Song Yang and Wang Dali returned to the room where the murder had taken place. I looked up at the ceiling and saw some faint stains, just as I had expected!
Since the victim's body was still lying on the bed, I couldn't step on the corpse. So I asked Wang Dali to bring a ladder over. Then I took a bottle of alcohol and a cotton swab from the forensic team's toolbox.
Soon Wang Dali brought over the ladder and set it up. Wang Dali asked puzzledly, "Yang Zi, what are you going to do?"
"You'll see in a moment," I said.
I climbed up the ladder and used the alcohol-soaked cotton swab to gently wipe the stains on the ceiling. The alcohol dissolved the stains, then evaporated, leaving them on the cotton swab - this was also how forensics collected liquid evidence.
I held the cotton swab under my nose and sniffed it, then had Wang Dali sniff it too. He shook his head, "I don't smell anything."
"No, this is eel blood. Someone sprayed it on the ceiling to attract bats," I said, looking up at the ceiling again. "Wait, the pattern looks like it was sprayed on with a water gun or something..."
"Song Yang, come over here!" Huang Xiaotao called from another room.
We went into that room. Huang Xiaotao had made some discoveries - she had spotted something in the surveillance footage from the day before in the same room. A figure dressed like a cleaning lady and wearing a mask had sneakily come in, nailed something to the wall, then took out a water gun and sprayed some liquid at the ceiling.
I recounted how I had just found eel blood on the ceiling, and laughed, "Bats are naturally drawn to blood, especially the smell of eel blood. This is why the bats were attracted here!"
"This is enough to prove the killer was human, not some vampire."
Xiao Zhou's face flushed red then white as he said, "Maybe the vampire's power to summon bats is made up, but everything else is real - reality is always different from legends."
I could see Xiao Zhou had insisted all along the killer was a vampire, even when he bet with me earlier. Since he was so stubbornly clinging to this belief, I decided to fight fire with fire: "If he was a vampire, then the bitten corpse should not be lying there neatly for us to examine - it would have risen as a zombie to attack us already. Isn't that reason enough?"
"What do you mean?" Xiao Zhou asked.
"You must have heard the legend that vampires can't be photographed or look in mirrors? So the camera shouldn't have captured him either."
Xiao Zhou stammered, "That legend could be false too!"
Wang Dali couldn't help but say, "If that's false and this is false, then are the books you read false too?"
Xiao Zhou flushed with embarrassment and argued, "Camera and mirror technology works differently than photography - maybe cameras can capture a vampire's image!"
I said, "If he really was a vampire, then the bitten corpse would not be lying there for us to examine - it would have likely risen as a zombie to attack us already. Is that sufficiently convincing?"
Xiao Zhou finally conceded, "Alright, I admit this killer was not a vampire, but vampires do exist in this world!"
I thought to myself - if real vampires existed with their immortality, humankind would have been wiped out long ago.
Huang Xiaotao stared at the footage with knit brows, "Can this image be enlarged?"
The timid server said, "It's not a high-end camera, there's no such function."
Huang Xiaotao asked me, "Song Yang, notice anything?"
I stared at the screen, "This cleaning lady is likely the killer's accomplice, late forties to early fifties, about 80 kg, medium build. Judging by his movements he seems quite skilled - spraying eel blood on the ceiling, he must have known the hidden cameras were there from the start."
"He must be a criminal himself to know all this!" Huang Xiaotao said.
The older man calmly speculated, "Maybe he used to work at a hotel - small, unlicensed hotels like this often hide cameras behind mirrors and TVs."
"Also, he has had a stroke before," I added.
Everyone was shocked. Huang Xiaotao asked, "How can you tell? Do your eyes have X-ray vision?"
I smiled modestly, "Of course not, the clues are in this video footage - see for yourselves!"
Huang Xiaotao rewound and watched the video twice more, shaking her head, "Song Yang, I really don't have your eye for detail - give me a hint?"
The older man frowned, "I noticed he walked with a bit of a limp - is that it?"
I held up one finger, "That's the first clue, but just that alone doesn't prove anything. There's also this..."
I took the remote and rewound a bit. When the cleaning man came in, he casually leaned the broom against the wall. I pointed to his left wrist, "See how his left sleeve doesn't cover his wrist?"
"So?" Huang Xiaotao asked.
I fast forwarded a bit more to when he took the water gun out of his right pocket, pausing it, "Now look at his right hand - the sleeve covers even the back of his hand. This means his left and right arms are different lengths! It's a post-stroke condition."
Xiao Zhou shook his head, "Not necessarily - maybe the outfit just didn't fit right, and the sleeves were different lengths."
I said, "While possible, isn't it more likely to be a post-stroke condition combined with his limping gait?"
Everyone seemed convinced. Huang Xiaotao admired, "You're right, I'm starting to really doubt you're just an ordinary college student..."
Wang Dali waved his hand in front of my eyes, "Bro, how do you have such good vision? We all missed it but you caught it."
I smiled modestly - recognizing medical conditions was basic knowledge for a detective after all.
Knowing these characteristics would make finding the accomplice much easier. Soon Huang Xiaotao pulled up the hotel's check-in records.
The cleaning man was Zhao Tieniu, a 50-year old farmer from a small village near the city.
From the clues we had, Zhao had booked a room for two nights under his own ID beforehand. Then he disguised himself as a cleaning man and tampered with things. The next day, the killer came with the victim, killed them, leaving no trail since he never checked in.
Also, the hallway security camera had been shifted to an odd angle that day - the careless hotel staff never noticed, so the killer's face was not captured. Huang Xiaotao suspected this was also Zhao's doing.
But I noticed some discrepancies and said to Huang Xiaotao, "That's weird - if the accomplice disguised himself to avoid being seen, why did he use his own ID to book the room?"
"You mean..."
"The ID must be fake!" I said.
"In any case, it's a lead..." Huang Xiaotao told a cop, "Xiao Xu, go check household registrations for someone named Zhao Tieniu."
Then to me she said, "I'll have Wang Yuanchao drive you and Dali back to school."
"Wang Yuanchao?" I was puzzled.
She meant the strong, silent older man. Huang Xiaotao explained with a laugh, "Inspector Wang was a commander in the special forces before being transferred to criminal investigation because of an injury - don't let his stoic exterior fool you, he's extremely capable! I'll send him to escort you on cases from now on, you're too valuable to the team to take any risks."
"Much appreciated," I said to the man, "Inspector Wang, thanks for your help."
Wang Yuanchao only nodded curtly in response.
Wang Dali slapped Wang Yuanchao on the back, "At first I thought you were just some regular uncle, but you were a commander, huh? Your kung fu must be awesome! Lin Chong of Water Margin was also a commander of 800,000 imperial troops, right?"
Xiao Zhou said, "Chief Huang, didn't you get it wrong? Wasn't Inspector Wang demoted to cop because he disobeyed orders and took out 16 drug lords?"
Wang Dali opened his mouth wide and slowly moved his hand away from Wang Yuanchao's body. Huang Xiaotao glared at Xiao Zhou with an expression that said "Why did you have to go and bring that up?".
Wang Yuanchao waved his hand casually: "It's all in the past."
I couldn't help but look at Wang Yuanchao with a bit more awe. This older guy looked like an iceberg, but apparently had a fiery heart. Judging by his gloomy demeanor, he might even have violent tendencies.
We returned to the murder scene. As usual, I burned some paper for the deceased and recited a verse to help their soul pass on before the police came to collect the body.
Huang Xiaotao clapped her hands: "Alright, it's already 3 am. Let's all go get some rest. We'll have a case discussion meeting at 8 am tomorrow morning. Anyone late will have their bonus docked!"
I asked: "Do I need to come too?"
"You must come!"
"But you won't dock my bonus if I'm late, right?" I weakly asked.
Huang Xiaotao clenched her delicate little fist tightly: "Just try being late!"