Boss Dong, whose full name was Dong, was the boss of a club. He was 40 years old, unmarried, and owned multiple businesses. One of them was a high-end club in Peace City called Jin Cui Hua Palace.
Three days ago, he was found dead in a luxury suite at the club. His head was badly injured. The murder weapon was a ceramic art piece in the room that had shattered into pieces.
Suspect Tan's fingerprints were found on the shards.
The report time was 11:12 PM. The person who reported the case was the club manager. He said the victim had told him that if a certain VIP comes tonight, he needs to go greet them.
When the manager knocked on the door, he heard the sound of breaking porcelain. There seemed to be an argument inside. Then suddenly, it became quiet.
Worried, the manager found the head of security and knocked again. Still no response.
Finally, they decided to force open the lock. Upon entering, they discovered the victim lying on the floor with a bleeding head wound. The suspect was sitting on the sofa, expression blank. Thus they called the police.
The police arrived at the scene at 11:40 PM and began routine investigations. They also detained the suspect, Tan.
According to Tan himself, he was one of Boss Dong's lovers. He received a call from Boss Dong tonight to meet at the club.
He arrived at 8:40 PM, chatted with some friends, and entered the suite to get ready around 9:30 PM.
Around 10:05 PM, Boss Dong, quite drunk, entered the suite after a gathering downstairs.
Tan said the victim was not very drunk then and still quite conscious. They had intimate relations. Afterwards, the victim suggested drinking, but after a few sips, Tan felt extremely uncomfortable, thinking he was going to die.
In panic, he seemed to have knocked something over and then lost consciousness.
He didn't know how much time had passed before he slowly woke up and tried to call for help. But upon entering the living room, he saw the body on the floor. Thinking they were both plotted against, his first reaction was to leave the room. However, his body had not fully recovered and his legs felt weak, so he decided to grab the phone on the sofa instead.
Just then, the door opened and the manager and head of security charged in.
After being arrested, Tan kept denying that he was the murderer and insisted that he was innocent.
The coroner then conducted an autopsy.
The autopsy report confirmed that the head wound was the fatal injury. Its shape matched the broken ceramic pieces. Time of death was within an hour, between 10:40-11:10 PM.
During this timeframe, only the suspect and victim were in the room.
When Jian Jing saw this, she couldn't help but flip to the back: "Is there a layout of the scene?"
"No," Ji Feng drew a simple sketch for her on a white paper. "Let me explain. Although the scene was a bustling club, according to investigations, the floor the victim was on was the top level. It requires a special elevator that needs card access. People from outside can't get in."
Jian Jing asked, "Were there surveillance cameras?"
"No cameras in this kind of place," Ji Feng said. "Among the people at the club that night, only six could access that floor, including Tan. The others were the manager, head of security, secretary, accountant, and business manager."
He sketched the layout.
Suite...Office...Elevator
Lounge...
The manager, head of security, and business manager would rest in the lounge when not patrolling. The secretary and accountant shared an office.
But their suspicions were small because it was a locked room murder.
The door was locked from inside so even with a key, it couldn't be opened from outside. The police also checked for secret passages but found none. The windows were floor-to-ceiling but could only open a small crack for ventilation that not even a fat cat could fit through.
This made Tan not only the most suspicious, but the only suspect.
Jian Jing asked, "You don't think he's the murderer?"
"I didn't say that," Ji Feng corrected. "I've repeatedly emphasized to him that showing remorse would lead to lighter sentencing, yet he still insists on innocence."
Jian Jing nodded. "It is quite strange."
Generally, with evidence clearly laid out, resistance would be pointless. Pleading guilty for lighter sentencing made more sense. A case with such clear-cut circumstances where the suspect stubbornly denies guilt would make anyone suspicious that there are additional unknown complexities.
She flipped through the statements again. "There seems to be lacking information. Can we go to the scene..."
Before she could finish, she suddenly heard Lao Gao say, "Ji Feng, the prosecutor is here."
Jian Jing peeked out to see a woman in a blue blouse and pencil skirt walk in, hair loosely tied in a low ponytail. She wore low-heeled black leather shoes and carried a briefcase.
This outfit...a prosecutor?
"Gao Police Officer, hello," Prosecutor Zhu gave a slight nod and looked straight at Ji Feng, "Has the suspect confessed?"
Ji Feng: "Not yet."
Prosecutor Zhu frowned. "The evidence is so complete. Why hasn't he confessed yet?"
Ji Feng said, "We're still investigating. Just give me two more days, out of professional courtesy."
"Work is work, personal relationships are separate," Prosecutor Zhu said sternly. "Hand over what you should when you should. My schedule for closing the case is also tight, don't waste my time."
Ji Feng said, "There are still some doubts. I'll give it to you as soon as I figure it out."
Prosecutor Zhu asked: "What doubts?"
"The murderer hasn't confessed," he said. "Others aren't without suspicion either. Isn't that right, Teacher Jian?"
"Huh?" Jian Jing was caught off guard while spectating. "What?"
Ji Feng: "Share your opinion."
Asked about the case, Jian Jing quickly regained her professional demeanor. She contemplated: "The key to pinning the suspect is really the locked room scenario. If it wasn't a locked room, the suspect's account wouldn't seem out of the ordinary either—by the way, didn't you do a tox screen for the suspect after what he claimed?"
She hadn't gotten to that part in the files yet, but surely they would test for substances if he said that himself.
Indeed, Ji Feng said: "He claimed he was poisoned but we didn't detect anything abnormal, only a high blood alcohol level."
"Is it possible certain things weren't detected?" she asked.
He answered cautiously. "Blood tests can only screen for common conditions. Rare or obscure substances may indeed be missed."
She gestured with a hooked finger. "How about hidden passages?"
"Impossible," he immediately denied. "The scene doesn't allow for those conditions."
Jian Jing asked: "What about mechanisms?"
"Want to see the scene yourself?" he asked back.
That was exactly what she was waiting for: "Yes, let's go."
Ji Feng then told Prosecutor Zhu, "See, I'm still checking out leads. Give me two more days. What if it's a wrongful conviction case? It's someone's whole lifetime."
Prosecutor Zhu contemplated briefly before saying, "You're going to the crime scene? I'm coming too. If you can convince me, then I'll give you a few more days."
Ji Feng: "...Fine."
The three got into the car. Jian Jing and Prosecutor Zhu briefly got acquainted.
"Zhu Yanan. I'm with the prosecution's investigation department."
"Jian Jing. Just passing by."
Unexpectedly, Prosecutor Zhu was very polite: "I've heard your name mentioned before regarding participation in several case resolutions. Do you think there are also doubts about this case?"
Jian Jing said, "The suspect's attitude is very suspicious."
Prosecutor Zhu said: "I've studied this case closely. There are two keys—one with security, one victim had on his person. After the victim locked the door from inside, the outside key fails to open it even with a key. Although the window can open, the room is on the 7th floor so the distance from the entrance is too far. Unless there exists some hidden contraption to engage the interior lock as novels describe, but that's too complex and low chance of success."
"Still can't rule out such a possibility, of course," Ji Feng jumped in.
Jian Jing said: "Let's see at the scene first."
The car pulled up to Jin Cui Hua Palace, still closed for business after its boss's murder. Only the sensational neon sign on the exterior kept flashing ostentatiously in gold, red, and green.
Along the way, Jian Jing made observations about the environment. Indeed, only a designated elevator could reach the top floor.
The upstairs was currently empty and eerily quiet.
Ji Feng turned on the lights and lifted the caution tape so the two women in skirts could duck under. Prosecutor Zhu nimbly ducked through but Jian Jing's elaborate hair ornament got caught.
"Ouch!" Jian Jing covered her head, unable to help but complain, "Bai Chang, you're so tall, can't you reach a little higher?"
She had styled her hair in a butterfly knot today. In order to make the top of her head look fuller, after tying up her hair, she had to flip it out once more. The hair inside was also decorated with shiny chains, which were now caught in her strands and hurting like hell. She couldn't just pull hard, but had to detach the strands one by one.
"Why make things so complicated," Ji Feng blocked her hands and, making use of his height advantage, lowered his head to study for a moment before accurately locating the strand of hair that was hooked. He pulled it out, "There, done."
Jian Jing held up her phone to take a photo and carefully pulled the puffed out hair back.
Ji Feng put on his gloves while waiting for her. Seeing that she was done, he took out his keys and inserted them into the door lock.
Jian Jing's attention was immediately focused: "Is that the original lock? I thought it was picked open?"
"No, the original lock is at the police station. This is a replacement of the same model." Ji Feng unlocked the inside latch, "See, there's a latch inside that can't be opened even with a key from the outside."
As he spoke, he also showed her a close-up photo of the lock. The outside of the lock showed signs of forced entry, but the inside only had some routine wear and tear without any particularly noticeable traces.
She nodded and put on shoe covers to go inside.
It was a large suite arranged in a 7-shape. Outside was the living room. Upon entering, one would first see a magnificent crystal screen. To the left of the screen was the white outline of a corpse.
She walked closer and could make out that the corpse had been lying horizontally in front of the sofa, head down with hands over its head. Ceramic shards were scattered around it. From the photos, a piece at the bottom had blood stains on it.
Looking around, the decor was also extremely extravagant. The TV feature wall was made of black cloud marble, and there was a huge wine cabinet in the corner.
To the left of the living room was the bedroom, and to the right a huge glass window that could only be opened a two-finger wide gap.
Jian Jing looked up. In the center of the high ceiling hung an intricate and gorgeous crystal chandelier. Other than that, there was no particularly tall furniture around.
She asked, "Has upstairs been checked?"
Ji Feng answered, "I looked. There's a lot of dust accumulated, no one has been up there recently."
Jian Jing nodded. In the living room, only the chandelier was easily accessible. If there were no anomalies, it would be impossible to make use of a mechanism to drop the porcelain from height and kill the victim.
Ji Feng seemed to understand her train of thought. He asked, "The technical department has done experiments based on the porcelain shards. It should not have fallen from that high up."
"You've thought this through very carefully," she said deliberately, "Does that mean you don't need my help?"
"Che, I can't just slack off at work, can I?" He said, "I'm just eliminating some possibilities."
"What else?"
Ji Feng said, "I've searched the entire room―the ceiling, vents, window glass, roof―there are no traces of anyone having been there. So it's impossible for someone to have lowered themselves in with a rope from upstairs, impossible to have climbed up from the floor below, and impossible to have come and gone through the ventilation ducts."
Jian Jing listened and kept nodding, "I understand. What you mean is, it's impossible for the perpetrator to have entered the room by any means other than the front door. For the perpetrator to have killed the victim, they must have already been inside this room. It would have been impossible to commit this murder from outside the room."
To be fair, Ji Feng's personality was a little cocky, but his work was absolutely flawless. His investigative work was dull and tedious, not like a detective's reasoning which tended to be ingenious and unique, but it served well to reduce dead-ends.
With the above possibilities eliminated, very few remained.