Chapter 303: Utterly Perplexed

Rooftop.

This time, the officers indeed gathered some useful clues.

A bunch of footprints, and dozens of fingerprints.

Besides that, there were also some cigarette butts.

However, those butts looked old, not like they were discarded here in the past couple of days, so the officers simply ignored them.

They only collected the fingerprints and footprints.

"Take them back for testing," Han Fei instructed the officers: "Get a surveillance video from the property manager, bring the corpse back quickly, and clear all the blood stains on the ground."

After collecting all usable evidence from the scene, Han Fei led the officers in a rapid withdrawal.

Mainly because this was in a bustling district, with too many people; even a suicide would have undesirable effects.

After all, a body that fell from a building is still quite terrifying, especially to ordinary people who have never seen such a scene.

The man who had just been questioned by Han Fei, having witnessed the entire jump, was quite frightened; his mind is probably scarred, and he may even need to see a psychologist.

Back at the Police Station.

The officers began their investigation.

The newly discovered victim was named Yang Meng, twenty‑one, a web streamer and a native of Yangcheng.

Through inquiries, the police learned that Yang Meng had recently undergone plastic surgery, but it failed.

According to Yang Meng's friends, she was once extremely distressed over the matter, locking herself in her room and refusing to go out.

At first glance, she likely could not accept the failed surgery and chose to jump to end her life.

They compared the fingerprints and footprints collected at the scene.

The police found that the fingerprints on the rooftop railing were not recorded in any police database.

Among those prints, the only one the police could identify was Yang Meng's own fingerprint.

As for the footprints, there was no need to say more.

All kinds were present.

High heels, sneakers, dress shoes…

Based on the size and pressure of the prints, the owners included men and women, tall and short, all represented.

Even if the killer left some prints, they have no way to match them; the variety is overwhelming, covering virtually every type of person.

As for the retrieved surveillance footage, it was the same as the previous two times.

For a long period before and after the victim went to the rooftop, the cameras recorded no one ascending or descending.

Moreover, the footage had not been tampered with at all.

An ordinary analysis would conclude this is a suicide…

But the officers at this point did not think it was suicide; the case was just too odd!

Han Fei organized the information, printed it out, and posted it on the whiteboard they had used before.

"Third victim, Yang Meng, female, twenty‑one, occupation streamer, also from Yangcheng, possibly unable to accept the failed surgery and thus committed suicide."

At this moment, the whiteboard displayed information on three victims.

The troubling part was that the police could find virtually no connections or commonalities among the three victims.

First victim, Zhu Xingde, thirty‑five, a senior executive at a financial firm, unmarried, native of Yangcheng, suspected suicide after a stock‑trading loss.

Second victim, Lu Yu, eighteen, a freshman at a technology university studying hospitality management, an outsider from Su City, suspected suicide due to a romantic setback.

First, gender: two men and a woman; no commonality among them.

Next, age: thirty‑five, eighteen, twenty‑one; still no common factor.

As for identity and occupation, they are completely different: one a corporate executive, one a student, one a web streamer.

The motives for suicide are varied.

The key is that at first glance it seems perfectly normal; indeed, some people might, for those reasons, lose hope and kill themselves.

Moreover, the police discovered through investigation that the three had no prior connections at all.

One could say the three victims are completely unrelated people.

Why would the killer murder all three of them?

Of course there is an even more baffling question: how exactly did the killer commit the murders?

How did he manage to avoid the surveillance while killing?

Looking at the three victims' information on the whiteboard, all the officers were at a loss.

Even veteran Han Fei found it incomprehensible.

If forced to say, the only commonality among them is that their financial situations are relatively decent, a point Xu Mo had previously raised.

Han Fei picked up a marker on the whiteboard and wrote two questions in the blank space.

1: What commonality exists among the three victims?

2: Why did the killer kill these three?

3: What was the killer's modus operandi?

After finishing writing, Han Fei looked at the group.

"Now we need to clarify these three questions. Does anyone have any additional questions?"

Everyone shook their heads, indicating none.

"Alright, let's discuss these three questions first; if we think of others, we'll add them later," Han Fei said.

Wang Dachuan pointed to the second question.

"This was mentioned by Xu Mo before: the killer might be resentful of the rich. Looking at it now, that hypothesis still holds; the third victim is a streamer with a sizable income."

After hearing this, Han Fei added to the first question—"Resentment of the rich?"

At the same time, after the first question, in the section about the three people's common point, it was written—good economic conditions.

Li Chen pointed to the third question.

"Is it possible that the murderer had gone up to the Rooftop long before, waited there for the victim, and after the victim went up, he pushed the person off the Rooftop, then stayed on the Rooftop for a long time before leaving; because the interval was so long, when we checked the surveillance we didn't look that far back, so we overlooked him, who had been on the Rooftop before the victim."

As soon as the words finished, Han Fei shook his head.

"Impossible."

Then Han Fei began to explain.

"The time gap between the first and second victims was only a few hours; if he really used the trick of hiding on the Rooftop like a cat to evade surveillance, there wouldn't be enough time after killing the first person to kill the second."

"Could it be a gang operation, with more than one murderer?" Li Chen added.

Han Fei thought for a moment.

"That could be possible, but… how do we explain the third victim? We arrived at the scene of the third suicide within half an hour, and at that time we didn't see anyone on the Rooftop. The murderer couldn't have used the cat‑on‑the‑Rooftop trick to evade surveillance; otherwise we would have seen him as soon as we stepped onto the Rooftop."

That, precisely, is the most puzzling aspect of this case.

What method did the murderer actually use to evade surveillance and kill?