Free Web NovelChapter 440: Chapter 414 Another Corpse_1
With Xu Dayuan’s shout, Mr. Bai was already waving his hands ceaselessly.
"That’s it, I’ll lead people over, but how come it looks different from the photos they took?"
This remark caused everyone to pause. Xu Dayuan hurriedly pulled out his phone, wanting to look for the previously sent photos, but his phone had no signal when he turned it on.
Huang Licheng rifled through his pockets, took a stack of paper folded into small squares, smoothed out the wrinkles, and everyone crowded around to look. As they looked, Zhou Ning was also bewildered. freewebnovёl.ƈom
The body in the photo, like the deceased they had found, was wearing hiking gear, but the color didn’t seem to be navy blue; it was a set of black and orange clothes, dirty and stained with blood, in a posture as if it was crawling on the ground.
A similar backpack was discarded to the side, with various tools like trekking poles and climbing hammers scattered around, making it clear this was not a single victim. Moreover, the victim in the photo’s hands were not the only parts reduced to bone; from the picture, it can be seen that the victim’s facial area also had extensive skeletal exposure, with all the teeth on the right side of the face completely exposed, appearing very ghastly and terrifying.
The state of death of the victim in the photo looked pitiable, seemingly having died much earlier than the one they had found, but Zhou Ning always felt that this body was nearby, and there must be a connection between these two victims, perhaps even dying at the same time.
"It’s not the same body, but is this location close to where the current body was found?"
It wasn’t just Huang Licheng; Xu Dayuan was also deeply confused. They had reported one body, and after a whole morning of effort, they finally found one, but upon closer examination, it turned out not to be the one they were looking for. So, where was that body?
"And who is this deceased person?"
Clearly, Xu Dayuan muttered under his breath—no one could answer this question. Although Huang Licheng had a loud voice, he wasn’t in a rush and observed the photo carefully.
"Xu Director, don’t rush. Let me take a good look at the photo. Although the background is not very clear, I think this location isn’t far from here. We should search around, even if it means a carpet search to find it."
Xu Dayuan nodded, and Huang Licheng started giving orders, setting people to search in rows, with three meters between them, spreading out to the left and right.
At this moment, a few detectives came over with the two hikers, and upon asking, it was confirmed that this was not the body they had discovered. These two looked as if they hadn’t rested well, and this shock left them pale, one of them even squatting on the ground.
Seeing this, Xu Dayuan ordered that the two be taken away and arranged for them to rest back at the station, though they could not leave yet.
As everyone walked away, Mr. Zhao came over, gesturing to Zhou Ning.
"What’s the meaning of this, what do we do now? Bag the corpse?"
Zhou Ning glanced over; the backpack had already been packed by Mr. Wang and the others, with the stretcher and body bag laid out to the side.
"Bag it up. It’s good that Mr. Yang was foresighted. If we hadn’t brought enough equipment, I don’t know how we’d have carried it back."
Mr. Zhao looked at Zhou Ning sidelong and scoffed disdainfully.
"Don’t jinx it; if we find two more, we’ll have no place to put them. Please, Zhou Xiaozhou, don’t say another word. I’m off to work."
With that, Mr. Zhao hurried off, his pace showing the agility of a spry heavyset man.
They moved quickly, as Mr. Yang was very experienced. He turned the body bag inside out over the body, adjusted the position of the deceased’s right arm, then several of them flipped the body together. They propped it up with the stretcher from behind, and that’s how they got the body into the bag and placed it on the stretcher.
After zipping up and securing it with several straps, they all took a breath of relief.
Zhou Ning averted his gaze and handed a bottle of water to Xu Dayuan, whose lips were cracked from dryness.
"Have some water. We found this body, and the other won’t take long. Director Xu, don’t get too worked up. We need to think about how we’re going to move the body now."
This remark brought Xu Dayuan back to reality, and he looked at the stretcher that had been prepared, slapping his head hard.
"We didn’t prepare in advance. Do I need to have someone go back to the technical department for stretchers and body bags?"
Zhou Ning gave an awkward smile.
"It’s actually fortunate. Mr. Yang is like a pack rat, always likes to prepare a few extra sets of everything just in case. I didn’t expect we’d really need them this time. He brought three sets. Now we just have to pray we don’t find more than three bodies."
Xu Dayuan glared.
"Quick, spit on the ground three times; stop talking nonsense. You always have a way of making things come true."
Zhou Ning was even more speechless.
"Stop it, the whole station knows you treat me like a mascot, and I’ve been embarrassed enough. Don’t curse me like that; just drink your water. We might stumble upon something soon."
Xu Dayuan nodded and obediently tilted back his head, drinking half the bottle. With water, his temper seemed to cool down a bit. He was about to ask for a situation update on the walkie-talkie when suddenly, shouts could be heard coming from the walkie-talkie and the valley below.
Everyone looked down, and Xu Dayuan lifted his radio, shouting urgently:
"What’s going on, Mr. Huang? What did you find?"
"Found the body from the photo. Director Xu, your men should come here. The body looks even more mutilated than in the photo. I don’t know if those hikers left in such a hurry that they dropped their food, attracting animals to the area."
Upon hearing that, Zhou Ning quickly waved to his team members, and they followed him hastily towards Huang Licheng’s direction. Xu Dayuan, on the other hand, did not leave immediately but instead called together the criminal police and the search team’s armed police, forming three small teams to transport the body to the parking lot—after all, the distance was too long and they had to take turns carrying the body.
Zhou Ning arrived in front of Huang Licheng, panting heavily, and was stunned by what he saw behind him.
Huang Licheng quickly parted the crowd, asking people to spread out a bit.
"The searchers saw a monkey running away from afar, probably because it noticed some food here and came to rummage. The body’s arm has fallen off."
Zhou Ning nodded.
"It’s alright, everyone spread out a bit, the smell is quite strong, give us some space to examine the scene."
The crowd quickly moved back, and Mr. Zhao and others also gathered around. The deceased was indeed in a climbing posture, with the right leg curled up, the left leg stretched out, and both hands supporting the body below. Of course, now one left arm had been torn away and was lying not far away.
One could see that tissue had fallen off the arm, with some remnants left, and a large area of decomposition fluid had seeped in beneath the body.
Zhou Ning stepped forward, pressed the metal strip on his mask to tighten it, and crossed his hands to make the gloves fit more snugly before squatting down. The deceased’s face had indeed suffered severe decay and was disfigured, with the teeth misaligned in all directions, and the entire face had shifted to the right side.
This was indeed a very distinct characteristic. Furthermore, the deceased’s lower teeth had all collapsed towards the inside of his mouth, and the face tilt also featured some snaggle-tooth. As for the clothes on the body, they were similar to what had been found on the previous deceased. However, Zhou Ning knew that mountaineering clothes seemed to look quite similar on the whole.
Lifting the collar and the garment placket, it was evident that the decay on the deceased’s abdomen was severe, with the belt area of the trousers having burst open.
Zhou Ning stood up and waved to Mr. Zhao.
"Do the same thing, take pictures, measure the height and shoe size, estimate the deceased’s weight. If anyone recognizes the brand of the clothes, make a note of it. Where is Mr. Liu?"
A simple and honest voice came from behind.
"Director Zhou, I’m here. Everything’s ready," said Mr. Liu.
Zhou Ning saw that Mr. Liu, indeed, was ready with the assembled stretcher and various items, awaiting orders. That’s the good thing about ex-soldiers; they were proactive in their work, and even though this wasn’t directly related to him, he took the initiative. And his physical strength was exceptionally good. Despite his age, none could surpass them.
Mr. Zhao was busy inspecting, while Mr. Yang was taking photographs. Mr. Wang and several interns were collecting samples, and Zhu Xingxing paced around the scene, holding evidence bags and gathering quite a few items.
Seeing Zhou Ning looking at her, Zhu Xingxing hurried back over to him. freewёbnoνel.com
"Boss, I searched around and found quite a few food wrappers and residues—here’s an apple stem, pear seeds, a bread wrapper, and some desiccants. The wrappers have bite marks, which wouldn’t be the case if torn open by a person, so it seems like an animal’s doing.
"Also, five meters to the north, I found this stone. The protruding part here has bloodstains. It looks like the blood has been there for quite some time, but I can’t determine the exact period. Also, the backpack has been dragged, with severe wear on the bottom.
"Unlike the backpack found beside the first body we discovered, which is brand new with minimal wear, this one has bloodstains, and the wear on the bottom is so severe it’s nearly torn through. Could it be that they dragged the deceased on the ground using it?"
Zhou Ning looked around. The ground was covered with various sizes of rocks, and one had to be cautious of spraining an ankle when stepping on them. Dragging over this terrain seemed unrealistic, but the marks on the bottom of the bag did resemble those left by dragging on a concrete surface with force.
"Collect them all, and have someone take careful photographs of the surrounding stones. Any place with bloodstains or human-made marks needs to be sampled."
Zhu Xingxing nodded in agreement. Mr. Zhao’s team was concluding their work, but the body had become very fragile. They were having difficulty trying to flip it over in the manner they had done before. Zhou Ning called out to those nearby.
"We need a few more hands here. Zhu Xingxing, hand out the gloves. Everyone gather around and support the body from underneath. Don’t use force on your own, wait for instruction and work together with those carrying the stretcher to flip the body over."
Zhu Xingxing quickly distributed gloves, and one by one people donned them and lined up to closely coordinate their effort. The group of more than a dozen people, unified and precise, managed to place the body into a body bag on Mr. Zhao’s command, and onto the stretcher. However, such flipping caused a lot of decomposition fluid to flow out, instantly elevating the stench in the vicinity.
The surrounding criminal police, many of them retching, drew a bellow from Xu Dayuan’s livid face:
"If you’re gonna puke, do it to the side, and don’t puke towards the body."
Mr. Zhao and his team had already zipped up the body bag and doubled up the binding straps as a precaution, given the fragile state of the remains inside. Mr. Yang also checked everything once more.
However, as the body was turned over, Zhou Ning saw a dagger beneath where the deceased had been lying. Mr. Yang noticed it too and promptly picked it up and dropped it into an evidence bag.
"Boss, the clearing is complete."
Zhou Ning nodded and looked towards Xu Dayuan.
"Director Xu, go ahead and transport the body. I would like to leave some people to search this area again. I’m afraid animals may have moved some items, such as identification or mobile phones since we haven’t found anything like that near either of the bodies."
Xu Dayuan nodded, quickly making arrangements. Shortly after, teams of armed police had started to carry the stretcher away. Zhou Ning told Mr. Wang and Zhu Xingxing to accompany them, as they still needed to keep an eye on the bodies until transport.
The remaining personnel regrouped and began a second search.
An hour later, those who had spread out to search gradually returned, having found some additional food wrappers but no identification or mobile phones. Xu Dayuan looked to Zhou Ning.
"Let’s pull out and head back for the autopsy. However, use that software of yours to confirm the identities of the deceased."
