Chapter 1264

Jiang Yuan walked a large circle around the rubber plantation.

The interior of the rubber plantation is very comfortable; the rubber trees are tall and provide shade, and they repel mosquitoes. The ground is repeatedly swept by workers using things like chainsaws. On days that aren't rainy, strolling through the rubber plantation feels much like walking in a park.

Especially when the wind blows, the slight heat is dispersed, and it feels as if one can experience the mood of the Dutch from back in the day.

One corpse appeared inside the rubber plantation itself, while the remaining two corpses were hidden in the bushes at the edge of the plantation.

If one could say the second corpse still had a certain degree of concealment, the first corpse was basically in an exposed state—not only was it in an exposed state when discovered, but one can imagine that it was actually in an exposed state at the time of the crime.

If viewed by the standards of a serial killer, this killer's level is not considered high, roughly at a low-to-mid level. This is because their progression is too weak. Although the second corpse was hidden by them in the bushes at the edge of the rubber plantation, that was not long after the first murder, and the victims were all people from the rubber plantation. It can be said that in the tense atmosphere at the time, once the victims had been out of contact for only half a day, everyone started searching and called the police.

Similarly, and unsurprisingly, the police actively intervened, to the extent that the second corpse was also discovered very quickly.

It must be said that adopting a corpse-hiding method only at this stage is obviously a bit behind the times, and it is not surprising that it was found quickly.

As for the third corpse, only the location of the hiding changed, and it appeared more clever, but the essence did not change—another person was missing from the plantation. Who could not panic? Who would dare not call the police? Which police station would dare not come!

In terms of the targets chosen by the killer and the method of hiding the corpses, one could even say that this person is still some distance away from being a serial killer.

A serial killer would not be so adaptable to local conditions.

A serial killer should be more motivated by their inner nature rather than by interests—targeting the employees of the rubber plantation to kill is too utilitarian, lacking the carefree nature of a serial killer, and thus losing the characteristic that makes a serial killer difficult to investigate.

However, after Jiang Yuan walked through the crime scene and looked around the rubber plantation, he also understood the killer's choices a bit better.

The ground of the rubber plantation is relatively hard, and beneath the surface, there are tangled grass roots and tree roots, making it very difficult to dig a pit—this can be said to be a common predicament for burying corpses in the tropics. Don't look at how soft the ground seems; plants grow everywhere. The deeper you dig, the greater the obstruction caused by the tangled root systems of the plants. Digging a pit capable of burying a person is more tiring than reclaiming half an acre of land in a temperate zone.

Correspondingly, while the frigid zone certainly has a permafrost layer that also makes digging pits difficult, the wilderness in the frigid zone has snow and fallen leaves, and there are fewer scavengers. Just finding a snow hollow to dump the corpse in has a better effect than digging a pit to bury it in the tropics.

On the other hand, the He family rubber plantation has been established for a long time. The plantation is cleaned of various plants daily, appearing quite neat, but the woods outside the plantation are all over a hundred years old.

These plants that have lived together for over a hundred years are like neighbors who have lived together for over a hundred years—it's a case of old trees with tangled roots, long-standing grievances, and confused seniority. What meets the eye is branches and leaves pulling at roots, trunks riding on the necks of other trees, and crowns poking into the armpits of other trees...

Trying to hide a corpse in this kind of forest is actually not easy. Being able to walk a few steps inside and find a suitable place to stuff a person in is already considered quite good.

In fact, the killer also tried hard. When the third corpse was discovered, there were obvious traces of chainsaw cutting nearby...

The Malaysian police even investigated the chainsaw clue. However, chainsaws can have their chains changed, so besides increasing the suspicion of the personnel within the plantation, there was no further progress.

"Let's catch some bugs." Jiang Yuan stood at the crime scene of the third murder and directed Shen Yaowei and the others to get to work.

"Yes." Shen Yaowei, who had done plenty of hard labor, didn't say a word; he rolled up his sleeves and got to work.

The environment in the tropical region is not like the temperate zone. He had only walked two steps inside before seeing mosquitoes and beetles circling him.

Shen Yaowei had a bitter expression but didn't complain, just silently waving the insect net in his hand.

"Continue." Jiang Yuan waved his hand, like a cold medieval knight sending his soldiers to wear down the enemy.

Wei Shiyan chose mathematics this time, in his heart.

Wei Shiyan silently approached Jiang Yuan and whispered: "It seems we have the photos of the crime scene, and the previous forensic expert seems to have caught a lot of bugs too. Do we still need to catch them? Is it that what they caught wasn't suitable?"

The forensic expert who arrived at the scene first did indeed capture a large number of insects and eggs, especially the forensic experts in the second and third cases, who were experts from the police force themselves. Facing major cases, their evidence collection was quite comprehensive.

But Jiang Yuan just shook his head and said: "The bugs caught by the previous forensic experts can only be considered routine. For fresh corpses, they themselves don't rely on insects to determine the time of death."

"Are you planning to use insects to determine the time of death?"

"As an aid. The main thing is to understand the local insect species and their forms." Jiang Yuan explained briefly.

There are differences between insects in tropical regions and those in temperate regions, and they iterate particularly quickly. If one were to make a comparison, insects in temperate regions are like Spain's manufacturing industry, while insects in tropical regions are like Yiwu's manufacturing industry.

If you want to use days as a unit, you can just analyze them according to the insect guidebooks, but if you want to analyze them more accurately, using typical examples is definitely not enough.

For example, when humans give birth, some give birth at 32 weeks, some at 30, some at 38, and there are those with habitual miscarriages, or those who go overdue and require a C-section. Don't insects have this?

When some insects breed in a corpse, a cycle takes only a few days. When they are born prematurely, they don't have incubators, and when they are overdue, they don't have C-sections.

With the continuous breeding of the same premature family, the differences in time are hard to ignore.

On the other hand, the insect guides written in books are far from the level of medical guides. However, when humans study humans, under conditions of sufficient samples, the typical cases written in books are still a "typical" that is often not seen. It may even happen that every situation exists, except for the typical one in the book.

This can be explained as the knowledge in books not being updated enough, or that human changes are relatively large. It is also possible that the author of the book is a 4+4 medical doctor. But regardless, the reality that knowledge in books is disconnected from reality exists.

Human books will be disconnected, and insect books will naturally be disconnected as well.

Therefore, when it comes to actual use, doctors in hospitals rely on experience, and forensic experts either expand the scope of consideration or have to conduct experiments themselves.

After all, the people who write books can talk nonsense, but the people who do the work really need to use knowledge.

That is what Jiang Yuan thought, and that is also... how he ordered his subordinates to do it.

Shen Yaowei and the others dug for insects for a day and a night.

The reason it was a day and a night is because there are daytime insects and nighttime insects. And when those corpses were discovered, they had basically spent the night.

The next day, Jiang Yuan selected a few typical and important insects and began to busy himself with hatching them.

At this time, Liu Jinghui had also finished reading the first round of transcripts. Looking back at Jiang Yuan's way of raising insects, he couldn't help but laugh: "This is a case from over half a year ago. Are you being a bit like the person who marked the boat to find his sword by cultivating these insects now?"

"Insects with high mobility have more commonality; rather, it is the insects with a higher degree of alienation that have a greater degree of localization. Think about whether this makes sense." Jiang Yuan looked up at Liu Jinghui and gave a very logical statement.

Liu Jinghui's eyes lit up upon hearing this: "You've got something there."

"The fly species commonly found on corpses fly around, and their breeding frequency and time are very clear, and we are also very familiar with them. Instead, it is some local competitive species that we rarely see in Shannan that we must consider with emphasis."

"Competitive species?"

"For example, ants, like weaver ants, they will carry away fly eggs, and they may also attack and eat maggots. The result may be that the egg-laying time and metamorphosis frequency of the blowflies we are familiar with may change. There are also wasps, various beetles, mantises, and dragonflies; they all prey on carrion-eating flies, especially when the flies are in the maggot stage, their defense ability is very poor. In this, we have to distinguish between the first arrivals and subsequent invaders..."

Jiang Yuan introduced this while working.

Liu Jinghui frowned and said with some worry: "You didn't get this complicated before. By the way, is it because we've arrived in an unfamiliar area that the techniques aren't quite suitable?"

"I want to make the time more precise. In that case, if you make a timeline based on the transcripts, wouldn't it be easier to find the killer?" Jiang Yuan provided a solution that pointed directly at the goal.

Liu Jinghui was stunned for a moment, then immediately felt a bit moved. Looking at Shen Yaowei and the others who were stretching their necks to watch, he frowned and said: "Since Jiang Yuan has said so, hurry up and go catch some more bugs!"

(End of chapter)