National Forensic Doctor
Chapter 787 - 730 Overthrow

Chapter 787: Chapter 730 Overthrow

The corpse had to be transported down from the hillside, which would take some time. Fortunately, the officers from Zhengguang Bureau were experienced and quickly dispatched people to take over the respective tasks.

Amid the hustle and bustle, Xu Taining, dressed in a white shirt, also came by car to take a look.

"Can the cases be combined?" Xu Taining stopped Jiang Yuan at the foot of the slope and asked as soon as they met.

His primary objective and task were still the inspection work at hand.

Jiang Yuan shook his head, "There’s no reason to combine the cases for now."

"Then this is an unrelated, isolated incident?" Xu Taining said.

Jiang Yuan replied, "The time of death was within the last three months, quite possibly only seventy or so days ago, because the killer wrapped the body in a unique way, I haven’t unwrapped and inspected the body parts carefully. Follow-up reports from the autopsy may not be available until tomorrow or the day after."

Liu Jinghui, seeing Xu Taining, also came over to join the conversation, "Auditing the parts of three wrapped corpses must be more troublesome than dealing with a whole body, right?"

"Definitely, especially if the level of decomposition is high. If the autopsy doesn’t yield enough information, we may even have to boil the remains to examine the bones." Jiang Yuan briefly explained. Everyone present was part of the high-end police force, and forensic anthropology was often encountered, so a mention was enough to understand the complexity and difficulty involved.

Speaking of which, the corpse of Zhang Lizhen was also highly decomposed, and the conditions weren’t much better than here...

Xu Taining’s thought process, however, was different from that of an ordinary police officer. After hearing what Jiang Yuan said, he first pondered and then said, "If this isn’t a serial case related to the Zhang Lizhen case, Jiang Yuan, you should be able to resolve it quickly."

"Ah... That’s hard to tell..." Jiang Yuan was fairly confident, but as of now, he had not gathered sufficient evidence and clues.

Xu Taining, however, just waved his hand, "I haven’t seen you lack confidence like this when you dealt with similar cases before. On the contrary, several challenging cases were ready for review, and you solved them directly."

Jiang Yuan felt that he could hear resentment in Xu Taining’s tone!

Indeed, there were two or three, maybe even four times before, when Xu Taining had already come over, even formed his team, prepared to conduct inspections, only for Jiang Yuan to solve the cases through technical investigative methods, saving the local police departments a significant amount of budget.

Xu Taining obviously wouldn’t blame Jiang Yuan... right?

Regardless, it was clear that Xu Taining held Jiang Yuan’s case-solving abilities and style in high regard.

From Xu Taining’s perspective, when a department or a city decides to resort to inspections, especially when they’re about to ask him, Xu Taining, to lead the inspection, it’s either a desperate last resort or a choice made after the case really can’t proceed any further.

Such cases, irrespective of whether the investigating officers are intelligent or not, are typically approached with exhaustive methods.

To be honest, even with inspections, Xu Taining doesn’t always get the answers. He is just a senior chief with a relatively high success rate.

Yet Jiang Yuan, able to solve cases single-handedly under these circumstances and save a budget from plunging off a cliff, not just once or twice, made Xu Taining’s appreciation of Jiang Yuan rise accordingly.

If it weren’t for this recognition, how could Jiang Yuan summon him, a Level 6 senior chief from Shannan Province who could lie low without anyone being able to push him to act?

Seeing Jiang Yuan listening, Xu Taining used a discerning, magnetic voice common for coaxing his subordinates, "What’s the likelihood of two difficult cases occurring at the same time? Besides, this killer is unlucky enough as it is, having the body discovered by us without any anticipation, which means even if he had a plan, it was disrupted. No matter how you look at it, this case shouldn’t be a difficult one for you."

Jiang Yuan hesitated slightly, "Whether a case is difficult sometimes has to do with luck."

"We now have thousands working on the inspection, leaving it to chance? Even if it’s about luck, we’re the ones winning," Xu Taining was exceedingly confident during the inspection command.

As colleagues, and more importantly as collaborators, Xu Taining’s strong intent made Jiang Yuan take the matter seriously, thinking with a slight frown.

Liu Jinghui interjected from the side, "Xu is worried that this case will affect the inspection, right?"

"It will definitely impact it, it’s just a matter of time," Xu Taining said with experience, "During the inspection, it’s highly likely that other cases will be uncovered. Normal minor cases are one thing, but a homicide is quite troubling, especially with a dismemberment case like this. If you don’t follow up, you fear missing a good lead, losing a current homicide case, akin to picking corn and losing the cob. But if you do follow up, unless you quickly catch the killer, the longer it drags on, the more awkward it becomes."

Xu Taining has done many inspections and didn’t need to wait until the later stages to guess the thoughts of the Criminal Police Brigade and Zhengguang Bureau.

Xu Taining took out a cigarette but didn’t smoke it, simply tapping it against the cigarette box before adding, "If we can find a strong lead, showing Zhengguang Bureau that there’s hope to break the case, they will consider it calmly. But, it’d better be quick, today would be ideal. By tomorrow, the Zhengguang Bureau will likely try to marshal manpower. The teams are already spread out, and to regroup now would waste time and resources."

The reasons Xu Taining gave were sufficient, and with that, Jiang Yuan began to concentrate and think.

Liu Jinghui did the same. The three of them stood under a pine tree at the foot of the hill, heads bowed, indifferent to the gazes of others.

Odd behavior among detectives wasn’t rare, especially during the investigation phase of major cases. Many were in a fragile state both psychologically and emotionally, easily developing strange habits and behaviors.

Seeing this, Mu Zhiyang, without thinking, positioned himself slightly in front of the three, staring straight ahead, effectively blocking any inquisitive onlookers.

After a long while, Liu Jinghui looked up and said, "First of all, the newspaper is a good entry point. Newspaper circulation is very low now, hardly any are sold in the market, and the subscribers are fixed. Although we don’t know the specific circumstances of how the murderer got the newspaper, there should be a potential to trace it."

"Maybe," Jiang Yuan was not optimistic and said flatly, "The murderer wrapped the body very thoroughly, not like someone who would make such a basic mistake."

"If you look at it from this angle, the woven bag, the rice bag, and the plastic bag the murderer used are all hard to trace as evidence," Liu Jinghui said.

Jiang Yuan nodded slightly, thought for a moment, then added, "We still haven’t confirmed the source of the body. If we can confirm it, there might be a breakthrough."

"What about a direct approach? Do you have any straightforward solutions?" Xu Taining believed that Jiang Yuan could identify the source of the body. Apart from anything else, Jiang Yuan’s Skull Restoration Skill was a trump card for confirming the source of the body. However, he was most concerned about time, which directly opposed this method.

"Actually, we don’t need to think of the murderer as being very meticulous." Liu Jinghui used Jiang Yuan’s assessment to reframe the explanation: "The murderer wrapped the body very carefully, maybe it’s just a habit he has, or perhaps it’s his life and work experience. For example, having been a courier, packer, supermarket stocker, or something like a doctor or nurse. Judging from the way the murderer handled the body, I tend to think he acted on instinct."

Liu Jinghui glanced at Jiang Yuan, noticed he didn’t mind his conclusions being overturned, and continued, "Using woven bags, rice bags, and plastic bags to contain the body indicates the murderer didn’t prepare much. The reason to kill might have been a crime of passion or an accidental killing. But to escape punishment, he resorted to dismemberment. These items were likely found at home, I presume."

Jiang Yuan and Xu Taining both nodded. Rice bags, woven bags, and large plastic bags, all found at home, were few of the suitable options for concealing dismembered body parts. This was a reasonable explanation.

Liu Jinghui said, "This suggests one thing, the murderer has the conditions to live alone, probably in an independent residence, which to a large extent rules out young people living in dorms or in shared houses."

Jiang Yuan and Xu Taining nodded again.

Liu Jinghui: "The murderer is most likely male, otherwise dismembering and dumping the body would be too difficult. However, the fact that he didn’t bury the body but covered it with leaves and branches also shows he was unprepared, one of the reasons I said he wasn’t meticulous. Throwing far and burying close is a characteristic of many murderers. It’s also a rather instinctual choice. Considering the crime scene, actually burying is better than throwing, throwing and burying is even better."

Xu Taining said, "Maybe he ran out of strength. Murdering, dismembering, and then transporting the body here—it’s tough enough to climb this slope..."

"I agree." Jiang Yuan suddenly interrupted Xu Taining and said, "It took several of us to carry the corpse just now, even though it was to ensure its integrity, but regardless of how the murderer abandoned the body, he must have been extremely tired."

Liu Jinghui nodded, "Right, unless it was done by multiple people, even someone with great strength would get tired carrying a body. Look at where he parked the motorcycle, he basically just dumped it within ten meters or so on this side."

"With such physical exhaustion, did he immediately ride away after discarding the body? Could he keep up the strength? Even if he rode away, it wouldn’t be easy to go all the way back on such a poor mountain road in one breath," said Jiang Yuan, standing up and returning to where the body had been abandoned.

After glancing around, Jiang Yuan activated the Crime Scene Reconstruction (Temporary +1) skill with Level 6 credentials and began to pace counterclockwise.

The scene had been isolated for too long, and the ground, littered with leaves and organic matter, bore no footprints or any other marks.

As he inspected his surroundings, Jiang Yuan made a full circle, found nothing, and simply followed the path downhill at a leisurely pace.

Liu Jinghui and Xu Taining began to grasp what he was doing and hurriedly followed.

Liu Jinghui murmured, "It rained a while ago. We might not find any tracks."

"This place is rarely visited. Maybe there will be motorcycle tracks left," said Jiang Yuan, walking briskly.

There was only one narrow path, no wider than two meters, leading up and down the mountain—it was the only way through. Even if the murderer’s motorcycle was nimble, it couldn’t possibly squeeze through the forest and underbrush.

Jiang Yuan walked briskly for about two hundred meters before he saw another relatively flat patch of ground ahead.

A large cedar tree with dense foliage took a dominant position, with several tree root stumps beneath it bearing witness to their unfair treatment.

Jiang Yuan immediately walked over and easily found familiar tire tracks next to the tree root stumps.

Equally conspicuous were the pile of cigarette butts in front of the stumps.

"Bring more evidence bags," called Jiang Yuan, then set up the perimeter tape himself. He took out spare evidence bags and tweezers from his pocket and began to collect the cigarette butts one by one, placing each butt into a separate evidence bag.

These cigarette butts could have been left by others who visited the hill, but if the murderer smoked, then his life was essentially in the hands of nicotine and Jiang Yuan.