Overly Intense [Criminal Investigation] 106

Chapter 106: An Extra Throat Slit

Eleven at night.

Shen Yiyi was lying on the sofa. Lu Shimao, who had come out to go to the restroom, was startled.

Lu Shimao glanced at Sister Shen.

She was only covered with an air conditioning blanket, so lonely, so pitiful.

What was wrong with Qin Luo! It was one thing to not let her in at Cloud Top, but how could she not let her into the room in their own dorm? It seemed that moving out was imminent. She would pack her bags and leave at eight tomorrow morning to make room for Sister Shen.

Shen Yiyi was lying flat on her back, staring at the ceiling.

It was unexpected for Shen Yiyi that Qin Luo would resolutely not sleep with her, so she had to settle for the next best thing and force Qin Luo to sleep in her bed.

At this moment, she was lying on the sofa, back in that winter vacation…

Qin Luo was lying on her side on the small bed, her wrist hanging over the edge. She was lying on the floor, peeking at Qin Luo’s fingertips in the moonlight. When they woke up in the morning, they would squeeze together and laze in bed until the sunlight made it impossible for them to pretend to be asleep.

Shen Yiyi had tossed and turned until three in the morning and had not fallen asleep. She had tiptoed back to her room.

She had peeked at someone sleeping before, but to do it again at over thirty had a hint of perversion. To avoid waking Qin Luo, Shen Yiyi had tiptoed in silently.

She pushed open the door… walked to the bedside…

Qin Luo was lying quietly on the pure black bedsheets.

She stood at the foot of the bed, like a shadow submerged in the night, quietly observing the woman curled up in the blanket.

Qin Luo was wearing her T-shirt, and her skin was intertwined with her bedsheets. It was the most intimate contact besides an embrace, a strange and secret sense of security.

—Everything in this room belonged to her, including the Qin Luo lying on the bedsheets.

Qin Luo turned over. She was a light sleeper and was always thinking about the script in her subconscious. The multi-threaded ideas were running wild in her brain. In addition, the old air conditioner was buzzing, which made it impossible for her to sleep soundly.

In her light sleep, she felt that someone was staring at her.

It was a dream.

Qin Luo comforted herself in her dream. Those gazes were the price of fame. She had benefited from these gazes and had become a person who was not ignored, who was surrounded by the crowd, and then had gradually become a nightmare. Suddenly, more and more people were surrounding her. She could not stop. It was as if she would be devoured if she fell behind, and not even her fingernails would be left.

…

Don’t stare at her anymore.

Qin Luo frowned tightly and subconsciously hugged the blanket. Then she heard the faint sound of footsteps by the bed, constantly approaching. She couldn’t tell if it was a dream or reality, so she slightly opened a slit.

A shadow, abruptly standing in front of her, staring at her.

Crazy!!

Qin Luo was so scared she couldn’t even scream. She immediately sat up. The stress mechanism, while protecting humans, also came with a severe physiological price.

For a moment, a sharp pain pierced her heart.

“It’s me.”

Shen Yiyi quickly reached out and turned on the light.

The light came on, and the outline appeared. The black shadow turned into the familiar Shen Yiyi.

Qin Luo had not yet recovered. She pressed her hands to her chest. Just now, her heart had felt like it had been twisted and rolled on a fire. The pain had not improved just because the other person was Shen Yiyi.

“Are you crazy, standing by the bed in the middle of the night?” she said in a muffled, angry voice. “Do you know how scary that is?”

“I’m sorry, I…”

Shen Yiyi stood at attention. Although she was not good at lying, she still chose to bluff. “I… I was just afraid that the air conditioning was too cold. I came in to adjust the temperature for you.”

With that, she picked up the remote control from the bedside table.

Drip—

She raised the room temperature by two degrees.

This was Shen Yiyi’s bedroom. Qin Luo couldn’t just scold her. Anyway, she was wide awake. She took two deep breaths and looked up at Shen Yiyi.

She was still wearing the striped pajama pants she had loved in high school, and a plain T-shirt was hanging loosely on her shoulders. Her face had a very sober expression.

“You’re not asleep?”

“I can’t sleep.”

Qin Luo asked her, “Is the sofa too soft?”

Shen Yiyi shook her head. “It’s okay.”

Qin Luo knew that Shen Yiyi was the most stubborn. “Okay” actually meant “not good.” So she moved a little and, taking the initiative, said, “Why don’t we sleep together?”

It was almost dawn, and Shen Yiyi finally fell asleep soundly.

The bedroom was even hotter than the living room. She used to hate this stuffy heat. The stuffy heat would make people sweat, and the sweat would stick everywhere. But at this moment, she accepted it with peace of mind. The person behind her was an arm’s length away, and she could hear the other’s steady breathing. Qin Luo’s scent was filling the gaps of her regret at the slowest speed.

A very small opening.

Shen Yiyi never set an alarm, so she had overslept.

She had woken up on Qin Luo’s pillow. It was all her fault for setting the air conditioning to 26 degrees last night. She had woken up covered in sweat.

Lu Shimao looked at her watch and was pacing back and forth outside the door, almost dying of anxiety. But Qin Luo did not wake Shen Yiyi up, and she did not dare to overstep. She half-reminded the other that if Sister Shen did not get up, she might be late.

Qin Luo just asked her what she was in a hurry for. Couldn’t an office director be late for once?

What was she in a hurry for? Of course, she was in a hurry for the assessment!

But Shen Yiyi had arrived downstairs at the police station on time.

Qin Luo handed her a food bag from the back seat. Inside were two peeled eggs, a small fried dough stick that she had snatched from Lu Shimao’s mouth, and some fruit that Xue Tong had bought.

“Breakfast.” Qin Luo was wearing sunglasses, fully armed. “It’s been a month since your surgery. You still have to eat breakfast.”

The hurried morning made Shen Yiyi very unaccustomed, especially since she had been sent to work directly without even taking a shower. She didn’t know where Qin Luo was going after she had closed the car door.

Shen Yiyi said, “What do you want to eat tonight?”

The question was a statement of her desire to stay.

Even if Qin Luo wanted to eat braised lion’s head tonight, she might take leave and go to the market early to buy groceries. The wheel of regret had started to turn again, and it had even sped up after a beautiful dream last night.

She wanted to sleep soundly every day now.

“I don’t know. I have to go to the production today.” Qin Luo held the steering wheel with both hands and looked at her watch. Shen Yiyi was already late. “Someone has to be responsible for Xin Wuzheng’s death.”

Yesterday, the incident had happened suddenly. Qin Luo had been at a loss and had thought of Shen Yiyi first. But as she had said to Wang Xi, when the illusion disappeared and she had crashed into reality, she had found that no one could really support her, not even a police officer. The nightmare was still there, the crisis was still there, and she was not omnipotent.

Shen Yiyi frowned. “It’s very dangerous for you to go to the production.”

“Should I not do it just because it’s dangerous?” Qin Luo was also afraid of danger, but Her Kill was at the cusp of the storm. “If a project worth over a hundred million is aborted, the number of people involved will probably be even greater.”

Shen Yiyi knew that she could not stop Qin Luo’s decision.

After thinking for a long time, she repeated that question. “Then what do you want to eat tonight?”

Qin Luo said perfunctorily, “Whatever.”

A single “whatever” had made Shen Yiyi feel stuffy. She was even more depressed than Qin Luo. She hadn’t even eaten her egg when she got to the office. She immediately called the case-handling department.

“Brother Feng, have you coordinated with the narcotics department about the drug matter? I’ve already synced it with the public security in my jurisdiction. There should be some feedback.”

Old Feng’s voice was like he had stayed up all night, yawning constantly. “Oh my, what a hassle.”

Hearing that the other was not in a good state, Shen Yiyi had a doubt in her heart. She called Lin Puping into her office.

Ever since he had embarrassed Shen Yiyi, Lin Puping had not dared to joke with the director as he had before. He had been working overtime every day to make up for his mistake.

“You’re on good terms with the boys from the case-handling department.”

Shen Yiyi had seen Little Lin play basketball with the boys from the criminal investigation team. It seemed that they had been interns in the same batch, and everyone knew who was whose apprentice.

Although the mistake Lin Puping had made was equivalent to her losing face, it was not the first or second time that Lin Puping had made a mistake. Shen Yiyi was used to losing face. But Lin Puping had his uses. Even if she was impatient, she had to speak to him nicely.

“Are you close to Old Feng’s apprentice?”

Lin Puping quickly distanced himself. “No, no, no. Director, I know we can’t reveal anything, so we’re not that close.”

“It’s fine if you’re not close.” Shen Yiyi opened the system and looked for Qi Yingjun’s case in the toxicology report. “You’ll get to know each other after playing basketball a few more times.”

“Uh…” Lin Puping did not understand the director’s meaning.

“The toxicology is done. There are some intersecting lines in the poisons of a few cases. I’m thinking that if this can be a breakthrough, it must be a major case. You can go and ask that kid and see who they’re interrogating in the case-handling department recently, and what they’ve found out. See if they have any thoughts on combining these few cases.”

Ah?! Was she asking him to be an undercover agent?

Shen Yiyi looked at the computer, double-clicked her mouse, and said slowly, “We can’t always be losing face, can we? We have to make progress.”

“Yes, yes, we have to make progress.” Lin Puping nodded vigorously. “I’ll ask him to play basketball tonight.”

“Alright.” Shen Yiyi pointed to the documents not far away. “Take this stack to the Institute of Criminal Science for Teacher Wang. You can go now.”

As soon as he left, Shen Yiyi immediately put on her police uniform and wanted to go to the duty room to look at the police dispatch log. She wanted to know who had been on the scene yesterday afternoon.

But just as she went downstairs, she happened to catch Little Li smoking in the security passage.

The two looked at each other, and Little Li was so scared he stomped out his cigarette.

Shen Yiyi said coldly, “You’re not on duty, and you’re smoking here?”

“I just came out of the lab. I’m so tired.” Little Li had known Shen Yiyi for a long time and was the same age as her, so he was not as reserved as a subordinate when he spoke. “My ears are sharp. I can rush in as soon as I hear a sound.”

Shen Yiyi did not waste time. “I’m asking you, were you on duty yesterday afternoon?”

Little Li waved his hand. “It wasn’t me. It was Brother Wang.”

“I’m talking about the Xin case.” Shen Yiyi had to confirm the case.

The police force all knew that Shen Yiyi had been on the Her Kill production. They didn’t need the director to emphasize to know what she wanted to ask. “It’s the victim who died on the production, right? Brother Wang went.”

Shen Yiyi wanted to confirm. “Was he electrocuted?”

“I saw Brother Wang go to the criminal investigation office yesterday. I heard that he was also stabbed, his throat was slit.”

Qin Luo had not heard about the detail of the victim’s throat being slit last night, which meant that the information had not spread that quickly.

Throat slit…

Shen Yiyi couldn’t get any case file information and had no way to judge, but what she could predict was that regardless of whether the killer was the same person, the public opinion had escalated the violence.

Did it have an entertainment attribute?
Did it have a performance attribute?

Three murders in a month and a half, not only could he avoid detection and leave no traces, but his speed was also gradually increasing.

Shen Yiyi suddenly turned and walked toward her office. Her heart felt as if it were suspended in the air. She sat back down on her stool with a jolt.

The killer in her mom’s case was also like this. According to her investigation over the years, her mom was not the first victim, but actually the third. Shen Yiyi had investigated the files of the other victims. The killer’s first cut was always on the collarbone, and then he would stab the chest to death. Because the weapons in the several cases were different, the victims’ residences were far apart, and the public security was poor, they had not been combined. But she firmly believed that the killer in her mother’s case must be a serial killer.

So, as long as the killer struck again, he would definitely show his true colors.

Assuming that Xin Wuzheng’s death was caused by a serial killer, then this throat-slitting would definitely expose the killer.