Chapter 64.1: She Was Just a Frail Technical Specialist!
After being asked so many times, Jiang Xia had long since gotten used to it. Her expression was perfectly natural. She first picked up the kettle and gulped down several mouthfuls of water before replying unhurriedly,
“I was in a hurry just now, and I was worried I wouldn’t be able to hold Feng Qiangdong down by myself. I remembered that Brother Chen had handcuffs, so I just reached over and grabbed them. Fortunately, I didn’t fumble under pressure or get them stuck. If I’d failed to get them off, the others would’ve seen what I was doing and become wary.”
“That’s true.”
Chen Dong nodded slightly.
When a situation became urgent, some people performed even better than usual under the pressure. More often, though, the greater the pressure, the easier it was to make mistakes.
Fortunately, Jiang Xia was the kind of person who could surpass her usual abilities in a crisis. Otherwise, she might not have managed to drag Feng Qiangdong over at all.
Come to think of it, she really did have the composure of a seasoned commander in a crisis. She seemed quite suited for promotion.
Chen Dong let his thoughts wander for a moment, then reconsidered.
Being an ordinary officer was one thing, but being a leader was much harder. Technical expertise was only part of the job. What mattered even more was political acumen and the ability to coordinate between different parties. That was where all the complicated business of human relationships came into play.
It wasn’t that Jiang Xia lacked those abilities. With her intelligence, she could probably master them in no time, even if she had to learn from scratch. The main problem was that the more technically skilled someone was, the less inclined they tended to be to engage in that sort of thing.
After all, if you lacked ability, then fine, you had to make do. But if you did have ability, why bother with all that? Wouldn’t that make all the effort you’d put into developing your skills a waste?
Chen Dong glanced at Jiang Xia, then shifted his gaze to Zeng Jun and couldn’t help sighing inwardly.
If only Zeng Jun had even half of Jiang Xia’s ability. No, even a third would do! With that level of competence, he could’ve become a deputy squad leader two years ago. Sure, they were all frontline officers doing the grunt work, but when he eventually got too old for that, he could at least transfer to a local police station and become its chief.
Thinking this, Chen Dong reached up and ran a hand over the increasingly sparse hair on the top of his head.
‘Sigh. Still a long way to go.’
“Um, shouldn’t we hurry over to the crime scene?”
Three local police officers approached, pushing their bicycles. The one in front asked, “If we don’t get going soon, the sun will be directly overhead. At that point, the heat really will be enough to kill us!”
“Dead might be an exaggeration, but losing a layer of skin is definitely possible.”
Zeng Jun glanced up at the sky and didn’t dare waste any more time. He swung his leg over his motorcycle, intending to say they should set off immediately. But when he gripped the handlebars, he realized he barely had any strength left in his hands. He could only sigh and say, “Let’s rest another five minutes before we go.”
Riding in this condition, he might very well end up in a ditch.
After resting long enough, the group set off again.
Jiang Xia sat the same way she had on the way there. As for the suspect, Feng Qiangdong, he was seated on the back of a young local police officer’s bicycle. Judging by the look on the officer’s face when he received his assignment, one thing was clear.
Unlucky.
The vehicles got moving.
There were no trees planted along this stretch of road, so the summer sun beat down directly on their heads without anything to block it. Jiang Xia’s black hair did an excellent job of absorbing heat. Before long, the top of her head had gone from feeling hot to feeling scorched. It was as if the scalp beneath her hair was practically cooking.
A miscalculation. She should have brought a sun hat.
Fortunately, the distance wasn’t great, and they had the breeze to help cool them down, so it wasn’t too unbearable.
At last, the group arrived at the crime scene.
The site was located at Elm Slope, a hillside in Xiaobei Village. It wasn’t particularly tall compared to the surrounding terrain, reaching only about twenty or thirty meters, but it was still relatively elevated. It was also far from a water source, making it unsuitable for farmland. So Xiaobei Village had used the area to plant trees, while also turning it into the village’s communal cemetery.
Jiang Xia looked out at the landscape. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but a sea of green. Quite a few elm trees were as thick as an adult’s waist, suggesting they had been growing for twenty or thirty years. Their expansive canopies blotted out the sky, making the whole place look wonderfully cool.
She breathed a sigh of relief.
‘Thank goodness there are trees. At least I won’t have to search for footprints under the blazing sun.’
They stopped at the edge of the woods.
Two local police officers were left behind to watch the vehicles and the suspect, while the older officer accompanied the others into the woods.
Graves were scattered throughout the forest.
“This sun is absolutely brutal. Next time I’m out on a field assignment, I’m definitely bringing a straw hat.”
Under the shade of the trees, Huang Xueling held up the strands of hair on top of her head to let the heat escape. Looking at the graves around her, some old and some brand-new, she suddenly felt a chill run down her arms.
“Why are there so many graves around here?”
Jiang Xia found the graves quite familiar. She answered casually, “Whenever someone in the village dies, they’re buried here. Keep burying people for twenty or thirty years, or even longer, and of course you’ll end up with a lot of graves.”
This was actually one of the better situations. Xiaobei Village had a hillside where people could bury their dead. Many other families had no choice but to bury their relatives in their own fields. A single grave could occupy three or four square meters, and once the numbers added up, they took up a considerable amount of farmland. That was why, in the late 1990s, the state began forcibly implementing cremation to curb the problem of the dead taking up land.
As Jiang Xia surveyed the surrounding graves, she turned to the local police officer and asked, “By the way, did this grave robber only dig up one grave here?”
“One? He dug up eight graves!”
Eight? That was one more than the total number of graves she’d expected!
Jiang Xia was a little surprised. She asked again to make sure. “Then how many graves have you discovered in total so far?”
“Twenty-three!”
As he spoke, the officer sighed. “And those are just the graves that belong to known families. The villagers heard someone had been digging up their ancestors’ graves, so they came here to look for themselves. We haven’t even checked all the unclaimed graves yet. The total will definitely be higher once we add those in.”
He couldn’t help exclaiming, “That grave robber really has no moral decency!”
He certainly didn’t.
But Jiang Xia didn’t let her own feelings distract her. She continued asking, “Where are the other graves that were dug up?”
The officer thought for a moment. “There’s one site in the Gao family’s fields, another at Luo Family Gully, and another around Shangqiu. Those are the only four locations we’ve found so far.”
“Hm?”
Jiang Xia furrowed her brows slightly. “Are Shangqiu and Luo Family Gully far away? Are those two places also communal burial grounds like Elm Slope?”
“Well, they’re not particularly far. If we use this place as the center, even the farthest one is only about eleven or twelve li away.”
As he answered, the officer also realized something was off. “But those two places are communal burial grounds, too. Only the one in Gao Family Village is in a family’s field.”
“Something about this doesn’t quite add up.”
Chen Dong had been listening to Jiang Xia’s questions, too. He said, “People might not visit their ancestors’ graves very often, but they definitely have to go to their fields regularly. If someone dug up a grave there, it would be easy to notice something was wrong. If this was just about making money, there’d be no reason to do things this way, would there?”
Zeng Jun chimed in. “Then there’s a good chance it was motivated by a grudge.”
“That’s certainly a strong possibility.”
Chen Dong nodded. “The suspect probably has a serious grudge against Gao Hongwu’s family. We can use that as a direction for our investigation.”
“There’s something else that’s strange, too.”
Jiang Xia continued, “There are plenty of graves here at Elm Slope. I took a quick look around earlier and counted roughly forty or fifty grave mounds. There’s natural cover here, and with so many graves to choose from, why wouldn’t the grave robber just keep digging here? Why go all the way to Shangqiu and Luo Family Gully as well?”
Chen Dong furrowed his brows slightly. “That is a little strange.”
The places might sound close, but that was with a vehicle. In reality, covering eleven or twelve li on foot would take at least two or three hours, leaving very little time to commit the crimes.
Besides, communal burial grounds were never short of graves. After several decades, there could easily be two or three hundred of them. Why dig up a few here, then a few over there?
“Could whoever’s collecting the bones have specific requirements regarding the deceased’s age and sex?”
Chen Dong thought it over before replying, “Or perhaps the person has some means of transportation. Alternatively, the suspect might live close to all these locations.”
“That’s possible.”
Jiang Xia nodded slightly, then turned to the local police officer.
“Comrade, have you recorded the ages at death and sexes of the people buried in the graves that were robbed? Can you roughly determine when the graves were dug up?”
“Uh…”
A slightly embarrassed expression appeared on the officer’s face. “We were a bit pressed for time, so I didn’t get all the details.”
Zeng Jun immediately said, “Then I’ll trouble you to go ask about it now.”
The officer agreed. “All right. I’ll go right away.”
As they spoke, a large crowd of villagers came into view up ahead. They were packed tightly together in a wide circle, craning their necks to peer at something in the middle while their overlapping voices buzzed with discussion.
Wails and sobs drifted out from the crowd.
“Oh, my poor mother! What kind of hell-bound beast dug you up?!”
“Thank goodness my family’s grave is untouched…”
“Who knows what kind of beast did this…”
…
Amid the commotion, one of the villagers heard something behind him and turned to look. The moment he saw them, he began slapping the person beside him and shouting excitedly.
“The police are here!”
It looked like the crime scene was just ahead.
“Make way! Everyone, move aside!”
Zeng Jun led the way. He pushed through the onlookers, forcing his way into the crowd.
Jiang Xia and the others followed behind him. After only a few steps, they came across a rope stretched across their path. Beyond it lay a large, open area.
A relatively well-maintained grave immediately came into view. From an angle, they could clearly see a considerable amount of fresh soil piled beside the grave mound, with a dark, gaping hole near the top.
A local police officer was guarding the scene. He had used hemp rope as a makeshift police line, tying it around the elms to cordon off the looted grave. He had also driven away the villagers who had come to watch, politely persuading even several of the victims to wait outside.
Unfortunately, he had started a little too late. Jiang Xia lowered her gaze and glanced at the ground.
As expected, there were footprints everywhere. Again. And again.
They were densely packed, like fallen leaves in autumn.
She raised her head slightly, only to meet the gaze of Trace Examiner Li. They both saw a hint of despair in each other’s eyes.
With the ground trampled like this, how many of the original traces could possibly remain?
Zeng Jun had noticed the condition of the ground, too. After a moment of silence, he said, “The two of you, do your best. Whatever you can make out, just make do with that.”
“We don’t have much choice.”
Trace Examiner Li sighed before asking, “Jiang Xia, where would you like to start?”
Jiang Xia thought for a moment. “Let’s examine the looted graves one by one first.”
Footprints would be extremely difficult to analyze under these circumstances. She might as well start with something simpler. After all, the method used to excavate the graves could reveal quite a bit of information as well.
“Fine.”
Li nodded.
Huang Xueling, standing beside them, was even more considerate. She immediately reached into her pocket, pulled out three face masks, and handed one to each of them.
Jiang Xia took the mask and put it on. The three of them kept their eyes on the ground, carefully avoiding the scattered footprints as they approached the first looted grave.
This grave had no tombstone. However, stones had been piled up into a mound directly to the south, and a large area in front of it had been cleared, seemingly serving as a spot for offering sacrifices to the deceased.
The excavation hole, meanwhile, had been dug directly to the north. It was relatively narrow, roughly forty to fifty centimeters wide, and slanted downward from the side of the grave mound until it reached the top of the coffin.
A large hole had been made in the coffin lid, approximately thirty centimeters wide and roughly circular, though irregular in shape. The broken edges of the wood had rotted away, and several branches about as thick as a thumb had been laid across the opening.
Looking inside the coffin, they could see nothing but some dirt, splintered wood, and suspicious blackish-gray material.
The stench of a decomposing corpse continued to waft out of the coffin. Even through their masks, the smell was unmistakable.
Photographer Zhao adjusted his camera and volunteered, “All right, let me take a picture first.”
Jiang Xia stepped aside.
Trace Examiner Li took out a measuring tape and measured the width of the excavation hole.
Zhao quickly raised his camera and snapped a picture. After Li measured the depth, Zhao took another photograph for the record.
As soon as the two had finished, Zhao immediately retreated to a spot three meters away.
“Xueling, make a note of this. The hole is forty-seven centimeters wide and sixty-three centimeters deep.”