Chapter 295 - 293: Where Is This?
Chapter 295: Chapter 293: Where Is This?
Su Miaoyi and Lu Zhishen were digging with all their might. They had already broken three branches but kept on digging.
They were digging so intensely that they didn’t immediately notice when Su Miaoyi stopped.
"Um... are we on a company team-building trip in the mountains?" Su Miaoyi was baffled, but she still managed to crack a joke.
"If anyone made me come to the mountains for a team-building trip to dig holes in this weather, I’d report them to the higher-ups in a heartbeat," Lu Zhishen said.
After he said that, both he and Chu Xingrou stopped. The two of them looked at Su Miaoyi together.
Su Miaoyi stared at them blankly, then looked down at her own hands, and then at the hole they had dug.
This situation definitely meant there was a body.
The two of them were still staring at her.
Su Miaoyi met their gazes for a moment. "Well... are you mesmerized by my beauty?"
"Sister Miaomiao, are you back?" Chu Xingrou’s eyes widened.
Su Miaoyi looked at the two of them, then took out her phone to check it.
The time didn’t add up again. She’d had another blackout.
"Has another personality been in control for the past few days?" Su Miaoyi asked.
Chu Xingrou nodded.
Lu Zhishen took a bottle of water from his backpack, twisted it open, and handed it to her. "Here, have some water first."
Su Miaoyi belatedly realized how parched she was; she felt like she was turning into jerky. She quickly drank more than half the bottle. "Ah, I’m alive again."
Lu Zhishen and Chu Xingrou resumed digging.
Su Miaoyi caught her breath, drank the rest of the water, stuffed the bottle into her jacket pocket, and picked up a stick to start digging as well.
The digging was difficult. They didn’t have any proper tools, and it took a while before they finally unearthed something.
"Bones," Chu Xingrou said.
The three of them began to carefully dig around the bone, bit by bit. Then, putting on gloves, they pulled the entire bone out.
"This is a tibia, right?" Chu Xingrou said.
Su Miaoyi had cut her finger while digging with her bare hands earlier, so she was wearing two layers of gloves. She took out the other three bones from the pit. "Two tibias and two fibulas."
As she spoke, she examined the ends of the bones. They were intact.
"The left leg is a bit short," Su Miaoyi said after comparing them. "It’s also somewhat deformed."
"A limp?" Chu Xingrou said.
They set the bones aside, and Su Miaoyi continued digging off to the side.
The ends of the tibia and fibula were both intact, suggesting the bones had separated naturally after the body fully decomposed.
That’s why she was digging to the side, hoping to find the rest of the skeleton.
Once they confirmed there was a body, Lu Zhishen called Duan Wenrui and his team, telling them to bring people and tools over.
Su Miaoyi dug around the side for a bit but didn’t find anything.
"Sister Miaomiao, when you led us here earlier, you dug in several spots," Chu Xingrou said, pointing nearby.
Su Miaoyi looked at her, then stood up.
Chu Xingrou led her forward.
When they reached the nearest pit, Su Miaoyi glanced into the distance.
’Anyone who didn’t know better would think I was here to scratch the mountain’s back.’
The three of them squatted down and continued to dig.
"There are three small shovels in the bag," the voice in her head suddenly said.
Su Miaoyi looked for her bag, which Lu Zhishen was carrying on his back.
She unzipped the bag and took out three small shovels. "You could have told me sooner."
"What?" Lu Zhishen turned around and saw the shovels she had placed on the ground.
"Nothing," Su Miaoyi said. "I brought tools."
"You came prepared," Lu Zhishen remarked.
She was the one who suggested coming up the mountain this morning, and she even brought three small shovels.
Su Miaoyi nodded. "Dig!"
With the shovels, the three of them worked much faster.
"It’s the skull," Chu Xingrou said.
They carefully took it out. It was completely filled with dirt and small pebbles.
Su Miaoyi checked the edges again; they were still clean.
After that, they moved to another spot and dug up the feet.
Then the hands, two femurs, two radiuses and ulnas, and two humeri.
The clavicles, ribs, scapulae, shoulder joints, pelvis, and thoracic vertebrae were all buried in one spot.
Eight spots in total.
They had dug up all eight spots.
They took out the larger bones first and set them aside.
The smaller ones, like the metacarpals and phalanges, still had to be meticulously dug out.
"He was dismembered," Chu Xingrou said.
Lu Zhishen looked at the skull.
Su Miaoyi said, "The edges are very clean, with no damage. There are only some marks visible on the cervical vertebrae. The killer’s dismemberment technique was highly skilled, and they had a thorough knowledge of human anatomy."
"Male or female?" Chu Xingrou asked.
"Male." After examining the pelvis, Su Miaoyi looked at the few teeth left on the skull. She carefully cleaned off the dirt and studied them for a moment before saying, "The age should be between fifty-five and sixty. He had a limp, and his spine is curved, likely caused by long-term pressure from the limp favoring one side."
"Could it be Wu An?" Chu Xingrou said.
"Who’s Wu An?" Su Miaoyi asked.
"Huh?" Chu Xingrou paused for a second, then it dawned on her. "Sister Miaomiao, you don’t have memories from the last few days, do you?"
Su Miaoyi shook her head.
Lu Zhishen also looked at Su Miaoyi. "Wu An is a missing person from this village. He had polio as a child and had trouble with his legs."
"Village?" Su Miaoyi repeated. "Actually, I’ve been wondering something. Where are we right now? Why am I wearing a jacket in this heat? And the plants on this mountain, the soil humidity... none of it seems like Jinghai."
She had been feeling hot and had already taken off her jacket, tossing it to the side.
"Chang City," Chu Xingrou said. "You kept looking southwest, and then you saw the three words ’Yanjing Village’ in a vision. That’s the village we’re in now, so we came over."
Su Miaoyi nodded. "Tell me all about it when we get back."
"Okay."
Just as they were digging for the phalanges of the feet, Duan Wenrui and Zhao Yongliang arrived with their team.
"That was fast," Lu Zhishen said with some surprise.
It had taken them the better part of a day to walk here.
"After we got your location, we drove from the village to the foot of this part of the mountain and came straight up," Duan Wenrui said, glancing at the reassembled skeleton. "It must have taken you a long time to walk over from the other side of the mountain, right?"
"It took us ages."
"This mountain is pretty steep, so it took some time to get up," Duan Wenrui said. "Are you all okay?"
"We’re fine," Chu Xingrou said.
Su Miaoyi indicated that she was fine.
"The younger one is Duan Wenrui, captain of the Chang City branch’s criminal police division. He was in charge of the Yanjing Village case three years ago," the voice in her head told Su Miaoyi. "The older one is from the Yanjing Village town police station, Zhao Yongliang."
"Are these the pits where you found the body? Why are there so many?" Duan Wenrui asked, looking around.
"He was dismembered and buried separately in these eight spots," Su Miaoyi explained.
"These pits aren’t shallow. How did you find them?" Duan Wenrui wondered.
"We just happened to stumble upon them," Lu Zhishen said.
They were working a case outside their jurisdiction and hadn’t revealed anything about Su Miaoyi’s abilities.
Duan Wenrui squatted down to examine the bones.
The larger pieces had been pieced together.
Su Miaoyi had gathered all the smaller pieces.
"Can you tell the cause of death from this?" Duan Wenrui asked.
"Here." Su Miaoyi pointed to the ribs on the left side of the chest. "There’s a nick on this rib; he was stabbed here once. But I’m not sure if it was the cause of death. We’ll need to do a more thorough autopsy and run some toxicology tests."
...