Chapter 118: Work Hard

Changyang City.

Police officers from all over continued to gather.

Including the four captured bandits and the half-dead ringleader, all were transferred to Changyang—conditions here were better, and interrogation and treatment were more thorough.

Based on the statements of the suspects, Liu Jinghui split the special task force into three temporary sub-teams: a major case team, a poaching team, and an economic crimes team—and the last one, the economic crimes team, consumed the most manpower.

Over a decade of poaching had allowed the five-man group to nearly monopolize the output of Wu Long Mountain, thereby developing a distorted industrial chain.

Contrary to initial assumptions, the five-man group's killing spree was actually the result of competition among several poaching teams.

In the early stages of the hunting ban, poaching teams had once helped each other, but gradually, over game, territory, money, and even hunting methods, they began to clash, eventually settling into a dark forest model: shoot anyone you spot.

After years of competition, within Wu Long Mountain—especially in the core protected areas and nearby—only the five-man group led by Old Hu remained.

Yet the number of people tied to this industrial chain grew even larger: they helped process and sell furs, bone products, later began selling meat, then opened wild game restaurants, and staged pseudo-religious rituals and sacrifices.

Smugglers, drug dealers, art traders—any industry that could make money inevitably seeped in.

After more than a decade of development, some illegal operators had grown large and strong enough to become legitimate businesses; investigating and prosecuting them required far more work.

While the economic crimes team kept expanding, the criminal investigators of the major case team gradually returned with evidence.

There were several bones, some clothing, mostly tools and personal items the victims had carried—lighters, mosquito repellent, Huoxiang Zhengqi Water, and so on.

The five-man group typically hid useful supplies in safe houses or transit shelters, habitually storing unused gear during short poaching trips to replenish later during longer expeditions.

Their ability to plan so far ahead stemmed from how effortlessly their poaching had gone, causing them to grow increasingly reckless.

When the number of confirmed murders reached eleven, with twenty-six victims, the ministry was stunned and sent personnel to oversee the case.

Liu Jinghui, who had always been assigned to supervise cases across regions, finally experienced being supervised himself.

Jiang Yuan went to the forensic office of the Changyang City Criminal Police Brigade and examined each piece of evidence recovered by the major case team.

There were thirteen bones total: vertebrae, tibia, finger bones, and toe bones—scattered unevenly, offering little help in solving the case, but through comparison, the identities of six victims were confirmed.

Six hikers.

The daily items were mostly left behind by the hikers.

Local herb collectors who frequently hiked the mountains, and even ordinary residents nearby, had all heard some mountain legends and avoided touching the five-man group's supplies, reducing their presence along the group's routes.

Most importantly, locals' gear and supplies were poor; aside from some hard-to-preserve food, other items held no appeal for the five-man group.

Hikers were different: their lighters were PP, their lamps were PR, their condoms had dots, and their cups had to be SNP.

The five-man group disliked hikers who came up the mountain, but they liked their stuff—wash it clean, and they'd use it.

Just from the items alone, these five were truly without restraint, utterly ruthless.

Jiang Yuan arrived at the Changyang City Criminal Police Brigade's forensic office; the evidence had already been cleaned, and reports were ready.

Victim-related physical evidence was still scarce, but some remained—considering these items had been stored for years and were frequently used, their continued existence could only mean the perpetrators didn't care.

It wasn't that they didn't understand—they simply weren't afraid; otherwise, simply discarding the items would have been the safest option.

Ye Tianhe, the forensic officer of the Changyang City Criminal Police Brigade, stood filling out forms and said casually: "Without bodies, all this evidence is circumstantial. One word from them—'I found it'—and you're done."

"True. They didn't even properly dispose of the bodies."

"They've done enough already—they even used lure agents. If you wanted to hide them better, raise a few pigs." Ye Tianhe shook his head: "No, that'd create even more flaws."

Hearing the forensic officer mention pigs, Jiang Yuan's spine stiffened involuntarily.

Pigs were too common—but because they were omnivores, they could chew bones to dust, erasing human remains completely, leaving not a trace.

It always made people deeply uneasy.

As for being flawless, the five-man group fell far short—but their level of secrecy was genuinely high. Most serial killers are practitioners, shaped by time and environment.

After completing the bone autopsies with Changyang's forensic officer Ye, Jiang Yuan still felt exhausted.

These recent field assignments had exposed Jiang Yuan, a new forensic officer, to far too much of society's darkness.

The job now felt heavier.

Normal humans felt psychological discomfort seeing human bones.

At this moment, Jiang Yuan felt these bones gave him a sense of security.

Forensics, though dealing with the dead, was meaningful: find the killer quickly, bring them to justice, and let the dead rest.

Give them the closure they deserved.

Let them go home.

In the afternoon, an elderly couple arrived at the police station.

Both were covered in age spots, probably around seventy.

Both wore hemp clothing, leaning on each other as they wailed all the way.

"Son, come home, son, come home."

Their voices were hoarse, making listeners tremble inside.

Forensic officer Ye said: "These are Li Sanqiu's parents. They lost their only child, are somewhat superstitious, and used to come to the police station several times, demanding the killer be found, saying without a killer, their child couldn't be reborn."

Jiang Yuan couldn't bear to see such elderly people—he had a father too, and he dared not imagine his father alone at the police station, crying and screaming.

So live well, work well, dissect corpses carefully.