Case Files Chapter 26: Angel of Death (6)

Translated by Vivian of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: Addis

 

Jiang Tong led the two of them into the General Internal Medicine Department and exhorted, “You two can only watch quietly. If you disturb the patients or the doctors’ work, then don’t blame me if I get mad.”

“Okay, relax.” Lu YunYang shooed him away and walked into the ward area with Guan Jin.

The wards were all quiet, and nurses were hurrying in and out of every ward, since it happened to be the busiest hour in which they did morning checks and gave injections as well as medicine. As Guan Jin was looking around, the door of a ward near him opened. A chubby lady wearing a green work uniform and a mask pushed a two-tiered cart, which was piled with medicine bottles, used gauze, syringes, and similar items.

“Please wait a moment.” Guan Jin stopped her.

“Young man, what are you doing? You can’t touch the things on here.” The lady hastily stopped his outstretched hand.

Guan Jin deftly pulled out his police badge. “I’m in the middle of an investigation, and I want to take a look at your cart for a moment. You can come back to retrieve it shortly.”

The lady seemed to be startled, and nodded repeatedly before going to the nurses’ station.

When Lu YunYang heard this, he walked over and saw Guan Jin pick up a few infusion tubes used for intravenous injections, “You think that this thing is the murder weapon?”

“I don’t think, I’m pretty sure. At least, that’s what Le Fan thinks. He wanted me to bring a few back so he could do some comparisons. He said that guessing isn’t something that forensic scientists do, and that he only speaks with facts.”

Guan Jin rolled up the infusion tubes and stuffed them into his pocket.

“You’re just going to… stuff them there like that?” Lu YunYang reminded goodnaturedly.

“How else would I carry them? I just have this one pocket.” Guan Jin rolled his eyes.

“I just meant that… my pocket’s a little bigger.”

Shouldn’t you use gloves and put them into an evidence bag? Lu YunYang had wanted to say this, but because he didn’t want Guan Jin to dislike him even more, he decided to wisely keep his mouth shut.

*****

“Didn’t I tell you you can use a hot water bag?! I’ve given you so many shots already, but it’s hard to find a vein. It’s not my fault I can’t get it…”

An argument sounded in the neighboring ward, and there were patients and nurses peering in. Guan Jin and Lu YunYang quickly walked over and looked inside.

A young nurse was arguing with a middle-aged woman lying on the hospital bed. The patient was very angry, and she was requesting a change of nurse. A male doctor nearby seemed to be intervening. The young nurse was so angry, her face was red, and she threw the infusion tube and plastic drip bottle she was holding to the floor before turning around and storming out of the ward.

“Did you see that?! What kind of attitude was that!” complained the middle-aged woman.

“Does this nurse often get into arguments with patients?” Lu YunYang asked the people observing at the door.

“Huh?” A female nurse wearing glasses glanced at him, and her expression cleared. “How come? Patients who stay overnight at the hospital are already in a bad mood, so they’re often irritable, and the occasional argument is normal. Our hospital is one of the best in terms of customer service.”

Lu YunYang nodded absentmindedly and continued to look into the ward.

The male doctor that was inside seemed to have appeased the patient. He stood up and walked out while saying to a worker that was collecting the garbage, “Clean up these tubes, I’ll ask a nurse to come replace them with new ones. The infusion tubes we’ve been getting recently aren’t very good. Please give me one so I can take it to the equipment room and tell them.”

The worker chose a tube and handed it to him, and the male doctor walked out the door.

“Hm? What are you guys doing at the door?” The doctor frowned as he looked at Guan Jin and Lu YunYang.

“Nothing, we’re just passing by,” Lu YunYang said casually.

“Try not to disturb the patients,” the doctor said in dissatisfaction before quickly leaving.

“That’s our attending physician, Doctor Wang. He studied abroad before returning here to work, and he’s very, very skilled,” informed the nurse with the glasses.

“Have you noticed, getting an infusion tube is actually really easy. Besides the doctor, even patients or their family can steal one from a cart if the worker isn’t paying attention,” said Lu YunYang.

“Obviously. It’s hard to narrow down a list of suspects just based on a murder weapon.” Guan Jin patted his pocket.

“That’s not necessarily true. Since the killer chose to use a murder weapon like an infusion tube, it means that infusion tubes plays a very special role in their mind, and it reflects their unique psychological characteristics.”

“Then why don’t you go ahead and calculate if this killer is tall or short, and fat or thin?” Guan Jin said disdainfully.

“Little Jin.”

“Mn?”

“Have you been scammed by a psychologist before? Or has a psychologist borrowed your money before but never returned it?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve widened your negative feelings towards a specific psychologist to your perception of the entire career, and then narrowed them to focus on an individual, me. During our interactions, from the very start, you’ve had a bias and——”

“English, please.”

“…You despise me.”

“Among everything you’ve said before, this is the most accurate.” Guan Jin gave him a thumbs up. Now that we’ve gotten this clear, you won’t latch onto me and seek misery for yourself. Good, good…

Lu YunYang fell silent.

When he got onto the car, Guan Jin fastened his seatbelt and secretly glanced at the rearview mirror.

Lu YunYang was still expressionless.

Could it be that he had really struck a chord just then? Guan Jin thought to himself, This person’s face is thicker than a city wall, he can’t be that fragile. However, when he thought about it more carefully, if he disregarded the details, Lu YunYang wasn’t a threat towards him, and besides their constant bickering, he had never done anything to him. Guan Jin felt very conflicted on the car ride back.

When they arrived at the police station, Guan Jin quickly unfastened his seat belt; this atmosphere was way too uncomfortable.

“Little Jin.”

“What is it…” Guan Jin was already holding the car door handle.

“I thought about it for a long time, and I’ve decided that we can’t keep going on like this.”

I’ve been wanting to say that since the beginning! thought Guan Jin.

“I think that I should help you get a better understanding of my profession and of myself.”

Huh?

“All biases and stubbornness will fall apart in the face of sincerity. Thus, I’ve decided that, from today onwards, I’ll do my best to get to know your innermost being, and I won’t mind letting you see my bare, unconcealed essence.” Lu YunYang turned around and offered a sincere, lovely, and dazzling smile.

I’m a fucking idiot! I can’t believe I thought that this sham of a psychic could actually feel hurt! Even missiles can’t get through to him! Guan Jin got out of the car and said to Lu YunYang through gritted teeth, “You don’t need to go through the trouble, I’m not interested at all in the essence of your bare ass!”

Then, he slammed the car door and turned around. Ding Ding, Zheng Fei, and Wen JingHan were standing nearby, and their mouths were still wide open. Only two words flew by their ears: bare~ass~.

Lu YunYang was lying on the steering wheel, convulsing in fits of laughter.

“Hey! Guan Jin, what are you doing?! This is the police station, you can’t violently beat up a good citizen!!!” Ding Ding grabbed Guan Jin’s arm.

Good citizen? If there were more good citizens like this, then the police would be exhausted.

“Exactly, didn’t he just see your ass? What’s the big deal? You’re both men, anyway.” Zheng Fei added fuel to the fire.

“…” No, I still have to beat him up!

*****

Le Fan was carefully doing comparisons. He looked up and asked, “What are you pulling a long face for, you’re acting like someone owes you a few million yuan.”

Guan Jin continued to pull a long face.

“The marks match, the angles match, and I’ve also done some experiments. If the infusion tube is flattened, then its edge is quite sharp, which is why it can draw blood. Infusion tubes all have uniform standards and dimensions, so the forensic doctor’s and my shared belief is that the murder weapon was indeed an infusion tube, without a doubt.”

“Infusion tube? This killer is quite uncharacteristic.”

“That’s also something I’m confused about. Look, infusion tubes have a certain degree of elasticity, and when they’re pulled on hard enough, they’ll get stretched and deformed, so it’s not as powerful as a normal length of rope. Thus, the killer would’ve needed to use a lot of strength.”

Since the killer chose to use a murder weapon like an infusion tube, it means that infusion tubes plays a very special role in their mind, and it reflects their unique psychological characteristics. Lu YunYang’s words suddenly emerged in Guan Jin’s mind.

Guan Jin shook his head vigorously. Evil spirit, go away, go away! [You’re the actual sham of a psychic ==]

Guan Jin returned to the office and told everyone Le Fan’s comparison results.

“How twisted. Say, do you think it’s because in the killer’s childhood, they were given an intravenous infusion and became crazy, so they especially hate infusion tubes and nurses?” wondered Lin Bai.

“If someone was given a shot to that degree, I reckon that they still wouldn’t be able to take care of themselves, much less murder people,” disagreed Zheng Fei.

“What Little Bai said makes some sense. Infusion tubes might represent doctors, nurses, or a person or event that has something to do with hospitals. Infusion tubes must play an important role in the killer’s life because they associate it with hospitals or hospital staff members,” said Lu YunYang. “However, if it was because they went to seek medical attention, most people would hate needles, not infusion tubes. If I were the killer, I might choose to use needles to murder people.”

“Say, just how cold-blooded and twisted does someone have to be to kill someone without even blinking?” Ding Ding shook her head.

Cold-blooded? Twisted? Guan Jin looked down at his own hands. In ordinary people’s eyes, killing was unthinkable, and he was a natural enemy against these people. The killing intent that had been lying dormant for a very long time felt like an icy snake as it slithered up his spine.

“But people think that taking the lives of criminals means upholding justice. On the battlefield, killing people in order to protect one’s territory will make someone a national hero. Actually, it’s still the same killing, but people just need to give it another reason, and it will become a merit. In the eyes of a killer, it’s the same. The people they kill are people that they believe deserve to die.” Lu YunYang said lightly, “Thus, they’re not that scary, they’re just people that live in their own world and cannot get out.”

Everyone fell silent. Guan Jin was ripping up the corner of a scrap piece of paper, though a lot of the coldness in him quietly dispersed.

“Water, water! I’m so thirsty!” Chen QiaoYu shouted as she ran in. She grabbed a cup that was on the table and began gulping it down.

“Hey, that’s my cup!” protested Zheng Fei.

“It’s not like my saliva is poisonous!”

“…”

“Did you make any new progress?” asked Wen JingHan.

“It can’t really count as progress.” Gu Xiang handed him a photo. “We went to question the colleagues of the second victim, Du XiaoYue, at the private clinic. One of them was on maternity leave when the murder occurred, and she told us that before Du XiaoYue died, she was dating someone who seemed like a doctor at Hospital Three. She never brought him up to anyone, and she only secretly showed these female doctors, who were close friends of hers, a photo of him once. She sent it to them over text, so the female doctor has always kept it without deleting it.”

“It looks like it was taken in secret, from the side.”

 

Lu YunYang and Guan Jin walked over to take a look. “…It’s him!”