Eyes that are the same as those of evil

Chapter 186 The Murderer Tan Jia 5
When Tan Jia woke up, she heard this bad news.

But she remained calm, took a sip of water, and said, "I had thought of that before. If someone really wanted to frame me, the murder weapon would only have my fingerprints on it, not someone else's. I was unconscious for so long, the murderer had plenty of opportunities to cover everything in the room with my fingerprints. That's not conclusive evidence."

Tan Ming hadn't left yet. Hearing this, he nodded and said, "I asked Captain Zheng. The first team and the forensic team will conduct joint experiments on the wounds on the victim's body, the damage to the murder weapon, and the size and direction of the fingerprints left behind, to reconstruct the murderer's process and posture at the time of the killing."

“Wouldn’t it be faster for me to just do the tests? I could poke a dummy a few times, and if the shape of the wounds and the fingerprints left behind are different from those found at the scene, it would prove that I’m not the murderer,” Tan Jia said.

Tan Ming shook his head: "It's best not to. Even if a suspect makes a move that contradicts the conclusion, they will still be suspected of doing it intentionally. Moreover, if the murderer suddenly attacks you and seems to be well-prepared, who knows if the stab marks you left behind will be used as evidence to convict you completely, just like that mysterious room key."

The guesthouse staff insisted that they didn't provide the room key and that they hadn't found any evidence of it being stolen, but the deceased used the room key to enter room 107. Who knows what happened?

Tan Jia nodded thoughtfully, when suddenly a box of fruit was handed to her, cut into small pieces and peeled into small segments, making it easy to eat.

Lin Zhiyue looked at her, poked a piece of watermelon and fed it to her lips. Seeing that there was some watermelon juice left on her lips, he kissed it off as if no one else was around.

Then he took out a wet wipe and wiped his fingers.

Tan Ming was caught off guard by the specific scene of their "dating" and was completely ignored. His face fell, and he squinted at Lin Zhiyue with great displeasure.

"you……"

“Brother,” Tan Jia interrupted him, “did you find out what I asked you to investigate?”

She was referring to her investigation into the guesthouse rooms and the food served the previous night, and she suspected that someone had drugged everyone who was sound asleep last night.

"The important thing is to get down to business," Tan Ming took a deep breath, glared at Lin Zhiyue, and then answered seriously, "No abnormalities were found. The food was normal. People at another guesthouse ate the same food last night. Some of them were out playing in the middle of the night, and some even got up to use the toilet in the early morning. There were no signs of them being drugged."

"If it's in the room, the fact that so many people could get infected at the same time suggests it's some kind of gas. But I checked the air conditioning system, and all the rooms in the guesthouse use a centrally managed air conditioning system. During this period, the air conditioning was on whenever someone checked in, and there were no traces of anything placed at the main control point, at least I didn't find anything when I checked."

To mix gas into the air conditioning system, something that can release gas needs to be placed at the air inlet. Considering portability and the fact that it doesn't require constant monitoring, volatile liquids are usually used, or a mixture of several materials that react chemically to release gas.

Tan Jia thought about it for a moment, "We did turn on the air conditioning. Because the air is better there and the temperature is lower than in the city, plus the air conditioning made me feel a bit cold last night, so we only left the window a crack open. I usually prefer to sleep with the window open because the air outside is really good..."

“When I opened the door this morning, the window was open,” Lin Zhiyue suddenly said.

She tilted her head: "Really?"

"Yes. The curtains were pulled open a little, and I saw the open window." Lin Zhiyue was very certain. He had been used to observing for more than ten years and could remember the exact location of several pieces of clothing hanging on a distant building. Moreover, Tan Jia had specifically asked him to observe the scene and take photos before the police arrived.

"The murderer opened the window..." Tan Jia pondered the intention behind it, "Was it to quickly expel the fumes from the room? But where did the fumes come from? Besides the air conditioner, perfume? Aromatherapy?"

Tan Ming thought of something: "Could it be the fresh air system? When I was investigating how the murderer knew your whereabouts, I checked the scenic area's promotional brochure and found that they were touting the good air quality, saying that the rooms here are equipped with fresh air systems, which can greatly reduce the concentration of indoor pollution and improve the air quality while sleeping."

Fresh air system?

She paused for a moment before recalling the characteristics of the fresh air system, and slowly said, "It's possible. Last night the air conditioner was a bit too cold, so I closed the window. At that moment, the fresh air system supplied outdoor air mixed with strange gases, so I slept even more soundly and didn't even hear the deceased swipe the card to open the door." At this point, some clues were becoming clear.

"It's an anesthetic gas that you can't smell!"

"There must be someone in the guesthouse assisting the murderer!"

Tan Jia and Tan Ming's voices collided, and they exchanged a glance.

Lin Zhiyue frowned, but her focus was on something else: "You inhaled a lot of anesthetic gas and need to be examined."

Tan Jia: "It should be a colorless and odorless gas, like the previous nitrous oxide. It is difficult to detect after the gas dissipates, and it is also difficult to detect the decomposition products."

"It's not about checking the gas, it's about your body. You've been unconscious for a long time." Lin Zhiyue's brows furrowed even deeper, his clear gaze fixed on her.

She stared blankly into his eyes, as if she was moved by his handsome appearance and caring demeanor.

Tan Ming was about to lose his temper and separate the two of them when Tan Jia suddenly said, "That's right, why was I unconscious for so long? The murderer killed someone and opened the window to let the gas out. These actions should have been done before dawn. After he left, he took something that could release the gas. Then we need to wait a while for the effects of the anesthetic gas to dissipate before everyone can't notice it. If we calculate it this way, there isn't much time left to recover, so the effect of the anesthetic gas shouldn't be too strong."

"But I was unconscious until I was woken up by the knocking on the door. In the middle of that, the murderer may have dragged me and made me put my fingerprints on the murder weapon, and dragged me so that the victim's blood splattered on my clothes... I didn't wake up at all. Even if I was injured in the head, it shouldn't be like that. Could it be that the murderer made me inhale more gas? An overdose of anesthetic gas, that might be detectable."

After she finished speaking, she lifted the blanket to go for a checkup.

Tan Ming: "..."

Lin Zhiyue, unlike him, was not as emotionally expressive. He calmly pressed Tan Jia down and said, "I'll get the doctor. Don't move."

Tan Ming glanced at him again, almost forgetting that this kid was incredibly rich.

He's rich and handsome, but he has some mental issues; he's obsessed with his sister like a possessed spirit.

The doctor was hurriedly summoned to examine Tan Jia. After listening to their description, he proposed a hypothesis—

"It might be sevoflurane. It has a faint, sweet fruity smell and is a commonly used anesthetic gas in clinical practice. Some people used to say that it was a drug that could make someone dizzy just by smelling it, but that's an exaggeration. It takes a while to take effect, and the person who inhaled it will wake up in a short time after the gas is stopped."

"Can any residue still be detected?"

"Not necessarily, but I remember a case of sevoflurane rape four years ago where the forensic toxicology test results helped determine the perpetrator's crime."

That's possible. Tan Jia breathed a sigh of relief. She had initially suspected it was a gas like nitrous oxide, which would have been difficult to detect.

(End of this chapter)