Chapter 234

"I'm about to start the dissection now. Take a look—if you approve, just nod."

"Ah… alright, alright, go ahead."

Chen Fan reached out, followed the position of the sternum, dug in, and gave it a pinch.

"Mm, interesting. This internal organ is actually preserved quite well. Master, come feel it."

The family member threw up on the spot.

Damn it, you're serious?

At this point Old Liu came over, reached out and pinched it, frowned, and said, "Mm, indeed not bad. For a charred body, the internal organs being preserved this well is rare. By the way, what's this here? Was it from a fall or a crushing?"

The firefighter said, "It was the big brother who carried him out when he was rescuing people."

Old Liu and Chen Fan looked over. The big brother wiped his sweat and said, "What is it?"

"Nothing, big brother, you weren't careful—you crushed it all to pieces."

"Sigh, nothing I could do about it. When I went in, the person was already gone. I didn't get steady footing here and fell."

Chen Fan pointed at the tattoo on the big brother's body and said, "Big brother, this tattoo of yours is—?"

"Young and ignorant, got it done on a whim."

Chen Fan nodded and said, "I want one too, but I'm worried my dad will break my legs."

Ha ha ha, everyone laughed along.

At this point, Old Liu had the trainees load the body onto the vehicle.

Here, Chen Fan stood in place. Old Liu said, "Chen Fan, come with me. I'll head back first."

"Alright, Teacher."

Chen Fan came over to Old Song's side, helping someone bandage a wound and checking on an eye injury.

"Nothing serious, right?"

Old Song said, "Nothing serious, just a spark. I happened to be right here."

"By the way, what's the deal with that person filming over there?"

"Asked already. That reporter and this big brother were eating here, the two of them knew each other. Because they'd drunk quite a bit, they happened to run into the fire, so the two of them rushed inside."

Chen Fan frowned and said, "What time did they drink until?"

Old Song coughed and said, "I know what you mean—it's too much of a coincidence, isn't it? You produce the evidence, and I'll arrest them. If you can't produce any, then stop suspecting others. What if they're really good people?"

Chen Fan calculated: the current time was seven o'clock.

If so, the two of them should have been drinking until five or six o'clock. Drinking until that hour and still being able to go in and rescue people—this big brother is truly brave.

Chen Fan silently looked at the big brother, then looked around.

Old Song quickly sensed something was off and had a few officers nearby keep an eye on that person.

Chen Fan asked for a shovel and started walking.

Then, he arrived at an abandoned courtyard, looked at the ground there, and started digging directly.

Soon, the shovel went down.

Soon, Chen Fan found an earring.

Not very obvious, but preserved quite well. Chen Fan looked at the earring and said, "Mm, it's here."

Old Song looked at the spot, then looked at the big brother in the distance.

"Arrest him."

The big brother was arrested, and the reporter was arrested too. The news the two of them generated was taken down within just one hour.

The people were arrested, and now this got interesting. The audience was watching—wasn't this too fast?

Isn't anyone going to explain?

Chen Fan, on his side, followed the firefighters into the fire scene and found the deceased's home.

The inside of the house was already badly burned, but the point of origin wasn't here.

It was the neighboring house.

The family next door had all passed away—three people, a family of three.

Chen Fan entered the house, searching around. Soon, at the bed area, he found burn marks.

"These things here, seems like something's missing?"

The firefighter took a look and said, "Uh, there's clothing missing here."

"Right, clothing is missing. Burned clothing would still leave remains—most nowadays are chemical products, only silk products would burn away completely. The clothing is gone here, what do you think that means?"

"Sleeping without wearing any clothes yourself doesn't make sense either. No matter how careful, how meticulous a person is, it's impossible that before going to sleep there isn't a single piece of clothing in the room. Even leaving out a nightgown would be normal."

The firefighters could all see it, so naturally Old Song could see it too.

"The people are arrested. Now, start looking for surveillance. That reporter's phone contacts have been investigated—this person has connections to that family of three."

Has connections?

Chen Fan said, "Wasn't it deleted?"

"It was deleted, but it was recovered. Our tech people dug it out. Inside are some chat records—this person's chat records with the woman of that house. The two were in a lover's relationship, and this woman swindled a lot of money from the reporter."

Good lord, now there's another version of the story.

"Mm, I just instinctively felt this place was a body dump."

A body dump?

Old Song looked at Chen Fan.

Chen Fan continued, "The best way to cover up a body is arson. Burn it away, and naturally it's gone. But an even better way to cover up a body is: I'm the hero, I saved you."

Old Song said, "I need a reason."

"Simple. The timing doesn't add up. I smelled alcohol on this person, but not much—meaning the two of them hadn't drunk that much. Drinking until that hour and still not being drunk, two men—do you think that's possible? Would you and your brothers drink until dawn just to brag?"

"No way, who drinks this stuff for no reason?"

"Exactly. After enduring all that, he still thought to come rescue people. Don't you think this guy's stamina is way too good? This is a fire scene, carrying a half-dead person down the stairs — what's the point? There must be something this person is even more afraid of."

"That's deduction, not forensic pathology. When did you learn to be like Li Tian?"

"Get lost, how dare you curse at people?"

Chen Fan continued, "The forensic inference is about this woman's internal organs. The organs aren't right, because they've already started to rot."

"???"

"Holy crap."

Old Song began to feel nauseated and asked, "Are you serious?"

"Yes, serious. The organs really aren't right. This thing — I just need to touch it once and I'll know. Basically, the heartbeat had long stopped. Estimated to have died very recently."

Soon, everyone was watching the livestream. Meanwhile, Old Song and the students finished the dissection.

The corpse Xiang Qinqin was in charge of had been hacked to death.

The corpse Xu Xintong was in charge of had also been hacked to death.

The corpse Qu Yiling was in charge of — she found a few faint scrape marks. Even though it was burned, the internal organs were still there, and she discovered something: traces of a man.

Inside the woman's body.

Well then, that tells a story.

At this point, Old Song simply took Chen Fan and left.

This would be easy to investigate — extract the substance, then run a comparison. It belonged to that tattooed big brother.

On the interrogation side, the two men refused to talk at first, but when this evidence came out, the reporter immediately spoke up.

"Damn it, I was planning to cooperate with him, have him kill this whole family. But this bastard, why the hell did he have to go and rape someone?"

"A dog really can't change its habit of eating shit. Back then I caught this bastard raping this woman."

Old Song pressed on, "How did you find out?"

"At the time I was having an affair with this woman, and then the family's husband and son both came home. They hadn't originally planned to celebrate her birthday, but once they got back, I had no way to escape from the balcony, so I went to this guy's place and saw all of it."

As for why they made this choice — it was the reporter's idea. The two of them schemed: kill the people, then this man could bring the bodies back and then 'rescue' them.

The reporter would be there taking photos, and could even get some kind of reward.

Everything sounded so beautifully planned. Was the method of committing the crime sloppy?

Very sloppy, because Chen Fan shut it down with a single sentence.

"Let me educate you on some common sense. No matter how badly something is burned, as long as the person was dead, it will rot. A living person burned to death and a dead person being burned — those will always be two completely different things."

"Also, I can only say your luck was terrible, because generally, at the point of origin, the burning might actually be the least severe."

The reporter was dumbfounded.