National Forensic Doctor
Chapter 682 - 625 Precious Body

Chapter 682: Chapter 625 Precious Body

"Oh, this is so embarrassing..."

"Nowadays, finding black donkey hooves isn’t easy. Many people just know what they’re supposed to be good for and buy them to misuse."

"We must calculate the money, yes, let’s use this corporate card."

Beaming with a smile, Wu Jun was holding a large bag of black donkey hooves, happier than if he’d received a bonus.

Jiang Yuan, his emotions stable, cleaned his mouth and stepped forward, offering, "Master, should I help you carry it?"

"No need. It’s better if fewer hands touch these hooves," Wu Jun declined flatly.

Having eaten her fill, Wang Lan, carrying a small bag of sauce-coated donkey meat, asked Wu Jun with a laugh, "Is there a specific reason for that?"

"Nothing special. It’s just that people have their own energy, you know. Too much handling and the nature of these black donkey hooves might destabilize. How does that razor theory go again? ’Do not multiply entities beyond necessity’, right?" Wu Jun spoke more scientifically, convincing everyone present.

Zhang Xiang Ji’s owner, Zhang Xiang, nodded continuously and said, "Doctor Wu makes a good point. Here’s what we’ll do: next time we slaughter donkeys, I’ll directly take the hooves off and keep them separate. Just come and pick them up when you have time. You can go straight to me when you arrive; I’m usually in the shop. We can add each other on WeChat."

"Alright then." Wu Jun took out his mobile phone and said, "Actually, I don’t need too many. Just keep aside any pure black donkeys like these. A few each month should be enough."

"You really know how to pick. De Zhou black donkeys are indeed excellent. Truth be told, we may not even get one or two a month; they get mixed in with other sales," the owner, Zhang Xiang, was won over by Wu Jun and quietly revealed his bottom line.

Of course, Jiang Fuzhen and Jiang Yuan were also aware of this. The De Zhou black donkey is the largest domestic breed in China, large and robust with delicious meat. However, because the De Zhou black donkey’s origin area is close to Dong’e, most of them end up skinned, boiled into ejiao.

Moreover, donkey meat takes a long time to breed, possibly longer than cattle, and with the rise of the ejiao trend in China, the domestic donkey population has basically been wiped out. Replacements have come in the form of donkeys from Ethiopia, Kenya, Zimbabwe...

It’s a blessing for a normal donkey meat shop owner to even find a young donkey—below the De Zhou black donkey, the younger ones taste better than the larger ones. Moreover, under normal circumstances, dealing in famous donkey breeds would only result in losses for the merchants if the customers are not familiar with the donkey meat market.

So when Zhang Xiang Ji’s owner finally gets one or two, he’d raise them in his old yard and only butcher them when longtime customers come by. Normally, he wouldn’t let them pull the mill as he continuously feeds them premium feed, emphasizing that they are pampered and valuable.

"Alright then, we’ll be going. Just adjust that water tap when you have time, and try to use well water as much as possible. The Well Dragon King is also a dragon king, it wards off evil. Consider the Well Dragon King like our police outpost; the closer you are to it, the farther away the nefarious types will stay," Wu Jun explained in a way that was both accessible and convincing.

The owner, Zhang Xiang, waved as he sent Wu Jun out the door, reluctant to see him leave.

...

After getting into the car, Jiang Yuan also received several reports on body number two and opened them up on his phone right away.

Once he started reading, Jiang Yuan couldn’t stop.

The car had just started onto the main road when Jiang Yuan said, "I’m going to make a call to the station."

Having said that, Jiang Yuan dialed the number.

The phone rang twice before connecting, and Jiang Yuan asked, "Tang Jia, according to the report, did the family of victim number two report him missing four months ago? Do you know the specifics?"

"The person who filed the report was He Yuxiang’s wife, Huang Yu," Tang Jia said.

"The reporter claims the last time she saw He Yuxiang was a week before filing the report, so that would be April 13th?"

"That’s correct," Tang Jia, who had also prepped the relevant information, said. "Huang Yu’s parents work in Beijing, and both went back to Beijing to celebrate the New Year in January, staying at Huang Yu’s parents’ place. Since He Yuxiang was in debt due to poor business at the start of the year, he didn’t return to Changyang City. During that time, the couple toured around Beijing, and He Yuxiang took the opportunity to scout the markets around Beijing, going out early and returning late for several days, and he went missing on April 10th. Huang Yu reported it on April 13th."

Jiang Yuan thought for a moment, then said, "So, the last time Huang Yu saw her husband was more than four months ago, but less than five months."

"Yes."

"Got it." Jiang Yuan hung up the phone, then looked at Wu Jun and Wang Lan who were already sitting up in the car, and said, "The timing doesn’t match. I think we need to take a look in the autopsy room."

"Then let’s go. Besides, we can probably score a meal," Wang Lan knew Jiang Yuan was just consulting her for her opinion.

Jiang Yuan then told the driver, "Change course, we’re going to the funeral home."

The driver was one of Jiang Yongxin’s men, but he had never been to the funeral home. Seeing the sky already dark outside, the driver was close to tears, "Jiang, you’re my bro, but sending me to the funeral home at this hour really gives me the creeps."

Wu Jun was the first to laugh, "What are you afraid of? We’re not going to dissect you, are we?"

"Grandpa... please don’t be like this, I have the elderly and the young to care for..." The driver started to slow down and gradually got into character: "My mom is 69 this year, she’s never had a day of ease, and a monk once told her fortune, saying she’d face a calamity at 69. We didn’t take it seriously. I was foolish; I didn’t realize this calamity would end up falling on me..."

"Enough, get out of the car, I’ll drive myself." Jiang Yuan didn’t let the driver go on, otherwise, he would really start to cry.

The driver quickly stopped the car, handed over the keys, and darted out of the cab, shouting as he ran, "Jiang, drive safely. You can just give the car to Jiang Yongxin tomorrow; I’m off..."

Jiang Yuan shook his head with a smile, moved to the driver’s seat, and leisurely began driving up the mountain.

The mortuary was exceptionally tranquil at night.

Now and then, scraps of yellow paper were whipped up off the ground, swirled into the air, curling into the shape of an ingot...

Bang.

The door to the autopsy room burst open with a sound that could scare a ghost.

The three forensic doctors simply changed into white coats, donned masks and gloves, and got to work.

The bones of corpse number two lay on the autopsy table, a chilling sight of white bones that showed no signs of decay. Although the process of skeletonization in a few months was unusually quick, such cases were quite common and not the central issue.

Jiang Yuan picked up the bones that could reveal the core of the issue and looked them over from start to finish, inspecting six pieces in one go, before saying, "I don’t see four months here, considering the local environment and circumstances, the body’s time of death is at least six months ago."

Jiang Yuan was a Level 6 death time assessor, and even then, he was being conservative by not giving a specific time of death. However, in Jiang Yuan’s view, a death time of around 180 days was most likely, and it would be a stretch to push the estimate down to 170 days based on the current preliminary assessment.

The time of the last sighting claimed by the person who reported it was over 140 days ago.

There was a gap of more than 30 days in between, and unless there was a special situation, one side had made an error.

Medical Examiner Wang Lan and Wu Jun also each examined the bones.

Wu Jun looked in a rather casual manner and, after finishing, said to Jiang Yuan, "Go with what you think."

Wang Lan examined each bone very carefully, flipping through several bones, and even took notes and made calculations in his notebook, taking even longer than Jiang Yuan, and still smiling wryly said, "My skills are limited, I can’t make as accurate a judgment, and I might need to consult entomology using the insects found in the grave later."

For a general forensic doctor, determining the time of death from a few months earlier using forensic entomology knowledge is more accurate and much simpler than using forensic anthropology as a basis for judgment.

Especially for local forensics assessing local bodies, there are only so many corpse-frequenting insect species, such as Calliphora vicina, commonly known as the green bottle fly. In summer, a corpse can attract it in around 10 minutes, and in as fast as an hour, the fly lays eggs on the body, with maggots appearing within dozens of hours, and then the maggots grow 0.2 to 0.3 centimeters a day, maturing in four to five days.

That is to say, within five days of a body’s death, if you encounter maggots of Calliphora vicina, you can almost determine the approximate time of death, measured in days, just by measuring their length.

A maggot of Calliphora vicina takes 6 days to mature, then burrows into the ground to pupate, and after 14 days, breaks out of the cocoon as a fly. Therefore, seeing the broken pupae can also help estimate the time.

And a green bottle fly soaring in the sky will not leave a fresh decaying body. It grows in one or two weeks, then quickly lays eggs again, repeating the above process.

So, if a body is exposed in the wild long enough, determining whether the nearby green bottle flies are of the grandchild or great-grandchild generation can also help calculate the time.

Of course, all these timings are affected by environmental factors, like the maggots in summer grow twice as fast as those in spring or autumn.

A normal forensic doctor, familiar with a few local insect species, can do basic forensic entomology assessments, but when it comes to breadth and depth, the difficulty increases exponentially.

It doesn’t matter that Wang Lan recognizes only a few insect species and knows little about the various non-linear equations involved; she could easily consult with experts using the insects obtained from the scene.

In the current context, Jiang Yuan’s judgment was sufficient. In fact, Jiang Yuan had already made an assessment using forensic anthropology, it was just that Wang Lan hoped Jiang Yuan would double-check.

After all, everyone present understood that the body’s time of death was closely tied to the case itself.

The insect samples were stored in the cupboard in the autopsy room. Jiang Yuan went with the flow and took the insect samples for inspection.

Soon after, Jiang Yuan provided a relatively precise time of death: between 183 and 190 days.

"With this, He Yuxiang’s wife, Huang Yu, becomes a prime suspect in the case," Wang Lan voiced the crux of the matter.

Having just reviewed Huang Yu’s statement, the one who reported the incident, Jiang Yuan nodded and said, "Based on our estimated time of death, the victim was underground and still supposedly posting on social media. Huang Yu’s testimony clearly has problems... I’ll call Director Huang..."