Chapter 142: This case is related to me?

"The funeral home urgently needs four corpses—where could they get that many all at once?"

"Besides the morgue, there's another way."

"Murder!"

"Obviously the other party hasn't yet reached the point of being utterly depraved."

"Since the morgue has been chosen, next is planning the route."

"First find a hospital with a morgue, then…"

Wait, something's off!

Yu Dazhang suddenly realized something, and a thought surfaced in his mind.

Why wouldn't they just find a hospital in Hongkou District to steal corpses from?

From the route the other party took back, it can be analyzed that they came from Hongkou District.

And Hongkou District has more than one hospital with a morgue—so why come all the way to Qingpu Academy?

Could it be that a rabbit doesn't eat the grass near its own burrow?

No.

Operating within their own district offers better concealment, because the distance is shorter and the time exposed is reduced.

Just find any stretch of road without surveillance and swap the corpses.

Could it possibly be because of me… a preposterous thought suddenly popped into Yu Dazhang's head.

The Grade-A hospital case he'd cracked not long ago led to every hospital in Hongkou District being inspected.

Under those circumstances, indeed no one would dare get any crooked ideas.

So they set their target on the neighboring Qingpu District?

Thinking of this, Yu Dazhang pulled his thoughts back.

Many things can't be solved just by deduction.

"You two, one group." Yu Dazhang temporarily assigned two people and gave them an order:

"Go separately to the funeral homes in Qingpu District and Hongkou District, and investigate the personnel who took leave starting from August 17th."

"Pay attention—especially those who took sick leave."

"You need to meet each of these people one by one to confirm. What illness a person catches after catching cold—I don't need to spell it out, do I."

Those four people wore thin clothes and lay on the autopsy table being frozen for over an hour.

Yu Dazhang simply didn't believe they wouldn't fall ill.

Unless they'd received similar professional training, otherwise suddenly being exposed to such a low-temperature environment for so long, their bodies definitely couldn't take it.

Even if they were in good shape and only caught a cold, four days wouldn't be enough to fully recover—there would definitely still be symptoms.

For those with poor physical fitness, getting pneumonia or something similar would be perfectly normal.

"Understood!" The two immediately nodded in agreement:

"We'll go right now."

Before heading out the door, they glanced in unison at the fatty inside the room.

What a sharp mind~

When Captain Ji had brought in outside help earlier, they'd been a bit unconvinced.

Although Yu Dazhang's name had been ringing loud lately, whether a person truly has real skill can only be confirmed through personal contact.

They're all veteran criminal investigators—they know the tradition within the system of building model cases.

For instance, that certain female detective.

Whether or not she actually solved the cases, they were forcibly pinned to her name.

Forget it, no need to elaborate.

Ever since this fatty arrived, there's been new progress almost every day.

A case that was clearly quite thorny is now becoming clearer and clearer.

They even had a premonition: this case would soon be fully solved.

Yu Dazhang wasn't idle either. After leaving the Qingpu branch, he drove back to the Hongkou branch.

There was more than a little bit of a "taking the new car for a spin" flavor to it.

This model, the Jeep BJ40—Yu Dazhang had seen many colleagues driving it in his previous life, and it was indeed deeply loved by criminal police.

But the fuel consumption was too high, so in his previous life he could only reluctantly give it up and choose a more fuel-efficient car.

But what man doesn't want to drive a high-performance car? One stomp on the gas and it feels like someone is pushing you from behind—smooth and powerful.

Arriving at the Hongkou branch, Yu Dazhang went straight to Captain Li's office door. After knocking and entering, he sat down at the desk.

"Why are you back?" Li Jun asked.

He instinctively assumed the case had hit a snag and been temporarily shelved.

It's not like before anymore, when an unsolved case had to be stubbornly pushed forward no matter what.

Now, no longer bound by the statute of limitations, cases that have already been filed can be set aside temporarily when there's no lead.

When new clues are found, the police can resume the investigation at any time.

"Found some leads over there, related to our side."

Yu Dazhang's eyes were shining, and he looked more confident than before:

"The suspects' route for transferring the corpses leads to our district. I suspect the other party is very likely a funeral home worker from our own district."

He deliberately used the word "suspect" to emphasize that these were currently his own deductions, with no actual evidence.

But in Li Jun's eyes, he felt this fatty was about to crack the case again.

Please... s... tore... 6... 9... b... o... o... k...!

He stared at Yu Dazhang's expression and asked in surprise:

"You found the reason for the corpse-sitting-up?"

Yu Dazhang answered with a smile:

"Actually it wasn't any corpse-sitting-up at all—just some people playing tricks to swap out the body."

"You saw the surveillance footage from that day too. Apart from their movements being a bit stiff, there was nothing else unusual."

Once the veil of mystery is lifted from certain things, they become much simpler.

The small hours, the morgue, the corpse…

Converted over, that's time, place, person.

Because these three elements are somewhat unusual, they naturally give people a sense of mystery.

"That's pretty fast progress, though."

Li Jun remembered that when he had just brought Yu Dazhang over, the corpse had already been missing for two days, and the Qingpu branch had no leads during those two days.

No need to think about it to know they were definitely spooked by the contents of the surveillance video.

He believed that given enough time, the Qingpu branch would have discovered the trick too, but definitely not this quickly.

"It's not so much progress as discovering a new lead," Yu Dazhang said modestly:

"As long as the case isn't solved in a day, finding more leads is Bai Da—finding the people and the evidence is what matters."

Many cases are like this: finding leads goes smoothly, but when you investigate further, the leads suddenly break off.

This means all the previous effort was completely wasted, and you can only switch directions and start over.

So his words weren't really modesty, but a statement of fact.

"Just tell me straight what you need."

Li Jun could tell that Yu Dazhang had come back this time to seek help.

Joint investigations between branches were common, especially since he was originally from Hongkou branch.

"I want to understand the follow-up investigation of the previous top-tier hospital case," Yu Dazhang said without concealment:

"I think this case was influenced by the top-tier hospital case in certain respects."

The influence was certain—otherwise those people wouldn't have crossed districts to steal the corpse.

Then he repeated his own reasoning once more.

"No wonder you came all the way back," Li Jun said, eyes wide as he looked at Yu Dazhang:

"This really isn't something suitable to discuss over the phone."

The reason was simple—even if Yu Dazhang had called Li Jun directly to ask, he still couldn't get a direct answer.

The follow-up investigation of the top-tier hospital case had long since stopped being Hongkou branch's responsibility.

All the branch's criminal investigation detachment could do was cooperate with the higher-ups in catching people—completely a role taking orders.

"Captain Li, what do you think—should we apply to the higher-ups?" Yu Dazhang said hesitantly:

"After all, it's for solving the case. I think the leaders should understand."

Hearing this, Li Jun sighed:

"This matter… it's a bit difficult."

(End of chapter)