprints or anything like that. They must have come here before the rain. Wang is not a big suspect."
Jian Jing asked: "Why?"
"It was unnecessary for him to ask Hu to come down," Luo Jun analyzed. "And I watched the video and found that he changed locations several times later, and his time was very fragmented."
Jian Jing nodded again: "Hu is the most suspicious, I will tell the police - what happened to your foot?"
Luo Jun walked in a strange way, with a limp.
"It's okay. I didn't see the road clearly when I came down, so I sprained my ankle." He said quickly, "It shouldn't be serious. Just go back and apply some cold compress."
Jian Jing used her phone to take pictures and said, "There is a small path ahead. We should be able to go back. Let's go from here. You too, if you had told me earlier that you sprained your ankle, I would have asked others to accompany me down."
"It's okay, I also want to do something for Yu Ran." Luo Jun looked sad, "She is still so young."
"Yeah, how could the murderer do such a thing?" Jian Jing sighed softly.
The flashlight shone through the wet grass and onto the path ahead.
The flagstone path is a deliberately paved path in the garden. It is Y-shaped, with the entrance at the bottom and a path on each side that can go around to both sides of the teaching building.
They walked to the left, and after going around half of the garden, they arrived at the bicycle shed next to the old teaching building. There were a lot of abandoned old bicycles parked here, all rusted.
After passing the bicycle shed, you will return to the bottom of the teaching building, and the entrance on this side is right next to the toilet.
Jian Jing took out her cell phone and took a look. It took her 2 minutes to go downstairs to the small garden, and another 5 minutes to go back to the teaching building from the small garden.
But it's raining now, and if the boys walk fast, maybe they can save one or two minutes.
She didn't remember how long Luo Jun took to go to the toilet for the first time, but she vaguely remembered that it was a long time, definitely more than 10 minutes, and 15 minutes was possible.
"Woo-woo-", a shrill siren was heard in the distance.
At the same time, a call request popped up on her phone. Jian Jing gestured for Luo Jun to leave first, and walked to a secluded place to answer the phone: "Hello, Officer Ji?"
Ji Feng went straight to the point: "Where is it?"
"The old teaching building." Jian Jing leaned against the corridor and waved her phone at the approaching police car. "Did you see it?"
Ji Feng said: "I see, wait."
Three minutes later, the police finally arrived.
Ji Feng asked the two new police officers to ask other members, and he asked Jian Jing alone: "What's the situation?"
Jian Jing hesitated a little.
"Just tell me what you know." Ji Feng rubbed his brows and held back his tiredness. "If we're heading in the right direction, we can solve the case quickly. If we're heading in the wrong direction, not only will we waste police resources, but we'll also easily lose evidence."
Jian Jing then said: "I'm just expressing my opinion, please don't laugh."
Monsoon: “Absolutely not.”
"Okay." Jian Jing thought for a moment and said uncertainly, "I may have found the murderer."
Ji Feng was out of breath: "Ahem, what?"
"The women's restroom on the fourth floor was not the first scene. A knife was found under the trash can in the men's restroom on the third floor. It belonged to President Hu, but it may not be the murder weapon. There was blood in the women's restroom on the second floor, but it's not certain if it was Tang Yuran's. In the back garden of the teaching building, Tang's earring fragments were found."
Jian Jing didn't waste any more words and went straight to presenting the evidence.
When Ji Feng heard this, his opinion immediately changed: "You discovered all of this? Keep going."
"I have sorted out everyone's timeline and sent it to you." Jian Jing copied and pasted the memo and sent it to Ji Feng in the form of a text message. "Now let me tell you my speculation. You can listen to it casually."
She pondered for a while and analyzed, "First, Tang Yuran and Deng You planned to set up a bloody scene in the women's restroom on the fourth floor without telling anyone. The purpose was to create a special event and add gimmicks to the skit we filmed. The bloodstains at the scene can prove my point. Several bloody handprints belong to Tang Yuran herself.
"She left at 22:15 to set up the scene, then went downstairs to chat with Wang Hao for a while. Deng knew she went to the small garden. I think this time is credible, because if Wang lied, there is no guarantee that others would not expose it.
"So around 22:30, Tang Yuran was still alive. When I checked the body, her hair and clothes were not wet. It rained at 23:02, and she died during this time period."
Ji Feng listened very attentively, took out a cigarette, lit it, took two deep puffs, and became refreshed.
"Go on," he urged.
Jian Jing said: "Wang has been filming footage, and the time is very fragmented. I don't think he has enough time to kill and complete the disguise. Because there was a transfer scene, Zuo Xin, a girl, couldn't do it, so I ruled her out. The next three people left are Deng, Hu, and Luo.
"Tang Yuran was alive between 22:30 and 40. Deng left again quite a while ago. We cannot be sure of the exact time, but I think it was around 23:00. He took the initiative to tell me about the disguise. I wonder if that place was not the first scene... I recorded this conversation. You can listen to it yourself later. I don't think he is that person.
"The people I suspected the most were Hu and Luo, but I finally locked on Luo Jun."
Ji Feng asked: "Because the murder weapon was from Hu?"
"One reason is that the murderer faked the scene but left the murder weapon in the toilet downstairs, which makes it hard to justify himself. In addition, if it was Hu, he was away for too long. But most importantly, I think Luo Jun's timeline is more consistent."
Jian Jing went into the reasoning part: "He and Tang were boyfriend and girlfriend, so it was easier for them to meet than for others. Tang ended the meeting with Wang at 40 minutes and made an appointment with Luo. It could also be the other way around. Luo left at 40 minutes, met her and had a conflict, and killed her. To prevent the body from being discovered by Hu and Wang, he took the path behind the garden and moved the body to the women's restroom on the second floor - because someone could come from the fourth floor at any time, and then returned to the classroom.
"Then, he got Hu's knife in the classroom and left at 23:05, intending to disguise the second-floor female restroom as the first crime scene. However, after stabbing the body, he found that the body had very little bleeding, which did not meet his requirements. So he suddenly had an idea and thought of Tang Yuran's disguise plan, using the fake scene on the fourth floor as a disguise, and then threw the murder weapon into the third-floor men's restroom.
"Of course, I don't know if he is aware of this plan, but Tang Yuran's plan cannot have come up recently, and they just broke up a few days ago. I have reason to suspect that Luo knows about it."
Ji Feng put out his cigarette: "Anything else?"
"There's no trash bag in a trash can in the women's restroom on the second floor." Jian Jing pondered, "The cleaning staff's time is hung behind the door. The trash bags were changed at 18:00, but one compartment was empty. I guess he tore open the trash bag to block the blood, so his body didn't get stained, and this thing is on him now."
Ji Feng clapped his hands and said cheerfully, "Since you already have an idea, let's get him to cooperate with the work first."
He was so straightforward that Jian Jing hesitated: "What I said above are all my guesses. What if I'm wrong?"
"If you're wrong, you're wrong. Even we've made a lot of mistakes." Ji Feng smiled, "Don't be afraid of making mistakes. I'll take care of it for you if anything goes wrong. Let's go."
This was Jian Jing's first time reasoning, so she was naturally eager to verify the result. After a slight hesitation, she quickly followed suit.
The moment she entered, the room suddenly became quiet, and everyone looked at her, wondering what she had said to the police.
Ji Feng winked at her, signaling her to speak.
Jian Jing pursed her lips, her eyes swept across the curious Zuo Xin, the nervous President Hu, the frowning Cameraman Wang, the confused Deng Dao Ji, and finally fell on the calm male protagonist Luo.
"Luo Jun," she said, "could you please take off your left shoe for a moment?"
This request was inexplicable, but it made Luo Jun's expression change instantly.
He was quite handsome, and his smile usually fooled many girls, but at this moment, he probably didn't know how horrifying his expression was.
The shock, tension and instinctive resistance were revealed without reservation.