Someone once said: the most reasonable thing is the most unreasonable.

Yu Yan Qing appeared at the three crime scenes, killed people, wrote a suicide note, then committed suicide. In the room of her death, there was evidence to suggest she was the murderer.

This was the most reasonable conclusion.

However, because it was too perfect, it became unreasonable.

“Problem here is that we have no evidence,” Xing Cong Lian said.

They had no evidence that Yu Yan Qing was so afraid of death she wouldn’t dare commit suicide.

“I have no evidence, and I’m even pretty sure she did commit suicide,” Lin Chen said, folding the letter. “I just want to know how she overcame instinct and cut her own throat with a knife.” Lin Chen was silent for a moment, pondering his words. “Humans are always afraid of death, physically and psychologically. We all have very complex defense mechanisms. It isn’t easy to break through human nature and self-defense unless there is strong motivation behind it.”

“Isn’t it easy to die?” Cong Lian was puzzled. “When you put it that way, I just remembered. . . the forensic examiner said there was something wrong with her wounds.”

“What is it?”

“The depths vary, and there are new and old ones. She started self-harming early, making smaller cuts in areas that weren’t dangerous. They spread from her wrists to her chest, then the throat. . .” Cong Lian paused. “In the end, she cut her throat but didn’t die immediately. She struggled for a while before stabbing the knife into her heart.”

He stole a glance at Lin Chen.

Lin Chen’s head was tilted down, so he couldn’t see his face clearly.

The room was suspended in a state of impatient silence, and the sky outside was almost dark. Eventually, Cong Lian couldn’t keep himself from opening his mouth again.

He asked, “What does this mean?”

Lin Chen tidied up the papers on the ground and put the letters back into their respective envelopes. “This shows her determination to die. Her attitude was serious, and her will firm. This is very rare.”

Lin Chen’s reply was straightforward. Anyone who had seen it could come to the same conclusion.

Many people committed suicide because their lives were too painful, or they weren’t loved. In Yu Yan Qing’s case, she just seemed obsessed with death.

It was perfectly plausible that she laid under a corpse and killed just because of her love for death.

But everything still boiled back to that one word.

Why?

Lin Chen wiped his face. He didn’t understand.

“You say, what would one feel when they die?” Lin Chen asked after taking a deep breath.

“Wanna try?” answered Cong Lian with a laugh.

. . .

People kept death a secret, since ancient times.

It was too dangerous and too terrible. It represented the end of life. But sometimes, it exuded fascination, luring people to its embrace.

Xing Cong Lian stood next to Lin Chen under a Chinese lantern at a road junction.

The wind wasn’t strong now, and in the drizzle, the lamp was slightly blurred.

It was rush hour. The intersection was flooded with vehicles, roaring by and splashing water in every direction. People’s voices, car horns, engines, and countless other sounds melded into one, numbing one’s scalp.

“Are you ready?” Cong Lian asked.

Before Lin Chen could respond, he was yanked forward and plunged into traffic.

No sooner had he stepped into the road than he was blasted with headlights, and he bumped into the back of a car. Xing Cong Lian’s grip was too tight, and he couldn’t escape. He could only let himself be dragged along.

His shoulder hurt, but he couldn’t stop running. Every step he took was like evading death. A second after missing one car, another rushed up after it. The roar of engines was enough to burst his eardrums, and the wind was so loud it felt there were large hands pushing them into an abyss.

Leaping onto the median, Lin Chen almost fell headfirst into a row of pines.

Cong Lian stood in the bicycle lane, gasping, hand still holding Lin Chen’s tightly.

Behind them, many drivers still blared their horns. The closest was an Audi, and the driver lowered the window and shouted at them.

“Baby, how do you feel?” Cong Lian laughed, absolutely fearless.

Lin Chen tugged his hand free and looked back at him. “Now, I finally believe in one thing. . .”

“What is it?”

“You really do have foreign blood.”

. . .

As someone with Russian blood, Cong Lian was robust, and no matter how careful he was, Lin Chen was still roughed up. There was a scratch on his left leg, his waist was bruised, and he was somewhat unsteady on his feet.

When they returned to the school, Yu Yan Qing’s body had been moved, and Fu Hao was called in.

Knowing Cong Lian had taken Lin Chen on a death-courting trip, Fu Hao was pacing but jumped on the man the minute he saw him and admonished him.

After beating Cong Lian up, Professor Fu pulled Lin Chen over and attentively looked him over head-to-toe. His behavior was very motherly, “Brother, you should stay away from such people in the future. . .”

“He won’t die, but you can’t do this again. . .”

“Do you want to go to the hospital? It’s better to stay with me this evening. In case the wounds got inflamed, I can take care of you. . .”

“You live in a dormitory, aren’t you?” Cong Lian couldn’t stand his rapid-fire words anymore and exposed this proletariat.

“A single room hostel!”

“But your brother needs to move now, and his sand table won’t fit in your small room.”

Fu Hao, being a simple person, didn’t realize the problem. Instead, he rushed at Cong Lian and shouted, “Your place is small too!”

The captain just laughed, “But my family has many houses, ah.”

“Where’s your house?”

“Yan Jia Street.”

As a highly educated person, Fu was disgusted with this kind of talk. However, the educated man couldn’t fight with the hooligan, and because the policeman was the only with a car, the matter was settled by the time Cong Lian pulled over at Yan Jia Street.

In front of them was an old housing with worn-out white walls. Cong Lian waved his hand and asked Lin Chen, “Which do you want?”

In the back seat, the bottle Fu Hao trembled from the force of stopping himself from spitting out his drink.

“It seems you’ve bought the whole street?” Fu asked, mockingly.

“I thought it was a good place, so I bought it,” Xing Cong Lian’s answer was so plain, it even sounded reasonable, and no one could say anything in response.

The captain opened the trunk and carried out the luggage. Fu Hao quickly went over to Lin Chen and whispered, “Brother, men love to uphold their image. You’re the frank type, but let’s not say anything to destroy what he just said.”

Lin Chen nodded seriously.

When Cong Lian finished moving all of Lin Chen’s luggage, he ended up putting them in his old house, No. 6 Yan Jia Street.

His excuse was also appropriate: “The other houses haven’t been cleaned yet, and living together makes discussing the case convenient.”

Lin Chen and Fu Hao looked at each other and nodded.

It was dark, and the house didn’t have good lighting. Cong Lian set a lamp on an eight immortals table and served three bowls of roast beef noodles.

Fu could say nothing and only slurped his noodles with disappointment.

Cong Lian pulled out some ham sausages from a drawer and distributed it to each of them, appearing virtuous and magnanimous.

Lin Chen ripped open the plastic wrapping and took a bite without hesitation.

Fu Hao finally couldn’t help himself. He slapped the table with his palm, and the plastic fork in his hand was crushed to pieces. “Lao Xing, you know how cruel and bloody the crime scene was today, why are you feeding us roast beef noodles and ham?”

“Don’t be like this, Professor Fu. It’s just ham, the crime scene had no dismemberment or anything. . .” Xing Cong Lian tried to reason.

In the end, Fu Hao lost his appetite.

It started raining again. For a while, the only sound that filled the house was the sound of raindrops striking the roof tiles.

Fu Hao propped his head on his hand, looking at Lin Chen who sipped broth at his side, and suddenly said, “Brother, I don’t understand. Yu Yan Qing had a crush on you and even wrote so many letters. Why the sudden suicide?” He sniffed then added, “Why didn’t she kill you first, then commit suicide?”

“What did you say?” Lin Chen set down his bowl and turned to Fu Hao seriously.

Fu didn’t know what he had said that was wrong. He blinked then carefully repeated, “I said, why didn’t she kill you then commit suicide. . .”

Lin Chen looked at Cong Lian and said, “There’s something wrong here.”

Cong Lian nodded, knowing there certainly was a problem with this.

But, faced with Lin Chen’s burning gaze, he could only choke out, “Ah?”

“If a crime was committed by one person, no matter how chaotic, there must be an order to it. And I haven’t found the order in this case.” Lin Chen paused, stared at Cong Lian, then said, “Please get me a pen.”

Pen and paper were brought over to Lin Chen, who then pushed aside his bowl, and said to Fu Hao, “Repeat the case process.”

Fu Hao automatically responded, “First off, corpses at the hospital were found neatly dressed. The body of an old man was found in the shopping district shortly after. Then, a young man fell at the park, and finally, Yu Yan Qing committed suicide. . .”

Lin Chen wrote accordingly, and several keywords were jotted down on the paper.

Corpse → Corpse presentation → Murder → Suicide

These words were connected by arrows and placed in a circle.

Fu Hao looked at the writing and felt as if he had touched the core of the entire case but still lacked the most vital link.