“At ten-thirty last night, I received a call from Lin Zehui.”

Sang Ning slid her finger across her phone screen. Gu Yezhou leaned closer to look. The call log clearly showed a call from Lin Zehui at **10:33 p.m.**, lasting **two and a half minutes**.

“I don’t know which friend he was drinking with,” she continued. “We’ve been together for over a year, but I’ve never met any of his friends. He’s never introduced me to them either. According to him, they’re not really friends—just colleagues from work.”

Resting her chin on one hand, Sang Ning added, “After that, I fell asleep. Which explains the report you’re holding. Someone slipped me a sleeping pill. Under normal circumstances, once I take something like that, I’d sleep straight through until morning. But someone woke me up at ten-thirty.”

Gu Yezhou nodded slowly.

“At the scene earlier, you said you roughly knew who the killer might be. You’re suspecting your blind date—Lin Zehui. Is that correct?”

Sang Ning’s fists tightened.

“Yes. I do suspect him. If he wasn’t guilty of something, why would he drug me with sleeping pills?

“That was my mistake. I trusted him too much and fell right into his trap.”

Fortunately, she hadn’t drunk much the night before. The dosage wasn’t strong enough to keep her unconscious the entire night.

Perhaps that was exactly why Lin Zehui had been so eager to call her—to confirm whether she was actually asleep.

Luring her out of the apartment was far safer than risking her hearing something from inside her home.

Her fingers traced the rim of the water glass as she thought back over the previous night.

“So you never actually met Lin Zehui last night?” Gu Yezhou asked.

“No.”

“And after midnight you didn’t hear anything unusual either?”

Sang Ning shook her head.

“By the time I got back to Ping’an Apartment it was already very late. I couldn’t reach Lin Zehui, and I was worried. I kept searching for him and didn’t return home until around three in the morning. By then I was exhausted. I fell asleep almost immediately.”

Gu Yezhou nodded.

“Three in the morning, running around looking for someone—it would wear anyone out. That probably made you overlook the fact that you had been drugged.”

For a moment, the room fell quiet.

Then Gu Yezhou asked another question.

“What’s your opinion of the victim, Shi Li?”

“I don’t really have one,” Sang Ning replied. “In my impression, he was just a homebody.”

But the moment she remembered Shi Li secretly collecting her underwear, a wave of disgust surged through her.

Her composure cracked for an instant. Her clenched fists made a faint grinding sound.

Gu Yezhou noticed everything.

“You never realized any of your underwear had gone missing before?”

Sang Ning shook her head.

“I usually do my laundry in the evening after work, hang it up to dry, and collect it early the next morning. Only on my days off would I hang clothes out during the daytime. You saw that today yourself, Captain Gu.

“As for clothes going missing…” She gave a dry laugh. “That happens pretty often at Ping’an Apartment. A gust of wind could blow something away and drop it somewhere. I honestly never imagined it would be my neighbor stealing them.”

Gu Yezhou reached over and picked up the lipstick-shaped recorder. With a light twist of his thumb and forefinger, he stopped the recording.

“Alright. I’ve learned everything I needed to know.” He looked at her. “Are you planning to return to Ping’an Apartment tonight, Dr. Sang?”

“I don’t have anywhere else to stay.”

Leaning forward slightly, Sang Ning smiled at him.

“If Captain Gu feels like taking me in for a night, I wouldn’t mind.”

“Sure.”

Gu Yezhou stood up.

“Dr. Sang—shall we go home together?”

Sang Ning hadn’t expected him to take her casual remark seriously.

Gu Yezhou placed the lipstick recorder in his desk drawer and locked it.

When they reached the entrance of the police station, Sang Ning smiled.

“Captain Gu, if you’re heading home, go ahead. I still need to write the autopsy report for you.”

“There’s no rush.”

Sang Ning shook her head.

“How about we solve the case first… and then talk about the two of us?”

The moment Gu Yezhou heard the words *the two of us*, most of the gloom in his chest quietly faded.

“How long will it take?”

He had heard that Sang Ning’s autopsy reports could take as long as six hours, or as little as one.

“Captain Gu… are you planning to wait for me?”

Gu Yezhou shrugged.

The answer was obvious.

Sang Ning didn’t waste another word. She turned around and headed back to the forensic lab.

At this hour, Lu Lin was still there.

Yawning, he looked up when she entered.

“Why are you back again? Aren’t you going out to dinner with the new captain?”

“I’m not part of his team. Why would I eat with them?” Sang Ning replied as she walked toward the autopsy table.

Lu Lin turned to look at her.

“That’ll happen sooner or later. Otherwise why would Yancheng keep two forensic examiners? They clearly want to assign one to each investigation team. Personally, I don’t want to be paired with that new captain. Just looking at him, you can tell he’s not someone easy to deal with. And you—look at you, a young woman still working at this hour. Let me guess—you came back to finish the autopsy report, right?”

Sang Ning ignored him.

She pulled on her mask and gloves, switched on the recording equipment, and her expression turned solemn.

Facing the camera, she began formally:

“First autopsy examination. Case number: 2025 Forensic Investigation 1210. Victim: Shi Li. Male…”

After thoroughly examining the body from head to toe, Sang Ning’s gaze finally settled on the back of the victim’s head.

The blood had already clotted into a crust.

But beneath it, something seemed to protrude slightly.

She picked up a razor and carefully shaved away the hair around the wound. As the scalp cleared, several crystalline fragments became visible.

Next, she slipped the tweezers deeper and extracted the raised object. Thick, sticky blood clung to it.

“Lu Lin.”

Whenever Sang Ning made a new discovery, she liked calling Lu Lin over to see it.

Of course, if her assistant had been around, she would have shared it with the assistant first.

Unfortunately, every time she did, the poor girl’s stomach turned violently.

Anyone who wanted to become a forensic examiner would eventually have to face scenes like this.

But sadly, the assistant didn’t share that ambition and only came by occasionally to help.

“Alright, explain what you found,” Lu Lin said, folding his arms and leaning against the glass door.

Sang Ning studied the object in the tweezers carefully. One corner of it wasn’t stained with blood and reflected a faint white glint.

“Look at this.”

Lu Lin squinted.

“Old Sang… I’m nearsighted.”

Suppressing her excitement, Sang Ning quickly placed the fragment into a nearby instrument for analysis.

“There’s a lot of gray-white powder scattered in the victim’s hair. At first I thought it was just dandruff. But now it looks like residue from cigarette ash.”

Lu Lin raised an eyebrow.

“Men smoking? That’s pretty normal.”

“Who smokes onto the back of their own head?” Sang Ning rolled her eyes.

She cleaned the blood from the fragment bit by bit.

Soon, something resembling a shard of glass appeared clearly before them.

“The killer must’ve had serious strength,” Lu Lin muttered with a click of his tongue. “Or the weapon was cheap and shattered on impact.”

“There are obvious sintering pores,” Sang Ning said, frowning slightly. “This object… is part of an ashtray.”

“But Shi Li didn’t smoke.”

Lu Lin waved his hand dismissively.

“Alright, leave the investigation to the criminal division. You just finish your report and go home to rest. I’m clocking out.”

Sang Ning ignored him.

She returned to the body once more, conducted another careful examination, and only after that did she begin the suturing process.