Monster - Chapter 5
Chapter 5: Lin Sandie, the God of Death
The female assassin named Lou had ended Cheng Lina's life without warning, plunging everyone present into silence. The act of taking a life so unhesitatingly, even with a light, teasing air, sent a chill down their spines, even though it was only conveyed through a recording.
This was a terrifying enemy. She felt no psychological burden when she killed, and it seemed impossible to apprehend her through gentle means. With a killer like this, if you didn't shoot to kill the moment you encountered her, you risked being killed in return, never even knowing how it happened.
After a brief lapse, Xing Meilu immediately stood up and spoke to her colleague in the tech department. "Please make a copy of the recording for me. The system should have Lin Sandie's voice and fingerprint records. Help me analyze them against the information left at the crime scene to see if they're a match."
"Okay, Captain Lu." The previously silent colleague from the tech department quickly snapped back to reality.
None of them had expected that the charming, sweet-sounding female voice on the recording belonged to a woman who could kill without batting an eye.
Just as Xing Meilu was about to leave, she had another realization and added, "Run a gait recognition analysis on the hotel's front desk footage of the suspect entering with Cheng Lina, and compare it to the system's footage of Lin Sandie. I remember we have surveillance video of people entering the lobby of the Dudian Red Wine Company building from the investigation into the stabbing death of a female employee two years ago."
"Okay, Captain Lu." The others, long accustomed to Xing Meilu's decisive efficiency and meticulous thinking, nodded in agreement.
After giving her instructions, Xing Meilu left the tech department and returned to her desk, pulling up all the files on Lin Sandie once more.
According to the official system, all records indicated that Lin Sandie was an extremely law-abiding person—a model citizen, even. Forget a criminal record or violent tendencies; she had never so much as received a parking ticket.
It was hard to imagine such a law-abiding person being the suspect in so many homicides.
Xing Meilu was a cautious person; she wouldn't rashly convict Lin Sandie based on a single photograph. She needed to conduct a more thorough investigation before confirming her as a suspect.
While waiting for the comparison results between Lou and Lin Sandie, Xing Meilu once again dug into the cases that had occurred around Lin Sandie.
She hadn't expected much, but what she found startled even her.
Over the past four years, several people directly or indirectly connected to Lin Sandie had died unexpectedly.
Lin Sandie's subordinate, Bai Xuan, was stabbed to death with an iron spike on the roof of their company building. You Jian, a cafeteria worker at her company, was killed instantly in a hit-and-run car accident; the driver was never caught. Wei Qingqing, her high school Chinese teacher, suddenly committed suicide by jumping from a building. And most recently, her neighbor, Jin Xisheng, was found drowned in his own bathtub...
These cases, be they accidents or homicides, all remained unsolved.
Bai Xuan was a recent graduate, a vibrant newcomer to the professional world with a simple social life and no known enemies. It was hard to imagine her being stabbed more than thirty times with an iron spike, causing her liver and other internal organs to rupture, leading to her death from massive blood loss.
As for You Jian, the cafeteria worker at Dudian Red Wine Company, while he wasn't highly educated and his job wasn't particularly prestigious, he was described by those around him as an enthusiastic and cheerful young man with a simple social life. Yet, while cycling to his usual market to buy groceries on a holiday, he was run over and killed instantly by an unlicensed car that ran a red light.
Lin Sandie's high school Chinese teacher, Wei Qingqing, was mentally stable, married with two children, and had a happy family. Yet one day, she suddenly jumped from the roof of the school's main building. With no evidence at the scene to suggest foul play, her death was ultimately ruled a suicide.
And Lin Sandie's neighbor, discovered just last week, had drowned in his bathtub. By the time he was found, his body was already bloated from the water, and his dog had starved to death in the living room...
Was this Lin Sandie some kind of grim reaper?
Xing Meilu frowned, staring at Lin Sandie's photo on the screen. Even in a bland headshot, she was strikingly beautiful. Xing Meilu noticed a tiny mole below the left corner of her mouth, but she couldn't recall if Lin Sandie had prominent canines or dimples.
Pulling up the candid photo of Lou taken by Cheng Lina, Xing Meilu zoomed in and confirmed that Lou also had a tiny mole below the corner of her mouth.
She placed the two photos side-by-side on her desktop and stared at them, lost in thought. After an unknown amount of time, a sweet scent reached her nose, followed by the feeling of white cream against her lips.
Xing Meilu leaned back to avoid whatever was approaching. She looked up to see Saya holding a slice of cream cake, trying to feed it to her.
"Want some?" Saya asked, her eyes curving into a smile. Xing Meilu immediately caught the scent of shampoo from her long, wavy hair.
After confirming it wasn't anything strange, Xing Meilu took a bite before accepting the slice of cake. She was, in fact, a little hungry.
"Thanks."
"Don't you think they look like they're different ages?" Saya licked the cream from her finger, resting her other hand on the back of Xing Meilu's chair. She leaned over to look at the computer screen, her deep blue eyes reflecting the images of Lin Sandie and the suspect, Lou.
"Do they?" Xing Meilu glanced at Saya's face, her mind slow to process, before quickly turning her gaze back to the screen.
"This suspect, Lou, looks a little younger."
"Let me see." Xing Meilu stuffed the rest of the cake into her mouth. She chewed with her cheeks puffed out, a smear of white cream at the corner of her lips, her words slightly muffled.
Casually wiping her hands on a tissue from her desk, Xing Meilu pulled up Lin Sandie's file again.
"Also, she has a very faint scar on her left eyebrow, which Lin Sandie doesn't have. Of course, a scar like that could be faked with makeup," Saya said, pointing to Lou's photo on the screen.
"I wonder if Lin Sandie's ear is also missing a piece," Xing Meilu mused, clicking her mouse several times. She found that none of the available image files for Lin Sandie showed her ears from a clear angle.
"I think the age difference looks too significant. They're probably not the same person," Saya stated her opinion clearly.
"Lin Sandie is twenty-five this year. Does this killer look twenty-five?" Xing Meilu wasn't sure.
"Makeup can make a person look younger, but if that's what it is, her technique is a little too masterful." Saya's gaze was sharp as she offered her opinion as a fellow woman on such skills.
Xing Meilu stared at her face, then asked in all seriousness, "Could you do your makeup to look five years younger for me?"
She wanted to see for herself the specific difference five years could make to a woman's appearance.
Saya chuckled, raising a hand to tap Xing Meilu on the temple. "That's a rather rude request!"
Without giving a clear answer, Saya stood up to leave. "I'm heading out. And, Xiao A'Lu, you've got cream on the corner of your mouth."
Saya's red lips curved into a smile as she pointed to the corner of her own mouth.
Xing Meilu licked her lips, then grabbed a tissue and wiped her mouth carelessly before turning her attention back to her work.
Xing Meilu felt it was imperative to investigate Lin Sandie, as well as the president of her wine company, Yan Ting.
Regardless of what her superiors said, she would officially investigate Lin Sandie, but she would also privately look into the powerful entrepreneur, Yan Ting.
And Lin Sandie looked identical to the suspect. If the voice, fingerprint, and gait analyses all pointed to Lou being Lin Sandie, they would have enough to prosecute her for murder.
"Identical..." Xing Meilu thought of another angle. She uploaded Lin Sandie's headshot to the Leviathan population database to run a facial recognition search, hoping to find any citizen information on the female suspect named "Lou." However, given the sheer size of the database, a search like that would take time.
Author's Notes
Note 1: A biometric authentication technology that identifies a person by their way of walking.
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