Chapter 71: Better to Return

Traveler's Bridge was on the east side of Qinghe City.

The river surface here wasn't wide, but it was quite beautiful. The straight beam bridge was for cars and people, and there were river views and mountain views to see nearby, which was a good place for leisure in Qinghe City.

By the time Liu Wenkai and the others arrived, it was already 10 o'clock in the evening. The lit streetlights reflected on the bridge deck, as if leading to an unknown place in the rainy day.

The distant mountains were lush and green, and the height couldn't be seen clearly, nor could the vertical and horizontal, only the lit lights, faintly showing some outlines of the mountains.

Liu Wenkai was the captain of the Second Squadron of the Ningtai County Criminal Police Detachment, and the First Squadron and Second Squadron of the Ningtai County Criminal Police Detachment were responsible for solving major cases daily.

As a 40-year-old, experienced criminal police captain, Liu Wenkai's daily life was spinning around in various complex cases.

He drove the car, walked across the Traveler's Bridge, and drove back, and he had already completed the basic observation.

There were only Liu Wenkai and Zhang Enze in the car, and Liu Wenkai said without concealment: "Neither side is a prosperous area, jumping down here, it's likely no one will see."

"Then being pushed down, no one will see either." Zhang Enze said.

Liu Wenkai nodded, then sighed, and said: "If it's homicide, then dismemberment, the first scene won't be here. There are no conditions for dismemberment. After all, it's a place where people come and go, and it's not convenient."

"So, if we can find Zhou Lei in the surveillance of the past two or three days, we can preliminarily judge that he committed suicide." Zhang Enze brought the train of thought back.

"About that." Liu Wenkai counted with his fingers and said: "The deceased Zhou Lei was penniless, had no savings, no house, no debt. Now looking at it, there are no relatives and friends, no fixed job, and his girlfriend also broke up. Then basically, it excludes common murder motives such as money, love, and hatred."

Zhang Enze's cheeks collapsed, and he couldn't help but look at the rain outside the window, saying: "It's quite miserable."

Liu Wenkai gave a dull "En," lit a cigarette with a slap, and looked at the other side, saying: "Sometimes thinking about it, it's quite meaningless."

Zhang Enze didn't make a sound again, until the cigarette was finished, he opened a slit of the window, threw the cigarette butt out, and added: "How to explain the dismemberment?"

"There are boats on the river, hit by the propeller." Liu Wenkai said listlessly: "It's not a fresh thing either. The boats on the Tai River are running around in several rivers. If they hit a corpse, they won't necessarily report it to the police."

"Then go find the surveillance." Zhang Enze didn't pull the matter of finding the boat either. If it was a homicide case, then for the completeness of the case, it would be normal to ask all the boats passing through the Tai River in the past few days through various means, but if it was suicide, this was a case of unnatural death, and it wouldn't be so easy to invest a large amount of police force for a long time.

Liu Wenkai didn't make a sound, took out his phone, made a report to Huang Qiangmin first, then braved the rain, drove the car to the restaurant near the bridgehead, and asked the boss for the surveillance video to watch.

Ningtai County.

The news from the front line was passed back, and Jiang Yuan was quite surprised. He specially returned to the funeral home, pulled out the corpse, and re-examined it.

The broken section of the corpse's waist was relatively flat as a whole, but if you looked closely, the lengths of the muscle bundles were different, and the skin flaps of the broken skin could still be seen. The cutting object wasn't very sharp.

Jiang Yuan's experience was insufficient, and he couldn't infer the degree of the tool from the broken state of the corpse.

However, now inferring backwards according to the news from the front line, the explanation of the boat propeller was also reasonable.

Especially the remaining portion of the vertebrae; the unevenness of the bone cross-section suggests a significant component of blunt force. This also aligns with the cutting pattern of a boat oar.

Of course, just by analyzing the cross-section, it was impossible to infer that the boat propeller was the only possible murder weapon. However, the knowledge of forensic anthropology wouldn't exclude the possibility of the boat propeller being a dismemberment tool.

Jiang Yuan checked continuously twice, sighed, changed his gloves, took a pile of photos again, and then slowly tidied up the corpse remains.

He washed the autopsy table and the ground with water, and then soaked them with bleach. The autopsy instruments just used were the same, but the soaking time needed to be longer.

By the time the autopsy room was tidied up, Jiang Yuan washed his hands again, and Wu Jun walked in with his hands behind his back, wearing a mask.

"How is it?" Wu Jun asked with a smile.

"It's explainable." Jiang Yuan brushed his hands, then asked: "Can't the rest of the corpse be found? How should we find it?"

"I called the cities and counties upstream and downstream, asking if they had received the remaining half, but there's no news yet. However, if it's suicide, the corpse shouldn't be lost." Wu Jun paused and added: "If it's really lost, then we have to re-examine the cause of death."

Jiang Yuan nodded slowly. Indeed, if it was suicide, the corpse was broken by the boat propeller, then the first half of the corpse should appear. Especially with heavy rain recently, the corpse wouldn't disappear out of thin air.

Of course, you could also look at it from another angle; it was possible that the heavy rain washed half of the corpse to the jurisdiction of Ningtai County, while the upper half of the corpse might still be in another place.

But as long as no one deliberately hid the corpse, it should appear within a few days—in this set of inferences, the only one who could hide the corpse was the ship that smashed the corpse. However, half of the corpse had already been lost, and hiding the upper half of the corpse again seemed to have no feeling of use.

"Alright, don't think about it. In my experience, some things don't appear according to reason or probability. Especially homicide cases, if you talk about reason or probability, it's useless. Homicide itself is a low-probability event." Wu Jun said to this point, paused again, and said: "Wait two more days and see the situation."

Everyone had to work overtime in the rain before because homicide cases had to be solved quickly, and they were all grabbing the golden 72 hours.

Now that it was basically proven not to be a homicide case, then being anxious again actually had no meaning.

Jiang Yuan had done everything he could, and could only clean up the autopsy room and return to the Criminal Police Detachment.

The next day, the news of the upper half of the corpse finally came, but it was discovered by someone on a reed island several kilometers away.

Jiang Yuan went with Wu Jun to pick up the corpse again.

At this time, the corpse had already been corroded to the point where it couldn't be looked at directly. It made people unable to imagine what it looked like a few days ago.

This time, after a simple corpse surface examination, the first thing opened was the thoracic cavity.

The huge left and right lungs seemed to rebound, rising from the thoracic cavity, and on the surface of the lungs, one could still see the pressure marks of the ribs.

Jiang Yuan pressed with his finger, and it was a finger mark, then pressed with his palm, only feeling like kneading dough.

"Pulmonary emphysema of drowning." Jiang Yuan made a simple judgment.

Wu Jun nodded. This was an important characteristic of drowning, which was that the deceased breathed desperately before death, causing drowning fluid, mucus, and air to turn into foam, which was finally inhaled into the alveoli.

The time of drowning usually exceeded 6 minutes, which was very painful and long, and pulmonary emphysema of drowning was one of the proofs.

Jiang Yuan cut a knife on the lungs again, and saw a large amount of foamy drowning fluid flowing out. Fortunately, the corpse itself had already rotted, and the stench was strong enough, almost perfectly covering the smell of the drowning fluid.

At this time, a bright ball also rolled into Jiang Yuan's hand:

Zhou Lei's legacy—Swimming (Dog Paddle) (LV4)—In the small river in the village, Zhou Lei learned to swim with his little friends, and was extremely proficient. He even used his swimming skills to save another little friend. After entering the city, he found that the swimming method he was most proficient in had actually become the target of ridicule by everyone, so he was no longer willing to go swimming. And at the last moment of his life, facing the turbulent river water, Zhou Lei could choose to fight hard, but thinking about it, why bother? Better to return. Better to go see grandmother.

Jiang Yuan sighed deeply.

Forensic doctors always see things too late and can change too little. Yet they are the same as ordinary people. The so-called Qin people didn't have time to mourn themselves, and later generations mourned them; later generations mourned them but didn't take them as a mirror, also making later generations mourn later generations again. ===== CHAPTER 72 =====

Jiang Yuan made another incision in the lungs, and a large amount of frothy drowning fluid gushed out. Fortunately, the corpse was already decomposed and the stench was strong enough to almost perfectly mask the smell of the fluid.

At this moment, a shiny little ball also rolled into Jiang Yuan's hand:

Zhou Lei's Legacy — Swimming (Doggy Paddle) (LV4) — In the village's small river, Zhou Lei learned to swim with his little friends and became extremely proficient; he even used his swimming skills to save another friend. After entering the city, he discovered that his most proficient swimming style had become a target for mockery, so he was no longer willing to go swimming. And at the final moment of his life, facing the surging river water, Zhou Lei could have chosen to struggle, but he thought to himself, why bother? It would be better to return. Better to go see Grandma.

Jiang Yuan let out a deep sigh.

Forensic scientists always see things too late and can change too little. Yet, they are no different from ordinary people; as the saying goes, the people of Qin had no time to mourn themselves, so later generations mourned them; if later generations mourn them but do not learn from them, they will also cause later generations to mourn them in turn.