Chapter 140: To Steal Corpses, You Really Risk Your Lives

None of the four showed any flaw, proving they had rehearsed before arriving.

They could maintain oxygen intake while keeping the Bai Bu's movement undetectable.

Achieving this required prior practice.

Otherwise, a single unstable breath would make the Bai Bu billow.

Yu Dazhang fast-forwarded the video again until the first person sat up from the mortuary table.

He glanced at the time in the upper-left corner of the surveillance footage.

"One hour and twelve minutes apart," he muttered.

Lying rigidly still makes it impossible to calculate time.

A teammate might argue back.

Can't you just count silently in your head?

Setting aside that the rhythm of silent counting can't match the second hand.

Consider the result of silent counting itself.

Everyone has heard of counting sheep to fall asleep.

If you count yourself to sleep in the mortuary, the chances of waking up in such a low-temperature environment are extremely slim.

That isn't calculating time; that's suicide.

At the same time, Yu Dazhang noticed the person who sat up was wearing a shroud.

It must have been stripped from the corpse during the swap and put on themselves.

Shrouds aren't cotton clothes; even the best shrouds offer no warmth.

On the contrary, to prevent corpse decomposition, shroud fabric usually uses more breathable cloth.

Observing that person's movements closely, Yu Dazhang smiled once more.

No wonder their limbs moved stiffly.

That wasn't acting; it was from the cold.

Lying in a low-temperature mortuary for over an hour in thin clothes is unbearable for anyone, no matter how strong their physique.

Yu Dazhang stared at the surveillance screen and said with a smile.

"They can't stand the freezing anymore."

Even the team member sitting beside him, watching the surveillance together, laughed out.

"It's quite scary the first time you see it, but now it seems pretty funny. Just steal the corpse on the road; why go through all this trouble?"

In his view, there was absolutely no need to impersonate a corpse and suffer in the mortuary.

It's 2014; few people believe in ghosts and gods, and the police believe in them even less.

"No, this step is very important." While Yu Dazhang spoke, his eyes remained fixed on the surveillance video:

"If they stole the corpses directly from the hearse, those two corpse movers certainly wouldn't agree."

"Six corpses missing four; they couldn't explain it. No amount of money would make them do it."

"Besides, pulling off such a stunt confuses the police's judgment; even if discovered later, it effectively delays time."

Yu Dazhang stopped abruptly as he spoke.

Right, delaying time!

What was their purpose in delaying time?

Destroying the evidence!

They must have some method to make the corpses vanish without a trace.

It involves professional knowledge again... Yu Dazhang had no experience in destroying evidence and didn't know whom to ask on the spur of the moment.

If it were a murderer, the methods usually come down to four words: throw far, bury near.

This is summarized from criminology and human behavior studies.

Of course, in reality, most criminals do indeed act this way.

But this group stealing corpses wouldn't do that; they must have a use for the corpses, so they wouldn't bury or dump them after stealing.

This is the key to solving the case... Yu Dazhang quickly realized this point.

Only by inferring their intent can new clues be found quickly.

After pondering for several minutes, he still couldn't think of any leads.

It seems guessing alone won't work.

Yu Dazhang had to continue focusing on the surveillance video. In the footage, that person approached the glass between the mortuary and the duty room, pressing their face against it to look outside.

"I feel like he isn't trying to scare people on purpose," the team member beside him said.

"I think so too," Yu Dazhang nodded:

"He seems to be looking for a way out; he's probably frozen silly."

After the duty officer fainted from fright, another person sat up from the mortuary table.

Like the first person, their limbs were stiff and movements slow; obviously, they were frozen too.

"Judging by their build, both of these are men," the team member analyzed.

The surveillance footage couldn't show their faces; gender could only be judged by hair length and body shape.

After the last two people sat up, that team member became even more certain of this judgment.

A simple comparison makes it obvious.

The two who sat up later were much thinner and shorter in both body type and height than the first two.

Please... you... collect... 6... 9... Book... Ba...!

"This confirms even more that they were impersonating corpses," Yu Dazhang said, suppressing his laughter while staring at the surveillance screen:

"Women are actually more cold-resistant than men."

"Because they can't calculate the time, they can only choose to wait and see."

"The safest time is between two and three in the latter half of the night, when people's mental state is at its most relaxed and they're at their most exhausted."

"But they've been frozen to the point they can't take it anymore."

"On top of that, they don't dare breathe freely, so oxygen intake decreases, and resistance naturally drops significantly."

"If we wait any longer, they'll really become corpses."

At this point, everyone watching the surveillance footage noticed this.

The two people who sat up in the back clearly moved more freely than those in front.

This has a scientific basis.

In cold environments, women adapt to low temperatures better than men.

Because women have a higher body fat ratio and a lower basal metabolic rate.

In reality, many men, in order to show their gentlemanly demeanor, even though they're freezing and shivering, will take off their coats and drape them over their female companions.

Little do they know, the women aren't cold at all.

In their eyes, they actually think this kind of behavior is very silly and naive.

Later they coined a word to describe this kind of man: simp.

"What profession needs corpses?" Yu Dazhang turned to look at his team members and asked:

"Or rather, what place needs corpses the most?"

When there's a matter, everyone discusses it—no need to think about it alone.

He knew very well that this was the time when it was easiest to get stuck in a mental rut; several people thinking together was always better than guessing wildly on his own.

"There used to be a profession called grave robbers, which were actually professional body snatchers." one of the team members answered:

"Back then cremation wasn't widespread yet, and many places still buried their dead in the ground."

"Some doctors would hire these grave robbers to steal corpses."

"Buried during the day, dug up that very night and sent to the laboratory—the deceased's families never knew."

"Later when the case was cracked, it was found that many doctors had done this."

Yu Dazhang had heard of this too, but didn't know the details.

In his previous life, when chatting casually with colleagues, someone had mentioned it.

"Could it be for organ removal?" another team member raised his own doubt.

Yu Dazhang immediately spoke up to refute:

"That's not possible."

"Once a person's heart stops beating, the blood supply to every organ ceases."

"Without a blood supply, organs quickly fail at normal temperatures."

"Transplanting failed organs into another person serves no function, and for the recipient it's a foreign body."

(End of this chapter)