Silver Snow Line [Criminal Investigation]

Early in the morning, the streets were shrouded in fog and a cold wave was chasing after people. Xi Ming was blown into the police station by the wind. He was about to wipe his face with the hand cream on Dai Lin's desk. As soon as he opened the office door, he saw a dazzling array of special props on the conference table in the middle.

Hearing the noise, Lu Shaohui popped his head out from the recliner under the table. With his hair sticking out, he glanced at the person who came, then fell back and said vaguely, "You came so early."
Xi Ming walked around the table and said in shock, "Big Mouth Brother, you didn't go home all night. Did you go to crack down on prostitution?"
Lu Shaohui said: "These are all found in Xu Siwei's house, and this is only a small part."
Xi Ming also picked up the stack of photos on the table, flipped through a few of them, and sighed: "It seems that not only does he look niche, his XP is also quite niche."
Lu Shaohui responded, then he felt sleepy again, and the call came immediately without any buffer time.

At half past eight, everyone arrived one after another. Xie Qingfei and Cheng Buyu were the last to come in. They both looked like they had been up all night, but fortunately they had gained a lot, so they invited everyone to a meeting.

"Let me tell you the autopsy results first." Cheng Buyu stood on the stage and turned on the projector.

"The deceased was a female, 21 years old, 163cm long, wearing dark brown cotton pajamas. There were punctate hemorrhages on both eyelids and around the eyes, and a large number of hemorrhages at the junction of the lips and gums. There was a circular groove of about mm on the neck of the corpse. The cut was horizontal, the deepest part was located in the front, extending from the front of the neck to both sides, and the marks in the back were shallow, with arterial rupture and heavy bleeding. There were long strips of redness and swelling on the buttocks, calves and heels, and there were circular friction wounds on the wrists, with slight subcutaneous bleeding. The deceased had sex before death, and the body was cleaned. There was no laceration on the perineum, and she had not been violently assaulted.

"There was a small amount of vomitus in the mouth and nose of the deceased. After autopsy, about 500g of undigested gastric contents were found. The substances extracted from the gastric mucosa were detected to contain sedative drugs, namely GHB, through physical and chemical tests. There was a small amount of ethanol in the heart blood. White mucous secretions were attached to the tracheal wall. According to DNA testing, it was found to contain human semen components. The STR typing was consistent with Xu Siwei.

"Rosin from guitar strings was extracted from the neck wound. The blood on the first string of the cello in Xu Siwei's room also belonged to the deceased. It can be confirmed that the wound was caused by the guitar strings. However, both physical and chemical tests and autopsy tests can confirm that the deceased died of suffocation."

After listening to this, Xi Ming guessed, "So it is very likely that Xu Siwei had sex with An Qi after giving her wine mixed with GHB, and An Qi suffocated to death due to improper operation. In order to cover up this fact, he used the strings of the guitar as a tool to cut An Qi's artery and fabricated the scene of An Qi being raped and killed?"

The detective next to him asked suspiciously, "Why do you need strings?"

Lu Shaohui said, "If you want someone like me who has never played a musical instrument to remove a string, I really don't know where to start. Strings may not be the best tool for us amateurs, but didn't Xu Siwei say that Xu Siruo could play the cello? Of course he knows how to remove the strings. The purpose of covering up the real cause of death is to frame someone, and choosing strings can deepen our suspicion of Xu Siruo."

He thought of Xu Siruo's allergy to cat hair, and combined with the clues Xie Qingfei got from Hu Yanping, he guessed that Tan Wei was Xu Siwei's accomplice: "An Qi died of accidental suffocation. Xu Siwei must be held responsible for this anyway, but this is a life after all. Even if he surrenders, his life will basically be over. He must find a way to clear himself of suspicion. It just so happened that Xu Siruo was there at the time and was drugged."

Xi Ming touched his chin and said, "But since Xu Siwei can't play the violin, why does he keep a violin at home? It can't really be a decoration, right?"
"I don't know. But even if he can't play, he knows a little about the structure of the cello." Xie Qingfei pulled up the photo of the cello taken at the scene, pointed to an inconspicuous part of the wooden body, and said, "If he is not a professional, it is easy to cause the sound post to fall down when loosening the strings, and the strings will also damage the body of the cello if they break apart. If it was Xu Siruo who killed someone, something as troublesome as strings would obviously not be his best choice, and he left scars on his hands for us to find. Even if he really had nothing else to use and really took the strings apart, he would not make such a low-level mistake when doing so."

Lu Shaohui squinted his eyes and looked at the scratch carefully, and asked in surprise: "How did you know?"
Xie Qingfei said calmly: "I can also play the cello."
Everyone present was surprised and asked, "Is this true? Captain Xie has musical talent?"
Xie Qingfei made a low-key gesture: "What can I not do?"
Lu Shaohui: "You don't know how to cook noodles."
"..." Xie Qingfei coughed lightly, "Let me tell you what we found last night."

On the whiteboard, Xie Qingfei hung up the color print of the facial portrait that had been pieced together.

"This is a picture hidden behind the painting in Xu Siwei's room. The facial features of the characters on it were cut out from photos of different girls. Because local features are difficult to identify, after comparing with the face database, we can only determine the owners of the eyes and nose."

Lv Shaohui posted two photos next to each other and said, "Hao Xinqing, a 23-year-old female, with the online name 'Green Mood', met an online friend named 'Seven' through a niche forum two years ago. The two arranged to meet offline. This 'Seven' is Xu Siwei."

Xi Ming asked: "What are you meeting for?"

Lu Shaohui cleared his throat and said, "Of course, we are doing things that adults should do. This forum is a place where people with the same hobbies gather. In their circle, Hao Xinqing is the 'masochist' and Xu Siwei is the 'sadist'. The offline meeting is called 'practice'. The purpose of both parties is to pursue psychological pleasure. As long as both parties agree, the scale will be determined by private agreement."

"Another girl named Xu Yao also met Xu Siwei through the same channel, and the two also arranged to practice offline. At present, it can be inferred that their meeting place is the secret room in Xu Siwei's house. Although this kind of thing is a personal hobby and cannot be interfered with, the problem now is that we also found a large number of drinks containing GHB and drugs disguised as normal candies in Xu Siwei's house. The premise of practice is the consent of both parties. On this basis, it doesn't matter how the two people play, but sexual behavior is not one of the necessary procedures. Maybe some masochists agree that the abuser touches their bodies with props, but does not agree to the occurrence of sexual behavior. If the abuser intends to violate their wishes, then these drugs can come in handy.

"After finding this forum, we found several other accounts that had contact with the 'Seven'. After comparing their identity information, we found no match with the one in the collage. I also checked the rape cases reported in recent years. There are not many reports involving GHB. After all, this stuff makes people fall asleep after drinking it, and wake up without remembering anything. Many people don't even know that they were violated in the middle of the process. However, there is still one person who insisted that he was raped last year in a bar in Maoshan. At the same time, Xu Siwei had his nose reshaped. The European-style small upturned nose was based on the nose shape of this victim, but hers was natural, and his was much uglier."

"This is a portrait of the suspect drawn by the police based on the reporter's description after receiving the report."

Xie Qingfei pointed out another photo, in which one can see that the picture is very sloppy and the faces are difficult to discern, but the color impact is huge. The highly saturated lines collide violently on the canvas, interweaving into a weird and terrifying face.

"At the time, the police inferred that the suspect was a young man in his 20s, not tall and thin. This appearance feature is common in bars, so it is difficult to confirm. In addition, due to the effects of drugs, the reporter was not conscious at the time of the incident and could not see the scene in front of him clearly. He could only describe it based on his little memory. If we hadn't seen the reference object, we really couldn't make sense of the painting. But if the object is Xu Siwei, he does look so messy, which makes sense, doesn't it?"

Xie Qingfei continued, "Xu Siwei has a hobby in letters, but he doesn't follow the rules of the circle. Either his main purpose in getting into the circle is to violate girls and he's a fake S, or he's simply a pervert, maybe even impotent, and uses this kind of sadistic and insulting behavior to satisfy his own sick psychology."

After everyone pondered, someone raised a question: "But he selected seven of the many victims and had plastic surgery based on their facial features. What was his purpose?"

"This guy wants to be Frankenstein, but he doesn't have to operate on himself."
Xi Ming didn't notice that the photo on the screen beside him had been switched back to the collage. He turned his head and faced it head-on, and got goose bumps all over his body. He endured the discomfort and looked at this extremely strange portrait. As he looked at it, he realized something was wrong: "Do you think this 'person' looks like... looks like Xu Siruo?"

Xie Qingfei looked over when he heard the voice and frowned solemnly.

Xu Siwei chose characters with female facial features. It's a bit of a stretch to say that he looks like Xu Siruo, but if you look closely, you can definitely find some of Xu Siruo's features. However, Xu Siruo doesn't have dimples, and his features are obviously more resolute and sharp. But if he were a girl, he would look more like...

Xie Qingfei turned his head and asked: "Do you have a photo of Zhu Yichun?"

The criminal police colleague beside him checked the intranet files and pushed the computer to the center of the table. The woman in the photo had a plump face, double eyelids and a small upturned nose. She smiled gently at the camera, with two faint dimples on her lips.

Xi Ming shook off his goosebumps again: "What does this mean, Frankenstein is a remake of Oedipus Rex?"

Xie Qingfei pondered for a moment and said, "Shaohui and I speculate that Xu Siwei is not Zhu Yichun's son. His biological mother is a secretary who was with Xu Maokun back then and is also Tan Wei's ex-girlfriend. If we want to prove this now, we can only wait until we find Tan Wei and confirm it with him. But judging from what Xu Siwei did, he is not completely unaware of this. Perhaps this is why he is willing to cooperate with Tan Wei."

Xi Ming said, "Oh!" "So he had plastic surgery to make himself look more like Zhu Yichun, so as to dispel other people's suspicion that he was a illegitimate child?" Lu Shaohui hooked his arm around Xi Ming's neck with relief, and said lovingly, "Ming, you are right!"
Xi Ming hugged him back and praised him in an exaggerated tone: "Hui, you have worked hard too!"

At this time, footsteps were heard outside, and Zhao Chongyun came in late: "Master, I brought Xu Siruo back."

When Xie Qingfei went outside to meet people, he found that Wei Cheng was also standing next to Xu Siruo, holding Deng Deng in his arms, and the two were talking.
Xu Siruo was on IV drip for the entire afternoon and after resting for a night in the hospital, he was already full of energy.
But he was worried about a lot, and looked even more haggard than those detectives who stayed up late. When he saw Xie Qingfei coming, his eyes sparkled with a strong light, but when he thought about his situation, his excitement was suppressed and he sat back obediently.

Xie Qingfei hesitated for two seconds, and although he didn't say anything, he patted him lightly on the shoulder.
Xu Siruo seemed to understand what she meant and looked at her excitedly.
Then he smiled and said, "Xie, I know you will prove my innocence."

Seeing him smile like this, Xie Qingfei felt a little dazed, as if she had returned to the first time she met him eight years ago. At that time, Xu Siruo was still a primary school student. When she rescued the calico cat, he also smiled at her with such trusting and admiring eyes.
Time flies and years wait for no one.

Just as she was about to answer, a puzzled "meow" interrupted her thoughts.
Xie Qingfei looked up and saw Wei Cheng scratching Deng Deng's chin. He didn't look at her, but just spoke softly to Deng Deng's raised head: "What are you meowing? Oh, you think he's handsome too."
Deng Deng: “Meow meow meow?”
Wei Cheng seemed to have mastered cat language overnight. He nodded seriously, "Yeah, he's quite handsome."
Xie Qingfei: "..."

Two policemen came and took Xu Siruo away. Xie Qingfei ignored the remaining man and cat, turned around and walked towards the office, and heard Wei Cheng following him.

In the office, several people were tidying up the props on the table. Zhao Chongyun didn't know what was going on and asked everyone to wait.
When Xie Qingfei arrived, he cleared his throat, put the things on the table in order, and asked, "Do you know what these are used for?"
Lu Shaohui coughed. Although he didn't know what he was going to do, he had a feeling that it would make everyone embarrassed.

However, hinting was useless. Zhao Chongyun picked up a leather paddle and introduced it to Xie Qingfei: "Master, this is used for %&*."
Xie Qingfei choked: "So?"
Zhao Chongyun picked up another ruler: "This one has a similar function to the previous one, but the difference between the two in actual use is..."

Wei Cheng sat down next to Xi Ming's table and watched the show leisurely.

"This is the cat's claw, this is the heart, and the one that shakes has another use. It will have to be used in conjunction with other things when the time comes. After the power is turned on..." Zhao Chongyun talked incessantly, carefully explaining the use of each tool in the silence of everyone. In case everyone didn't understand, he turned on the machine for them to hear the noise.

The product introduction segment lasted ten thousand years.

After he finished speaking, he looked at Xie Qingfei: "Master, these are what I learned last time when I was following a case. I have memorized them all. Isn't it powerful?"
His last case was a sexual asphyxiation death case, which was not often encountered. Xie Qingfei realized that this guy came to ask for praise, and he was speechless and laughed.

"That's great, but you didn't have to explain it so clearly."

She thought helplessly: You are probably the only one among all the people present who just found out what these things are used for. We are all veteran detectives. We have seen a lot of actual combat, not to mention props. We can go to the evidence room and look for high-definition video sources. There will be some embarrassment, but we all know it tacitly. We can easily pass on such unspeakable things. Who needs someone to explain it to us?

Zhao Chongyun rubbed his head stupidly. He only heard her say that she was amazing. She said proudly, "If you encounter something you don't understand during your follow-up investigation, you can ask me."
Lu Shaohui couldn't bear to see this, so he pulled the man away and said, "Xiao Zhao, are you interested in visiting the Anti-pornography Brigade?"
Zhao Chongyun was stunned: "Then Master, I will go with Brother Dazui first."
Xie Qingfei waved his hands weakly.
Xi Ming continued to pack all the things into boxes. In the process, he accidentally touched the switch and the whole box suddenly vibrated. Frightened, he immediately threw the box into the arms of his colleague next to him. The two of them threw the box to each other and twisted out the door with strange steps.

Deng Deng suddenly remembered that this noisy guy was his adoptive father, so he jumped out of Wei Cheng's arms and ran after Xi Ming.

The door was closed and there were only two people left in the room.

Xie Qingfei returned to the chair and sat down as naturally as possible, but he stepped on something and a buzzing sound exploded in the silent room.
She looked down at the fish that had escaped the net squirming on the ground, and her breath almost caught in her throat. Obviously, the shapes of the tools in the pile were extremely subtle, so why did the one in front of her look so straightforward?

Xie Qingfei's brain went blank for three seconds, and then Zhao Chongyun's enthusiastic introduction echoed in her ears like a magic sound: long press the bottom button to adjust the mode, press twice to adjust the temperature, press three times...

He memorized so much useless knowledge but he didn't even tell me how to shut down the computer!

Xie Qingfei almost wanted to scream. There was no way she could explore it herself!
so awkward!
Why is every process of solving this case so embarrassing, and why is Wei Cheng by my side at every embarrassing moment!

Xie Qingfei looked numbly at the vibrating column at his feet and suddenly felt very tired from working.

Fortunately, Wei Cheng came over quickly, picked up the thing, wrapped it in a tissue, closed it, and threw it into Xi Ming's drawer with smooth movements, leaving his younger brother to inherit the embarrassment.
Xie Qingfei breathed a sigh of relief, his butt finally sitting firmly on the chair.

After sorting out the documents for a while as if nothing had happened, Xie Qingfei quietly looked up and found Wei Cheng looking at himself in the mirror thoughtfully.
When he looked in the mirror, he saw a sad face, frowning and sighing.

Since she stopped actively talking to him, Xie Qingfei found that he had completely controlled the initiative in their communication. She could restrain herself from ignoring him, but she couldn't control his occasional teasing. However, if he didn't say anything, the two of them would be in a stalemate, and she could not help but want to guess his psychology.
This kind of situation had never been anticipated before, and Xie Qingfei felt that his emotions were inexplicably dominated by him.

Wei Cheng was still there: "Alas."
She was also filled with anger at his sigh, and instinctively felt that it was directed at her, so she asked helplessly: "What's wrong with you? Just say it if you have anything to say."
Wei Cheng stared at the mirror and asked mysteriously, "Xie Qingfei, do you dislike my age?"
"Ah?" Xie Qingfei looked surprised. "It's too early to have age anxiety now."

After saying that, she seemed to understand what he was referring to.

"...Xu Siruo is just a child."
Wei Cheng tilted his head: "He is quite handsome."
If he had known that the three words he said casually would be nagging until now, Xie Qingfei would have traveled back in time without hesitation to block his mouth. How should he coax Wei Cheng when he was jealous? Of course, he would say "Oh, that's just polite words, you are the most handsome in my heart." But now he can't give him any expectations. Xie Qingfei thought silently for a moment, ready to leave him alone to look at himself in the mirror, and never say a word to coax him.

Halfway out, she turned back and looked at him suspiciously: "Don't you have to go to work? It's okay that you took a day off yesterday, but you don't have to go to the hospital today?"
Wei Cheng put down the mirror: "Well, take a rest today."
Xie Qingfei recalled for a moment and exposed him: "You are on the day shift today."
"I'm really taking a break today. I adjusted my career plan and have been preparing for it recently."
Xie Qingfei stared at him for a few seconds. Given that he had so many criminal records, she had every reason to doubt his motives for turning down the job. She said in a disappointed tone, "Wei Cheng, you're thirty years old, and you still don't know what you want to do? Can you take some responsibility for your future?"
Wei Cheng was beaten up, but he didn't change his mind: "You really think I'm too old."

(End of this chapter)