Breaking Through The Clouds - [Author: Huai Shang (淮上)]

Volume 1: Chapter 28

Volume 1: Case 502 - The Intoxicated Frozen Corpse

Chapter 28

The captain of the criminal investigation unit VS the police beauty with the long legs

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TLC: AlexPT
Editor: Beth

The police cars tore through the congested evening rush hour streets, sirens wailing the entire way, speeding in the direction of the hospital under the curious stares from myriad passersby.

"The author of To See the Obvious is Australian chemist Arthur Birch, whose most famous contribution to the field is publishing the Birch reduction, named after himself. Description of a Method for Factory Production of Amorphous Phosphorus is a work published by Austrian chemist Anton Schrötter in 1848; Schrötter's main contribution is his discovery that, when white phosphorus is heated to 250°C within an inert gas, it will form a red allotrope, also known as red phosphorus. Terpene and Camphor's author, Otto Wallach, was the recipient of the 1910 Nobel Prize in Chemistry; he has an additional discovery partially named after himself, the Leuckart-Wallach reaction, which refers to the reductive amination of carbonyl compounds with either ammonia or amines."

At the wheel, Yan Xie glanced sideways at the passenger's seat. He couldn't help but ask, "What does this have to do with abduction?"

"The Birch reduction, the red phosphorus reduction method, as well as the Leuckart-Wallach reaction - these three share one thing in common." Jiang Ting lifted his head from the notes Chu Ci left behind, and said, "They are the three major processes used by current drug-manufacturing organizations in the synthesis of methamphetamine."

Yan Xie at the wheel: "..."

Han Xiaomei in the backseat: "..."

Both wore expressions of sudden enlightenment.

"But this hint's way too esoteric, even his own advisor didn't get it. Are you sure we're reading it correctly?" Han Xiaomei couldn't help but question. "Is there any possibility that he himself is involved with the drug manufacturing, and he was just looking into these books for reference?"

Jiang Ting's reply was unwavering. "There's no such possibility, and for two main reasons: The process of manufacturing meth is exceedingly simple. Someone with such high aptitude for chemistry like Chu Ci would have no need for any reference material; he could likely be able to synthesize it even within the comforts of his own kitchen - that's number one."

"As for two, I went over Chu Ci's notes. He has a mild anxiety disorder - that is, OCD. It specifically manifests as a compulsion where he has to stop his strokes on the lines of a page, when he's writing a vertical stroke. Such as when writing a 'T', the second stroke will always meet the horizontal line to form an extremely precise right angle. If you examine all of his notes, you'll find that every vertical line is as such. If the angle's not straight enough, it'll even be forcibly whited-out and corrected."

A moment of rustling in the backseat, then Han Xiaomei's head bobbed up, exclaiming, "It really is!"

"It's quite normal," said Jiang Ting. "Chu Ci lives in an environment that is intensely stressful. His thesis, his experiment, ensuring his admittance into his doctorate program, securing the highest scholarship every year, and then his roommate Feng Yuguang creating long-term disturbance to his sleep and causing his nerves to be highly strung - mental health issues are practically tailor-made for people in situations like this. A bit of obsessive-compulsion is hardly any surprise."