Dude, something's really wrong with your abilities.

Chapter 40 Metamorphosis

The fat man stared at Chen Shi in astonishment. He really wanted to pat Chen Shi's head. He used to think that this little brother's IQ was about the same as his own. How come his brain is so sharp now? How did he think of checking the previous surveillance footage?

Su Xiaohe felt the same way. When she looked at Chen Shi, the little stars in her eyes seemed to materialize. If it were just her and Chen Shi here, she swore she would rush over and hug him.

"How did you come up with that idea?" Sun Tiemei asked, voicing everyone's question.

"I've been thinking about the locked room thing these past few days. The locked room is real, the surveillance footage is real, and the arm appeared intact on someone else's back. For all three of these things to be true, there are only two possibilities," Chen Shi looked at Su Xiaohe, "either the killer can walk through walls or create a space to teleport, taking the arm with them, but Xiaohe has checked that line of reasoning, and all space-type ability users have been ruled out, and none of the unregistered ones have been found so far. So, that leaves only the latter possibility: the arm was simply taken out normally."

"But you've rambled on for so long, and you still haven't explained how you came up with these ideas," the fat man said impatiently.

"Don't worry. If the arm was taken out normally, I've been thinking that we don't need to care who went in, we just need to see who came out in the end, and the person who came out is suspicious."

"Are you a student? Xiao Shi." Chang Biao raised his hand.

Chen Shi nodded: "That's right, the student who came out was suspicious. Also, what Brother Biao said earlier reminded me. He said that two hand creams would look like the same product just by looking at the packaging. That made me think of a possibility: what if the murderer also knows this trick? What if he has the ability to change his form? What if he came out as a student, but didn't go in as a student?"

Chen Shi continued, "Furthermore, if this person possesses the ability to change their appearance and physique, then the surveillance footage investigated by the police previously was flawed. They only saw a Li Qian walk into the art room on the evening of the 22nd, but whether this person was really Li Qian, we don't know."

"So you came to check the surveillance footage just to prove your hypothesis?" Sun Tiemei concluded.

"That's right. I only had this suspicion before. The reason why the police didn't think of this point before is because the forensic examination determined that Li Qian's time of death was on the evening of the 22nd. Therefore, when the patrol team checked the surveillance footage, they would only go back to the last time Li Qian appeared in the art room. They wouldn't investigate anything before that. This is actually a kind of blind spot in their thinking."

"What I'm thinking is, if a person can shapeshift, then the person appearing in the video might not be her, and the previous video evidence would be unreliable. But Li Qian's body was definitely found in the art studio. When exactly did she go in?"

Chen Shi looked at the surveillance footage: "People can change their appearance, but they can't change their basic number. If someone goes in, they have to come out. If they haven't come out, it means they're definitely still inside; we just haven't found them yet."

"Could you explain this more clearly? My mind is a mess." The fat man still didn't understand.

"Fatty, the police and we all thought the strange thing about the locked room was that the video clearly captured Li Qian entering the art room, and we used this as a basis for calculating the time of death. But I'm temporarily putting aside this seemingly very conclusive evidence. So how did the extra body of Li Qian in the laboratory appear? That's the kind of speculation I had when I watched the video."

"You guessed right. It turns out that another person named Li Qian went into the art studio on the 21st and never came out."

"Previously, the police determined the time of death by detecting liver temperature, and then traced Li Qian's movements back to that time, which led to this video. This video also further corroborates the time of Li Qian's death. These two points are interdependent, so I now suspect that Li Qian's time of death is suspicious."

"I'll contact Zhuang Wen immediately and ask the technical department to help reinvestigate Li Qian's time of death." Sun Tiemei took out her phone.

Su Xiaohe understood a little: "Teacher Chen, you suspect Li Qian's real time of death. That is to say, the Li Qian on the 22nd was fake, while the real Li Qian was killed by the murderer on the 21st when she arrived at the studio. Then he hid somewhere in the studio, waited for other students to enter, painted with them, and then left together. On the 22nd, he transformed into Li Qian and entered the studio, using ample time to turn Li Qian into a statue."

"That's roughly it. Only if the time of death is suspicious can my deduction be considered correct."

"So the murderer stayed in this art studio all night on the 22nd, and when the students discovered the body and fled together on the morning of the 23rd, he also escaped with the arm in his hand."

The fat man scratched his head frantically: "That doesn't make sense. If this person can shapeshift and become anyone, why make this case so complicated?"

After finishing the phone call, Sun Tiemei said, "From murdering someone in the art studio to dumping the body in the square, this person's criminal behavior is escalating. He has a strong desire to perform."

"Could it be to create an alibi?"

Sun Tiemei nodded, but she still had a layer of thoughts in her mind that she didn't tell her team members. If the murderer was just a simple killer, the ordinary police could have finished the investigation and there would have been no need for Team Five to take over. Perhaps the murderer wanted to drag the people from the Supernatural Abilities Bureau into it from the beginning, which is why he designed such a complicated and bizarre murder scene. Was he provoking them?

"Pang Daqiang, Su Xiaohe, you two need to find all twenty-one students who entered the art room that day and identify the extra person in the surveillance footage one by one. He mingled with the students when he left; maybe someone remembers his appearance, voice, or something else that seems off."

The fat man responded and headed straight for the Academic Affairs Office with Su Xiaohe.

Sun Tiemei turned to Chang Biao: "Chang Biao, go to the technical department and compare the gait, gestures, and habitual movements of the two Li Qians in the surveillance footage frame by frame. Pull out any details that don't match. I've contacted Zhuang Wen, and the technical and forensic departments will redo the cooling model for the time of death, taking into account the factors of salt and plaster. Keep an eye on the experimental results and let me know as soon as they're out."

After Chang Biao left, the monitoring room fell silent, leaving only Sun Tiemei and Chen Shi. Sun Tiemei looked up at Chen Shi, her eyes brighter than usual.

Chen Shi felt an urge to run away, and it grew stronger and stronger.

"I'm so glad I left you in Group Five." That was Sun Tiemei's opening line.

Knowing that the team leader would definitely say more, Chen Shi just smiled shyly and didn't respond.

"Your thinking is different from most people's; you can think of things that others can't."

Chen Shi was trying to figure out if this was a compliment; he thought it probably was, but he wasn't sure.

"Tell me honestly, what else comes to mind regarding these two cases?" Sun Tiemei's tone was calm, more like a discussion than a test.

Chen Shi thought about it for a long time. He had a lingering doubt in his heart, but he didn't say it because he wasn't sure.

"Team leader, I don't think the matter with Red Falcon is over yet."