Chapter 108 - 108 106 Discovery

Words : 1969 Updated : Sep 17th, 2025

108: Chapter 106 Discovery 108: Chapter 106 Discovery The funeral home at midnight, with the wailing wind sounding like a procession of ghosts, the fallen leaves whirling in the sky, unwilling to leave and yet hesitant to land, as though they held many unfulfilled wishes. In the funeral home at midnight, the flickering lights, viewed from outside, intertwined patterns of light and shadow like a splendid cage set by fate; turning to look behind oneself, there was the pitch-black night and the hazy sky, always feeling like something might suddenly jump out and say to you, “Hey!” The funeral home at night was always filled with the sounds of doors and windows rattling, locks clacking open, and the neverending drip of water—drip, drip, drip—no matter how carefully they were repaired during the day, various unexpected issues would still arise at night. Inside the dissection room on the basement floor, the bold music never stopped: “Running naked, running wild, racing through the streets...” A rendition of “The Bund” carried Li Zhen back to his youth, filled with indulgence and nostalgia. Back then, as a young forensic doctor, Xiao Li was assigned to Langgu County, a college graduate that was the talk of the entire county! In just one month of working, Xiao Li had performed autopsies on nine corpses. When eating at a restaurant, the owner would even give him an extra couple pieces of braised pork ribs. While listening to the song, Li Zhen felt as if he had returned to those days. Thinking back to the rudimentary conditions then, some cases required on-the-spot autopsies when facilities were lacking; he would find himself dissecting on the floor of the deceased’s bedroom, opening chests, abdomens, and skulls. Back then, kneeling before the corpse, his young back would ache with exhaustion; if he had to do the same now, Li Zhen would immediately add another broken-backed corpse. Where like now, he even had an office in the funeral home—no wind, no rain, although a bit cold, hiss~~~ “These are all that were dug out from the grave,” Jiang Yuan finished examining the last piece of cloth and put it back in the large evidence box on the small table, then couldn’t help but stand up and arch his back, slowly twisting and stretching. He didn’t dare move too much, for fear of waking up the “neighbors” in the surrounding boxes. Li Zhen was already exhausted and casually slumped on the adjacent dissection table, even striking a strangely nonstandard yoga pose that was a bit comical, like a corpse that had been haphazardly posed. He had been intently listening to the music, but upon hearing Jiang Yuan’s voice, he lifted his chin like a prideful, reclusive old and scrawny cat that didn’t care to bother with others. “Just sleep when you’re done. There’s a camp bed inside; you can open it and sleep if you’re too tired.” Jiang Yuan: ... “...If there’s a camp bed, why would you sleep on the dissection table? That’s too cold.” Jiang Yuan had been focused on organizing the evidence and hadn’t noticed before, but now turning to look, it felt like he was chatting with a vintage corpse. He looked at that stainless steel dissection table and couldn’t help shivering! Li Zhen chuckled, “You didn’t look closely; I lined it with an army coat underneath.” “You keep that army coat in the dissection room, and it’s always draped on the dissection table; it must’ve steeped in the flavor by now. Besides, it’s too bulky, almost enough to dress a corpse.” “This originally was to cover corpses with. The family didn’t want it, and at that time I was just starting to date and had no money, plus it was just before Chinese New Year, and I couldn’t afford new clothes...” Even forensic doctor Li himself couldn’t figure it out—back then he was young, he used the army coat to cover the person underneath whom he dissected, found out the cause of death, and quickly helped solve the case, catching the murderer. When the family came to claim the body, they threw away the army coat. Because normally, in such situations, the family would yearn to burn everything associated with the deceased, not wanting to see anything related, probably because the memories would be too painful. So he kept the army coat, and it just stayed with him ever since. He wasn’t afraid, in fact, it became oddly comforting. Jiang Yuan calculated Li Zhen’s age, then estimated when he had been dating, and suddenly felt a deep respect for the army coat beneath him—it was not just a coat anymore; it was a talisman! “Are we really not going home?” Jiang Yuan asked again. Li Zhen gestured outside with his thumb, “If you’re scared, you can go out for a stroll!” Jiang Yuan thought about it; the room was the dissection room, managed by the police department, while outside was the funeral home, overseen by the civil affairs department. No matter how he considered it, the dissection room seemed more secure. “It’s not that I’m scared; it’s just that sleeping here doesn’t feel comfortable.” Jiang Yuan found the camp bed and quickly realized that indeed, it was not long enough. “Then just keep working,” Li Zhen suggested and then flipped over, starting to text his wife and opening “All-People Karaoke” to sing “Sweet Honey.” “Sweet Honey, sweet honey...” The dissection room filled with forensic doctor Li’s pinched singing voice, and Jiang Yuan shivered uncontrollably again! Lying on the dissection table and singing “Sweet Honey” felt morbidly macabre. Jiang Yuan brought another box of evidence to the table, spread open the logbook, and donned a new pair of gloves—Li Zhen was busy preparing to sleep, no longer paying attention to him. Compared to the items in the large evidence box, the significance of the items in this box was much lower. The evidence from the large box had been unearthed from that hasty grave, including the victim Sun Jingyi’s clothes, a few personal items, and soil from under the corpse’s abdomen, among others. These pieces of evidence had also been sent off for examination, belonging to the most focused on and the most likely to yield results. The box of evidence Jiang Yuan now had on the table came from outside the grave, ranging up to a kilometer from the grave, and consisted of items that had been found during the search. There were four boxes like this, and anywhere else, they would have been seen as the results of garbage picking, but here, every item had to be carefully scrutinized before being dismissed. The most striking evidence among them was a cigarette butt. If it belonged to the criminal, it would be equivalent to the perpetrator volunteering their identity card number. As it turned out, it was just the search team’s lack of professionalism that had caused the issue. Someone, during the search, had sneaked in a smoke, carelessly discarded their cigarette butt in the woods, and then diligently stomped it out. Really, there wasn’t much to say about it; the search had been going on for more than a day, and it wasn’t realistic to prevent smokers from smoking, especially outdoors. Additionally, the search team wasn’t a professional police squad, just specialized search and rescue teams like the local Blue Sky Rescue Team and other semi-official organizations, without relevant training or duties. In such challenging conditions, they weren’t easy to manage either. When they were smoking, they also didn’t know that a body might be uncovered here. Jiang Yuan set aside the cigarette butts and tissues that had been claimed by someone. There were still many items left in the box, including unclaimed plastic bags, lighter cases, mineral water bottles, shoe soles, fish hooks and fishing lines, net bags, fabric bags, torn clothing, food packaging bags, and boxes... Jiang Yuan took them out one by one for inspection. Afterward, he would dust each for fingerprints, then wipe for DNA. This work could be done by any other crime scene technicians or experts, but very, very few could actually do it well. Even the act of moistening a swab with water to create the semi-dry condition needed for DNA wiping was a minor task few were willing to perform. People might have learned that it was the better approach, but typically, they would just take a swab and rub it quickly over the surface and be done. As for the wiping technique, placing the samples in appropriate evidence bags, and sending them for testing on time, even fewer could do these well. These were all incredibly tedious and meticulous tasks with no guaranteed results. Like trace evidence, the core of DNA testing actually lies in the extraction of the test material. Speaking of extraction, it wasn’t necessarily difficult – it just required attentiveness, patience, and proficiency; still, in reality, there were not many who could do it. Some were simply too lazy, while others were just overloaded with work and had to rush. In this respect, crime scene technicians were no different from primary school students. Teachers and parents constantly admonish them to write neatly, be diligent, and not be careless, and they also hope the children will take initiative and do more homework. In truth, among the kids in a class, it was very likely that not a single one could meet all these criteria. Even for children under intensive study routines, only a handful could maintain it. At that moment, Jiang Yuan was like the most proactive and diligent primary school student in the class. He was very spirited and motivated. Using his newly acquired sketching skills, he drew a diagram marking the distribution of evidence around Sun Jingyi’s grave, and although it was just a tool diagram, it was surprisingly pleasant to look at. Then, he began processing the evidence itself. Out of habit, he started with fingerprints. Whether to start with fingerprints or DNA was occasionally debated; everyone criticized the other side for not being diligent enough, and usually, it was whoever arrived first got to process first. Jiang Yuan was still more familiar with fingerprints. He scanned item after item, past Nongfu Spring, past Wahaha, past Ice Dew, and when he got to a bottle of Nongfu Spring, Jiang Yuan fell into deep thought as he looked at the fingerprint that had been scanned. He took the fingerprint and held it in his hand, staring at it silently. This fingerprint was about three-quarters the size of a normal one and was rather complete, with relatively clear friction ridges—a fingerprint this clear could easily be matched by any latent fingerprint examiner if there were corresponding records in the database. It didn’t seem like a fingerprint that had been gone over during a fingerprint battle. Yet, he felt it was somehow familiar. An expert’s recollection of fingerprints was somewhat like a playboy’s memory of an ex-girlfriend. Jiang Yuan pushed his thoughts further and further back until suddenly, a fingerprint popped into his mind! The Wen Township arson case! After tying together multiple cases, several arson cases that had occurred in Wen Township were solved, except for one. That particular case involved forest land and had gone unsolved. Jiang Yuan immediately took out his phone and began to search. In his memory, the arsonist had confessed to several cases but not this one, leaving the case temporarily shelved. The fingerprint extracted from that case was quite blurred, but when compared with the one before him... there were many similarities! ***(gibberish cursing)!!! Indeed, the teacher was right, efforts never go to waste. Jiang Yuan excitedly nudged Li Zhen, the forensic doctor who had just dozed off on the autopsy table!

Chapter 108 - 108 106 Discovery

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