The Brain Science Case 66

Chapter 66: Another Voice in the Brain – 3

Ring, ring, ring…

Lying in bed, Andrew Chomsky felt a splitting headache.

Had he eaten? It seemed so… no, why was he still so uncomfortable? He felt like a dying fish on the shore, not a professor about to give a speech, let alone the star athlete he had once been.

An athlete? How long ago was that?

Ring, ring, ring…

Opening his eyes, he managed to prop himself up. It took him a few seconds to confirm that it was the alarm clock he had brought with him.

It wasn’t tinnitus. The alarm clock showed 8:40. He reached out to turn it off, and in his carelessness, the alarm clock fell onto the hotel room carpet.

Chomsky staggered into the bathroom to wash up and judged the weather from the window. He hated the wet, cold winters here. If it weren’t for the invitation to give a speech, he thought he would never set foot on this small island.

After doing his best to make himself more comfortable, he came to the desk that served as his office, opened his computer, and saw the nutritional supplements in his briefcase. He probably hadn’t taken them today.

After swallowing one, Chomsky felt much better, even though it was just a psychological effect. The medicine wouldn’t work that fast.

After sitting down and reading a few lines of his speech, he opened his inbox to check his mail. There was nothing special, just a few emails from students.

But just before he logged out, he unexpectedly received another email. “This is…” he clicked on it, and when he saw the content, he trembled unexpectedly. He was shocked.

It was a picture of him drinking with a friend last night.

When was it taken?

Wait, this looked… like it was taken by someone right next to him.

Screech…

A familiar and unbearable piercing sound came from deep within his ears. Chomsky felt a strong wave of dizziness, and his staggering steps almost made him fall.

Then, the doorbell rang.

His phone seemed to ring twice, but he had no time to care. He stared at the door, his eyes bloodshot, and took out a self-defense weapon from his briefcase, one that Meta had prepared for him.

Glancing at the still-open email on his computer, he closed the screen and slowly walked to the door as if facing a great enemy.

**

In the international academic conference hall, filled with scholars and students, facing renowned neurologists and psychologists from all over the world, Tang Yingli knew that if she didn’t have a task at hand, this would be a great opportunity for her to reconnect with the academic circle.

Because of her agent training, she hadn’t been to an academic conference in a long time, which was why she had been willing to take on this guest professorship.

But now she couldn’t enjoy the atmosphere at all—Professor Chomsky had not yet arrived at the conference hall. This undoubtedly made her, who was already nervous, even more panicked.

She jumped back and forth between two chat windows. “Still no response…” The speech was about to start in less than twenty minutes.

She took her bag and went into the restroom, wet her slightly trembling fingertips, and brushed her hair back, checking her makeup in the mirror and instinctively reaching for that rose-colored lipstick.

It’s okay. Professor Chomsky is always on time. He must have been delayed by something, or his assistant would have reminded him. Trying to build up her confidence, she opened the lipstick and applied her favorite color.

She pursed her lips, and just as she was about to smile again, she unexpectedly met a pair of scrutinizing eyes from her left.

“Teacher?” Zeng Pingyun was overjoyed. “I thought I was mistaken. I’ve only ever seen you in long skirts in class.”

“Ah, it’s Pingyun. You’re here too.”

“Yes. You’re the translator, Teacher, and it’s a speech about criminal psychology. I had to come.” She smiled, and after a moment, she said, “You look so beautiful today, Teacher.”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Then I won’t bother you, Teacher. I’ll go in and get a good seat. Good luck, Teacher.”

Tang Yingli gave a wry smile. Simultaneous interpretation was very stressful.

But what was more worrying now was that she couldn’t contact the main speaker. She opened her phone again. 8:45.

And at that moment, the phone rang.

“Hello… it’s me.” It was the conference organizer. “Yes, I can’t get through.”

The situation became urgent, and Tang Yingli was instructed to go to Chomsky’s hotel to check. Fortunately, it was near the university, less than ten minutes from the conference hall.

She ran all the way in her high heels. Thanks to the cool weather, otherwise she would have looked even more disheveled.

Andrew Chomsky’s room was on the sixth floor, and his assistant was staying next door. To save time, she took the elevator straight up and immediately rushed to his room.

But on the way, she received another piece of news—his assistant, Ms. Meta Müller, was also unreachable.

Tang Yingli grew more and more uneasy. Arriving at room 613, she tried ringing the doorbell several times and called Chomsky’s phone number.

While the phone was ringing, she pressed her ear to the door, trying to listen for any sound that might be coming from inside the room.

This sound is… it doesn’t sound like a phone ringing.

“Are you… Charlotte?” an unexpected and familiar voice called out to her. She looked up and found that the person who had called her was Professor Miller. “It really is you. My god.”

Miller had been her master’s thesis advisor. “Teacher?” Tang Yingli was both surprised and happy, and in her extreme nervousness, she was hugged by Miller.

“What are you doing here? Are you looking for Andrew?”

“Yes. Have you seen Professor Chomsky, Teacher? I’ve been trying to contact him for almost thirty minutes.” The phone went to voicemail, and Tang Yingli hung up in frustration.

“We just went for a drink last night. There are a lot of good bars around here.” Miller turned to the other side. “Have you contacted Meta?”

She shook her head. “I can’t get through to her either.” Pressing her ear to the door again, the ringing was still there. “An alarm clock… it’s an alarm clock.”

“What did you say?” Miller, who didn’t understand Chinese, was confused.

“The alarm clock in the room is ringing… Teacher, can you please stay here? I’ll go find the hotel staff to open the door.” She glared at the door. “Professor Chomsky may be in some trouble.”

To be able to ask the linguistics expert Miller to guard the door, there was probably no one else but Tang Yingli.

“Yes, I’ll stay here. You go quickly.”

Five minutes later, Tang Yingli entered the room with a service staff member and a spare room card.

As soon as the door opened, the sound of the alarm clock became clearer, and the stagnant air indicated that the air conditioning was not on. And when the service staff inserted the room card and turned on the lights, what was waiting for the three of them was a veritable murder scene.

A woman was lying on the floor, the blood on the carpet still wet, and the window in the distance was open, with only the curtain drawn to provide some cover.

“Ah.”

“Meta… it’s Meta.” Amidst the service staff’s screams, Miller recognized the victim.

Tang Yingli rushed to check. “She still has a pulse. It’s very weak…” Quickly turning Meta Müller over, she saw a large gash on the left side of her neck, and blood was gushing out.

This wound… is not good. She pressed a handkerchief to it, and the gushing blood immediately soaked it. Müller’s shocked expression remained. “Ms. Müller, hold on.” She turned and shouted at the service staff, “Call an ambulance.”

Meta Müller’s mouth moved. Tang Yingli leaned down, trying to hear her last words, but they were mercilessly drowned out by the noisy alarm clock by the bed. In less than half a minute, she closed her eyes.

“Charlotte, Meta, she…” Looking at Miller, she shook her head helplessly.

Putting down the body, Tang Yingli turned off the alarm clock. The hands were pointing to 9:10.

She was confused for a moment and compared it to the digital clock on the bedside table, which perfectly displayed 9:00.

The time on her phone was the same as the digital clock. A ten-minute error… was there a special meaning to it?

But before she could think about the details, she had already made another call. “Hello? Chief Fang, it’s Tang Yingli…” she clearly stated the hotel location and room number, “there’s been a murder. The deceased is a woman, and the other male guest…”

She turned, her gaze fixed on the open window. “His whereabouts are currently unknown.”

**

Before the service vehicle had completely stopped, Zhou Jinglin had already opened the door and gotten out.

‘The teacher is in room 613.’ Fang Zijun informed her through the radio. ‘After you arrive, quickly seal the entrance and exit, and pay attention to whether there is a white male, around seventy years old, tall and strong…’

Jinglin took the elevator upstairs, leaving all her colleagues far behind. When she arrived at the room, besides two service staff members, there were more foreigners in suits, whispering to each other.

“Teacher.” She entered the scene and immediately saw the large, strange, rust-colored stain on Tang Yingli. “On you…”

“It’s Ms. Müller’s blood.” She had already put on gloves and was searching a large briefcase. The closet, refrigerator, and suitcase had all been opened, which showed that she had done a lot before the police arrived.

“The missing person is Professor Andrew Chomsky, seventy-one years old, specializing in criminal psychology and brain imaging research. He was already gone when we entered, and we only found Ms. Müller lying in a pool of blood.” She pointed to the female corpse on the floor. “I’ve done my best to restore the original state. The left jugular vein was cut by a sharp object, and she died of excessive blood loss.”

Jinglin turned on her voice recorder and at the same time wrote down the key points. “The room is in good condition, and his clothes, passport, and cash are still here, except for his phone.” She turned to the desk and grabbed a stack of papers. “The speech is here, and he didn’t take his computer… it doesn’t look like a premeditated crime.”

“Are there any signs of an intruder?”

“I haven’t found any yet. If you want to talk about an outsider, it would probably only be Ms. Müller, but she only got this far before she was grabbed from behind…” Tang Yingli demonstrated the posture of holding a knife in her right hand, grabbing the victim from behind, and cutting her left neck. “Her phone was left next door. I guess she was just coming over to wake Professor Chomsky up. The speech was scheduled for nine o’clock.”

Jinglin was taken aback. “The one you were in charge of?”

Tang Yingli’s eyes darkened, and she nodded. “Yes.”