A miraculous doctor descended from the heavens.

"It certainly seems impossible now. But it's entirely possible before dark," Gu Feng said firmly.

"What do you mean 'possible before but impossible now'? I'm completely baffled." Peng Jingpei said, utterly confused.

"Can you smell anything in the air?" Gu Feng suddenly asked.

"What does it smell like? It smells like flowers." Chu Hanliang pointed to the row of jasmine flowers blooming beautifully by the pool.

"Don't you think there's something wrong with how these flowers are placed here?" Gu Feng asked again.

The two looked closely. There should have been wide walkways around the pool for easy access and cleaning.

But after placing these flower pots, the passageway became incredibly narrow.

In addition, the strong fragrance of blooming jasmine easily attracts snakes, insects, rodents, bees, and butterflies. Placing it so close to the water, these insects could easily fall into the pond—this arrangement is indeed inappropriate.

But what does this have to do with what they were just discussing about "jumping off the balcony"?

Gu Feng's thinking is a bit too jumpy and unconventional.

"Gu Feng, we seem to have gone off on a tangent," Peng Jingpei couldn't help but remind him.

"Not far." Gu Feng shook his head, insisting on asking, "First answer me, isn't it a bit odd to put these flowers here?"

"So what if it is?" Chu Hanliang quickly answered for Peng Liangpei.

"If that's the case, it means these flowers weren't originally placed here; they were moved here hastily. If you don't believe me, go pick up a flowerpot and look at the bottom. There will never be water stains or rust marks left from a long period of placement. But if a flowerpot is left in one place for a long time, there will definitely be very obvious marks left on the ground."

Chu Hanliang was skeptical, but he went over, picked up a potted plant, and looked inside. He was immediately dumbfounded.

Just as Gu Feng had said, there wasn't a trace of age or even a mark left under the flowerpot.

If these flowerpots had really been placed here all along, they couldn't possibly be this clean.

Chu Hanliang refused to believe it and went to move other flowerpots one after another—all of them were the same, without any trace.

This only proves that Gu Feng was absolutely right; these flowerpots were indeed moved there temporarily.

Why move here so suddenly? Is it to hide something?

Thinking of this, Chu Hanliang felt an immediate urge to move all the hundred or so potted plants in front of him to see what was hidden underneath. But just as he was about to do so, Gu Feng asked, "What are you doing?"

"I want to see what they brought these flowers here to cover up," Chu Hanliang said.

"Why even bother looking? Just smell it." Gu Feng said dismissively.

"Smell?" Chu Hanliang sniffed hard again.

"Yes. Besides the scent of flowers, did you smell anything else?"

Chu Hanliang and Peng Liangpei both sniffed hard, but they couldn't smell anything except the fragrance of flowers. They could only shake their heads blankly at Gu Feng.

"If you can't smell it, it proves your noses aren't sensitive enough," Gu Feng said calmly.

"So what did you smell?"

Gu Feng nodded and said slowly, "Besides the fragrance of flowers, I also smelled another scent."

"What does it taste like?"

"The smell of welding."

"Welding?" The two were stunned again.

"Look." Gu Feng pointed to the three-meter-high balcony above the swimming pool, "If my nose is not mistaken, the security bars there are newly welded. And the welding time should not have been more than three hours. The welding smell has not yet dissipated. The person who hired the welder obviously realized this as well, so he specially brought over these fragrant jasmine flowers, hoping to use the fragrance of the flowers to cover up the welding smell."

The two of them were stunned for a while before they came to their senses. After they came to their senses, they almost simultaneously took off running upstairs to the second floor.

Before they even got close to the balcony, surprise and admiration were already evident on their faces. In the second-floor corridor, they finally caught a whiff of the lingering smell of welding.

Moreover, the closer you get to the balcony, the stronger the smell becomes.

When they reached the balcony and carefully examined the security grilles by the light, they finally believed Gu Feng's words—although the welding marks had been treated, it was still easy to tell that they were new.

In other words, Gu Feng's deduction that it "fell from the sky" is not only true, but also highly probable.

If He Qiaoqing didn't fall from this balcony, why were they in such a hurry to re-weld the security bars, and why were they afraid of people finding out?

"Huh? What's that!" Chu Hanliang, who was leaning over the balcony to examine it closely, suddenly exclaimed, stretching his hand out of the security bars and pointing to a recessed corner on the outer wall.

Peng Jingpei leaned closer to take a look, and there was a corner of something faintly visible in the recess. Although it was only a tiny bit, there was definitely something there.

Gu Feng also came up at this time.

Upon seeing that thing, his eyes lit up instantly.

He looked around, then immediately left the balcony, squeezed out of a window in the corridor, and carefully climbed along the outer wall. After a series of close calls, he finally reached the recessed area.

The angle changed, and the view became clear—the object was a shoe. And a woman's high heel at that.

Gu Feng picked up the shoe, climbed back onto the balcony the same way he came, and said to the two of them, "If this shoe belongs to He Qiaoqing, then my theory is correct. He Qiaoqing did indeed fall from here. She was wearing shoes at the time, and this one went unnoticed because it got stuck in this extremely hard-to-find spot; as for the other one, it's probably already been taken away."

"Okay, even if your deduction is correct, what does that prove? Does it prove that she accidentally fell in, or that she was cruelly pushed in? It's not surprising that He Qiaoqing fell into the pool from here while in a state of confusion, given that stimulants were found in her blood. As for the suddenly installed security bars, they can be explained by fear and panic. Mao Renxin could say that he was afraid the He family would blame him for the inadequate security facilities at the villa, which led to He Qiaoqing's accident, so he rushed to install these security bars." Chu Hanliang, as expected of an experienced detective, refuted others' deductions one after another.

"Really?" Gu Feng glanced at him indifferently. "Then, would you like to also consider the whole thing Mao Renxin did at the operating room entrance?"

Chu Hanliang fell silent. All the clues and all the doubts pointed more and more to the same conclusion—homicide.

And Mao Renxin gradually became the prime suspect.

The case seems to be getting clearer.

But Chu Hanliang felt no relief at all; on the contrary, he had an even bigger headache: "A shoe, a newly installed security screen, a bunch of flower pots that were temporarily moved in, the lingering stimulants in my blood, plus the commotion Mao Renxin caused outside the operating room... It seems like there's a lot of evidence, but actually, it doesn't prove anything at all."

"How can saying this proves nothing?" Peng Jingpei couldn't help but ask. To her uncle, Mao Renxin, she was more of a stranger than a stranger herself. If he really committed a crime and was sent to jail, she wouldn't feel much. This wasn't numbness or indifference, but rather a genuine lack of emotion. If anything, she would only feel sorry for her aunt.

"Yes, intuitively, we can say that everything Mao Renxin did after the incident was because he had a guilty conscience. But the law requires objective evidence. Convicting someone is a very complicated process." Chu Hanliang shook his head helplessly.

"So what do we do now?" Peng Jingpei asked again.

"We must find stronger evidence," Chu Hanliang said in a deep voice.

"Let's hurry and look while we still have some time!"

"Um."