Chapter 344: Junior Brother

Qi Fei's hands flipping through the file began to tremble involuntarily. Although he already knew the tragic situation at the time from many people's oral accounts, when he saw the hollow and numb gaze Zhong Xiaoyu cast in the photo, his heart was still gripped. This was an emotion that transcended grief, so heavy that he couldn't breathe.

However, Liu Tong, standing beside him, looked at him with a meaningful gaze and said nothing.

Because both Shen Hongguan and Luo Xiao refused to recount what happened afterward, the file contained records from other police officers on the side.

It can be learned that the photo of Zhong Xiaoyu was taken by Shen Hongguan after he arrived at the scene. The police station received a call from Shen Hongguan, reporting the situation of Villa No. 3, saying that a female survivor had been found.

Zhong Huaiting, the owner of Villa No. 3 in Yueya Mountain, was a local prestigious psychologist who lived with his wife and three children. From the neighbors, it was learned that the couple was very loving, and the three children were all promising, especially the eldest daughter, Zhong Xiaoyu, who inherited her father's mantle and became a psychologist. Although she was a newcomer, she had already shown amazing talent.

In short, this was a family everyone envied.

The pale file could not show the shock and confusion brought to the survivors by this extermination case.

At this time, Qi Fei was equally confused. Admittedly, this scene was terrifying enough, miserable enough, and a hell on earth enough to bring a huge impact to people's senses and psychology. But to make Shen Hongguan and Luo Xiao commit suicide one after another, frankly speaking, it wasn't enough.

If one person committed suicide, there might be accidental factors not yet discovered, but both police officers committed suicide, so the correlation with the case rose sharply, not to mention that they unanimously avoided recounting the scene after entering Villa No. 3.

Qi Fei looked at the photos of the crime scene repeatedly, including the investigation records, trying to find clues in them.

Soon, he would regret it.

Because everything did have traces to follow.

It's just that the direction of these clues was not the same as what he expected.

"Except for Zhong Huaiting, no one else had signs of resistance." Qi Fei flipped to the autopsy record and indeed found the ingredients of anesthetic drugs, but this ingredient was very familiar—it was the same as that found in the bodies of Feng Yi, Dong Ziwu, and others. Looking at it this way, it was indeed inseparable from Xi He.

Anesthetic ingredients were detected in the food. The murderer drugged them and then began his slaughter. The only variable was Zhong Huaiting. The police speculated that because Zhong Huaiting had a good tolerance for alcohol and was more tolerant of anesthetic drugs than the average person, he woke up while being stabbed in the back. He had defensive wounds on his hands, but unfortunately, he eventually fell into a pool of blood due to excessive blood loss.

Only Zhong Xiaoyu, who was tied to the pillar, survived. Although she had been in a state of mental disorder after being found and could not provide valuable information, as the police investigation progressed, the clues soon pointed to her patients.

Zhong Xiaoyu was keen on challenging the treatment of patients with complex mental illnesses, among whom there were very dangerous figures, and the murderer's cruel methods also looked like evil deeds that could only be done by mentally abnormal people with strong antisocial tendencies.

Xi He's sinister face lingered in Qi Fei's mind, as if everything was his masterpiece, destroying Zhong Xiaoyu's happy life with the purest evil.

Human intuition is very strange. He always felt that there was a hidden thorn in his heart, making trouble in this seemingly clear conclusion. Those details of the case seemed to hide things he hadn't discovered, or rather, didn't want to discover, but he couldn't say it.

Only Liu Tong's gaze toward him carried inexplicable worry.

After a long time, Qi Fei finally closed the file. The snowflakes outside the window were like mats, and the room was so quiet that only the sound of the computer host fan could be heard.

"Captain Liu, you've also seen the content inside, right?" Qi Fei asked.

"I am the sixth person to have seen the file," Liu Tong said, his face without a trace of daily smiles, as if his usual kindness was a mask. At this time, he was the real Liu Tong, cold and even with the sharpness of seeing everything clearly. "Ten years ago, I was still doing clerical work when I suddenly received a call from Luo Xiao."

"Luo Xiao? The police officer who arrived at the scene first?" Qi Fei said in surprise.

"He was my junior. That was his second year of joining the Baicheng Police Station. We were once in the same club and had a very good relationship. After graduation, we still kept in touch. He was always optimistic and cheerful, but I still remember the voice I heard when I picked up the phone that day. I almost thought it was another person. His voice was so broken and depressed that it overturned all my impressions of him."

"I immediately asked him if he had encountered anything. But he changed his previous frankness, avoided talking about specific things, and instead started asking me some ethereal questions. He asked me about the meaning of life, the darkness of human nature, all of which were questions that made people worry the more they heard them. He said he regretted being a policeman, said he didn't know what to do. Said he missed his college days, when we both felt the world was beautiful and everything was bright."

"Before I could ask clearly, he hung up the phone, and when I called back, no one answered." Having said this, Liu Tong paused, as if trying hard to pull himself out of the intense emotions.

He looked at the drifting snow outside the window, his words full of regret: "Later I found out that I was the last person to hear him speak. When he called me, he was already standing on the top floor of the Baicheng Police Station. After hanging up the phone, he jumped down..."

"I went to Baicheng with too many questions, just like you now. Only when I got there did I know that just two months ago, his partner and master, Shen Hongguan, committed suicide by shooting himself in the office late at night."

"The people at the Baicheng Police Station told me that after Shen Hongguan and Luo Xiao returned from the crime scene of Villa No. 3 in Yueya Mountain, they appeared mentally distraught, and their psychological assessments were always failing, but they were always unwilling to speak the reason."

"At that time, I was just a clerical worker in the police force and couldn't participate in the investigation of this case. Several inquiries yielded no results. I went to Luo Xiao's home, and his mother told me that for a period of time before his suicide, Luo Xiao was particularly gloomy, as if he were possessed. I found a lot of information about the devil in his room, and the Luo Xiao I knew was clearly a sunny boy who didn't believe in ghosts or gods. Such a change made me unable to understand no matter what."

"In the following years, I have been paying attention to the progress of this case, but unfortunately, the murderer has never been found. Later, I applied for the criminal investigation line, and only then did I have the opportunity to further understand the situation of this case."

"Captain Liu, you parachuted into our brigade to pursue the truth of Luo Xiao's suicide?" Qi Fei suddenly realized.

Liu Tong looked at Qi Fei, and then his gaze fell on the thick file. ===== CHAPTER 345 =====