Chapter 292: Falling to Death in the Middle of the Night

Then, they cast their gazes toward Song Yun simultaneously.

"A homicide occurred in Huantai Residential District." Qi Fei looked at Song Yun with a grim face. The reaction of the woman opposite him made him even more suspicious—she didn't seem very surprised; there were only faint ripples on her face, like the autumn leaves falling as expected.

A midnight rain caused the temperature in Nancheng to drop suddenly. It was already the season to wear coats.

Across the residential garden, the building south of Ma Ziqiang's home was surrounded by people.

The police cordon couldn't stop people's curious hearts; many people held up their phones and filmed from afar.

In fact, they wouldn't film anything. Qi Fei passed through the crowd of onlookers and saw the crime scene.

In the flower bed under the apartment building, a male corpse was wearing pajamas, lying face down in the grass. The rainwater soaked the hair on the back of his head, sticking to his bloodless scalp in strands.

"The gardener of the residential district discovered the deceased while maintaining the greenery this morning. It can basically be confirmed that he is a resident of the 18th floor of this unit," the police officer at the scene said, pointing to the top of the apartment building.

Qi Fei looked up. The north-facing window on the 18th floor and the fence of the air conditioner outdoor unit were both knocked crooked, swaying in the autumn wind.

Xiao Tao had already arrived. He opened his toolbox and carefully checked the deceased's condition. Without raising his head, he said to Qi Fei, who had approached him: "Lower limb fractures, spinal compression, skull base rupture—it fits the characteristics of death from a high-altitude fall. There are multiple wounds on the deceased's body, which need to be brought back for further examination to determine whether they were caused by the fall or beforehand."

"But you mean, he was alive when he fell?" Qi Fei's question carried some presupposition.

Xiao Tao nodded: "There is a hematoma in the open fracture area, which means he should have been alive when he fell. Hmm? What is this?" He said, grabbing the deceased's palm. Because of the fracture, the arm could be lifted at any angle like a rubber tube. He saw that besides mud and blood stains, there were brown abrasions on the palm.

"Rust?" Qi Fei leaned in to look, guessing, and then looked up again at the air conditioner outdoor unit fence swaying in the wind on the 18th floor, vaguely having a guess.

After the careful inspection, Xiao Tao stood up and said to Qi Fei: "Give me a hand, turn him over."

Qi Fei had to follow Xiao Tao's instructions, reaching his hand under the deceased and lifting with Xiao Tao.

The moment the corpse was lifted, Qi Fei felt that strange sensation. Unlike a generally stiff corpse, this corpse was like a sack full of bone fragments—it was loose. This person's bones and internal organs were shattered due to the impact of the high-altitude fall.

Even more terrifying was his face. Because he fell face down on the ground, his entire face had been flattened, making it impossible to see his original appearance.

"Uh, no matter how desperate I am in the future, I will never jump off a building to commit suicide," Qi Fei couldn't help but sigh at the sight.

"We have knocked on the door, but no one opened it. We have already found a locksmith to pry the lock," the police officer said, and a locksmith-looking person had already arrived.

"Hmm? The door is locked?"

"Not entirely. The deceased's house uses a password lock. As long as it is closed, unless you know the password, it is equivalent to being locked."

"In other words, the fact that the door is locked cannot confirm whether he was alone when he died." Qi Fei couldn't help but tighten his brows.

The elevator door opened, facing the "18F" sign, making him trance-like, thinking he had arrived at Ma Ziqiang's home.

The moment the door was pried open, a strong wind invaded. Inside the house, drawings were blown everywhere by the wind, a mess.

A wallet and car keys were placed on the entrance cabinet. Qi Fei found an ID card in the wallet with the name "Lin Yu." Soon, the face on it caught Qi Fei's attention. It was the face of a young man, quite decent but not handsome. In any case, it was the appearance of an ordinary person, but Qi Fei always felt he had seen it somewhere, yet he couldn't remember it no matter what.

With this doubt, he checked the entire room. Beside the open window was a desk with a laptop open, and a cup of coffee placed on the side, only half-drunk.

As Qi Fei moved the mouse, the dormant computer screen lit up again, and a design drawing remained forever in an unfinished state.

The last save time of the drawing was 2:00 AM. It seems the deceased fell in the middle of the night. No wonder no one noticed any abnormal sounds, Qi Fei thought while checking the computer's content. Would a person who focused on work until the middle of the night suddenly choose to commit suicide?

He walked to the window and found a small piece of scalp under the window. Looking down further, on the air conditioner outdoor unit fence, eight bloodstains were clearly visible, four in a group. It seems that after the deceased fell out of the window, he tried to grab the high-altitude fence, but unfortunately, he couldn't support himself and fell down.

In the surveillance room, Qi Fei watched repeatedly, but since Lin Yu returned home at 12:00 AM, the elevator never stopped on the 18th floor again.

That is to say, no one went upstairs at all. Huantai Residential District is designed with two households per elevator, but no one lived opposite Lin Yu's house. In other words, on that floor, no one went to his house that night except Lin Yu.

"Brother Fei, why are you so certain that the deceased did not commit suicide?" Wu Shanqiu asked, looking at Qi Fei, who was repeatedly confirming the surveillance content, puzzled. "We don't have any direct evidence to show that Lin Yu was murdered."

Qi Fei did not answer but paused the screen on the footage of Lin Yu walking out of the elevator and suddenly said: "There is a problem with this surveillance. The dirty clothes Lin Yu threw on the sofa are not the ones he was wearing in the video."

"Ah, Brother Fei, do you suspect the surveillance video was swapped?"

The property manager on the side raised an objection: "This is unlikely. Our residential district's surveillance is a fixed system, and there is no way to replace the content of this elevator separately."

"Look at the footage when he walked into the residential district. If the clothes don't match, it can confirm my guess is correct."

He said and immediately clicked on the surveillance footage of other locations in the residential district, capturing Lin Yu's figure at the entrance. However, to his disappointment, his suspicion did not hold up. In the footage, Lin Yu, who walked into the residential district gate, was carrying a backpack, and the clothes he was wearing were exactly the same as those in the elevator.

Qi Fei was a bit puzzled and muttered: "Could it be that the clothes on the sofa were not from that day?"

Just as he was trying to find an explanation, Wu Shanqiu behind him suddenly exclaimed: "This video really has a problem! It rained last night! The ground in the surveillance is not wet at all! Brother Fei, it's not that you guessed wrong; it's that someone replaced all the surveillance footage!"

Qi Fei looked up at the property manager standing on the side and asked: "You just said the surveillance content cannot be replaced separately, then what about the whole set of content?" ===== CHAPTER 293 =====