National Forensic Doctor
Chapter 790 - 733 Youth

Chapter 790: Chapter 733 Youth

A small grove.

In terms of city park standards, this type of forest, composed of trees as tall as a two-story building, would be considered a dense jungle where murder and arson, along with forced relations between males and other genders, could occur, but in the northern outskirts of Jingji, such a grove would simply be called a "small grove."

Of course, there could still be dead bodies in such a grove.

Li Jiang stood a few meters away, keeping himself outside the cordon, taking photographs while saying, "We’ve finally found a body, just to stare at it from afar. Isn’t it appropriate for us to go inspect it?"

His teammate, Wang Chao, also took photographs and responded calmly, "It’s not exactly ’finally,’ is it? Since the special case team was established, we’ve followed Cui Da and discovered several bodies."

"The total number is relatively high, but if we consider it from the perspective of the Criminal Police Brigade, the number of bodies we’ve found isn’t that large..."

"We’re covering a whole Criminal Police Brigade with just one special case team, aren’t we?"

"Let’s not get into that; what I mean is..." Li Jiang stretched his neck, "According to regulations, we should at least do a basic check, right?"

"According to regulations, what’s important is that we don’t disturb the scene. Jiang Yuan is right nearby; he’ll be here soon, which is better than any checking we could do. With our level of technical skill, we’re like gorillas looking at r=a(1-sinθ), thinking it’s a big butt." Xiao Si, standing quite far away and exuding an air of laziness, said while drinking water, "You all should have a drink, too. You’ve already contaminated the scene with urine, later we’ll have to contribute a sample ourselves. Don’t let anyone look down on us."

"You talk too much, you should drink more." Wang Chao passed him another bottle.

Li Jiang took two steps back and said, "Cui Da mentioned that Jiang Yuan isn’t omnipotent."

The group looked at each other and burst out laughing.

Jiang Yuan soon arrived.

Xiao Si and the others were backups that had arrived later, acting as supplementary forces for secondary lines, not far from the command center.

When Jiang Yuan came over, the three of them were standing on a small slope not far from a path, with their hands clasped as if they were a family of meerkats.

Jiang Yuan ran a few steps up the slope, greeted them and asked, "How was the scene discovered?"

"We came up from this side, stopped to pee by the road. Li Jiang didn’t dare compare sizes with us, so he went farther in, sneaking a pee, and that’s when he saw the body," Xiao Si said with childlike innocence, casually rattling off a string of words.

Li Jiang, standing to the side, turned green at the story, lowering his voice and saying, "The director is right behind us."

"What does the director know about you, you bird," Xiao Si’s voice was also quite low, like a bird that had taken flight but was still stealthily eating.

Director Chu heard them but pretended not to, otherwise, what could he do? He only even remembered Cui Qishan by the unlucky appearance he had during phone calls.

Following Xiao Si’s indicated position, Jiang Yuan leaned over to look and saw fresh tracks scraped on the ground.

However, tracks in the woods are different from those on the ground. Most of the tracks here are on the trees, branches, and leaves, usually showing only small abrasions, like the staff in a KTV, flashing skin is a must, but not much of it, scattered, not focused, not central, the parts that are revealed are not easy to hit.

Of course, at Jiang Yuan’s level of footprint analysis, it was like a local earthmoving contractor venturing into the financial sector, glancing at the bark scraped off branches and then at the footprints left by several people by the road, he could even tell the sequence of their walking.

"After entering, how far did you walk before you saw the deceased?" Jiang Yuan asked, while Mu Zhiyang kept a record behind him.

Jiang Yuan rarely did interrogation recordings due to his few encounters with active cases, but in reality, the more familiar he was with the scene, the better he could record.

Li Jiang said, "I saw it after circling around two trees, just three to four meters away."

"This few meters... did you have to jump in?" Jiang Yuan asked, his words containing a hint of skepticism.

Without retorting, Li Jiang focused on the facts, "We returned from Zhanggang Village; we’ve pooped in the fields a lot, so walking a bit further in is no harm."

He had been in the criminal police longer than Jiang Yuan and was aware of what Jiang Yuan was skeptical about, and he didn’t feel offended. If he had to take the interrogation recording, he would ask the same questions because it was obviously against common sense, especially for people in Beijing who are used to pooping in toilets—how would they know where it’s easy to climb by the road, and the logic of not pooping too close to the edge, if not from experience?

And Li Jiang’s explanation was like updating his own database of common sense.

Jiang Yuan nodded in agreement. No wonder Cui Qishan’s subordinates found the body; despite being just a few meters away, this secondary forest out here with all its shrubs and vines required a real need to go inside to hack through, or to jump into it.

Similarly, the victim must be in the same state.

Jiang Yuan nodded, observing as he walked further in, and thought that if it was also for the need to defecate, this young man had gone a bit too far.

"Did you touch the body?" Jiang Yuan continued to ask.

"No," Xiao Si answered succinctly, "We approached until about two meters away, confirmed death, then looked closer, and retreated back. We were wearing body cameras."

After all, they were Beijing detectives, their spirit of due diligence shining like a beacon, their instinct to avoid meddling rolling in like a mudslide.

"Didn’t you smell anything?" Jiang Yuan asked this question again looking towards Li Jiang, which was a small trap he had set when asking "how far did you walk to see him." Being a detective for so long, the mindset of suspecting everything had also somewhat integrated into Jiang Yuan’s brain.

Li Jiang smiled and said, "Initially thought it was the smell of the forest, didn’t think much about it, figured it was rotting leaves or something. Who knew there would be a body in the forest."

Jiang Yuan nodded, then said, "Let me look at the body first."

He spoke and moved forward to observe the body as closely as possible.

The victim was seated leaning against a pine tree.

From the body’s build, the victim was on the slim side, and his face still retained some features that resembled those of an adolescent.

The clothing was a matching Nike tracksuit, a mix of green and purple, hugging a backpack on his chest, with a fallen water bottle by his side.

Although the body was sitting, Jiang Yuan judged that the victim’s height must have been over one meter seventy-five.

As for the cause of death...

There were no obvious external injuries on the head and neck, so Jiang Yuan put on gloves and gently moved the body.

A swathe of red appeared on the victim’s chest.

Jiang Yuan frowned slightly; he had just been speculating about the possibility of the victim being poisoned, only to find an obvious external injury.

If it were poison, the victim might have died accidentally, but if it was an obvious external injury—given the forest they were currently in, there probably was no large animal that could easily kill a young adult over one meter seventy-five. And even if such an implausible misfortune occurred, why wouldn’t the victor consume its prey?

It couldn’t be that it fought to the death just for entertainment. On Blue Star, only humans are capable of such acts.

"Come and take pictures. Bring over two more lights," Jiang Yuan ordered in quick succession.

They were now deep within the forest, over a dozen meters from the edge; this wasn’t much on open ground, but in the forest, it was already densely packed with hardly any room to step, and visibility was not very good.

After two forensic lights were turned on, Jiang Yuan had completed the external examination and, with Mu Zhiyang’s assistance, gently turned the body halfway.

"This is a gunshot wound," Jiang Yuan noted, looking at the exit wound on the victim’s back, even spotting white bone fragments protruding, a typical star-shaped exit wound with some blood-stained white fatty tissue and fragments resembling internal organs attached.

After taking photos, Jiang Yuan carefully removed the backpack from the front of the victim’s chest.

The evidence became clearer, an oval entry wound right in the center of the chest, with clothing and skin both showing signs of damage post-penetration...

Xiao Si and the others were stunned.

Xiao Si couldn’t help but say, "Was the person shot with a shotgun? Could they have been hunted like prey?"

"The characteristics of this wound... it’s from a rifled firearm," Jiang Yuan’s level 4 expertise in forensic pathology was intact. Although he had not seen gunshot wounds previously, he was still able to make a very accurate assessment.

And this time, Tao Lu and the people behind him could not keep their composure.

"Rifled firearm, do you mean the kind used in military rifles?" Tao Lu was at a loss for words for a moment.

Jiang Yuan said, "Some hunting rifles also have rifling, but regardless of the type, they are definitely prohibited from personal ownership."