Chapter 151: It Has to Be a Professional; They Really Know So Much

He knew about the running corpse case; it was he who had agreed to transfer Yu Dazhang over to assist initially.

At first, he thought the case wasn't serious, merely a bit absurd.

Sending over a sharp one, supplemented by several veteran detectives, should have solved it quickly.

Who could have expected that fatso to come up with a new trick, upgrading the running corpse case.

Good heavens, he sent him to Qingpu Branch to help investigate, and after investigating back and forth, he actually ended up back in Hongkou District, wiping out the entire funeral home!

"Yes," the Criminal Investigation Team Captain said in a definite tone:

"He was transferred back before the arrest, but Yu Dazhang was still primarily responsible for the case."

Those words depended on who was listening.

Ordinary people wouldn't notice any problem, taking it as a normal report.

But to Director Liu, it carried another layer of meaning: Yu Dazhang and the Qingpu Branch had fallen out.

Moreover, the disagreement arose over the arrest itself.

The higher the position, the less one should speak too plainly; sometimes it is best to hint at things, which is also a way of protecting oneself.

For example:

"I agree in principle..." actually means "I disagree."

"You are a very honest person..." means "You are a bit lacking in common sense."

"Work hard, you have great potential..." means the so-called potential is that you currently lack ability.

Obviously, the Criminal Investigation Team Captain also noticed the problem, but he didn't say it directly, instead expressing it tactfully.

"Have Ji Bin from the Qingpu Branch come to the Municipal Bureau," Director Liu said to the officer in charge of liaison.

Although he had already guessed the general situation, it was better to ask some things face-to-face to clarify.

The Criminal Investigation Team Captain was essentially making a complaint.

Director Liu was responding in this manner: I understand, but I must verify it personally.

"Continue the report."

"Yes, after Yu Dazhang arrived at the Qingpu Branch, he arrested the corpse transport truck driver that same night..."

Hongkou Branch.

In the meeting room, Yu Dazhang asked first:

"After those unidentified corpses were transported away, where did they find cremated remains to replace them?"

Last night he went home to rest after his normal shift, but the interrogations never stopped.

The officers in the branch worked in two shifts, rotating continuously to interrogate the suspects without interruption.

Since the number of suspects in this case was too large, this method was the only option.

The morning meeting was for information synchronization.

"They used the cremated remains of other deceased people to impersonate them," an officer responsible for interrogation last night answered:

"After the bodies were cremated, the cremation workers would smash the skeletons and grind them into powder; the families would pay a fee of a few dozen yuan for ash collection."

"And there is no weight standard for cremated remains; some people have more, some have less."

"The cremation workers exploited exactly this point; every time they collected ash, they would keep some back."

"Once they had gathered roughly the weight of one body's remains, they would hand the ashes over to the funeral home staff."

That trick is quite vicious... Yu Dazhang couldn't help but click his tongue in amazement.

Isn't this just stealing cremated remains to sell?

If the cremated remains are incomplete, it makes no difference from leaving the body incomplete.

There is nothing they cannot do that they haven't thought of.

For money, these people can really come up with any trick.

"How many bodies need to be cremated to gather enough ash for one person?" Yu Dazhang pressed.

"At the very least, ten bodies must be cremated," the officer said, handing him a confession document:

"Most of the time it takes around fifteen, because the amount of ash is not large to begin with, so at most only one-tenth of the amount can be kept at a time."

"If too much is kept, it is easily discovered by the deceased's family."

"As a result, before they could gather the ashes completely, the crematorium was investigated, and the cremation workers were arrested."

Yu Dazhang already knew the rest.

The number of bodies on the register didn't match, and there were no corresponding ashes, so the funeral home had to think of another way.

And the places where bodies are stored, besides the funeral home, are only the morgues. "Why didn't they use animal ashes as a substitute?"

Yu Dazhang thought this was also a method; after all, once burned to ash, no one should notice such details.

"Do you think this is roasting a whole lamb!"

The speaker was Qian Cheng, who had come to the meeting representing the Technical Section.

Because he was very familiar with Yu Dazhang, he had no taboos in speaking and directly retorted:

"Temperatures must reach above 800 degrees Celsius to completely decompose and burn the organic matter in a corpse."

"Crematoriums use special heat sources capable of reaching the specified temperature."

"In comparison, even using gasoline for burning is insufficient to destroy the tissue in a corpse."

It really has to be a professional who understands even this... Yu Dazhang, having been retorted to by Qian Cheng, felt not angry but rather that his train of thought had become clearer.

In his past life, he had participated in solving a murderer case.

After the murderer killed someone, he dragged the body to a wasteland to burn it, attempting to destroy the body and erase the traces.

He went to the scene at that time; the body was burned beyond recognition, looking like charcoal, making it impossible to see its original appearance.

Please... collect... 6... 9... Book... House...!

The killer confessed that he had burned it for over three full hours, and even then had not reduced the body to ash.

The reason was simply that the temperature was not high enough.

So cremation ash isn't something you can produce just because you want to.

"Couldn't you just haul an animal carcass to the crematorium and burn it there?" Yu Dazhang kept raising questions:

"That way it would burn down to ash, and once you crushed and ground it into powder, no one would be able to tell."

The moment those words came out, everyone present turned their eyes toward him.

Even Li Jun couldn't help frowning.

Just trying to be contrary, aren't you?

Hauling an animal carcass into the cremation chamber — any fool would know what that was for.

Burning small animals wouldn't work; only animals the size of pigs, cattle, or sheep would do.

A carcass of that size simply couldn't be hidden — unless the crematorium's surveillance cameras were just for show, anything caught on film would be direct evidence.

"What I mean is, dismantle the animal carcass and then smuggle it in piece by piece."

Yu Dazhang, uncomfortable under everyone's gaze, had no choice but to brace himself and explain:

"That way you could slip past the surveillance and get into the cremation chamber. As far as I know, there are no cameras inside the cremation chamber itself."

The reason he kept pressing this issue was to rule out every reasonable doubt.

Every point of suspicion had to be explained clearly before the case was closed — that was the highest requirement for the integrity of the chain of evidence.

"Let me answer that one."

Qian Cheng knew Yu Dazhang too well — he wouldn't stop until he had sorted the matter out completely.

"Even if you could get animal bones into the cremation chamber, it still wouldn't work."

"First, operating the cremation furnace is a matter of record — it's not like your backyard lamb-skewer grill that you can fire up whenever you feel like it."

"And besides, cremation records are kept for fifty years, so there's no way to drag things out and destroy the logs."

"Second, although cremated remains have been through fire and are reduced to inorganic salts that can't be DNA-tested, you can still tell whether or not they're human bone."

This time Yu Dazhang understood.

Substituting an animal simply wouldn't work — there were too many holes in the plan.

Which explains why, once the crematorium worker was caught, the only solution the funeral home could come up with was to steal the bodies.

Indeed, if you wanted to slip past a criminal investigation, this was the most direct, simple, and effective method.

In that case, then the four bodies…

Yu Dazhang looked toward the officer who had handled the interrogation the night before:

"How did they dispose of the stolen bodies?"

That officer could only shake his head helplessly:

"They were cremated as unidentified remains."

(End of chapter)