New River Bay.
Two police cars pulled up one after another, and Han Fei and his team got out.
Looking at the visibly luxurious villa complex before them, Chen Ke exclaimed in surprise.
"Damn... Xu Mo really knows how to live it up. Driving fancy cars and living in a villa, looks like he's raked in quite a bit of money from the TV show."
Not just fancy cars and villas - he was embracing a beautiful woman last night too! Han Fei thought to himself.
The group approached the entrance, explained their purpose, and showed their credentials to the security guard.
The guard at the gate immediately opened the door and let them through.
They made their way to the specific address Xu Mo had provided.
The group arrived in front of one of the villas.
At that moment, Xu Mo was waiting in front of the villa where he had discovered the body.
Seeing Han Fei bringing people over, he immediately waved his hand twice: "Over here!"
Han Fei jogged a couple steps, leading the remaining four people to Xu Mo.
"It's this building, the body is inside. If you look through the third pane of glass on the left, you can see it," Xu Mo pointed at the villa directly across from him.
Chen Ke looked in the direction Xu Mo was pointing, peering through the window for about ten seconds before he could make out the body Xu Mo had mentioned.
Though his eyesight wasn't as good as Xu Mo's,
He could see it clearly if he looked carefully.
By now, the other four had also seen it clearly.
Xu Mo was right... there really was a dead person!
Han Fei stepped forward and rang the villa's doorbell.
But after waiting for over half a minute, there was still no response.
"Looks like there's no one else inside, it might just be the deceased person," Han Fei said. "Let's call a locksmith to open the door so we can take a look inside."
Chen Ke took out his phone, preparing to call a locksmith.
"Why bother with a locksmith? No need to make it so complicated. Waiting for a locksmith would take forever, it's a waste of time. I can open this door myself," Xu Mo suddenly spoke up.
The next second, Xu Mo reached into his pocket and pulled out a wire.
This digital lock had two ways of opening.
One was to enter the correct password.
The second was to use a key, mainly as a backup in case the digital lock ran out of battery.
Xu Mo didn't know the password, so naturally he went for the second method.
He twisted the wire a couple times, shaping it as needed, then inserted it into the keyhole and turned. The door opened.
The whole process took less than two seconds!
The others were left dumbfounded.
Those who knew Xu Mo was a police officer understood.
Those who didn't might have thought he was some kind of master thief!
His lock-picking skills were far too practiced...
Previously, when participating in the TV show, Han Fei and Chen Ke only knew that Xu Mo could pick locks.
But none of them imagined that Xu Mo's technique would be so skilled that he could open a door in two seconds!
It's a good thing Xu Mo became a police officer.
If he were a thief, he definitely wouldn't be some unknown petty criminal.
He'd absolutely be on the level of a master burglar!
With Xu Mo's lock-picking speed, he could probably empty out an entire neighborhood in one night...
Xu Mo completely failed to notice the strange expressions on everyone's faces. He put on shoe covers and walked straight into the villa.
The body wasn't in the living room on the first floor, but in the master bedroom on the ground floor.
This was what they had seen through the window earlier.
Xu Mo headed directly for that bedroom without the slightest hesitation.
At this point, Han Fei was squinting as he scrutinized Xu Mo's back.
He had originally thought Xu Mo's lock-picking skills were just rudimentary, the kind where it would take half a day to open a lock.
But he never expected that Xu Mo could pick locks as if it were child's play.
Taking less than two seconds to open a lock, this speed was even more impressive than those so-called lock-picking experts he had seen before.
He was well aware that the skills Xu Mo possessed were far more than just lock-picking. There was also disguise, hacking, car racing, boxing, forensics, and so on. He seemed to be capable of almost everything, and was highly proficient in each skill...
Han Fei was puzzled.
Where did Xu Mo find the time to learn so many skills?!
And to master them all so well!
Arriving at the bedroom, Xu Mo reached out and turned the doorknob.
He found that the door was locked from the inside... It couldn't be opened from the outside at all.
Someone had died inside, but the door was closed.
Suicide?
No, that's not right. When they looked through the window earlier, based on the scene inside, it was clear this wasn't a suicide, but a homicide.
A locked room murder? These four words immediately popped into Xu Mo's mind.
"What's wrong? Open the door," Han Fei, who had caught up, was confused when he saw Xu Mo put his hand on the doorknob but not open it.
Xu Mo released the doorknob and stepped back. It wasn't that he didn't want to open it, he simply couldn't!
"This door is locked from the inside."
"Locked from inside?" Han Fei didn't believe it and tried turning the knob a couple times himself, but it didn't open. "It really seems to be locked from inside..."
"The door is locked from inside? Is it suicide?" Wang Dachuan instinctively asked.
Han Fei didn't answer his question, but instead looked at Chen Ke beside him, then back at the bedroom door.
Chen Ke immediately understood Han Fei's meaning.
He took a small step back.
Then he kicked the door hard several times, forcibly breaking open the locked door.
After kicking open the locked door, the group entered the room.
Xu Mo put on gloves, turned the body over, and took a quick look.
"The deceased is female, probably around 50 years old. Based on the distribution of lividity, body temperature, and the degree of rigor mortis, the time of death was approximately four to five hours ago. This is close to my earlier estimate. I haven't found any obvious fatal wounds on the body yet. The cause of death might be poisoning, but we'll need to do a toxicology test to determine exactly what kind of poison it was, if any. It's impossible to tell just by looking."
"Four to five hours ago... It's now 8:20 AM," Han Fei said. "So that means the time of death was somewhere between 3 and 4 AM."
"Captain Han, is it possible this was a suicide by poison?" Chen Ke looked at Han Fei, unsure of his own judgment.
Han Fei rubbed his chin, looking at the body on the floor. "There are no fatal wounds, if the cause of death really is poisoning, then both suicide and homicide are possibilities."
He then asked Xu Mo: "What do you think, Xu Mo?"
Xu Mo answered without any hesitation, with absolute certainty: "It's not suicide, it's homicide."
Hearing this, Han Fei's eyes immediately lit up.
He believed that Xu Mo's quick and confident response meant he must have discovered something!
"Why are you so certain?"
"My intuition," Xu Mo replied.
Han Fei: "..."
Chen Ke: "..."