Chapter 77: Suspicions

Before Song Changfeng and Aofeng entered, the police captain gave them a quick rundown of the situation. From what he said, they learned that earlier that evening, the power had gone out in the vacation villa for about half an hour. Upon inspection, the electrical box showed signs of deliberate sabotage, suggesting the killer had tampered with the power system beforehand. Unfortunately, the surveillance camera near the electrical box had broken down a few days ago, so there was no footage of who had done it.

Additionally, the hallways outside the guest rooms were all equipped with surveillance cameras, but once the power went out, those systems shut down automatically. The victim, Liu Fei, had been killed during that half-hour window. All signs pointed to this being a premeditated murder.

However, when the surveillance system was initially installed, contingencies had been considered. Each villa’s front door camera was equipped with a USB backup power supply, so even during a blackout, it could still record who entered or exited.

The police had immediately reviewed the footage from the front door. After watching it, they were left with one bad piece of news and one good one. The bad news was that the footage showed no one leaving the villa from the moment the power went out until the technician arrived to fix it. That meant they couldn’t identify the killer from the footage.

The good news was that since no one had left, the killer was still inside the villa. With enough time, they were bound to find the culprit and bring them to justice. That was why the officer at the door had said that having a police dog would speed things up.

…

Because the incident had happened so suddenly, the body was still lying at the scene, untouched. Once everyone inside had cleared out, Song Changfeng led Aofeng into the room.

The first thing they saw was a shocking splash of red. Aofeng glanced at it, then quickly turned his head away. This was probably his first time seeing a real murder victim. During training at the base, the test scenarios used mannequins and animal blood. Knowing it was fake, he had never felt fear.

But now, a once-living person lay motionless in a pool of blood. It was hard for Aofeng, who had once been human, not to feel a pang of sorrow.

Still, he quickly adjusted his mindset and forced himself to look again. After all, he would likely encounter scenes like this many times in the future.

Once he had calmed down, Aofeng began carefully sniffing the air inside the room. The strongest scent was, of course, blood. Aside from that, there were traces of sulfur and medicinal aromas, likely left behind from when the victim had been soaking in the hot spring. The resort specialized in these therapeutic baths, which were a major draw for guests.

There was also a faint smell of alcohol in the room—not the sterile scent of rubbing alcohol, but more like a type of red wine. Aofeng, fighting his discomfort, moved closer to the victim’s mouth and sniffed. There was no alcohol on his breath, meaning the wine had probably gotten on him while drinking with someone else.

Since the wine scent hadn’t been washed away by the hot spring, it meant Liu Fei had bathed first, then drank afterward.

So who had been drinking with Liu Fei?

According to the resort’s registration records, Liu Fei had checked in alone. Surveillance footage from earlier that morning confirmed this.

If Aofeng could later detect the scent of alcohol on someone else, it would be reasonable to suspect that person might be involved.

Aofeng made another round through the room, sniffing carefully. Unfortunately, too many people had already been through the scene, leaving behind a jumble of overlapping scents. There was no way to distinguish which one might belong to the killer.

…

Meanwhile, the police had finished questioning everyone who had been in the villa during the time of the incident. There were six rooms in total.

The first room was occupied by a livestreamer who claimed he had been broadcasting the whole time. He had even complained about the power outage during the stream, and his viewers could vouch for him. After the power came back on, he heard screaming outside and stepped out to take a look.

The second and third rooms had been booked by four female college students. Before the power went out, they had been playing mahjong¹ in one of the rooms. After the blackout, they said they stayed inside and took turns telling ghost stories, making use of the spooky atmosphere.

The fourth room was occupied by a family of three—a mother, father, and their two-year-old child. They said they had already gone to sleep when the power went out and didn’t even hear the screaming outside. It was the police knocking on their door that woke them up.

The fifth room belonged to a middle-aged man with a large belly. He told the police that he had been lying in bed watching short videos on his phone during the outage and hadn’t left the room.

The sixth room was occupied by a beautiful woman with a gentle demeanor. She told the police that she had been doing yoga along with a video on her phone at the time of the incident. She even pulled up the video to show the officers.

As for the remaining people, they were all resort staff, including Song Changfeng’s mother. During the blackout, they had been in a meeting room. Since the door operated with a keycard system and couldn’t be opened without power, they had no opportunity to commit the crime.

That meant the real killer had to be among the guests staying in one of those six rooms.

The captain reviewed all the statements, then set them aside. For someone who had planned this murder so meticulously, it was foolish to expect them to slip up easily.

“Comrade Song Changfeng, did you and your police dog discover anything?”

Naturally, Song Changfeng hadn’t found anything. The scene had already been thoroughly searched by the police. If he found something now, it would imply the others hadn’t done their jobs properly.

But clues weren’t limited to physical evidence. Song Changfeng looked at Aofeng, who immediately lay down near the victim and looked up at him—clearly, he had picked up on something.

“Aofeng seems to have caught a scent. Could we take a look at the others?” Song Changfeng asked.

“Of course,” the captain replied, then ordered everyone to be gathered in the main hall, including Song’s mother and the others who had been in the meeting.

The dozen or so people who were called out wore a mix of expressions—some impatient, some nervous, others confused. They didn’t quite understand why they were being called out again when they had already been questioned earlier.

When Song Changfeng arrived with Aofeng, he immediately spotted his mother among the crowd. She stood on the opposite side from the guests, alongside the staff of the villa. Her usually expressionless face now showed signs of anxiety and helplessness. She had never imagined that such an ordinary night could take such a turn.

It wasn’t the right time for Song Changfeng to go over and comfort her, so he simply brought Aofeng along and had him sniff each person one by one.

The first person Aofeng approached was the livestreamer. He looked rather timid, and when he saw the large, fierce-looking German Shepherd heading straight for him, his face went pale with fear.

Aofeng didn’t get too close. Instead, he stopped about half a meter away and began sniffing from there. The man’s scent wasn’t particularly muddled—aside from the sulfur and herbal smell left from the hot spring, there was a strong aroma of food. Aofeng quickly determined that the man had eaten a lot of fried chicken and ramen earlier. With such a strong scent, if he had come into contact with someone else, the smell would have transferred. But the victim clearly didn’t carry this scent, which meant this man likely had nothing to do with the incident.

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Translator’s Notes

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1. mahjong: A popular tile-based strategy game. In China, it is a ubiquitous social pastime often played for hours during gatherings, serving as a primary way for friends or students to bond. ↩