Chapter Ninety: A Creepy Bowl of Chicken Soup

The strange face behind the glass jar was mottled and distorted. Its skin looked rather like beeswax that had been kneaded for a long time. From top to bottom, it was covered in oval, grainy bands of flesh, with no nose, bulging eyes, and two antennae rising from its forehead.

Taken as a whole, it looked very much like the face of an insect.

"What is that?" Li Tianque stopped at once and then stepped into the laboratory.

"Hm?"

Hearing him, Ma Baoguo also halted immediately and followed Li Tianque inside.

Ma Baoguo switched on the wall lamp.

As the light came on, that strange face slowly rose from behind the glass case. Only the head was that bizarre insect visage; the body, however, was no different from an ordinary person’s.

The odd man wore a hooded casual T-shirt. The hood was pulled down very low, pressing the antennae sideways.

At the sight of the man suddenly standing up, Ma Baoguo’s face changed in alarm, and he reflexively drew his pistol.

"Don’t move!"

The insect-faced man waved a hand and slowly raised both arms above his head. He lowered his head, then lifted it again very quickly.

But when he raised his head once more, the insect face was gone, replaced by a somewhat pale human face.

He was a weak-looking young man, his complexion ashen-white.

His lips held little color, and his nose was large and sharp. He wore glasses as well, and they were so thick that the eyes behind the lenses looked extremely blurred.

Ma Baoguo lowered his gun and said with a smile, "Professor Lu, it’s you. You gave me a fright..."

"Professor Lu..."

Li Tianque studied the young man from head to toe and thought to himself that this must be the head of the research team, Professor Lu Zizhi.

"Sorry, I startled you. Wearing the insect mask helps me get into character better. It lets me immerse myself more fully and judge these insects more accurately."

"Oh, I see..." Ma Baoguo put his gun away, though his face was full of disdain.

Li Tianque, however, found it unsurprising. Thinking of that Xiao Yuru, it was not hard to see that these scientific types were mostly unlike ordinary people in their thinking, and one could even say they were rather strange.

Still, that was easy enough to understand. It was much like choosing a character’s starting talents in a game: each person had only a limited number of points.

If one spent too many points on intelligence, there would probably not be much left for emotional intelligence. That was why so many top scientists could not even manage their daily lives.

"Officer Ma, what brings you here today?" Lu Zizhi asked carelessly.

"Oh, let me introduce someone. This is Investigator Li Tianque, specially assigned by the higher-ups. He’s here to help us investigate this homicide.

And this is the person in charge of the research team, Professor Lu Zizhi. Don’t let appearances fool you—our Professor Lu is only twenty-seven this year, but he earned his doctorate at twenty-five and is already a postdoctoral researcher."

Ma Baoguo introduced the two men to each other.

Li Tianque politely extended a hand to Lu Zizhi, but Lu Zizhi did not even look at him and said softly, "All right. If you want to know something, just go ask them. Everything I know, I already said the last time I gave my statement. If there’s nothing else, I still have work to do."

After saying that, Lu Zizhi actually moved to close the door.

Ma Baoguo immediately blocked it with a smile. "Hey, Dr. Lu, we won’t take up much of your time, so please..."

Before Ma Baoguo could finish, Lu Zizhi had already shut the door and squeezed them both out.

Ma Baoguo looked at Li Tianque awkwardly and said, "What can you do? He’s just that kind of peculiar. He was quite cooperative during the last investigation."

Li Tianque gave a thoughtful hum and said lightly, "Yes, that’s understandable."

He stared at the tightly shut laboratory door, and a few more questions arose in his mind.

Just now inside the lab, Li Tianque had carefully observed the room. He found that there were not many insect specimens or test insects on the table. Most of the specimens were arranged along the edge of the long table and on the windowsill.

But the tabletop itself was covered with a great deal of feathers and bloodstains, along with several bizarre bird bones, and there were even two freshly dissected birds laid out on the workbench.

Why would an entomologist dissect birds?

Still, that was not Li Tianque’s area of expertise. He could only speculate that if one were studying a certain insect, then one would also need a thorough understanding of its natural enemies.

While he was thinking, Ma Baoguo had already knocked on the doors of the two rooms ahead and called the other two team members over.

Liang Zhichao, after fetching hot water, had also returned upstairs.

Ma Baoguo brought the three team members into the corridor and said to them, "Sorry to disturb you so late. To find the killer as quickly as possible, we still hope you can cooperate with the investigation again. We asked you here today because we’d like you to answer a few more questions."

"Officer, didn’t we already give statements before?" Liang Zhichao asked as he looked Li Tianque up and down.

"Yes, we already gave statements once. Why are you bothering us again?" said the team member Su Wei in a gentle voice.

Ma Baoguo could not be bothered to explain. His sharp gaze swept over the group as his tone turned stern. "Please cooperate now. Whoever I call later will go into the room. The others are not to eavesdrop."

As he spoke, Ma Baoguo also beckoned to Tudeng Nima by the stairwell and called, "Nima, come here and watch them."

Tudeng Nima curled his lip and said irritably, "I’ve told you several times. Can you at least call me by my full name?"

The others seemed a little resentful, but they said nothing more.

Ma Baoguo took Li Tianque into the room and began preparing to question them one by one.

From his satchel, Ma Baoguo took out a stack of materials: the statements everyone had given when the police investigated on the day of the crime, along with their basic personal information.

The first to come in was Su Wei, an ordinary-looking girl with a square face, a ponytail, and a few freckles on her cheeks. She seemed somewhat shy.

She was twenty-four this year, a graduate intern whose advisor was Professor Lu Zizhi. She had come with the professor to work on the project, and the topic of their research had to do with the wingless moth of Metuo.

According to the contents of Su Wei’s first statement, on the night of the crime she had gone to the home of the village’s old clan chief, Losang Choru.

Losang Choru was the oldest clan chief among the three great tribes of Urkolo Township, so everyone in the township called him the old clan chief.

He was something of a walking encyclopedia for the village, knowing everything from astronomy to geography. So after the research team arrived, they treated him with great respect and often visited him to ask questions.

The old clan chief was very warm toward the researchers as well and often received them in his home.

At the time of the crime, Su Wei, Bai Ruixue, Liang Zhichao, and Lin Ya had accepted the old clan chief’s invitation and gone to his home as guests. Professor Lu Zizhi, absorbed in his research, did not join them that night.

At a little after nine in the evening, Lin Ya said she was sleepy and wanted to go back to bed, and Liang Zhichao escorted her home.

Su Wei and Bai Ruixue stayed a little longer and left the old clan chief’s house about half an hour later, after which the clan chief’s son saw them home.

Later, the murder occurred. The time of the crime was around eleven thirty.

Seeing this, Li Tianque turned to Liang Zhichao’s statement.

It turned out that after Liang Zhichao sent Lin Ya back, the two of them had each returned to their rooms to sleep.

When he came back, Professor Lu was still in the laboratory working on his research, and he did not leave the lab at all before everyone learned of the crime afterward.

Because he had drunk alcohol and was feeling somewhat excited, Liang Zhichao could not fall asleep.

Then, just as he was drifting into sleep, he heard the door to his room open. Hearing the footsteps, he thought it was Lin Ya going out to use the bathroom. The time was around eleven.

After reading the statements, Li Tianque asked Su Wei, "Liang Zhichao and the other one left first. Why didn’t you and Bai Ruixue leave with them?"

"Well, Liang Zhichao took the initiative to make a fuss over it. How could we have the nerve to interrupt them?" Su Wei said.

"Did you notice anything unusual about Lin Ya that night?" Li Tianque pressed.

"No, everything seemed normal. She was quite happy too, but..." Su Wei frowned as if remembering something.

"But what?" Ma Baoguo asked.

"That night we’d all had too much to drink. We were all pretty happy at first, but Bai Ruixue had some trouble at home recently and wasn’t in a good mood, so everyone avoided the subject on purpose. Still, Bai Ruixue remained sullen.

Right then, Lin Ya raised her glass to Bai Ruixue and said, 'Smile a little. If you smile often, your luck will improve. Isn’t that why they say a woman who smiles often won’t have bad luck?'

Bai Ruixue’s face clearly changed then, and she didn’t pay Lin Ya any attention.

Xiaobing is rather introverted. Even though she didn’t say anything afterward, she seemed to be in a very bad mood."

At these words, Li Tianque’s eyes flashed at once, and he suddenly remembered that when the killer pulled out Lin Ya’s teeth, the killer had said something similar:

A woman who smiles often won’t have bad luck.