Chapter 2
Edward Quan ·
14
“The ring? Explain, Chen!” Liu sounded urgent on the other end of the line.
“I suspect it’s more than jewelry,” I said quickly. “It could be a carrier. A precision tool for transferring DNA. Li Ming’s alibi is too perfect, almost as if it was deliberately designed. If he’s the killer, there must be a method we haven’t discovered yet.”
Liu was silent for two seconds, then made his decision.
“Understood. I’ll arrange it now. We’ll find a suitable reason to bring him back to ‘help with the investigation,’ then get him to ‘volunteer’ to take off the ring.”
15
The next time we saw Li Ming was in the interview room at the precinct.
He was still composed, though now there was a hint of impatience at being repeatedly disturbed.
“Officer Liu. Dr. Chen. I’ve told you everything. I understand that you want to solve the case, but please stop bothering me. I’m exhausted.”
He rubbed his brow. The performance was flawless.
“Mr. Li, I apologize. Just one final question.” Following the plan we’d agreed on, Liu kept his tone mild. “We’d like to make a detailed record of your wedding rings, including photographs. Would you take yours off so we can have a look? It may help clarify a few things.”
This was the crucial moment.
I watched his hand.
His fingers curled slightly. Then he gave a weary but cooperative smile.
“Of course. I hope it helps.”
Slowly, he raised his left hand and began to remove the ring.
His movements were gentle. My heart was in my throat.
Would he refuse? Make an excuse?
No.
He slipped it smoothly off his ring finger and placed it on the table.
“Please be careful with it. It means a great deal to me.”
His eyes betrayed nothing.
Liu put on gloves, carefully lifted the ring with tweezers, and sealed it in a clear evidence bag.
“Thank you for your cooperation. We’ll return it as soon as we’ve finished examining it.”
16
As soon as the ring reached the laboratory, I went to work.
Under the electron microscope’s extreme magnification, its secrets had nowhere to hide.
The black band wasn’t merely decorative. Its surface was covered in regularly arranged micropores, invisible to the naked eye.
Inside the ring, the tiny letters I’d glimpsed were now clear:
“To My Eternal Love, LM & SXJ”
Li Ming and Su Xiaojing’s initials.
Even denser micropores surrounded the engraving.
More importantly, we recovered minute traces of biological tissue from those pores and the grooves of the inscription—along with the same high-strength bioadhesive.
My theory was confirmed.
This was no ordinary piece of jewelry.
It was an intricately designed device for storing and releasing specific DNA samples.
17
“How… does it work?” Liu stared at the laboratory report in disbelief.
“The principle isn’t complicated, but the design is ingenious.” I pointed to the microscope images. “The black band is a porous material that holds liquid. It can be loaded with a solution or gel containing specific DNA fragments. Those micropores are controlled release channels.”
I paused, suppressing the chill inside me.
“When Li Ming wears it, friction, pressure, or some trigger mechanism we haven’t identified causes tissue fragments from a previous victim to mix with the adhesive and seep through the micropores in minute quantities, coating his fingers.”
“Then, during the attack—if he covers Su Xiaojing’s mouth and nose or strangles her, for example—she scratches those fingers as she struggles. The ‘foreign’ DNA is transferred beneath her fingernails.”
Liu drew in a sharp breath.
“So the DNA ‘belonging to her’ beneath her fingernails wasn’t hers at all? Li Ming planted it on her with that damned ring?”
“Exactly!” I struck the table. “He exploited our faith in scientific evidence. He created an impossible paradox to send us in the wrong direction. Any biological traces he actually left during the crime may have been carefully cleaned away long ago.”
18
“A previous victim…” Liu seized on the phrase. “He’s killed before?”
We immediately examined all of Li Ming’s relationships, particularly his romantic history.
An overlooked file came to light.
Before Su Xiaojing, he had been in a long-term relationship with a woman named Zhao Ting.
Three years ago, she disappeared.
No sign of her alive. No body found.
Li Ming had been investigated then too, but he’d had an alibi. With insufficient evidence, the case had gone nowhere.
Zhao Ting’s disappearance remained unsolved.
A horrifying picture began to emerge.
Li Ming, the cultured biotechnology researcher, might be a serial killer.
He used his expertise to fabricate DNA evidence, deceive the police, and walk free.
The ring was more than a symbol of his twisted love. It was a tool of his crimes—and a sick trophy.
He used the next woman’s life to “commemorate” the one before.
The DNA beneath Su Xiaojing’s fingernails might belong to the missing Zhao Ting.
19
We immediately obtained a formal arrest warrant for Li Ming and conducted thorough searches of his home and workplace.
In his personal locker at the company laboratory, we found crucial evidence: raw materials and experimental notes for preparing the special bioadhesive and DNA-preservation solution.
The notes showed he had been carrying out related “personal research” all along.
At his home, technicians forced open a heavy safe with a combination lock.
What lay inside filled everyone present with revulsion and anger.
Several clear specimen boxes were neatly arranged within.
The first contained a specimen preserved in formalin. Beside it was a label bearing a name and date.
Zhao Ting’s name.
The second held several locks of long hair tied with red thread.
The third was empty. Next to it lay a woman’s wedding ring, matching the one Su Xiaojing wore.
The empty box’s label had no name.
But its size…
It was just right for a finger bone.
That was the “place” he had prepared for Su Xiaojing.
Li Ming didn’t just kill. He collected parts of his victims’ bodies, treating them as “anchors for the soul.”
The discovery confirmed that he was a serial killer and revealed the source of the DNA inside the man’s ring.
20
Faced with irrefutable evidence, Li Ming’s mask of calm finally shattered.
But he didn’t break down.
Instead, he gave a chilling, almost fanatical smile.
“So you finally found it…”
There was no fear in his eyes. Only an almost boastful pride.
“Elegant, isn’t it? Making the body itself ‘lie.’ Leading you into a maze of your own reasoning.”
“Why did you kill them?” Liu asked, containing his anger.
“Why?” Li Ming tilted his head as though considering a very simple question. “Because of love.”
“I loved them. Deeply. But love fades. People change. Only perfection can last forever.”
His voice held a sick tenderness.
“Zhao Ting became so ordinary. All she could think about was the daily grind. And Su Xiaojing wanted to leave me for that ridiculous dancing dream…”
“So I helped them remain at their most beautiful. I kept the most perfect part of them beside me forever.”
He looked toward the empty specimen box with something almost like regret.
“I hadn’t had time to take Xiaojing’s finger bone yet… Next time, I’ll do it better.”
A deathly silence filled the interview room.
We weren’t facing an ordinary criminal. This was a monster of extraordinary intelligence, his logic entirely consistent, his emotions twisted beyond recognition.
21
The case seemed ready to close.
The evidence formed a complete chain. The killer had confessed.
But one question remained lodged like a thorn in my mind.
How had Li Ming killed Su Xiaojing with a perfect alibi?
He really had been at the company that night. The security footage and his colleagues could confirm it.
Did he have an accomplice?
We went through all the surveillance footage and his communications once more.
Finally, during a period when the company laboratory’s camera had a blind spot, we discovered he had been repeatedly operating his personal computer.
Our technical team recovered its data.
In an encrypted folder, we found a complete smart-home control program.
It connected to the latest-generation smart-home system in the house he shared with Su Xiaojing.
The door locks. The lighting. The sound system.
And an apparently ordinary “massage belt” in the bedroom—with a remote-control function.
The ligature marks recorded in Su Xiaojing’s autopsy report matched its width exactly.
The truth, in that moment, was brutally suffocating.
There had been no intruder.
No face-to-face struggle.
That night, from his workplace, Li Ming had remotely locked the house and plunged it into a dark, terrifying atmosphere.
Then he activated the disguised “massage belt” in the bedroom.
Like a cold, venomous snake, it silently tightened, strangling his sleeping wife.
He had even watched the whole thing remotely through a camera, “savoring” it.
He hadn’t merely used technology to fabricate evidence.
He had used the most “technological” method to commit the murder itself.
From behind a cold screen, he had carried out a merciless execution.
22
On the day of the verdict, Li Ming was sentenced to death.
He showed no emotion, as though he had expected it all along.
I stood in a corner of the courtroom, watching him being led away. I felt none of the relief that should have come with solving the case.
The paradoxical DNA beneath Su Xiaojing’s fingernails. The truth behind Zhao Ting’s disappearance. The ring concealing a devil’s code. That cold, remote-controlled murder…
It was a nightmare from which I couldn’t wake.
I lowered my head and looked at my hands.
We always believed that bodies spoke. That evidence didn’t lie.
But when technology was harnessed by a twisted mind, when evidence was deliberately and expertly fabricated…
What a body told us might be exactly the lie its killer wanted us to hear.
And the truly frightening question was…
Where would the next Li Ming appear?
What kind of… ring would he be wearing?
(The End)