Chapter 31.1: New Case: Unknown Victim
Dawn was just beginning to break.
The entire city was still asleep, but Old Li, a sanitation worker, was already awake. After eating a little multigrain mantou, he wheeled the human-powered tricycle out from beneath the shed at home and headed for the road he needed to clean.
He pedaled slowly forward.
The entire street was deathly quiet, with not a single person in sight. He could see all the way to the end of it at a glance.
Old Li yawned. After pedaling another seven or eight meters, his already bleary eyes suddenly caught sight of something black and white lying on the ground.
Trash wouldn’t look like that. Given its size and length, it was clearly a person!
Old Li shook his head helplessly.
Which family’s husband had gone drinking last night and failed to come home, only to lie down here and sleep through the night?
And no one from his family had even come looking for him.
Luckily, it was warm now. If this had been winter, the man might have been dead already!
Old Li put a little more strength into his pedaling. He wanted to reach the man quickly, wake him up, and send him home before he could make a fool of himself lying around here.
A few dozen seconds later, Old Li reached him. He braked, climbed down slowly, and prepared to go over and wake the man.
A foul smell suddenly wafted toward him.
It wasn’t the smell of vomit that commonly came from drunk people. Instead, it was a strange odor that seemed vaguely familiar, as though he’d smelled it a long time ago, but couldn’t remember where.
Just what had this guy been doing?
Feeling increasingly uneasy, Old Li walked over to the man’s side and patted him as he said, “Hey! Young man, don’t sleep here. Wake up and go home!”
There was no response.
Old Li felt that something was wrong.
Why did the man’s body feel so cold?
With a bad feeling in his gut, he quickly put some force into turning the man’s upper body over. The shoulder, along with the head, turned with it, revealing a bloodied hole the size of a baby’s fist in his temple. His unclosed eyes were staring fixedly at Old Li.
“Good heavens!”
Old Li’s face went pale with shock. He hurriedly backed away, stumbled, and fell to the ground.
But he didn’t dare stop for even a moment. He scrambled to his feet and ran outside, shouting at the top of his lungs as he went.
“Someone’s dead!”
“Someone’s been murdered!”
……
…
The shrill cries completely shattered the silence.
＊
‘Bang! Bang! Bang!’
The dormitory building.
The urgent pounding on the door made Jiang Xia’s eyes snap open. She sat up in one swift motion, still groggy, slipped her feet into her shoes, and pushed open the bedroom door as she headed outside. As she walked, she glanced at the clock in the living room.
It was only six o’clock. Why was someone knocking on her door at this hour?
She called out loudly, “Who is it? Why are you knocking this early?”
“It’s your Uncle Wang!”
The person outside replied irritably, “Your work unit called. They said there’s been a death, and they want you to grab your things and hurry to the east alley on Changxing Road to help out!”
Someone’s dead?!
Jiang Xia instantly woke up. “Thanks for coming over to tell me, Uncle Wang. Could you call them back for me? I’ll head over right away!”
No wonder Uncle Wang had come pounding on the door so early in the morning. Apparently, her work unit had called the building’s front desk directly. Anyone who’d been woken up by that would have a bad temper.
Jiang Xia hurried back to her bedroom, changed clothes, then rushed into the bathroom to wash up. Her mother, Zhou Mei, who had also been awakened, came out with her clothes hastily thrown on.
“Slow down. I’ll quickly make you some noodles. Eat before you go.”
“Don’t bother. I’m afraid I’ll eat them and then throw everything up when I get there.”
Jiang Xia splashed cold water onto her face and urged her mother to go back. “Mom, you should go back to sleep!”
“Then, Xiao Xia, take two peach crisps with you.”
Jiang Ying, who had also woken up, clung to the bed rail and poked her head out. “These can help prevent low blood sugar—that thing where everything suddenly goes black. If you get hungry, they’ll tide you over, too.”
“I don’t think I need—”
“Just take them!”
Zhou Mei quickly took two peach crisps from the box, wrapped them in paper, and stuffed them into Jiang Xia’s bag without giving her a chance to refuse.
Since they were already in there, Jiang Xia didn’t take them back out. She slung her shoulder bag over herself, picked up the toolbox she’d brought home yesterday for testing, hurried downstairs, and cycled toward Changxing Road.
Changxing Road was a newly constructed road, fairly close to the relocated municipal government offices, with only two traffic-light intersections between them. There were also several newspaper offices nearby. As soon as word got out that a dead body had been found in the alley, reporters showed up almost immediately.
By the time Jiang Xia reached the alley, crowds of onlookers had already gathered all around it. From a distance, all those dark heads looked like a swarm of ants.
“Police investigation! Everyone, make way!”
Carrying her toolbox, Jiang Xia pushed through the crowd and finally managed to squeeze inside.
A cordon had already been put up at the innermost part of the crowd. The local police officers from the nearby station stood along the cordon, constantly stopping people from trying to cross it.
Jiang Xia looked ahead.
Forensic Examiner Sun was already there, conducting the autopsy. Trace Examiner Li was leaning against a wall, one hand pressed to his forehead as he stared at the chaotic footprints on the ground. He looked as though he would very much like to lie down beside the person on the ground.
Even Photographer Zhao who was usually rather lazy, was here. He was currently adjusting his camera with an unusually serious expression.
When Trace Examiner Li saw Jiang Xia arrive, he hurriedly waved to her. “Jiang Xia, you made it?”
“Yeah.”
Jiang Xia lifted the cordon and walked over to Trace Examiner Li. She had intended to pay attention to the traces on the ground, but when she looked down, she nearly couldn’t find anywhere to put her feet.
Great. Friendly fire is at full capacity again this time.
Jiang Xia carefully made her way over to Trace Examiner Li and asked, “What’s the situation?”
“There are no signs of a struggle around here, and no blood either. This isn’t the primary crime scene. The body was probably dumped here.”
After saying this, Trace Examiner Li wore an utterly helpless expression. “But that’s all we’ve got. Those people have absolutely no awareness of preserving a crime scene. The moment they heard someone had died, they all rushed over to gawk. They practically had their faces pressed against the body. It took the officers from the local station a huge effort to drive them back and put up the cordon.”
Now that was a familiar recipe, with a familiar taste.
Jiang Xia sighed helplessly.
“Then I’ll go over and take a look at the victim first.”
Trace Examiner Li hesitated. “Uh… are you sure you can go over there like that?”
Jiang Xia waved a hand. “It’s fine. I’ve seen two bodies at school before. If I feel like I’m going to throw up, I’ll get out of there right away.”
If she was going to draw the victim’s portrait, then even if she didn’t look now, she’d have to look later. It was better to get it over with early and give herself time to recover, rather than trying to draw while vomiting.
Jiang Xia took out a mask and put it on, then carefully approached the body and gave it a broad visual inspection.
It was the body of a man who appeared to be around twenty-five or twenty-six years old. He was very young. He wore a white shirt on top and a well-tailored pair of black trousers below, both made of dacron.
He was dressed like a government cadre. If he wasn’t one, then he certainly came from a family with either very good circumstances or a very good income.
After taking in the overall picture, Jiang Xia finally began examining the dead man’s face closely.
His face was grayish-white and slightly swollen. There was a faint trace of blood in his nostrils. Most strikingly, his eyes were still open, his pupils dilated and unfocused as they stared blankly at the sky.
There was a fatal wound above his left forehead, about four or five centimeters in diameter, caved inward. Aside from the dried blood, gray-white fragments of bone could be seen, along with highly suspicious solid substances that were yellow and grayish-pink.
This should be the fatal wound.
A wave of nausea rose in Jiang Xia’s throat.
To be fair, a corpse in this condition was already relatively easy on the eyes. After all, it hadn’t started decomposing yet, and it wasn’t some Hulk-like corpse pulled out of the water.
But a dead person was still a dead person. Humans instinctively recoiled from the bodies of their own kind after death, and Jiang Xia was right beside the corpse now. Her enhanced vision made it even easier for her to distinguish the signs of death, pushing the uncanny valley effect to the extreme. Combined with her sense of smell and the subtle sensations her skin could normally never detect… the feeling was simply indescribable.
Jiang Xia averted her gaze, took a deep breath, and forcibly suppressed her discomfort.
Good. She hadn’t thrown up this time either.
“Make way, make way!”
A familiar voice came through the buzzing crowd. Jiang Xia turned her head, and sure enough, it was Yang Lihua.
He squeezed his way through the crowd with all his might, with Captain Tan and Wang Leihu following behind him.
Yang Lihua hurried over to Forensic Examiner Sun and apologized. “Sorry, Master. I’m late.”
Forensic Examiner Sun waved a hand. “It’s fine. I didn’t arrive much earlier than you. I just finished examining the wounds.”
Captain Tan didn’t come over to ask about the situation first.
Instead, he made a circuit inside the cordon. Looking at the densely packed crowds on both ends, he immediately got a headache and turned on the local officers.
“Seriously, what are you people doing? You’ve all arrived, so how did you still let this many people crowd around?”
The deputy station chief was somewhat indignant. “Captain Tan, we did put up a cordon!”
“What good is it when it’s only a few steps away from the crowd?”
Tan Bingyi’s voice was extremely stern as he waved his arms forcefully. “Get these people out of here! Seal off this entire road! No outsiders are allowed in!”
“Oh, oh, oh.”
The deputy station chief hurriedly ordered the local officers to drive the onlookers away.
“Captain Tan’s word really carries weight.”
Forensic Examiner Sun had already begun pressing down on the corpse. Starting from the chest, he gradually worked his way downward, saying as he pressed, “Having all these people around is making the examination much harder.”
“There are reporters, too.”
Jiang Xia turned her head to look at Captain Tan again. He was currently negotiating with the reporters, seemingly trying to persuade them not to report on the case, but judging by the looks of things, it wasn’t going very well.
“We’re going to be under a lot of pressure with this case.”
“Isn’t that obvious?”
Forensic Examiner Sun nodded toward the direction of the municipal government offices. “It’s this close. The higher-ups are bound to hear about it, and that means we’ll definitely be under a lot of pressure.”
He lifted the victim’s clothing and examined the lividity underneath, then said to Yang Lihua, who had crouched down beside Jiang Xia, “Come over and take a look at this dark purplish-red color. This is livor mortis. It fades slightly when pressed, which means the time of death was probably between twenty-four and forty-eight hours ago.”
“Oh, oh. Got it, Master.”
Yang Lihua was grimacing as well. He endured his discomfort, lowered his head, examined it carefully, and committed the information to memory.
While teaching his apprentice, Forensic Examiner Sun raised the corpse’s arm again. Carefully avoiding the watch on the victim’s wrist, he tried bending the arm. As he did so, he asked Jiang Xia curiously, “Hey, Jiang Xia, you’ve got quite a strong stomach. You’re standing right beside a dead body and you haven’t even thrown up. Since you’ve been looking at it for so long, have you figured anything out?”
Jiang Xia was examining the wound. She stroked her chin and said, “I think this was a premeditated murder committed by someone the victim knew.”
“Huh?”
Forensic Examiner Sun’s mind stalled for a moment.
He had thought Jiang Xia would answer with something related to forensic knowledge. He hadn’t expected this at all.
But why did it feel like she’d skipped over a whole bunch of steps in between?
He mulled over her words, trying to make sense of them, but couldn’t figure it out at all. In the end, he simply asked, “How so?”
“Look. The victim only has this one fatal injury to the head.”
Jiang Xia pointed at the wound. “Judging by its appearance, the wound is about five centimeters in diameter. It’s depressed, with irregular edges. From the shape of the wound, I’d say it was caused by a blunt instrument, something like a hammer or a sledgehammer. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Forensic Examiner Sun could naturally see that as well. He nodded in agreement. “No.”
Who said Forensic Examiner Sun wasn’t capable? His fundamentals were still solid.
Thinking this, Jiang Xia continued, “And it’s a frontal wound. Isn’t that obvious?”
Wait, how many steps did you just skip this time?
Forensic Examiner Sun stared at Jiang Xia, completely bewildered.
The two looked each other in the eye. Seeing the sheer innocence in each other’s eyes, Jiang Xia fell silent.
She sighed inwardly, turned around, faced Yang Lihua directly, and called out, “Xiao Yang!”
Yang Lihua raised his head. “What?”
Jiang Xia said nothing. She lowered her right hand into a fist, then suddenly swung it rapidly toward Yang Lihua’s forehead.
Yang Lihua’s mind went blank. He immediately leaned his upper body backward to dodge, the force of the movement so great that his whole body tipped backward. He hurriedly planted both hands on the ground to support himself, narrowly avoiding landing flat on the ground.
“Jiang Xia, why did you hit me?”
“Master Sun, you saw that.”
Jiang Xia’s fist stopped firmly in midair. She withdrew her hand and turned to Forensic Examiner Sun. “See? When we’re facing each other, if I make any kind of attacking motion, the other person can see it clearly and react in time to dodge.”
“But the victim suffered a frontal injury, which means he and the attacker were facing each other and talking. In that situation, the victim would have been able to clearly see what was in my hand and what I was doing.”
“Once he realized I had a blunt weapon in my hand, he’d instinctively be on his guard. The moment I moved, he’d naturally lean back to dodge. There’s a good chance the first blow would miss, giving him an opportunity to run away. So the weapon would have to be concealed first, followed by a sudden attack.”
“And the weapon definitely couldn’t have been hidden behind the waist, because the movement of drawing it would be too obvious. So the best option would be to hide it inside the sleeve, using the hand to support the hammerhead.”
As she spoke, Jiang Xia let her hand hang down and demonstrated a loose grip. “With the arm hanging naturally like this, the weapon can be concealed by the clothing. When it’s needed, you simply relax and tighten your grip. The hammer will quickly slide down under its own weight, allowing you to catch the handle and launch an attack immediately.”
“But getting the timing right wouldn’t be easy. It would be difficult to do on impulse. The killer would have had to practice it several times. So whether you consider the advance practice or the preparation of hiding the weapon inside the sleeve, this was clearly a premeditated crime.”