Chapter 67: Not at Ease

The "du-du-du" speedboat was struggling to travel on the Tai River.

Two criminal police officers, with safety ropes buckled around their waists, grabbed the speedboat with their hands, doing their best to search the river surface visually.

The weather with thunder and rain made the visibility very low, with a maximum distance of twenty meters, which was dangerous and inefficient.

But because they saw a corpse, and it was half a corpse, no matter how difficult or bitter it was, they had to search the Tai River.

The worse the weather conditions, the less the Criminal Police Detachment dared to relax. If the corpse was damaged or even lost because of this when it was calm tomorrow, what should they do?

And as long as this newly occurred homicide case wasn't solved, for all the members of the Criminal Police Detachment, there was nothing to talk about regarding this year's work performance or political achievements.

Huang Qiangmin himself stood on the shore, hanging a pair of binoculars that were obviously useless around his neck, staring at the river surface with all his might.

He also knew that the probability of a successful search now was very low, but solving cases was just this kind of thing; you did many things with a low probability of success, and it was the constant accumulation of these things that finally brought you success.

For homicide cases, the only thing Huang Qiangmin could do, the only thing he could do, was to seize every opportunity and make additional investments.

Slap!

A bolt of lightning streaked across the sky, illuminating the turbulent river water, and in an instant, the surroundings became even darker.

Funeral home.

Jiang Yuan put on his gas mask before walking into the autopsy room.

The old forensic doctor, Comrade Wu Jun, didn't have such high requirements; he still wore a mask and started working.

On the stainless steel autopsy table, the only half of the corpse was grayish-white, just like the color of milk mixed with water.

The skin of the corpse was wrinkled, and the broken part of the waist was pale white, and the flipped flesh and skin emitted a special reflection.

Seeing Jiang Yuan enter, Wu Jun raised his head and glanced, saying: "Didn't you read forensic anthropology a while ago? Now is the time to apply what you've learned."

Jiang Yuan had previously obtained the skill of Forensic Anthropology (LV3), which he hadn't used for the time being, but it did urge him to read quite a few books.

Compared to his ability in forensic pathology, Jiang Yuan had some confidence in forensic anthropology. Standing opposite Wu Jun, he said: "Then shall I dissect it?"

"I'll do it first; the difficulty of this... this half of the corpse is still a bit high." Wu Jun looked at the half-corpse in front of him and felt a bit worried, so naturally, he wasn't at ease letting Jiang Yuan operate directly.

Unlike an ordinary autopsy, using forensic pathology knowledge to solve the problem of "how they died."

What forensic anthropology had to do first was to find out "who this is."

Honestly speaking, the problems forensic anthropology had to solve were inherently more difficult than those of forensic pathology.

To use a metaphor, forensic pathology was like taking a multiple-choice question, while forensic anthropology was like doing a big question, an answer question.

The forensic doctor had to analyze the information of the corpse step by step, and then answer the following basic questions:

Is this a human?

Man or woman?

What race or ethnicity?

What is the age?

What are the height, weight, appearance, and looks?

What are the characteristics?

Who is he (she)?

These questions, if facing a living person, many weren't problems at all. If you wanted to answer them, there were many ways.

But when facing a corpse, it wasn't that simple.

Wu Jun still cleaned the corpse surface step by step, made records, and finally pushed the portable X-ray machine over to take an X-ray of the lower half of the corpse.

"It looks like a relatively young male." Wu Jun inserted the X-ray film into the light box in front of him, pointed at the position of the pelvis, sighed, and asked Jiang Yuan casually: "If you are only given the X-ray film of this pelvis, how do you judge gender?"

"If it's the pelvis, the male pelvis shape is relatively narrow and a bit higher. The female one will be wider and shorter. The male pelvic inlet is heart-shaped, while the female one is round or oval. In addition, the angle of the pubic arch, the male angle is relatively small, maybe up to 70 degrees, while the female one is 90 to 100 degrees..." Jiang Yuan spoke quickly and very affirmatively.

The pelvis was the best for judging gender, and there were many judgment points. To speak of it, it was simpler and more accurate than using the head—the professional term was skull judgment. Of course, that was for forensic doctors.

Wu Jun was quite satisfied with Jiang Yuan's answer, so he continued: "Next, let's use bone age to judge age. Do you know how to do this?"

"We only have the lower half of the corpse, so we'll use pelvic bones to judge. Assisted by long bones." Jiang Yuan had the skill of Forensic Anthropology (LV3), but to let him preside over this autopsy and judge the age and other information of the corpse, he would also have to take X-rays. Or, he could strip all the meat off the corpse and observe the bones directly.

As far as the current situation was concerned, the former obviously had less destructiveness and was more practical.

The only troublesome part was that the corpse only had the lower half left, and the bones that were best for judging age were the carpal and metacarpal bones, followed by the clavicle and sternum, then the pelvis, and finally the long bones of the limbs.

And the unknown corpse in front of him currently only had the pelvis and lower limbs found, so he could only use the difference in the medullary cavity to apply the formula.

"23 to 25?" Jiang Yuan pressed the calculator and gave the result directly.

"Um..." Wu Jun was stunned and didn't make a sound, silently lowering his head to calculate it himself.

After a long while, Wu Jun raised his head, didn't say the result, and added: "Calculate the height again."

Jiang Yuan pressed the calculator and said: "The total length of the femoral trochanter is 43, multiplied by a coefficient of 2.36 is 1015, plus 680, exactly 1.69 meters, a height of 1.7 meters."

Using long bones to calculate height was relatively accurate and simple.

And doing this step, plus the weight of half a corpse, the things that could be directly inferred were basically finished—male, 23 to 25 years old, height 170 cm, weight 130 jin...

These weren't enough to reach the ultimate question: Who is he (she)?

However, it was enough for Wu Jun to look at Jiang Yuan with admiration.

"You young people learn things so fast." Wu Jun sighed long.

Jiang Yuan said shyly: "I also borrowed... the power of all aspects."

"Hey, when I was young, I wanted to learn, but I couldn't find a book, so I could only follow my master to dissect corpses everywhere; that was called learning from practice..." Wu Jun sighed, but handed the knife to Jiang Yuan, saying: "You dissect it."

The initial lack of ease had obviously dissipated. ===== CHAPTER 68 =====