CH 107

How was it that there was a murder but no deaths?

There were many answers to this question.

For example, the girl’s hand trembled when she went in for the kill, or the biggest possibility was that the girl didn’t actually plan to kill him. She simply used a knife to create a shallow cut on Li Jingtian’s neck, allowing him to escape death and walk out of the emergency room alive.

This possibility was, of course, option C, which seemingly looked happy but was quite intriguing.

“So, are we going to change the direction of the investigation?” Xing Conglian probably thought of this too. He looked a bit stressed as he finally lit his cigarette.

Blue smoke curled under the dazzling sun.

Lin Chen couldn’t figure out this question for a while.

If Li Jingtian planned this in order to hype the incident and attract public attention, why didn’t he pretend to be more pitiful? He should know that walking out of the emergency room in front of the media would make it seem too self-directed and planned. Because of this, it was impossible for an experienced planner to do such a thing.

To put it another way, if Li Jingtian was a victim, the question remained: why did the girl only cut his neck shallowly but did not kill him?

Lin Chen recalled the scene on stage at that time. The microphone slammed to the ground as Li Jingtian tightly covered his neck. Blood was oozing out between his fingers. In any case, judging by the amount of bleeding, Li Jingtian shouldn’t be able to walk out of that emergency room alive. There had to be something wrong.

“To be honest, I think this matter has violated the laws of human physiology. Normal people can’t lose that much blood and still maintain the ability to act normally. This is too incredible.”

Xing Conglian touched his chin. “It seems we can only trouble the husband of Comrade Zhang Xialong’s colleague to pry out more information.”

Li Jingtian’s manager had already called out the police. Rather than actively expressing a stance, Xing Conglian chose to secretly investigate.

“It’s better to keep a low profile,” Lin Chen said.

“Then let’s go back and study the scene again?” Xing Conglian asked.

“Okay.”

When they returned to the air-conditioned hall, Lin Chen remembered to look at the time.

Time was the most obvious clue. It was now 11:25 a.m.. When Li Jingtian was taken to the hospital, he stayed in the emergency room for at most half an hour.

Naturally, a carotid artery treatment couldn’t be done in that amount of time. The only possibility was that Li Jingtian’s injury wasn’t serious and the girl was indeed merciful.

So the key question was the blood. Why did Li Jingtian bleed so much?

Xing Conglian stood on the stage and was talking to his colleague from the forensic department. The other party nodded, squatted on the ground, and pointed to the large area of blood that had merged with the red carpet. “Captain Xing, I was just about to look for you. I don’t think this is human blood.”

“If it’s not human blood, then what is it? Animal blood?”

“Not likely either.” The forensic pathologist continued to shake his head.

They had cut off a sample of the carpet and sent it for testing. At this moment, it seemed that the entire stage had been hollowed out. “We have to wait for the test results to come out.”

Xing Conglian frowned. As if he had guessed something, he squatted down.

He took off his gloves and gently pressed his fingers on the bloodstain. The forensic pathologist seemed to be aware of something and wanted to stop him, but he saw that Xing Conglian had already put his fingers in his mouth and tasted it.

Lin Chen walked to the edge of the stage and saw that Xing Conglian had just licked his fingers. Xing Conglian turned his head and said to him, “It tastes sweet.”

Lin Chen was speechless. Licking a victim’s blood in public was indeed a bit extreme.

Xing Conglian didn’t seem to care. He patted his butt and stood up. “Cream with artificial coloring. The blend is just right.”

Lin Chen was taken aback as he asked, “What is it?”

“A kind of fake plasma prop. This formula is quite good—basically on the level of a Hollywood prop,” Xing Conglian said as he smacked his lips.

The forensic pathologist on the side was also stunned. “What the hell? Is this a self-planned throat cutting?”

Anyone who had seen something like this would probably have a similar thought.

Xing Conglian turned his head, pressed his index fingers to his lips, and motioned for the forensic pathologist to keep his voice down.

Lin Chen pondered for a while. If this was a planned self-throat cutting to create hype, it would be too unwise to use a girl to pretend to be a fan to cut his neck on stage, then use artificial blood to create the illusion of a tragedy while leaving a bunch of cruel green roses on the stage. Although such an incident could be explosive, it was still a double-edged sword. If Li Jingtian was careless, it would cause great damage to his image.

This was still a matter where the gain wasn’t worth the loss.

While Lin Chen was hesitating, he suddenly heard Xing Conglian ask, “If this is artificial blood, doesn’t it mean there’s only one murder we need to investigate?”

He was, of course, referring to that poor bird that was stabbed to death by the roses.

Xing Conglian sighed. “I have a headache.”

……

Naturally, what could give Xing Conglian a headache wasn’t the artificial blood or some singer staging a throat cut.

The one that really could give him a headache was only a certain person—a certain stubborn person.

Wang Chao was sitting in an ice cream shop on the second floor of Ansheng International Mall and ordered a matcha-flavored smoothie. While sipping on his cold drink, he searched for the two questions Lin Chen had asked him.

First: Li Jingtian’s background.

Second: Why were there so many fans supporting Li Jingtian today?

The air conditioning in the store was fully turned on. The young waitress there was much more beautiful than others.

After he set the keywords, he took a big gulp of his cold drink. Before he could finish a portion of it, the laptop beeped, indicating that the search had been completed.

He stuffed all the remaining cold drink into his mouth, then sat down crossed-legged on the sofa. He dragged the scroll bar down as he read the search results carefully.

Honestly speaking, he didn’t really have much interest in gossip in the entertainment circle. It was probably due to straight men being naturally unfond of that kind of heart-wrenching story. However, the gossip about Li Jingtian was really bloodier than a dog-blooded* drama. The more he read, the more fascinated he became. He was so focused that he didn’t notice someone had opened the glass door of the ice cream shop.

*Melodramatic.

“So nice?”

Wang Chao felt someone sitting down by his side. They leaned over and asked him this.

“Hey, don’t talk.” He waved his hand, trying to swat the man away like a fly.

When his head touched the other person’s head, Wang Chao suddenly got a prickly feeling that was transmitted from his skin straight to his brain.

“Captain, why are you here?!”

He jumped up and then sat down again with a bang. “You didn’t say a word. Are you trying to scare me to death?!”

“Mr. Xiao Wang, I didn’t expect you to have such a hobby.”

Xing Conglian took out a cigarette and looked at the explosive title on the screen as he curled his lips.

On the screen was a piece of news, but compared to the explosive headline, the accompanying picture was even more eye-catching. It was a pair of women’s lace underwear thrown on a messy blanket that was black.

Wang Chao subconsciously tried to cover it up and then felt he was wronged. “Captain, this is proper behavior. I’m investigating the case!”

Lin Chen sat opposite of him and looked at the appearance of the two in front of him. He always felt that the topic they were about to discuss wasn’t going to be a good one.

“Oh, Mr. Xiao Wang, at your age, it’s normal for people to have this kind of hobby.” Xing Conglian patted the teenager’s head as if he understood it well.

“Fuck Captain, don’t treat me like I’m dirty!”

Wang Chao tried to get away, but Xing Conglian had squeezed into the booth, cutting off his only way out.

“Well, well. I didn’t know you had this kind of taste, though it is a bit heavy…” Xing Conglian said as he gazed up and down at Wang Chao, then turned his head and read out the headline. “The princess in the private room earns 100,000 a day with all kinds of novel plays that shock reporters?”

Hearing Xing Conglian read the headline aloud, Wang Chao’s face instantly blushed. Although Lin Chen knew the young man probably was finding some key clues, his shy appearance was so cute that he couldn’t help laughing.

Probably because he didn’t want to talk to Xing Conglian, the teenager turned his head and looked at Lin Chen seriously. “A’Chen, it’s really a clue related to Li Jingtian’s case!”

“Oh…” Lin Chen dragged his tone, then slowly said, “Actually, you can do whatever you like. After all, you’re still young. You just have to pay attention to safety…”

“A’Chen!” The teenager angrily interrupted him.