Case 1.1: Luggage
Old Liu's machete got stuck in the roots of the old locust tree again, the blade sinking deep into the wood with a teeth-grinding "crunch." He spat out a mouthful of phlegm and used his muddy rubber boots to step on the trunk for leverage. "Damn it..." Sweat slid down his deeply furrowed forehead, mingling with the sunspots on his face.
Just as he bent down to draw his sword, an unnatural black shape pierced his vision from the bottom of the slope. The thing was half-hidden in the thick grass, its surface gleaming eerily matte in the afternoon sunlight.
"Hey, not bad luck!" Old Liu's cloudy eyes lit up instantly. Just last week, Wang Mazi from the neighboring village found a designer bag on the riverbank and sold it for eight hundred yuan. He didn't care about the machete and slid down the slope on all fours, leaving a trail of dry branches and pebbles behind him.
Pulling the box out was more difficult than he had imagined. The wheels were rusted shut, and several withered vines were tangled around the zipper, as if deliberately secured there. Old Liu used a machete to cleave the vines, his fingernails filled with rust and moss. The moment the clasp clicked open, a stench of decay mixed with mold assaulted his nostrils—
"My goodness!!!"
From the empty eye sockets of the skull, a red-headed centipede slowly crawled out, its countless claws scraping across the hollow of the forehead. The jawbone was eerily open, as if emitting a silent scream. Old Liu slumped to the ground and discovered several finger bones lying at the bottom of the box, like carelessly discarded chopsticks.
The site survey lights cast a stark white glow over the forest clearing. Two suitcases lay side by side on a tarpaulin, their number tags trembling slightly in the night breeze.
"Box 1: A complete human skeleton, curled up like a fetus, with clothing fibers stuck to the joints." Intern Xiao Zhang's voice trembled slightly. "Box 2: A woman's floral dress, a cheap face mask, and a faded lipstick."
Wen Lin squatted down, gently poking at the third lumbar vertebra with the tip of the tweezers. "Not dismembered?" He frowned, looking at the tightly fitted joints. "How the hell did they fit this in?" The surface of the bone had an eerie pearly luster, as if it had been carefully polished.
Situ Jin's glasses reflected a cold light. He lifted the skull, his fingertips tracing the sutures: "The deceased was female, the growth plates were not fully closed, around 20 years old." He paused as he measured the femur, "Height approximately 150cm, but..." He suddenly flipped the metacarpals, "...the cause of death cannot be found."
Everyone fell silent. There were no fractures, no signs of a sharp weapon, not even the teeth were intact. The skeleton seemed to have been enchanted; the flesh had vanished into thin air, leaving only a perfectly pieced-together skeleton.
The exhaust fan in the forensic lab hummed, but couldn't dispel the smell of formaldehyde. Fan Jinzi's gloves were covered in bone powder as he carefully examined the alveolar bone with a probe.
"Rose-red at the neck of the tooth," he said suddenly, his voice like water flowing beneath ice. An eerie pink tinge appeared as the alcohol swab touched the molar. "Mechanical asphyxiation."
Yu Yan squatted down beside him, unconsciously staring at his trembling eyelashes. "So he was suffocated?" The young detective's notebook was filled with question marks.
"Hmm." Fan Jinci turned to the box. Under the investigation light, dark red specks were hidden in the folds of the lining fabric. "Splattered, but wiped clean." He gestured a strangulation motion. "The murderer attacked from behind, and afterwards..." His fingers suddenly curled into a fetal shape.
Jiang Zhaoyan suddenly covered the lipstick with an evidence bag. The "LIMITED 2019" lettering on the tube was already faded. "This shade..." he pulled out his phone to compare, "was only sold at department store counters in the provincial capital back then."
The fluorescent lights in the evidence room hissed. Li Weimian pinned the photos one by one to a corkboard, then suddenly let out a cold laugh.
"Didn't you notice?" She pointed to a close-up of the floral dress. Under the magnifying glass, the waist tag clearly showed 60cm. But the red line on the pelvic measurement chart next to it stopped at 70cm.
Wen Lin's coffee cup hovered in mid-air: "Did the murderer deliberately choose a small-sized dress?"
"Either you're stupid enough not to know the size," Li Weimian's earring flashed with a cold light, "or..." She pulled out a photo of the deceased—a bulging belly was faintly visible under the bulky down jacket.
In the monitoring room, Wen Lin slammed his fist on the keyboard. The bus surveillance footage on the screen froze on a blurry figure: "Bringing a 28-inch suitcase like that, you definitely need to buy a baggage ticket!" In the corner of the screen, a hand with bulging veins was handing out banknotes.
The torrential rain pounded against the tin roof of the forensic lab. Fan Jinci placed the skull under a stereo microscope, and in the blue light, an almost invisible scratch on the cheekbone suddenly appeared.
"This isn't a simple scratch." He adjusted the focus, and the glass shards refracted into colorful spots in the eyepiece. "The murderer should have..." Before he could finish speaking, a thunderclap rang out, illuminating the scattered bones on the autopsy table behind him.
Yu Yan suddenly grabbed the evidence bag: "A jigsaw puzzle rug!" He unfolded the photos from the scene; half a plastic jigsaw puzzle piece was stuck in the seam of the suitcase wheels. "It's the kind you often see in kindergartens..."
Lightning struck again outside the window. This time, it illuminated the yellowed old case files in Fan Jinci's drawer—the scene of the crime of the missing kindergarten teacher five years ago, which was covered with a colorful jigsaw puzzle rug.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
