There is One New Rule Every Month Globally

"You mean they had marital issues with their sex life?"

The colleague from the archives department was somewhat confused by the question, "The suspect would rather solve it himself every night than go to his wife?"

"No!"

The eyes of the police officer who just conducted the interrogation narrowed as his brain raced, "My guess is that there was no victim in this case at all, the only thing that died was the suspect's second split personality!"

"I had this possibility in mind when I saw the wounds on the suspect, but now I'm nearly 70% confident that the victim is just a second personality split from the suspect."

"The reason the suspect browses adult sites every night instead of seeking out his wife is not because he prefers his own hands, but because his subconscious knows that there is no wife of his in the master bedroom next door."

"He was the only person in the entire house."

"The DNA traces on the master bedroom's bed and clothes came from the prostitutes the suspect hired, as stated in his diary that he would get a prostitute whenever his wife went out and have her wear his wife's clothes and lie in bed, which also explains the source of the unfamiliar DNA in the room—the DNA belongs to the prostitute herself."

"As for why the female clothes around the house all have traces left by the suspect, there is only one answer: the suspect would wear these clothes himself, assuming the role of the woman of the house."

"The suspect wrote in his diary that his wife, due to overbirth in her early years, had no household registration or ID card, her family died early, she rarely went downstairs, and all of these were identities he fabricated for his second personality!"

"How could all this be such a coincidence!"

"We only need to find one thing now to confirm my guess, that is to locate the prostitute who left the unknown DNA, and we can get to the bottom of this by checking the DNA against that of all the prostitutes in the city."

"All the prostitutes in the city?"

The colleague sitting next to the database yawned disinterestedly, "95% of the foot massage parlors, bath centers, clubhouses, or so-called lifestyle lounges in our city aren't legitimate operations. There are at least thirty thousand prostitutes in these places alone."

"And that's just the ones with official employment, you might say they are the regular forces."

"Those unregulated ones scattered in the dingy hair salons or foot massage shops in narrow alleys are countless."

"These are still formally engaged in the industry, not to mention those who occasionally take a job, or those who have regular day jobs but pick up clients on the side after work, or students who can't resist the allure of money and take on a few jobs and so on. Add them all up, and there must be at least a hundred thousand people."

"You want to gather all these people for a check? You must be kidding. Aside from whether we have the capability to round up so many prostitutes."

"Moreover, if the unknown DNA in the house belongs to a prostitute found by the suspect, then it will be even harder to find. Prostitutes whose DNA hasn't been recorded are basically untraceable."

"The only method is to find the contact information between the suspect and the prostitute."

"However, we've checked all incoming and outgoing messages on the suspect's phones, and there are no clues."

A few people looked at each other, and they were stuck again.

The problem now was that they didn't have enough evidence to prove that the suspect had committed murder since they hadn't even found any information about the victim or the body.

But they also couldn't prove the suspect hadn't committed murder because there were just too many suspicious points.

They were in a sort of limbo.

The victim's phone at the crime scene seemed like a normal woman's phone; she would search on video platforms for things like how to do makeup, how to dress up, and so on, except that the real-name information logged in all the applications was the suspect himself, without any points of suspicion.

"Wait a minute!"

The police officer who was conducting the interrogation suddenly had a realization, his eyes lighting up with intensity, "Someone who wears makeup regularly will definitely leave cosmetic residue on their cheeks which can't be completely removed with make-up remover!"

"We need to check for cosmetic residue on the suspect's face!"

...

Chen Yi, who was on the verge of falling asleep in the interrogation chair, saw the interrogation room door burst open, with the police officers who had been interrogating him followed by someone in a white coat who looked like a doctor.

As soon as he entered the room, he pushed the door open without saying a word, started scraping skin flakes off Chen Yi's face as if preparing to take them for testing.

Seeing this.

Chen Yi sighed with relief; these people had finally thought to test for makeup residue on his face. Just as some skin flakes had been scraped off and before these people could take them for testing, he silently activated the "Life Editor" prop.

The next second—

"Ah!!"

A piercing scream suddenly echoed in the interrogation room.

Chen Yi suddenly began to struggle violently on the interrogation chair, fear flashing over his face as he cried out with a trembling voice, "Don't kill me, don't kill me, I was wrong!"

"Don't kill me, ah!"

The sharp and piercing voice startled the few policemen in the room, making them instinctively take a few steps back, their hands at their waists as they cautiously regarded the suspect in the chair.

However, before the police officers had a chance to proceed further, the fear in Chen Yi's eyes vanished in an instant, replaced by venomous and fierce resentment as he glared at the air before him.

"You must die!"

"You deserve to die, don't you?"

"What was your attitude toward me when I was successful in starting my business, and what was it after I failed?"

"Doesn't a mercenary woman like you deserve to die?"

It was practically instantaneous.

The resentment and fierceness in Chen Yi's eyes vanished once again, replaced by a look of full-blown fear, as he pleaded with a trembling voice, "I was wrong before, I admit my mistake, I truly realize I was wrong."

"..."

Several police officers inside the interrogation room watched this scene with lingering trepidation, and only after Chen Yi's head drooped as if he had fainted did they quietly leave the interrogation room.

...

Outside the interrogation room, half of the Law Enforcement Bureau's personnel had gathered in an office, continuously replaying the scene of Chen Yi's outburst that had just taken place in the interrogation room.

"Do you think there's a chance that this was all an act?"

"No."

The head of the Evidence Department shook his head firmly and said, "Although my position doesn't allow me to make such definitive statements, if you look closely at the emotion transitions in the suspect's pupils, every change and outburst is extremely natural."

"An act?"

"If someone could mimic these emotions so perfectly, using them to escape murder charges would be a waste of talent; that person would certainly be Oscar-worthy if they entered the entertainment industry."

"I agree with the head," another person chimed in, "such emotions can't be faked. I'm starting to believe that the deceased might really have been just another personality of the suspect."

"I'd like to request a psychiatric expert to get involved and diagnose the suspect."

...

"How does it look?"

Outside the interrogation room, a dozen or so Law Enforcement officers looked expectantly at the psychiatric expert who was walking out of the interrogation room and asked.

"Not too good."

The casually dressed psychiatric expert shook his head: "Based on the preliminary observations, the suspect's pupils are mostly dilated and unfocused, which are typical symptoms of someone suffering from a split personality disorder."

"And almost all patients with split personality disorder have a hostile relationship with their other selves, with only a few forming friendly relationships with their alternate personalities."

"Based on the current situation, it appears that the patient and his other persona became husband and wife, which seems to have happened after his business failure. The highs of business success, the lows of failure—the intense disparity could indeed trigger severe emotional fluctuations."

"In the absence of anyone to stand behind the patient, the emergence of a second personality is indeed possible."

"It seems that the patient knew his daily decay inside his house was a form of escapism, but after the failure of his last venture, he was unwilling to face reality. As a result, what began as a comforting second personality became increasingly critical of the patient himself under his own influence, eventually becoming hostile toward him."

"This is quite a normal phenomenon."
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"If someone goes through a major issue, and blames themselves for it, detesting themselves every time they think of it to the point of self-loathing and continuous self-verbal abuse, gradually this persona might separate out, becoming vocal and berating the host regularly."

"All abusive alternate personalities are not autonomous; they are manifestations of the patient's own inner critical voice, the one that knows oneself best and cuts deepest, speaking through the mouth of the alternate persona."

"Under such circumstances, it makes sense for the patient to choose to kill his second personality."

And at that moment—

A colleague from the Evidence Department approached: "The lab results are in. There are indeed traces of makeup on the suspect's cheeks."

This meant that the suspect had been applying makeup regularly.

But why would a normal man wear makeup every day, unless he believed he was a woman?

All evidence at this point indicated one thing, that the suspect had killed his second personality, and the only victim in this case was the suspect himself; no other person was harmed.

"Let's release him for the time being once the interrogation period is over."

The interrogating officers waved their hands somewhat helplessly; they had thought to score a major success, but it turned out to be nothing more than a performance by a mentally ill person.

There wasn't even a need to wait for psychiatric certification.

They hadn't found a body, and afterward, a psychologist would provide psychological counseling to the suspect.

...

Inside the psychology consultation room.

Chen Yi listened intently to the psychologist in front of him as he went on incessantly with his counseling.

"Your wife has been taken away by us. She will never see you again. You can be at ease now. I hope you can make an effort to go downstairs more often, to feel the beauty of this world, to observe it more closely."

"You must remember..."

Meanwhile, a notification sounded in his ear.

「Ding, congratulations to player Chen Yi for perfectly portraying the role of the Wife Murderer, with a performance accuracy of 96%, and...」

...

ps: There are some logical issues with the third chapter tonight, so I need to do a major rewrite; it will be posted a bit later, in about an hour or so.