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Chapter 25

"Can this little device really start a fire?" Zhang looked at the ordinary-looking clothespin on the ground. The device was so simple that even an elementary school student could make it.

Fang Rui removed the paper, causing the entire circuit to short circuit. The high temperature quickly ignited the accelerant placed nearby.

"It can actually start a fire?" Zhang exclaimed in surprise. "But the killer would have to pull out the paper strip to ignite it. How is that any different from lighting a match?"

"This ignition device should have another part that controls when the circuit is connected," Fang Rui said.

Fang Rui recalled the old-fashioned alarm clock he had seen at the explosion site. He found a similar one in the adjacent office. He drilled a hole in the paper strip, tied a string to it, and attached the other end to the alarm clock.

When the alarm clock vibrated, the paper strip was quickly pulled out of the clothespin. Without the paper as an insulator, the circuit connected and short-circuited, igniting the accelerant once again.

"This way, the killer doesn\'t even need to be present at the fire scene. They just need to set the alarm clock time to achieve ignition!" Zhang exclaimed.

Fang Rui took out the alarm clock found at the crime scene from the evidence box. The clock had been damaged by the explosion, with the time frozen at 9:30.

Mu Mian realized she had encountered a major problem. She seemed unable to determine the victim\'s exact time of death.

Mu Mian and Chen Xue separated the food from the victim\'s stomach and placed it in a container.

"Mian, the food in the victim\'s stomach is barely digested," Chen Xue analyzed. "We found undigested green cake and coffee in his stomach. Based on the degree of digestion of the stomach contents, the victim died within an hour after finishing breakfast."

The high-temperature burns had damaged the victim\'s body, making it impossible for them to determine the time of death based on body temperature and rigor mortis. Fortunately, the victim had just eaten before dying, so they could estimate the time of death by examining the degree of digestion of the food in the victim\'s stomach.

"Based on the reaction of the wounds on the body, I estimate that the victim died at least three hours before the fire started, which would be before 6:30 in the morning, possibly even earlier. However, analyzing the degree of digestion of the stomach contents suggests that the time of death should be between 8:30 and 9:00. The death times we\'ve deduced using these two methods don\'t match up."

Chen Xue cautiously said, "Could it be that the high-temperature burns and the impact of the explosion altered the body\'s condition, leading you to make an incorrect judgment? This is a special case, so it\'s understandable if the assessment is off."

Mu Mian frowned. Had she made a mistake in her judgment?

Chen Xue continued, "If the victim\'s time of death was between 8:30 and 9:00 on the day of the incident, that would also align with the witnesses\' statements. They could indeed have seen the victim alive at that time. So it\'s possible that the killer first murdered the victim at the crime scene and then set the fire to destroy the body and evidence."

But then why would the killer design a remote ignition device? Usually, such a device is designed to create an alibi.

Mu Mian felt Chen Xue\'s reasoning wasn\'t rigorous.

Mu Mian looked at the pile of sticky green food, furrowing her brow. After death, the food in the stomach would continue to digest. Although estimating the time of death based on the degree of stomach content digestion couldn\'t be very precise, the margin of error shouldn\'t be this large.

Was there something preventing the victim\'s stomach from digesting?

In fact, Mu Mian had a theory, but unfortunately, there was no evidence to verify her idea at the moment.

Fang Rui and his team reviewed the surveillance footage from the fire scene. After careful examination, they quickly identified a suspicious person—the victim\'s apprentice, Liu Jiale.

Liu Jiale was thirty-one years old and had repeatedly clashed with the victim. They had even ended up at the police station due to a physical altercation.

The surveillance video from the villa area showed that over the past two weeks, Liu Jiale had followed Ye Zeming in his car several times, behaving suspiciously. However, in the past week, the surveillance at the entrance of the community hadn\'t captured Liu Jiale entering the villa.

The victim\'s neighbor had once seen Liu Jiale sneaking into Ye Zeming\'s house through a window. He reported it to the police, who were about to file a case, but Ye Zeming vouched for Liu Jiale, saying he had allowed Liu Jiale to enter and that he climbed through the window only because he didn\'t have a key. In the end, the police dropped the administrative penalty against Liu Jiale.

Staff at Ye Zeming\'s studio reported that the relationship between Ye Zeming and Liu Jiale was strange. Liu Jiale would often argue with Ye Zeming one-sidedly, but Ye Zeming always patiently coaxed him and even spent a lot of money on Liu Jiale.

Fang Rui suddenly thought of the engraving on the couple\'s ring: M&L.

Liu Jiale\'s name could also be abbreviated as L.

However, Liu Jiale had disappeared.

Liu Jiale lived in a cheap rental apartment in an urban village. The building was dilapidated, and he lived on the top floor with an artist friend.

His roommate was an art student who made a living by setting up a street stall to draw portraits. Liu Jiale sold sculptures next to his stall, and that\'s how they got to know each other. Later, when Liu Jiale had a complete falling out with Ye Zeming, his roommate took him in.

Liu Jiale\'s roommate had rainbow-colored hair and looked disheveled with sunken eyes. He appeared nervous when he saw the police.

"Officers, has Jiale done something wrong? Jiale is a good person; he wouldn\'t commit a crime."

There were still some of Liu Jiale\'s belongings in the room, mostly paints and some finished sculptures. Although Fang Rui and Zhang weren\'t art experts, they could tell that Liu Jiale\'s works were artistic. The shapes and color combinations were abstract yet had a harmonious beauty.

There was a self-portrait of Liu Jiale on his bed. He had an ordinary appearance, but there was a decadent air unique to artists that gave him a melancholic quality.

"When was the last time you saw Liu Jiale?"

"Last Thursday. Jiale suddenly came back in a panic at noon that day. He told me he was going to stay with his cousin in another city. He hurriedly grabbed a few clothes, packed his backpack, and left. He hasn\'t been back since then. His phone is also unreachable."

The fire occurred on June 12th, and last Thursday was June 8th. This meant that Liu Jiale had disappeared before the fire happened.

"Do you know the address of Liu Jiale\'s cousin?"

"No, I don\'t! I even doubt he has a cousin at all. Jiale grew up in a single-parent family and had very few relatives. I only heard him mention his mother."

"Do you have his mother\'s contact information?"

"No. His mother passed away seven years ago. He was in college at the time. After that, he lost his motivation, let himself go, and dropped out of school to pursue art."

Fang Rui asked, "Do you know Liu Jiale\'s master?"

"You mean that famous sculptor, Ye Zeming? I\'ve met him a few times. He\'s a nice person. Every time he saw Liu Jiale, he would give him money and repeatedly urged him to return to the studio. But Jiale always refused. Jiale said he didn\'t like the oppressive atmosphere of the studio and preferred a free creative environment!"

Liu Jiale didn\'t have many friends in Jiangzhou City, nor did he have any relatives, so the police couldn\'t immediately find his whereabouts.

Surveillance cameras near the rental apartment showed Liu Jiale carrying a black backpack, looking very nervous, his eyes darting around. Later, he disappeared into a blind spot in the surveillance coverage.

Based on his ID number, there were no records of him purchasing bus, train, or plane tickets, but it couldn\'t be ruled out that he left Jiangzhou City by private car.