When A Snail Falls In Love

Chapter 39

The trees' shadow was swaying outside the window, the bright villa was extremely quiet. Xu Xu looked up to see Ji Bai's dark black eyes, she slowly said: "Firstly, according to the latest forensic results, Zi Xi died in the time frame from 9 to 11 o'clock. Images from the surveillance cameras on the road showed that Zhang Shiyong arrived at the villa at 12 o'clock, so he isn't the perpetrator. Based on the content of the text message and the clothes he didn't manage to destroy, his statement can be trustworthy, Zhang Shiyong really was lured to the villa.

Next, Ye Qiao also isn't the culprit. Based on the surveillance cameras and her statement, she was at the scene for less than an hour. In such a short time, a woman like her can't possibly complete a series of actions which included murder, sabotaging the security monitoring system, stabbing into the victim several times, cleaning up the crime scene. Moreover, it also doesn't explain the different types of stab wounds on the victim's body. It isn't because Shiyong came and stabbed her a few more times. According to the surveillance cameras on the road, when he arrived, Ye Qiao had already left. Where can he find a paper knife within this isolated mountain in the middle of the night?"

Once we find that two people who appeared at the scene around the time of the murder aren't the culprits, then we need to revisit the original hypothesis to see where we went wrong.

We predicted Ye Zi's time of death based on forensic results and the text message asking for help sent from her phone at 22:17. But from Ye Qiao's statement, she said it was very cold that night, but the air conditioning was on. This is very strange, it's spring now, even if someone is turning on the air conditioning, then it should be towards warm, why did Ye Qiao have the impression that it was cold? Low temperature may alter the body's time of the death. Thus, there is a high probability that Ye Zi died before 9 o'clock.

In addition, Ye Qiao said, she had heard the sound of the microwave while coming inside the house. But that night, Ye Zi Xi had made salad and Sushi, she didn't need to use the microwave. Perhaps what she heard wasn't the noise from the microwave, but it was from the sound of a message getting sent successfully. I went to find out, recently, mobile phones can install applications that could set timer for a message to be sent. If the perpetrator has a high level IT skill, they can even download a virus, which after finishing sending the message, the application can immediately be removed. That would not leave any trace. Therefore, it is likely that the culprit set the time to send the message and turned on the air conditioning to decrease the room temperature. Using simultaneously these two strategies, it would disrupt the time of death. Unfortunately, Ye Qiao took away the cellphone when she came to the crime scene.

If this hypothesis is established, we need to investigate the alibis of the suspects before 10 o'clock. According to their statements, there is only the eldest son, Ye Qiang, and the eldest daughter, Ye Jin. These two also fit our descriptions of the killers. As for Ye Qiao, I think she either saw her brother's car or saw them on their way to the scene, or that she guessed who the culprit is, hence she intends to be the scapegoat for her elder brother and sister. When she arrived, Zi Xi should have been dead."

After Xu Xu finished her presentation, in her calm eyes there were hidden confidence and expectation to be recognized.

Ji Bail smiled: "Not bad. Actually, at the very beginning, I also suspected them. A person who's capable of cleaning up the scene so perfectly will inevitably be able to create alibis for themselves. However, you missed the most important point."

Xu Xu was stunned.

Ji Bai said: "Where's the evidence? All the things you've talked about just are speculations, where's the evidence for prosecuting them?"