Waiting for a Rabbit

Among the twelve households in this residential building, nine are completely innocent.

After all, Xu Mo and his team had already visited each of these nine households, and the furnishings in their homes were completely different from what was captured in the video.

Xu Mo was also very certain that the results of his investigation were accurate; the person who posted the video must have done so within this building.

This meant that the suspect must be connected to the other three households.

"Xu Team, are you suspecting the two households on the first floor?" Li Chen asked, looking at Xu Mo.

Upon hearing this, Wang Dachuan slapped his forehead.

"It's very possible! The person filming the video is a young man, but the two households on the first floor are both elderly. It's likely that the elderly allowed their grandson to commit such a heinous act."

As the saying goes, "grandparents dote on their grandchildren," and the level of spoiling and indulgence towards grandchildren can be quite high.

Due to this spoiling and indulgence, the police have encountered many cases of crimes.

"No, no, it's not the first floor," Xu Mo shook his head. "Do you remember 302?"

“Of course, the woman living alone—that was the first one I noticed,” Wang Dachuan nodded, his eyes filled with a sense of pride and boastfulness.

Xu Mo, however, didn't hesitate to burst Wang Dachuan's bubble.

"But have you thought about this? If you could see through the trick at a glance, do you think the criminal wouldn't notice it?"

"There's a whole row of women's shoes on the shoe rack, but only one pair of men's shoes, and the key point is that they don't seem to have been worn at all—almost brand new. It's way too obvious, and criminals aren't stupid."

"Criminal? Xu Team, are you saying that the suspect isn't a resident here?" Li Chen was startled, and Xu Mo's words provided him with a new perspective.

The crime scene may not be the criminal's home but the victim's.

The criminal likely deduced that the victim was a woman living alone based on the almost brand-new men's shoes at the victim's doorstep. Knowing there were no men in the house, the criminal felt emboldened to commit the crime.

Xu Mo nodded and explained his reasoning.

"That's right, the criminal doesn't live here; the victim does. The suspect guessed that the victim was a woman living alone and therefore entered the house to commit the violent act."

"Do you remember what the owner of 201 said?"

"When Captain Han described the suspect as a skinny young man, she said there was no such resident in this building. This also supports my hypothesis."

"Yes, yes! She did say that. If that's the case, the suspect really isn't a resident here," Wang Dachuan continued along with Xu Mo's reasoning.

As they spoke, the group had already descended to the third floor.

At the door of apartment 302.

Xu Mo first knocked on the door symbolically, and after waiting for a while with no response, he picked up a small wooden stick from the ground and began to jimmy the lock.

Xu Mo expressed that he didn't even need a wire to deal with the old locks in this neighborhood.

Just as Xu Mo was about to open the door, Chen Ke suddenly reached out from behind and grabbed his arm.

"Xu Team, be careful. The suspect might be lurking inside. I'll go in first."

"Impossible," Xu Mo completely ignored Chen Ke's suggestion. "Which murderer would stay in the crime scene after breaking in and killing someone?"

Another reason Xu Mo was so certain the suspect wasn't in the house was that his "suspect-detecting radar" hadn't given any prior warning.

He had known from the beginning, through his crime radar, that the murderer was not in the building, but he couldn't directly tell his team members, as they were unaware of his crime radar.

Since the suspect had fled after committing the crime, Xu Mo's purpose in leading his team to search each household wasn't to apprehend the suspect on the spot but to confirm the victim's identity and gather some of the suspect's DNA from the crime scene, which would aid in the investigation.

Inside apartment 302, the scene was in complete disarray. On the coffee table in the living room were leftover takeout boxes, several empty wine bottles, and a floor littered with cigarette butts.

The door to the master bedroom was open, and on the bed inside was a corpse dressed in a wedding gown, giving the entire room an eerie feeling.

Even the seasoned police officers, accustomed to various crime scenes, couldn't help but shiver.

The furnishings in the master bedroom were identical to those in the video, confirming that this was indeed the crime scene.

Furthermore, the corpse dressed in a wedding gown was the same woman seen in the video.

"What's wrong with this murderer... dressing the corpse in a wedding gown?"

"He... messing around with the corpse is one thing, but dressing it in a wedding gown? Isn't that just crazy?"

"Enough chitchat, get to work and collect biological evidence from the scene!" Seeing the officers still chattering away, Chen Ke couldn't help but urge them on.

At that moment, Xu Mo's crime-detecting radar alerted him.

The murderer of this victim had entered the range of his crime-solving radar and was approaching the residential building.

Unsurprisingly, the murderer intended to return to the crime scene.

Realizing this, Xu Mo quickly stopped the officers who were about to collect biological evidence.

"Don't move. The murderer will definitely come back. Don't disturb the scene. Turn off the lights, lock the door, and let's wait here like hunters."

To gain the trust of his team, Xu Mo even made up an excuse.

"I suspect the murderer and the victim were once in a romantic relationship. Otherwise, it's hard to explain the wedding gown on the victim, and this pile of takeout. Look at the order times—all after the victim's death. The murderer placed more than one order; he was treating this place like his home. When we arrived, we just happened to miss him here. The murderer will definitely return, it's just a matter of time."

After Xu Mo's analysis, the team members immediately saw the logic in his words and hid, preparing to wait and ambush the suspect.

Originally, they thought this would be a time-consuming task, but less than ten minutes had passed when the sound of a key inserting into the lock of apartment 302 was heard—someone was trying to unlock the door.

Without a doubt, this was the suspect!