As Jaebum stepped inside the unit, the chalk drawing of a small body welcomed his sight. He bit his lower lip as his mind suddenly pictured the scene that Fei had narrated to him which was the sight of a four-year old kid being stabbed to death. He sighed before he shook his head and proceeded on walking further.

“This place is in ruins,” Jackson commented with a frown as he followed behind.

Jaebum remained silent at first as his eyes observed every detail of the burned unit, but unfortunately, the fire has left a little more than nothing to investigate. The unit was relatively large compared to others since it was inhabited by more than seven people. There were only a few marks of what had been the living room, the dining room, and the bedrooms, with chalk drawings of where the bodies were found. In the first bedroom was a bed with two drawings of bodies and as he glanced at Jackson, the latter figured out that he was waiting for a report.

“The married couple, heads of the family, was found here and it seemed like both of them were handcuffed to the headboard of the bed before they were stabbed, and of course, burned,” Jackson said after he took a look at the folder that he got from his bag.

Jaebum let out another sigh before taking a couple more steps and the second bedroom came into sight. Compared to the first one, there were two beds but there was only one drawing of a body which was pictured as sitting on the floor, at the edge of the bed.

“This is where the oldest victim was found. I guess no handcuffs for this one since he’s already too weak to escape death,” Jackson whispered and as Jaebum’s steps continued echoing in the unit, he too, continued speaking, “And the remaining three female victims were all found in the living room, two of them sitting on the big sofa, with bodies in a fetal position, hands near their feet. The other one was handcuffed on the table as she was seated on the floor.”

Jaebum could only imagine the scene as he stared at the burned sofas at the living room. He sighed once more as his feet took him in the kitchen, and seeing that it was the most devastated place in the unit, he knew that it was where the explosion came from.

“It’s odd,” were the first words that Jackson heard from Jaebum since they entered the apartment. The male then put his hands on his pockets as he looked at Jackson and continued, “It was just a couple of minutes. Ms. Wang saw the youngest victim being killed, she ran and saw the police then there was an explosion and a big fire followed after. The police are saying that it’s all because of an LPG tank- the one for kitchen use.”

“An LPG tank explosion would definitely be more than attention-catching but for it to actually be the cause of a fire-- that would be rare. Even if there is fire, an LPG this small would just cause a fire that is meant to be also small and short-lived,” Jackson replied, getting what Jaebum was trying to imply.

“And an LPG tank wouldn’t explode unless it is exposed to great temperature, and using an oven or even a stove to heat an LPG tank would definitely be time-consuming,” Jaebum added.

Jackson furrowed his eyebrows before exasperatingly saying, “Come on Jae. Just spit your idea out. I can’t keep up with all this science.”

Jaebum let out a small chuckle before his face turned serious once more as he said, “The fire occurred first before the explosion and the explosion just exacerbated the fire, causing it to be bigger.”

“You mean that the unit was burning first?” Jackson asked.

“Or the kitchen first.”

“But for a fire to spread quickly, you’d need to spread a flammable liquid at the area,” Jackson tried to argue but then his eyes widened upon an idea suddenly occurring to him. He mumbled, “There’s a gasoline station on the next street. Of course. It was easy for Tuan to get his hands on a couple of gallons of gasoline to make these possible.”

“There’s a loophole on our guess too,” Jaebum replied. He then teasingly urged his friend, “Come on, Jackson. You can do it.”

There was a long silence as Jackson just stared at the ground until he said, “The time-frame doesn’t make it possible. If he had murdered his whole family, he would at least need twenty minutes to set the whole fire and explosion but then, the witness saw him killing and after the witness ran outside, there’s already an explosion.”

“Unless,” Jaebum sighed. “Unless he had someone who helped him.”

“Yah,” Jackson bellowed. He let out a sigh before he yelled, “You’re making things more complicated! We have to know the reason first behind Tuan setting the whole building on fire!”

“He or maybe they, didn’t set the whole building on fire,” Jaebum retorted. “Just their unit.”

“But there are two more units-“

“--- which were affected but did not greatly suffer like this,” Jaebum had to cut his sentence. He sighed again before saying, “There’s only one reason why a murderer would set the crime scene in fire.”

“And that’s to erase the evidences,” Jackson bit his lower lip.

“This girl?”

“Neh. That girl. A week before the crime on the next street, this girl kept buying four gallons of gasoline, each day,  from this store,” the cashier told Jackson and Jaebum. He pointed at himself before continuing, “I know because I was always the one in duty at this store when she buys. She bought a total of twenty gallons I think.”

Jaebum glanced at the picture of one of the victims in the folder before looking back at Jackson who also had confusion written on his face. The male sighed before pointing at a corner of a store and as Jaebum followed Jackson’s gaze, he told the cashier,

“Can I get a copy of your CCTV footages?”

“Y-You have to talk to our manager for that,” the cashier sheepishly scratched the back of his neck.

“Okay. Could you please call your manager now?” Jaebum asked and as the cashier was just about to turn, he added, “And oh, in the next few days, you’d be getting a request to be out witness in the case.”

The cashier just nodded anxiously and the two just watched from the see through glass how he asked