chapter 4
The crime scene was on the fifth floor, and the surveillance footage could barely capture the people entering this floor.
Coincidentally, according to the Landlord, currently only this mysterious person had rented this floor.
Shortly after midnight, it was already May 5th. At a few minutes past 12 a.m., a total of eleven people began to enter this room one after another.
Among them, a Man in Black appeared again-he should be the same Man in Black from the first surveillance video in the alley!
But he arrived later than the others!
He entered the fifth-floor corridor at 2:30 a.m.
About five hours later, at around 7 a.m.,
a man dressed entirely in black, wearing dark sunglasses and a mask, carrying a bag-the Man with Bag-appeared in the corridor surveillance footage and went downstairs.
After he left, he managed to avoid all the surveillance cameras, and his final direction was toward the outskirts of Nanling Street.
At this moment, Han Xue seemed to have thought of something.
“No wonder I kept feeling something was off. So this is it.”
“What’s off?”
“We’ve been confused by these two ‘Chen Shu’ statements. Is it possible that there were actually thirteen people in the room that night?”
Lu Fan was shocked!
The words from the first ‘Chen Shu’ statement flashed through his mind.
“Do you believe that in the same space-time, there could be multiple versions of yourself?”
“Could it be that there are three ‘Chen Shu’s?!”
“So you mean… the last Man with Bag who left is the current Chen Shu?”
Lu Fan looked at Han Xue.
“Exactly! I can say for certain that he is Chen Shu-he absolutely is!”
Han Xue was very sure.
Then Lu Fan looked sharply at the Chen Shu across from him.
“Chen Shu, on May 4th, at 11:40 p.m., what were you doing at the apartment?”
Lu Fan questioned coldly.
At this moment, Chen Shu’s face showed no sign of innocence. Instead, he shook his head mockingly.
“I… didn’t go. I was at home the whole time.”
“You’re lying!”
Lu Fan suddenly roared.
Lu Fan continued to stare at him and said, “Stop lying to me. I know you went to the apartment, but you’re not the murderer!”
“And, there really are other versions of ‘you’ in this world, aren’t there?”
Upon hearing Lu Fan’s words, only Han Xue didn’t look particularly surprised.
The other Criminal Investigation Team members were stunned. He’s not the murderer?
They watched the conversation between Lu Fan and Chen Shu as if they were watching a lunatic-they simply couldn’t understand.
At this moment, Chen Shu began to applaud.
The handcuffs on his wrists clinked as he did so.
“Captain Lu, Captain Han, you two really deserve the title of ‘Male-Female Detective Duo.’ You’re truly remarkable. I thought I’d have to use a lot of words to explain to you, or to prove that there really are multiple versions of myself in this world.”
Xiao Gao, still struggling to keep up, said, “Captain Lu, Captain Han, what are you talking about? He’s really not the murderer?”
“But why did he lie, then?”
Han Xue looked at Chen Shu with a complicated expression.
“To clear your name, you actually wore the same mask as the murderer.”
Chen Shu smiled. “If I hadn’t done that, would you really believe that there are multiple ‘Chen Shu’s in this world?”
For Chen Shu, if he hadn’t done this, if he had just called the police and said, ‘There’s another version of me in this world, and he killed someone. Would you believe it?’
The answer would be absolutely not!
The most direct way was to make the police believe, and to let them see with their own eyes that, at the same time, there were three versions of himself!
“So, you deliberately took a corpse out of the apartment and dumped it in the suburbs, disguising yourself as the murderer, just so our police could thoroughly investigate another ‘Chen Shu’, right?”
Han Xue’s eyes were filled with disbelief, but she still asked.
Chen Shu smiled, his gaze falling on Han Xue before him.
“Yes and no. The reason I took the body out was because I thought he would definitely escape. And when both witness and physical evidence are present, even if I didn’t kill those people, you would mistake me for the real murderer!”
Just as everyone in the Interrogation Room wanted to hear what Chen Shu would say next,
Hurried footsteps sounded outside the Interrogation Room.
The door was pushed open forcefully, and a woman in a white lab coat, holding a file folder and a plastic bag, rushed in.
“Sorry to interrupt… but I must tell everyone something!”
She swept a solemn gaze over all the Police Officers, finally fixing her eyes on Chen Shu. Her pupils contracted as she slowly spoke: “In my examination report, the corpse found at the second crime scene… after testing and DNA comparison, the deceased is the suspect from the first homicide case. His name is Chen Shu!”
Wow-
The Interrogation Room instantly erupted.
“How is that possible?”
“Impossible, right?”
Everyone was whispering and discussing, their faces showing shock.
At this moment, the Criminal Investigation Team members roughly understood the conversation between Lu Fan and Chen Shu just now.
As for Lu Fan and Han Xue, their earlier deductions were based on evidence from surveillance, but they were still reluctant to fully believe it.
But now, their anxious hearts finally settled, and they completely believed Chen Shu’s words.
There really are multiple ‘Chen Shu’ in this world.
Only Chen Shu remained calm, as if he had known all along.
Everyone turned their gaze to Chen Shu.
Chen Shu understood what they meant and began to speak on his own.
“My name is Chen Shu, and next I will recount an unbelievable story.”
“That night, I was already asleep. It must have been close to 1 a.m., I can’t remember exactly. I was woken up by a call from an unknown number.”
Chen Shu rubbed his head with his hand and continued.
“The person on the other end told me he was recommended by one of my patients and asked me to treat him. He said he had a broken leg.”
At this moment, Police Officer Xiao Gao interrupted Chen Shu.
“Did he really have some serious illness? Why didn’t he go to the hospital and insisted on calling you?”
Chen Shu smiled faintly: “Because he is a fraudster!”
“He said he couldn’t go to the hospital, otherwise he’d have to use his real name and would be caught!”
“And he promised that if I cured his leg, he’d give me two million.”
Chen Shu answered Xiao Gao’s question and continued.
“So, I disguised myself thoroughly and went to the address he gave. But when I pushed the door open, I saw someone who looked exactly like me sitting at the center of a round table.”
“On the round table, there were eleven plates: shredded pork with green peppers, shredded pork with tomatoes, dried tofu with pork… And on the stools sat eleven people without heads!”
Chen Shu swallowed, the bloody and terrifying scene seemed to reappear in his mind, sending chills down his spine.
“I wanted to turn and leave.”
“But he actually pulled out a gun and pointed it at me!”
“He said if I dared to run, he’d shoot me!”