Chapter 66: Floating Corpse

Monday.

Torrential rain.

To get to work, Jiang Yuan specifically drove his father’s Land Cruiser, wading through floodwaters—it was grueling.

Entering the Criminal Investigation Team’s courtyard, he saw half the parking spots empty; not everyone felt comfortable borrowing their father’s car.

Dashing through the rain into the building and then to the office, he found Wu Jun warming himself by an electric stove, sipping tea with loud slurps.

“You’re here early,” Jiang Yuan said, surprised—he’d expected Wu Jun to be late.

Wu Jun grunted, then asked: “Bring a raincoat?”

“No, I had an umbrella—just a short walk…”

“Today’s inauspicious. Prepare for the unexpected,” Wu Jun cut him off, tossing him a raincoat. “Leave it. Rainy season’s here. Bodies might turn up.”

“This…?” Jiang Yuan was startled: “You think someone drowned?”

“Anything’s possible. Anyone can die. Culverts drown people. Sewers drown people. Flash floods drown people. Even crossing the street can drown you,” Wu Jun shook his head, then added after a pause: “Rain makes people depressed. We’re a small town, but in Changyang City, people keep jumping off buildings—no one knows what they’re thinking.”

Jiang Yuan sat by the electric stove to warm up, mentally preparing himself.

Outside, rain hammered the windows with a drumming sound. Through the glass, visibility was under twenty meters.

The rain poured all morning.

By noon, it eased slightly, but no one wanted to go out.

Jiang Yuan shut the door, cooked fried rice on the stove, boiled instant noodles, and ate with Wu Jun—alternating bites of rice and noodles.

They’d only eaten half when the office phone rang.

“A body washed down from Taihe River,” Wu Jun stood up, his expression unreadable.

“It really happened?” Jiang Yuan was still surprised.

“It always happens. Every summer without fail,” Wu Jun sighed, pulling on his raincoat right there in the office, muttering: “Ningtai County stays quiet, but upstream cities always have their unlucky ones. Everyone knows it’s raining hard. Everyone thinks they won’t be the one to die.”

Jiang Yuan quickly shoveled a few mouthfuls of rice, gulped down two sips of broth, hissed from the heat, reluctantly set down his chopsticks, and began putting on his raincoat.

When a body turns up, you must go immediately—that’s the hardest part of being a forensic pathologist, worse than any foul smell. Especially for older pathologists, they despise it but can’t avoid it.

Jiang Yuan’s raincoat was slightly too small; he twisted and struggled into it, but it worked well enough—his clothes stayed dry.

By the Taihe River.

Beneath the highway bridge.

Here, the river made a sharp bend and widened, slowing the current.

The highway bridge covered a large flat area. Wind blew but no rain fell—a rare shelter in the storm.

“The body’s still floating. We can’t pull it up—we’re afraid the line will snap,” said two police officers from the local station, pointing to the riverbank.

Wu Jun hurried over and saw a pale, whitish corpse half-swathed in unknown aquatic weeds, its lower half submerged, bobbing gently in a recessed bend.

The water in the recess moved slowly, blocked by reeds and other plants, keeping the body relatively stable. The main reason it was stuck there was a fishing line.

The other end of the line was tied to a fishing rod, now locked to the ground.

“Two fishermen found it. Called the police right away,” said the officer, pointing to a nearby SUV. Two men stood huddled behind it, arms crossed, looking miserable. At the officer’s wave, they reluctantly trudged over.

“In this rain, you still came to fish?” Wu Jun asked, eyeing their shivering, stunned faces.

The first man wiped his face. “I told my wife last month I’d fish no matter what—wind, rain, even knives falling from the sky, I’m coming.”

“Catch any fish?” Wu Jun asked.

“Sometimes.”

“Even if you don’t catch anything, you still come.”

Their answers were resolute.

Wu Jun sighed, glanced again at the body in the water, and asked: “How did you find it? Did you hook it?”

“It floated down and got tangled in my line,” said the fisherman, slightly overweight, refusing to look at the corpse.

“Such a large corpse floating down, and you didn’t see it ahead of time?” Wu Jun asked again.

“With this rain and wind, you can’t even keep your float in sight—how could you notice anything else?” the fisherman replied with perfect logic.

Wu Jun actually found it perfectly reasonable.

In this rain, with this wind, ignoring your float would be pointless.

“Grab the hook. Let’s pull the body up,” Wu Jun called Jiang Yuan. They took a telescopic pole from the trunk, tightened the screw joint, attached a large iron hook to the front, and carried it together, slowly lowering it from the bank to hook the corpse.

Wu Jun stood in front, watching the hook latch firmly, gave a gentle tug, then called: “One, two, three…”

Jiang Yuan pulled hard from behind, Wu Jun pulled hard from front—they heaved together, and half the body rose from the water.

Only half a corpse!

The corpse’s pants were torn off halfway; its grayish-white lower legs and feet were wrinkled from prolonged soaking.

The upper half, severed, had its remaining abdominal cavity thoroughly washed clean.

A gust of wind carried a strong stench of decay straight into Jiang Yuan’s nose.

The two fishermen’s eyes widened like they’d hooked a giant fish; after several seconds, they gagged and bolted away.

“I’m not taking the rod back!” the fisherman muttered, pouting as if sacrificing a treasure.

His companion frowned. “You really won’t? Didn’t you just say—”

“I didn’t know it was half a corpse!” the fisherman nearly shouted.

The two police officers also backed away.

Jiang Yuan and Wu Jun had nowhere to go. They put on masks and gloves, silently carried the body onto the bank, where a plastic sheet had been laid out.

Wu Jun stepped forward, removed the iron hook from the corpse, and adjusted its position.

Jiang Yuan and Wu Jun immediately focused on the upper half—the severed edge.

The cut wasn’t clean, but some parts showed smooth, deliberate slicing marks.

Wu Jun and Jiang Yuan exchanged glances; their expressions turned grim.

If there were slicing marks, this was likely a homicide.

“I’ll notify Chief Huang,” Wu Jun took off his gloves, stepped upwind, then pulled out his phone.

Jiang Yuan changed gloves and began photographing the corpse and surrounding area.

The difference between ordinary unnatural death and homicide is huge, and now it’s pouring rain. Even though the riverbank is still one or two meters above the water now, who knows when it’ll flood?

Soon, Wu Jun finished his call, put his gloves back on, and said: “Chief Huang and the team are on their way. These next few days are going to be hell.”