Chapter 345: Impossible to Falsify

"The truth is in your hands," Liu Tong said.

Qi Fei followed his gaze, looked down at the file in his hand, and the thorn in his heart ached faintly, reminding him to look again, look again.

He opened the file from the beginning, and time replayed. Shen Hongguan and Luo Xiao pushed open the door of Villa No. 3 in Yueya Mountain.

This time, with a review, Qi Fei began to complete the scene that Shen Hongguan and Luo Xiao could not recount, carrying many familiar imprints. The viscous, semi-dried pool of blood was like a calm lake, surrounded by scattered footprints, bloodstains like calligraphy strokes, silently performing the struggle between Zhong Huaiting and the murderer. The two entangled from the restaurant all the way to the living room.

Zhong Xiaoyu, covered in blood, and the pillar also covered in bloodstains, were soaked in the stench of evil and slaughter.

The first thing that caught Qi Fei's attention was the only remaining photo of Zhong Xiaoyu tied to the pillar, and another was a photo of the pillar taken by the police who arrived later. By that time, Zhong Xiaoyu had already been rescued by Shen Hongguan and Luo Xiao.

There were bloodstains splattered on the pillar.

"Splattered bloodstains..." Qi Fei muttered, his breathing quickening. He flipped back and forth. That bloodstain left a perfect arc on the pillar, hidden behind Zhong Xiaoyu, overlapping with the bloodstains on her clothes.

From this moment on, he stepped onto the road that Shen Hongguan and Luo Xiao had stepped on one after another, that black road leading to the realm of despair.

"This is not right... Captain Liu, this is not right..." Qi Fei appeared incoherent.

"This is right. This is the reason for their suicide. Remember what I told you, be fully mentally prepared," Liu Tong's firm voice came, like the escort of this dangerous journey.

"The bloodstain traces at the scene are problematic." Qi Fei tried hard to analyze from the standpoint of a pure criminal police officer. "If the murderer tied her to the pillar at the beginning so that Zhong Xiaoyu could witness her family being killed, then the part of the pillar blocked by Zhong Xiaoyu should have no bloodstains. Moreover, her own back would not have bloodstains rubbed onto the pillar. Theoretically, a blank space would be left here, including those ropes. The places blocked by the ropes should also be clean. But the bloodstains splashed on the pillar are all continuous, which means Zhong Xiaoyu was tied up halfway, or even..."

He continued to flip through the materials, his fingertips sliding over every word and every photo, only feeling himself sinking deeper and deeper into the black fog. All the clues began to extend in an eerie direction: "Still not right. The place where she was tied up was in the living room. Except for Zhong Huaiting, the other three victims were killed on the spot in their seats at the dining table. The bloodstains in the dining room were brought over during the struggle between Zhong Huaiting and the murderer. The splattered bloodstains were detected to be Zhong Huaiting's, but bloodstains of all four victims were found on the pillar, and on Zhong Xiaoyu's body as well. The bloodstains of others were rubbed onto the pillar from Zhong Xiaoyu's body... This can only explain one thing: Zhong Xiaoyu was at the dining table when her family was killed..."

His hands suddenly pressed tightly on the file, almost growling: "Impossible, absolutely impossible. It must be that the murderer dragged her to the living room. Otherwise, how to explain that her father, Zhong Huaiting, fell in her direction? He was trying to save her, trying to, save her..." When he said this, he actually hesitated, and like he was possessed, he began to flip through the file rapidly, finally stopping at the inspection record of the ropes that tied Zhong Xiaoyu. Although the ropes were mixed with everyone's blood, only one person's fingerprints were found.

He slumped backward, his whole body collapsing into the chair, muttering, "There are only Zhong Huaiting's fingerprints on the rope, could it be..."

Liu Tong sat opposite Qi Fei, looking at his hesitation and loss calmly: "No footprints or fingerprints of anyone other than the Zhong family of five were ever found at the crime scene. This is the main reason why the murderer could not be found for a long time. Including the investigation of the surveillance and other residents in the Yueya Mountain villa area, there were no valuable clues. Shen Hongguan was an experienced old police officer. The suspicious points of the scene you see, it is impossible for him not to have discovered them."

"However, it is precisely because he was an old police officer that my evil speculation was shaken. Luo Xiao was unable to walk out of the bloody shadow of the case because he was inexperienced, but the one who committed suicide first was Shen Hongguan, who had more experience."

"I was puzzled, until I got information from the Baicheng Police Station that was not obtained in this file—Zhong Xiaoyu was once an external psychological consultant for the Baicheng Police Station, just like what Jiang Tianyi is doing now. Shen Hongguan and Luo Xiao had both received routine psychological counseling from her."

Hearing this, Qi Fei seemed to understand: "Zhong Xiaoyu was not a stranger to them, but someone they trusted. God... impossible!" He suddenly held his head with both hands, breathing heavily, as if he could drive his thoughts out of his brain this way.

"I think both Shen Hongguan and Luo Xiao have experienced the struggle you are having right now. Because Shen Hongguan was senior, he realized earlier than Luo Xiao that the suspicious points of the scene all pointed to an unexpected candidate, the only surviving daughter at the scene. Zhong Huaiting falling beside Zhong Xiaoyu was not to save her." Following Liu Tong's words, a nightmare-like scene appeared in Qi Fei's mind: the seriously injured Zhong Huaiting used his last bit of strength to tie Zhong Xiaoyu up.

And Zhong Xiaoyu, this gentle and rational female doctor, was roaring violently like a mutation at this time, watching Zhong Huaiting fall before her.

"What am I thinking? How can I have such a distorted imagination? A noble psychologist cannot commit the beastly act of killing her closest relatives!" Qi Fei shook his head desperately to deny it, tears already streaming down his face without knowing it.

"Remember? Luo Xiao started to verify things about the devil before he committed suicide. He must have thought he saved a devil, a devil with an angel's face. Everyone who discovered the strangeness of the case experienced a disillusionment that was difficult to redeem, just like you now. It was clearly a result deduced from clues, but because your reasoning was full of guilt. I think Shen Hongguan and Luo Xiao both went to a dead end because they couldn't face their inner darkness. I went to the Baicheng Psychiatric Hospital to ask, and both of them came to visit Zhong Xiaoyu before they committed suicide. At that time, Zhong Xiaoyu was in a state of dementia. You know best, Zhong Xiaoyu's resilience and innocence, the trust and touch she brought to people," Liu Tong sighed.

"So, they thought they were wrong, but they couldn't prove they were wrong. It was their conscience that killed them..." Qi Fei still didn't believe it at this time. "This must be a trap, I don't believe it..." ===== CHAPTER 346 =====