Free Web NovelChapter 275: Chapter 272 Mr. Xia is Here!_1
March 4, 2012, 9:22
Mr. Zhao, who was crouching at the window, kept waving his hand back.
"Here he comes, here he comes, Mr. Xia is here!"
Zhou Ning also quickly walked to the window and looked down, where Xia Momo was getting out of the car, holding a huge box. Mr. Bai reached out to take it, but Xia Momo dodged him. Zhou Ning couldn’t help but laugh.
Mr. Bai was always restless, truly someone Xia Momo wouldn’t trust with her items. Zhou Ning turned and went downstairs. By the time he reached the first floor, Xia Momo had already walked in.
Seeing Xia Momo’s somewhat pale face, and the faint dark circles under her eyes, Zhou Ning felt even more embarrassed.
"You must have stayed up all night, let me take that for you!"
Xia Momo shook her head without speaking, but handed the box to Zhou Ning. They went upstairs with Mr. Bai scratching his head continuously, looking puzzled behind them.
"I offered to take the box, but why did Mr. Xia ignore me and even told me not to touch it?"
Liu Yufei poked Mr. Bai and rolled her eyes at him. fɾeeweɓnѳveɭ.com
"Stop being so weird. You’re fidgety, she was afraid you’d drop it. Stop staring at Mr. Xia; she doesn’t like younger brothers. Hurry up and follow me to check the details, it seems you’re not tired yet."
When Zhou Ning and Xia Momo reached the office, Xia Momo took off her coat. Zhou Ning carefully placed the box on the desk and then introduced: freewebnovel.cσ๓
"This is Xia Momo from the special laboratory of Qin University, one of the main developers of the software. And this is Doctor Xu, the forensic doctor of the Rudong City Criminal Investigation Brigade’s forensic office, as well as a friend of my master."
Xia Momo quickly nodded towards Xu Guanhai, who smiled and rubbed his hands together.
"I didn’t expect such youth and achievement, nice to meet you, Mr. Xia."
Liu Yongxin gave Xu Guanhai a nudge and motioned to Xia Momo.
"Alright, enough with the pleasantries, just a sentence or two will do. We’re all technical people, no need for the fluff. Mr. Xia, do you need a separate office, one where you won’t be disturbed?"
Xia Momo smiled and shook her head, taking a glance inside the office.
"No need for a separate office, just somewhere closer to the skeleton will do, it’s more convenient for us this way."
Zhou Ning nodded and waved Mr. Zhao and the others to move aside, then looked toward Liu Yongxin.
"Master, would you mind running an errand? This restoration is urgent, but the crime scene also needs a thorough examination. I’m worried about oversights with Mr. Zhao and the others, I’d be more at ease with you there."
Liu Yongxin patted Zhou Ning on the shoulder.
"You and Mr. Xia focus on reconstructing the skull here. I’ll take them to the scene. Director Xu and the others are going to screen the area around Renjiazhuang Village anyway, so we’ll just join them. I’ll talk to the locals, and they’ll deliver lunch early for you, leaving it at the door to avoid disturbing your work."
Zhou Ning nodded; his master understood him best.
Like herding ducks, Liu Yongxin ushered the others to leave quickly. Xia Momo had already taken off her coat, put on a white lab coat, tied up her hair, and then opened the box.
Zhou Ning leaned over and helped Xia Momo take out the 3D printed skull from inside the box and placed it next to the victim’s skull for comparison. Zhou Ning thought it was perfect.
"This technology is really amazing, the data is accurate, and the copy is extremely perfect."
Xia Momo seemed unsatisfied, frowning slightly. She took a scalpel and started to clean some excess material off the edges. After some time, she nodded in satisfaction.
"There, now it’s even more perfect. Shall we start the restoration now?"
"Yes."
"Give me the data then. Do you know the details like height, weight, hair color, pupil color, skin tone, etc.?"
Zhou Ning shook his head.
"The victim was found skeletal. There’s little known information. The only things known are age, height, and weight, even those are estimated and not very accurate. As for hair color, there were some short strands stuck in the burlap bag; they seem to be close to pure black."
Xia Momo smiled at Zhou Ning.
"Don’t worry, the victim still has half of the face relatively intact. We can use proportional methods to repair the missing parts of the skull on the opposite side, and then start sculpting to fill it in. We won’t know if it works until we try, right?"
Zhou Ning also smiled, feeling his tensed nerves relax at Xia Momo’s words. Indeed, as Xia Momo said, he was too concerned about the outcome, unlike when he was investigating the 12.10 case under the bed, where he didn’t care about the outcome as much. It wasn’t necessary to be so concerned; finding a method to break the case was key.
With this thought, Zhou Ning felt somewhat relieved.
"Alright, then let’s give it a try. If it doesn’t work, we’ll just start over."
Xia Momo also smiled.
"Don’t worry, I’ve had people continue 3D printing skulls. If we ruin this one, we’ll get another delivered. The laboratory is very keen on this matter. Last night, when they heard we’d be using this technology, not a single person took leave; they all went."
Zhou Ning nodded and helped Xia Momo mix the plaster. Then, they began to compare and restore the victim’s right facial bone structure.
Time passed swiftly, and with reference to the position of the intact skeleton on the other side, the two repaired the missing parts. Xia Momo scanned it and used software to reconstruct the deceased’s appearance, but neither of them was satisfied with how the person looked.
They then decided to start over, performing a sculptural muscle repair, and by the time they finished, it was already past three in the afternoon. After washing their hands and reviewing the results of their repair, Xia Momo was quite satisfied.
"I think it’s very good, it looks more like a young person," she said.
Zhou Ning smiled.
"The facial features are fine, but I still feel something is not quite satisfying, yet I can’t put my finger on what it is. I’ll go see if they’ve brought us boxed lunches, probably I’m so hungry that my brain cells aren’t working," Xia Momo said, quickly standing up.
"Now that you mention it, I realize I’m really hungry too!" Zhou Ning said, already at the door. When she opened it, there was a bag outside, a large one with two brand-new towels inside, wrapped around four boxes—it was quite thoughtful.
Carrying the boxes inside, they quickly ate, and continual coughing sounds came from the computer. Zhou Ning rinsed her mouth, about to open her email when her phone rang.
It was Mrs. Cui calling, and Zhou Ning excitedly pressed the answer button.
"Big sister."
"Mmm, I just sent you an email, but thought I’d better call you about it. We’ve got the results of the deceased’s blood analysis. There were many components found, though none in large amounts.
"We found lidocaine and trace amounts of the benzodiazepine diazepam, taken from a soaked 5x5 centimeter cloth sample.
"I did a test, and a cloth of this size needs to soak up at least 7 milliliters of blood for full saturation, so you can figure out the ratio. Also, another substance was found: carbamide, which I don’t think is from the blood, but you can judge for yourself," Mrs. Cui added.
Zhou Ning clenched her fists, too excited to express herself.
"Thank you so much, Mrs. Cui. I know how difficult it must have been to extract old residual cloth—it must have taken many attempts to collect it. Thank you!" Zhou Ning said.
"Humph, that’s enough flattery; don’t start sounding like Mr. Zhao. You get back to work, I’ve got other things to do. Because of your analysis, everything else is on hold," Mrs. Cui retorted.
Before Zhou Ning could say anything else, Mrs. Cui had already hung up. Xia Momo came over.
"Is everything okay?" she asked.
Zhou Ning shook her head.
"Mrs. Cui is direct but absolutely serious about her work. And the extraction test was very difficult, I wonder what method she used. Oh, and I just figured out what is wrong with our reconstruction sculpture of the deceased."
"What is it?" Xia Momo inquired.
"The hairstyle. The one you chose reflects what young people like nowadays, but given that the deceased died seven or eight years ago, or maybe even longer, that hairstyle doesn’t seem right. Also, there are usually specific rules about hair length for students."
Xia Momo had a realization and quickly changed the scanned image’s hairstyle to a parted one, slightly shortening the hair length. With this adjustment, the reconstruction of the deceased now had a bit more of a youthful appearance.
Zhou Ning nodded constantly.
Xia Momo got to work and quickly changed the sculpted hairstyle too.
Having printed the lab report, Zhou Ning stared at the report’s concentrations with a solemn expression.
Diazepam, commonly known as Valium, detected in the blood, indicates more than simple oral consumption of Valium tablets. Oral intake requires at least 30 minutes to 2 hours for the drug concentration in the blood to reach a level where it would take effect.
Seven or eight years ago, anesthetics like lidocaine were very common in small dental clinics, not like LAT which requires special channels. Diazepam, or Valium pills, were easily available then, as there wasn’t such strict regulation.
Was it possible that the killer calculated the peak period of the blood drug concentration accurately, making the victim take Valium and then, once they lost consciousness, injected lidocaine?
Unless it was a doctor, this would be difficult to pull off, but if it was a doctor, there would be no need to go through such trouble. After all, there are many ways to make someone lose consciousness without being detected, and this method is not very reliable.
As for carbamide, that’s just urea, which probably relates to the bag.
Zhou Ning shook her head and turned back to the deceased’s clothes, next to which were many plastic woven bags. The bags had puncture marks, were crumpled into balls, and had no ties or binding materials.
When Zhou Ning spread out the bag, something fluttering at the mouth of the bag caught his attention.
It appeared to be a paper tag, slightly sticking out of the bag, sewn into the mouth of the bag with thread, but it was stained with blood. Zhou Ning quickly grabbed an LED light to take a closer look.
It turned out to be a certification tag, with a diamond-shaped stamp between two ink-printed dates, one marked January 10, 2002, and the other January 9, 2005.
The bag brand was a type of fertilizer featuring the prominent word "Urea." Zhou Ning was familiar with this since his grandfather also grew just enough crops back home to provide seasonal vegetables for the family—not to sell grain.
Urea can be used multiple times from March to October.
Zhou Ning spread out the bag fully on the stainless-steel cart and realized that the bag had not been stained by blood in several places and was quite clean.
In the countryside, families keep these bags mostly to store things, they are never this clean. It looked as if it was used to hold a body right after fertilizing was done.
This thought startled Zhou Ning.
