Chapter 364: Can He Do It?

Police Station.

"What is it? Bone‑to‑skin painting? Can that work?" After Li Yunfei finished describing Xu Mo's method, the officers all voiced doubt and then looked at the only portrait artist in the Police Station.

However, no one expected that even the bureau's portrait artist wore a completely bewildered expression.

Bone‑to‑skin painting? Does this method even exist in simulated portraiture?

Creating a portrait based on someone else's description is already a very troublesome task, let alone reconstructing a face from a skull; the difficulty is obvious.

Not only the other officers, even the portrait artist had never heard of this method.

At this moment, the portrait artist's thought was surprisingly aligned with the other officers: …Can this work?

The next second, he shook his head toward the officers: "Don't look at me; I've never heard of this method, and I don't know whether it can work."

The officers fell silent instantly.

Good grief, even a professional hasn't heard of this method…

"I think Xu Mo can do it, and besides we have no other options, right? Let's treat a dead horse as if it were alive," Li Yunfei said.

…

Half an hour later.

Xu Mo and Chen Ke arrived at the Police Station.

Led by Li Yunfei, Xu Mo went to the place where the corpse was stored.

"This is it," Li Yunfei pointed at a very intact skeleton on the dissection table in the room.

Although Li Yunfei had just expressed strong confidence in Xu Mo before the other officers, it was only to steady morale.

To be honest, Li Yunfei himself had no idea whether Xu Mo could reconstruct the deceased's appearance from this skull.

Xu Mo stepped forward, examined the skeleton on the dissection table, and instinctively analyzed its condition.

"Female, between nineteen and twenty‑one years old, died about ten years ago; the skull shows blunt‑force trauma… that mark on the skull should be the fatal wound."

"Exactly, our forensic doctor says the same!" Li Yunfei nodded vigorously: "You also know how to examine corpses?"

Li Yunfei had intended to fetch Xu Mo a forensic autopsy report for him to see, but Xu Mo didn't need any of that; he understood autopsies, glanced briefly, and reached the same conclusions as the Police Station's forensic doctor.

Xu Mo modestly said, "I know a little bit."

"The case is so old that it's extremely hard to investigate; it took four days just to identify the victim, and there's no way to start an investigation. The bone‑to‑skin painting you mentioned—can it really restore the victim's appearance?"

"It should be possible; I'll give it a try," Xu Mo said, without guaranteeing success.

Bone‑to‑skin painting is extraordinarily difficult, a completely different level from portraiture based on descriptions; Xu Mo wasn't confident he could pull it off.

Li Yunfei fetched paper and pencils for Xu Mo, and also took the skull out of the room, setting up a well‑lit spot for him in the office outside.

Sitting down, Xu Mo picked up a pencil and began the portrait, using the skull on the desk as reference.

The officers gathered behind Xu Mo, watching him draw.

Among them, the portrait artist stared wide‑eyed at how Xu Mo would reconstruct the face from a skull, genuinely curious about this bone‑to‑skin painting technique.

Xu Mo didn't start with a portrait; he first sketched the skull on paper, then added details point by point.

This time, Xu Mo's drawing pace was very slow; after a few minutes of sketching he would pause to think, then either continue, revise, or simply discard the sketch sheet as waste.

This was completely inconsistent with the speed at which he could finish a portrait in minutes yesterday.

As seconds ticked by, Xu Mo had already discarded more than twenty sketch sheets, and the number of officers watching him from behind kept dwindling; the process of drawing from the skull was unbearably tedious.

Consequently, as time dragged on and Xu Mo still hadn't finished, more and more officers lost all hope that he could render the victim's face.

One hour…

Two hours…

Three hours…

Xu Mo drew repeatedly, scrutinizing every tiny detail on the skull, constantly revising and redrawing, fully immersed in the task.

What Xu Mo didn't notice was that during his drawing, a girl had entered the Police Station and sat behind him, staring intently at his work.

The girl's skin was extremely fair, like porcelain, and her big, watery eyes were full of curiosity about what Xu Mo was doing.

She had been beside Xu Mo for over an hour, yet he remained lost in his own world, completely oblivious to her presence, continuing to draw alone.

…

After six and a half hours of repeated revisions and redraws, Xu Mo finally finished.

He lifted the sketch sheet from the board, carefully compared it with the skull on the table, then, holding the skull in one hand and the sketch in the other, placed the skull behind the paper, aligned them in the light, examined through the paper, and after feeling everything was correct, he set both the skull and the sketch on the table.

"Finished?" the pleasant voice of the girl behind Xu Mo sounded.

"Hmm," Xu Mo answered instinctively, then turned to the girl with a slightly puzzled expression.

Seeing Xu Mo's confusion, the girl smiled, extended her right hand toward him: "Zhang Sitong, just call me Sisi."

Sisi? The Bureau Chief's daughter is also called Sisi, no wonder a school‑girl shows up at the Police Station unchecked; it's because she's the Bureau Chief's daughter, who would have time to bother her… Xu Mo also smiled, "Xu Mo."

"I know who you are; I saw you in the Sky Eye Operation, and you even trended recently—you saved a plane passenger's life," Zhang Sitong said, her eyes still sparkling like tiny stars.

At that moment, Li Yunfei came over carrying a plastic bag.

"Xu Mo, I bought some ice cream; have one and take a break, stop drawing for now… Hey, Sisi's here too, would you give her one?"

After speaking, Li Yunfei didn't forget to introduce the two to each other.

"This is Xu Mo, here to help us solve the case—the one from your school."

"This is Sisi, the Bureau Chief Zhang's darling."

"We've already met, wow, Brother Fei, you're so rich—Snow Cream Assassin 'Zhong Xuegao', you bought a whole bag at once!" Zhang Sitong said, her small mouth open as she looked at the bag of ice cream Li Yunfei had bought.

Mentioning it made Li Yunfei so angry he could barely contain himself.

"Don't bring it up; how was I supposed to know it's that expensive? How can ice cream be so pricey now? Even though it looks plain, it cost me over four hundred yuan! Snow Cream Assassin… the nickname fits; it's truly like an assassin, that one stab makes my liver tremble."