"The deceased, Siao Yang, male, 18 years old."
"He was a senior at Qingcheng High School."
"His initial attribute total score at the time of admission was as high as 10, tsk tsk, only slightly inferior to yours, Team Gu. What a pity to lose such a promising young man!"
Gu Sinan snorted coldly, "Old Xu, get to the point."
Xu Zhiyong wasn't offended and continued, "According to the preliminary investigation, livor mortis had spread on the body, suggesting that the time of death was after school last night, that is, between 19:00 and the early morning. The more precise time of death may have to wait for the forensic examination results."
Gu Sinan nodded.
Xu Zhiyong squatted down, his expression gradually becoming calm, his voice steady, as steady as Old Dog.
"The cause of death should be the stab wound on the neck, killed with a single cut, clean and neat. There are no signs of struggle at the scene; it looks like the killer is an old hand, and very likely a... professional. Otherwise, given the deceased's attributes and assuming he kept up with his training, it would not have been possible for him to be killed instantly without any reaction."
"There are no other findings at the scene, and no signs that the body was moved. The pattern of blood spatter wasn't interrupted either; this place is undoubtedly the original crime scene."
"Was the scene a locked room?" Gu Sinan asked slowly, looking around.
Xu Zhiyong let out a light sigh, "You could say it was, or you could say it wasn't. The victim lived alone year-round; his parents weren't around. That door lock was mere a third-level security algorithm; even our people could crack the password with ordinary equipment in just 12 minutes. If the murderer came prepared, that door lock would be virtually useless to them."
"Good!" Without another word, Gu Sinan directed those on the scene, "Everyone, search carefully for any corners where the killer might have left traces."
"Yes, Team Gu!"
"Old Xu, who reported the crime?"
"There, in that corner, supposedly a classmate of the victim."
Xu Zhiyong pointed toward an inner corner of the room.
Following the direction indicated by Xu Zhiyong, Gu Sinan saw a seemingly "ordinary" high school student buried in the crowd.
His ordinary appearance made it easy for people to inadvertently overlook him.
The high school student looked somewhat ill at ease; upon seeing Gu Sinan looking in his direction, he shrank back into the crowd like a "startled bird."
The sharp-intuited Gu Sinan read this information from the brief encounter.
...
...
"Name?"
"Yi Lin."
"Gender?"
"?"
"Gender?" Seeing Yi Lin looking down and not answering, Gu Sinan raised her voice and asked again.
"Male..."
"Age."
"18."
"Were you the first to discover the body? How did you have the code to the victim's door lock? What was your relationship with the victim?" Gu Sinan asked three questions in rapid succession like a machine gun.
"Well..." Yi Lin was slightly stunned, then pointed at Xu Zhiyong, who looked resigned, and whispered, "Uncle just asked me all of this a moment ago."
Xu Zhiyong's eyelid twitched, slightly unable to bear it, stopping Gu Sinan who was about to erupt, "Team Gu, I have already checked this student. He was a classmate of the victim and close to the victim before his death. He's the honest and sincere type in the eyes of his classmates. His parents work abroad most of the time, and there are no issues with his identity."
Pausing for a moment, Xu Zhiyong handed a tablet to Gu Sinan and continued, pointing to the content on it, "As for why he came to the victim's house, it was because the victim did not attend school all day, and the homeroom teacher asked him to check on the victim... I've also confirmed with the victim's teacher, and indeed, there was such an occurrence. Hm, there are no suspicious points."
Upon hearing this, Gu Sinan uttered a light yelp, then fixed her gaze directly on Yi Lin, remaining silent.
She was very clear about what the "suspicious points" Xu Zhiyong mentioned referred to.
In many classic murder cases, the murderer, to divert suspicion from themselves, often does the opposite; they take the initiative to discover the body and involve themselves in the case.
Such tactics might have worked in the early last century.
But now, this has become a routine thoroughly understood by every criminal investigator.
Humph, this is the very first lesson in the criminal investigators' course on countering routines.
One second.
Three seconds.
Yi Lin averted his gaze.
"Afraid to look me in the eyes? Got a ghost in your heart?" Gu Sinan's eyes lit up.
"No." Yi Lin shook his head.
"Then why don't you dare to look me in the eyes?" Gu Sinan took a step forward, closing in on Yi Lin.
Yi Lin was silent for a moment, then suddenly turned her head and asked the young police officer closest to her, "Are you afraid of her?"
"Afraid, ah no no no, not afraid, not afraid," the young officer first blurted out his true feelings, but immediately gave an embarrassed smile and corrected himself.
Gu Sinan: "..."
Xu Zhiyong: "..."
"Well, if there's nothing for me here, I'll go look elsewhere." Feeling the awkwardness in the air, the young officer who realized he had spoken out of turn wished he could slap himself a few times and quickly made an excuse to slip away.
"Heh." Yi Lin suddenly let out a sigh, then smiled helplessly, "All right, I'll tell the truth."
Gu Sinan was slightly stunned.
Even Xu Zhiyong, an experienced veteran detective, was caught off guard by the sudden change in Yi Lin's tone.
He thought to himself, could it be that he misjudged the situation?
"The truth is, I was never really Siao Yang's good friend." Yi Lin looked towards Siao Yang's body not far away, "All he did was take advantage of the fact that his total attributes were much higher than mine, always having me run errands, do his homework. In other classmates' eyes, I might be his good friend, but in reality, Siao Yang never treated me as a friend. I was very clear about that. How could someone like me, with just ordinary attributes, be worthy of being friends with a genius?"
Her voice carried a note of desolation and sorrow, along with a touch of helplessness towards reality.
"Since you weren't on good terms with the deceased, why did you come to see him?"
Gu Sinan quickly thought of a question that arose from the information Xu Zhiyong had provided earlier.
Yi Lin remained silent, only to pull out a completed history assignment from the backpack behind her and hand it to Gu Sinan.
"Firstly, it was an order from the homeroom teacher. Secondly... I had to return the assignment to him." Pausing, Yi Lin gave a bitter smile, "If I had known in advance that... this kind of thing would happen, not even if you killed me would I have come here at such a time."
Upon hearing this, Gu Sinan casually flipped through a few pages of the neatly written history assignment, silent, lost in thought.
At that moment, another officer came over with a tablet the size of a palm.
"Team Gu, the footage stored by the AI Housekeeper has been downloaded."
"Good!"
Gu Sinan wasted no words and directly started to review the footage recorded by the AI Housekeeper.
From Siao Yang coming home...
Exercising...
Then a girl came in partway...
And then some indescribable things happened...
"Tsk tsk tsk." Xu Zhiyong instantly assumed the knowing look of an old hand.
Gu Sinan shot Xu Zhiyong a fierce glare, then pressed hard on the screen with her finger, fast-forwarding, fast-forwarding, fast-forwarding, finally skipping past the inappropriate scenes and continuing to watch.
Siao Yang entering the gym...
Until 22:18.
The footage abruptly cut off.
"Team Gu, I just went to check, and there was an electrical fault in the complex starting at 22:18. But now it looks like the culprit cut the power supply, so there's nothing after that," the young officer explained, as if harboring some frustration about the situation.
"There's no backup power?"
"The AI Housekeeper is just a domestic model. Generally, domestic AI Housekeepers don't come with a backup power supply," the young officer stated matter-of-factly.
...
When the footage reappeared, the time was 23:49.
Siao Yang had become a cold corpse.
Aside from Siao Yang's body, there was no trace of the murderer in the room.
Gu Sinan watched expressionlessly, quickly forwarding the footage until Yi Lin entered the room and discovered the body.
"What about the surveillance in the complex?"
"We've already sent someone to retrieve it as quickly as possible, although we will probably have to go back to the station to analyze it," was the response.
"The forensic investigator?"
Xu Zhiyong checked the time, "Should be here in about 20 minutes."
"Ten minutes."
"..."