Chapter 10 - 10 10 Hairpin

Words : 1953 Updated : Sep 10th, 2025

10: Chapter 10 Hairpin 10: Chapter 10 Hairpin Lin Xiaosu didn’t rush into the room. He stood by the door and first initiated Reverse Time. Four whole days had already passed. His Reverse Time seemed to also challenge the limits. Just when he felt a slight sting in his eyes, he finally saw the scene he wanted, an old man with white hair lying on a Taishi Chair, looking at the ceiling with a leisurely demeanor, tapping his foot on the ground. This scene definitely didn’t look like someone who was about to die suddenly. However, in the next moment, a mutation occurred... Lin Xiaosu’s heart suddenly shook... Three meters away from him, Chang Ye and Zhou Mei were both staring at him. Zhou Mei quietly said, “Sister Chang, I think even if he has some way of smelling things, it’s basically impossible. Four days have passed, the wind is strong in the mountains, and the windows have been open every day, blowing air around, any smell would have dissipated...” But Chang Ye’s eyes brightened, and she took a step forward. This step of hers was silent. Lin Xiaosu suddenly felt a chill on his back, exited the Reverse Time state, and turned around to see Chang Ye, who had appeared behind him without a sound. Lin Xiaosu was surprised. This girl, is she a cat? “Have you found anything?” Lin Xiaosu said, “I can’t tell anything just from here. I’ll go in and take a look. Oh, by the way, do you have any photos of the original crime scene?” “Waiting for you to ask!” Chang Ye raised her hand, and a pair of glasses appeared on her face, “Retrieve photo number 1352!” As soon as she spoke, a layer of light and shadow emerged from her glasses, a three-dimensional image, a holographic projection, extremely clear with every detail visible—Lin Xiaosu saw the same elderly man he had seen through Reverse Time, sitting on the Taishi Chair, head tilted back, mouth slightly open... Lin Xiaosu marveled, “The technology you police use to handle cases is really strong, this is too clear.” “Tell me, which part do you need enlarged?” “I’ll take a look inside first, no rush!” He entered the meditation room and observed carefully, at least in the eyes of the two female officers, he was observing carefully. Ten minutes, twenty minutes... Lin Xiaosu came out of the room, shaking his head lightly, “In the time of his death, there was no one else in the room!” Tch! Zhou Mei felt a bit of disdain inside. Carefully observing for twenty minutes, only to come to this useless conclusion? Now they had to face a question, was this considered fraud? He took ten thousand yuan, spent twenty minutes here, wasn’t the money a bit too easily earned? “Are you certain it was a natural death?” Chang Ye asked. Lin Xiaosu lightly shook his head, “There’s still one point that needs to be ruled out.” “Which point?” Lin Xiaosu raised his hand gently, pointing outside the window, where there was a high bank about ten meters away. The vegetation there was lush. Chang Ye’s brow slightly furrowed, “You suspect a remote attack?” “Is there any attack method that could create symptoms like a cerebral hemorrhage?” “No!” Zhou Mei said, “So-called remote attacks would only cause external injuries, and cerebral hemorrhage is unrelated to external injuries... isn’t that right, Sister Chang?” Chang Ye did not speak, a look of deep thought in her eyes, “Go over there and take a look before saying anything more!” “Okay!” Lin Xiaosu went to the base of the high bank, looked around, climbed up from the side of the bank. After quite a struggle, he finally reached that high bank, and suddenly, he exclaimed lightly... Chang Ye unknowingly appeared behind him, “What did you find?” “Look!” Lin Xiaosu pointed to the ground. Chang Ye stared at the weeds beneath her feet, not able to see anything, “What?” “This stalk of grass was trampled four days ago!” Lin Xiaosu said. Chang Ye’s eyes brightened, trampled grass from four days ago, while this place hardly sees any visitors in normal times, “Are you sure it was a person?” “There aren’t any direct footprints on the grass, but if you observe carefully, you can still judge from the compression of the grass that it’s a human footprint! And you can deduce when it was stepped on by the degree of the grass’s withering.” Lin Xiaosu’s fingers drew the shape of a footprint in the air. The more Chang Ye looked at it, the more it resembled a footprint. “If you can’t see this clearly, look here, something more interesting is here!” Lin Xiaosu slightly lifted his hand and pointed at a leaf. In the center of the leaf, there was a small hole, a trace of a needle prick. Chang Ye’s face completely changed. She wasn’t very confident about the footprint, but as an expert in needlework, she was certain that this was indeed a needle puncture. According to her visual analysis, this was indeed the trace left by a needle. A needle had pierced through here, and the direction was right towards Qu Taiqing’s head lying on the Taishi Chair! “Xinyue!” Chang Ye called softly. “Sister Changye, what can I do for you?” a delicate female voice came through the glasses. “Immediately check the corpse in pathology lab 37, whether there is a ‘hairpin’ beneath the scalp of the right temple.” “Received!” On the other end of the call, they began a quick examination as Chang Ye stood firmly on the hillside, focusing intensely on that window. Her eyes, for a moment, were infinitely deep; Lin Xiaosu never saw such an expression before. Time passed by the minute... Five minutes later, Chang Ye’s glasses slightly lit up, and a voice emerged from them, “Sister Changye, you’re amazing. There is indeed a hairpin lodged in the right brain! The hairpin penetrates 1.7 inches into the brain with no external marks, which is why it was overlooked during the first examination. The hairpin is coated with a neurotoxin, it’s T30!” “T30’s only function is to instantly coagulate the blood in the area, creating an obstruction!” Chang Ye explained. “Yes! This is the true cause of death for subject 2198!” The light on Chang Ye’s glasses faded. She slowly turned around. At this moment, she appeared like a night hawk soaring high, and her presence seemed to drop by two or three degrees. “Now the only question left is whether we can track that person based on these traces!” Lin Xiaosu turned around, staring down at the tangled mess of weeds, crossed the road, and on the other side, he smiled, “Lucky, he didn’t take the main road; he took the forest path...” Taking the forest path meant inevitably leaving traces of movement. Although these traces might be undetectable to the average person, compared to the miracle of finding a needle hole in a leaf, these traces were evidently more routine for Lin Xiaosu. Turning around a mountain neck, even Chang Ye could see a relatively clear footprint, with the tread pattern clearly visible—thanks to the heavens, it hadn’t rained for the past four days. She aligned her glasses with the footprint and captured it. Tracking continued. This journey crossed mountains and ridges, finally reaching the main road of the county town. Lin Xiaosu halted, brow furrowed, “Now luck really has to be on our side, are there any cameras around here?” His difficulty was never in finding the culprit. The culprit, wearing a plaid coat, had his physique and appearance engraved in his mind, crystal clear. But knowing himself wasn’t enough, he had to present this image to her in a relatively reasonable way. This necessitated cameras. And the cameras, even through his keen eyes, were clearly seen. One stood a hundred meters away, hidden under the eaves, likely to have captured the plaid coat man getting into a car... He didn’t want to reveal how sharp his vision really was. Thus, he sought help. Chang Ye’s glasses lit up again, countless grids in the void, three light spots appearing, clearly marking three cameras, aside from the one Lin Xiaosu had identified, two others hadn’t even been in their line of sight, yet were located through her amazing technological means. “Retrieve the footage, time...” Chang Ye uttered a command. The virtual image in the air immediately shifted, transforming into the night four days ago. Lin Xiaosu’s eyes widened, damn! The police retrieve footage without seeking permission from the owner? Just directly access it? Isn’t this hacking? Even Zhou Mei, her eyes widened; as a police officer, her daily work includes evidence investigation, dealing with footage certainly not a thousand times but hundreds of times; when have I ever seen such a way of retrieving footage without disturbing or alerting anyone? Though the method of accessing the footage was divine, they lacked the final step to lock directly onto the target. The footage had its limitations, being a dead zone where the plaid coat man came down from the mountain. Even though the footage could capture him getting into a car, so what if many people board cars by the roadside! If you can’t connect this line from the mountain to here, everything is in vain. When the footage played to the point where the plaid coat was boarding, Lin Xiaosu shouted, “Stop!” Footage positioned. “Look at this person’s shoes!” Lin Xiaosu said. “Shoes? The soles aren’t clear...” Chang Ye said. This is the downside of civilian cameras, you can see the person’s face, but wanting to see the soles of their shoes with detail is a bit lacking. “No need to look at the sole pattern, you just need to look at the trademark on these Warrior shoes, and you can find detailed product features.” Chang Ye’s eyes lit up... “Search!” With the word “search,” countless shoes compared in the empty space above the glasses. In a moment, a pair of shoes appeared, brand: Duli, development date... manufacturer... product features... The sole overturned, matching perfectly with that relatively clear footprint seen on the mountain path earlier. Zhou Mei exclaimed, “Found it!” Chang Ye’s glasses flickered with light, “Search for this person!” Instantly, it seemed as if the Great Thousand World unfolded before her, countless figures flitted past, similarity increasing steadily, 80%, 85.2%, 96%, 100%! With the appearance of the green 100% match, a figure appeared before them. “Ding Haichun, male, 48 years old, from Fengcheng County, Dong Chu Province, founder of Huanggang Science and Trade Company, serving as the company’s legal representative...” Lin Xiaosu was dumbfounded, “This system of yours is too powerful, can you find anyone with just any face given to you?” “It’s not that miraculous; the effectiveness of this system depends on the thoroughness of the database, which has undergone eight upgrades. Currently, accurate information only covers various levels of public officials, registered business personnel, and those with criminal records, ordinary people can’t be fully covered; of course, as long as you’ve been to a station, been to an airport, your information will exist in the database, but it only shows when you’ve been there, not your name or family information...” While Chang Ye explained, the system continued to operate. Finally, it stopped, with a red dot showing the target’s location, just about ten miles away from them.

Chapter 10 - 10 10 Hairpin

Comments (0)