National Forensic Doctor
Chapter 469 - 469 431 Foreword

469: Chapter 431 Foreword 469: Chapter 431 Foreword Hou Lejia inserted his hands into his pockets and arrived in front of the village committee office of Yuguang Village, waiting for someone while surveying the small Yuguang Village.

In order to maintain secrecy, they hadn’t made prior contact with the locals but had simply brought along someone from the township police station and would call for people on-site.

The unit known as the village group is now rarely mentioned.

It effectively corresponds to the former production team, usually a natural village or a settlement known by names like tun or zhuang.

The nationally recognized units are administrative villages, underneath which there are several natural villages.

In the past, an administrative village was a production brigade, and a natural village was a production team; the leader of the brigade often held significant power.

Under Jiaxuan Township, where Yuguang Village is located, there are 16 administrative villages, and close to 300 natural villages like Yuguang Village.

Upstream of Lishou River, a potential area for body dumping, there are at least three or four such townships with around 1000 natural villages.

Thus, after the simplest checks for missing persons, the case of John Doe 122 stalled.

Hou Lejia once thought that the deceased might have come from out of town.

If that were the case, finding clues would become even more unlikely.

Indeed, Yuguang Village was quite remote; to get to the nearest riverbank of Lishou River, one had to climb a mountain, and the likelihood was high that the body had been dumped.

Of course, it was uncertain; maybe the victim was brought to the riverbank and then killed.

“Captain Hou, this is the village chief of Yuguang Village, Zhang Xuejie,” the police officer accompanying him brought over a man in his fifties.

In the village, someone in their fifties was considered young.

Zhang Xuejie looked fit but somewhat panicked.

Approaching Hou Lejia, he asked, “How big is this case?”

He had seen the arrivals.

The last time there were more than three police officers, it followed a massive brawl between two villages that left several seriously injured.

This time, he had already seen several police cars.

Hou Lejia naturally wouldn’t respond to such a question.

He watched as the officer next to him pulled out a photo, showing it to Zhang Xuejie, and asked, “Do you recognize this person?”

“This is…

my eyes aren’t good…” Zhang Xuejie held the photo at a distance, finally seeing clearly, and said, “This is Zhang Lu’s wife, Li Fang, right?

Did you find her?”

Looking at the surrounding police officers, he frowned and couldn’t help asking, “Nothing good?”

“Is Zhang Lu at home?

Is he in the village?” Hou Lejia first asked the important questions.

Zhang Xuejie thought for a moment and replied, “He should be.

He was here the past few days.

They have a motorbike at home and sometimes go down the mountain to the market.

I’ve ridden with them before.”

“Lead us to his home,” Hou Lejia took charge and at the same time asked, “How many people are living in Zhang Lu’s house right now, and how many people are there currently?”

“Just the two of them, his wife ran off, so now it’s just him and his son…”

“Li Fang ran off?

Why do you say she ran off?”

“She took her clothes and jewelry, left her husband and son behind; if that’s not running off, then what is?” Zhang Xuejie indifferently said, “His son’s in elementary school, and they don’t have much money.

He goes to the local central elementary school.

Zhang Lu doesn’t want to work outside, so he does farm work in the village.

Nowadays in the countryside, there’s no money in farm work; just us old folks do it.

When the wife keeps nagging, off she goes.”

Zhang Xuejie spoke as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“How common is this situation?” Hou Lejia inquired.

“What situation?”

“The situation where the wife runs off.”

“There’s plenty who can’t find wives to begin with; those who do, if they can’t stand it after a few years, they just run off.

Some go to the city, some find someone better.

It’s all the same.

And then there are those who take their kids and run—that doesn’t work; the wife’s family will go looking for trouble with the husband’s family,” Zhang Xuejie said, expressing a sigh over the situation in the village.

At this point, alarm bells were going off for Hou Lejia.

To further confirm, Hou Lejia asked, “What does Li Fang’s husband say?

Has he looked for his wife?”

“He just says she ran off.

No need to look for her when she’s run away; it’s quite common around here.

What’s the point in looking?” Zhang Xuejie rambled on, as if he had just thought of something.

Hou Lejia, feigning ignorance, asked, “He says she ran off and that’s it?

Are they divorced?”

“No, I don’t think so.

Mentioning divorce is asking for trouble; it’s not possible.

With the high bride price these days, who would want to divorce?” Zhang Xuejie paused, then continued, “Couples who go out to work in cities often get divorced easily, but Zhang Lu lives in the village; he definitely wouldn’t agree to a divorce.”

“So, no one has looked for Li Fang?”

“Her phone’s been unreachable.

At the time, we figured she must have found a better place to be…” Zhang Xuejie now seemed to realize that something was amiss, his voice growing softer.

As Hou Lejia continued his questioning, the criminal police arrived at Zhang Lu’s house, surrounding it before knocking loudly on the door.

Zhang Lu’s house was a bare concrete apartment building, four stories high, with not a single tile on the façade, and with the red paint on the main door peeling off in patches, giving off a very casual appearance.

Creak.

The mottled red-painted door was directly opened, revealing a bleary-eyed and unkempt middle-aged man inside.

“Are you Zhang Lu?” a criminal police officer stepped forward to ask.

“What’s the matter?” The man was still not fully aware.

“Are you Zhang Lu?” the criminal police persisted as his colleagues stepped past, blocking the door to prevent Zhang Lu from suddenly shutting it and turning a simple arrest into a desperate escape.

“Yes.” The middle-aged man furrowed his brow, but seeing so many police officers, he acted submissively and didn’t dare to speak defiantly.

“Is there anyone else at home?” The officers began to enter.

“No.”

“What about your son?”

“He’s gone to school.”

“Do you have any relatives?

Arrange for someone to pick you up.” Hou Lejia frowned, as this was a rather complicated situation.

Zhang Lu hesitated for a few seconds, then asked, “What for?”

“We are from the Longli County Criminal Police Team, do you know why we’re looking for you?” The leading detective looked at Zhang Lu’s timid appearance and suddenly asked him a question.

Zhang Lu barely kept his eyes open, his head felt stuffy, as if he were in a pressure cooker, and he didn’t know what to say for a moment.

He had actually rehearsed the conversation in front of him, but the serious faces in front of him, the neat uniforms, and the harsh voices made it impossible for him to utter a word.

Time had also passed a bit too long, it had been more than a year, and the tension that was keeping him on edge had loosened.

It was not easy to force it back.

…

The induction cooker was on high heat, bubbling away.

The boiling soup pot, milky white and much cleaner than the water in a pot used for boiling bones, occasionally churned up pig stomachs and intestines, big and intact.

The induction cooker was the same model used in the autopsy room.

Doctor Ye had bought it years ago, and it had lasted for over a decade.

Therefore, he had purchased more for his own home, his father-in-law’s house, and his parents’ house, and later even equipped his own office with one.

The cooker had dummy-proof buttons; you just pressed the hot pot button, and the water bubbled away vigorously, turning anything inside soft and mushy in no time.

Hou Xiaoyong added cabbage and radishes to the simmering soup pot filled with pig intestines, chicken stomach, and then proceeded to quickly blanch the easy-to-cook tribute vegetables, kelp sprouts, and so on…

Even with concerns on his mind, as Medical Examiner Zhai ate, he felt comfortably warm.

The basement was still somewhat chilly, though.

Despite having air conditioning and the like, human bones are different from boiled bones.

Spend too much time there, and one could feel stiff.

As he consumed several more bites of intestines, Medical Examiner Zhai felt half full and put down his chopsticks, asking, “You mentioned three skull restorations earlier.

What about the other two?

What cases were they from?”

“The other two cases are from Changyang City.

The two people probably fell off a cliff together, but no identification information was found.” Jiang Yuan briefly explained, then added, “They’ve been in the ice coffin for over a year as well.

Since the situation was similar to the cases here in Longli County and they heard that I was having success, they called me.”

More than half of the staff in Jiang Yuan’s Cold Case Squad were lured away from Changyang City, so it was about time he repaid them by working on a couple of cases as rent.

When it came to the number of cases, as the provincial capital, Changyang City undoubtedly led the entire province.

Before, Jiang Yuan had helped them clear out their backlog of cases, focusing on confirmed criminal cases.

Whether the new cases dropped at their doorstep were criminal had yet to be determined.

After all, dying from a fall off a cliff could be accidental, a suicide, or someone pushed them.

It’s the fact that the two people fell off the cliff together that made the situation unusual, but it didn’t rule out the possibility that one person dragged the other one down with them.

So, although there were no complainants, Changyang City still kept the bodies in ice coffins.

Medical Examiner Zhai wasn’t interested in the cases themselves; it was the Skull Restoration Skill that he cared about.

Remembering the intermediate skull restoration images he had just seen made Medical Examiner Zhai somewhat eager, and he said, “If you don’t mind, can I lend a hand?”

“Well…that’s alright, I suppose.” Jiang Yuan’s reply was a bit reluctant.

Medical Examiner Zhai was rather old, and he was past the age of learning magic…

and the Skull Restoration Skill.

Moreover, while some skills might be advertised as “learning from zero”, claiming “zero basis for learning the Skull Restoration Skill” was a bit far-fetched.

Not to mention the many prerequisite skills required for the Skull Restoration Skill, even a level 1 skill was not very useful in practice.

What good is a skull restoration that doesn’t reflect the victim’s face in photos until the case is solved and only then seems to bear a resemblance?

As for training Medical Examiner Zhai to a level 3 or even level 2 in the Skull Restoration Skill, that was not just an underestimate of the skill; it would be an insult to the sacrifices of Guihua and the criminals at all levels from Miao He County!

“I don’t do skull restorations often, and I can’t perform them casually.

If you want to work together, you’ll need to follow my pace.” Jiang Yuan stated this quite diplomatically.

Medical Examiner Zhai agreed in a heartbeat, and then asked, “Will we be doing it in Longli County?”

Working on Changyang City cases in Longli County seemed a bit odd.

“Let’s work on a few cases first, then we can move the equipment.” Jiang Yuan paused, then said, “If you find it inconvenient…”

“It’s not inconvenient at all.

I’m quite familiar with Captain Hou; although he can be stingy and a bit daft at times, sometimes unclear in his thinking and not too decisive, when it comes to working on cases, he’s obedient.” Medical Examiner Zhai gave a fair assessment.

The crowd around the hot pot, especially the police officers from Longli County, silently nodded in agreement, including Hou Xiaoyong.

“Then let’s get started.

What should I do first?” Medical Examiner Zhai was not very hungry to begin with, and now he had lost all appetite.

He was not exactly aiming to master the Skull Restoration Skill, but getting deeply involved and understanding what was truly going on was very important.

Jiang Yuan had not expected him to be so eager; he had underestimated the allure of the Skull Restoration Skill to a senior forensic doctor.

After thinking for a moment, Jiang Yuan said, “How about you take a look at the photos I did before?

That way, it would be easier to follow along with the latter part.

I might be busy with other things this afternoon, shall we officially start tomorrow?”

“That works, even if I have to stay up all night, I’ll try to keep up with the progress.” Medical Examiner Zhai was of the older generation and very enthusiastic about learning.

And so…

That night, Medical Examiner Zhai truly did not sleep.