Fisherman Case 1.1
“Three years ago, I found Yan Kang’s remaining data.” Jiang Zhaoyan toyed with the microchip he had taken from Fan Jinci’s nape. “I discovered that what Ryan originally wanted to build wasn’t a ‘weapon’ at all—”
The liquid in the incubation chamber began to boil, and "Fan Jinci" inside suddenly opened his eyes, a torrent of data flowing through his gray-blue pupils.
"—Instead, it is a 'container of immortality' that can hold human consciousness."
As the alarm blared down the corridor, Jiang Zhaoyan smiled and said, "He said, 'Now, the game truly begins.'"
At four in the morning, the riverbank was shrouded in mist.
Old fisherman Zhang Quan's boat drifted in the middle of the river. Hanging from the bow was not a fish, but a disemboweled corpse—its internal organs removed and its skin completely peeled off, hanging on the mast like a fishing net.
"The deceased was male, around 35 years old, and the time of death was no more than 6 hours ago." Fan Jinci, wearing rubber gloves, used his fingertips to pry open the body's chest cavity. "The technique was professional; the person was still alive when the liver and heart were removed."
Situ Jin squatted at the stern of the boat, picking out a piece of bone from the wet fishing net: "The hyoid bone was broken; he suffered severe suffocation before he died."
Li Weimian stood on the shore, the silver earring in her right ear reflecting the morning light: "This isn't the first time." She flipped open her tablet, "In the past three months, four similar bodies have been found upstream and downstream—all of them are missing fishermen." Yu Yan kicked open the door of the Fisheries Association: "All recent boat purchase records."
Wen Lin smiled and offered a cigarette to the association president: "I heard your son went missing while diving the year before last? What a coincidence, among the bodies recently discovered, one was wearing a diving suit..."
The president's hands suddenly trembled.
Jiang Zhaoyan leaned against the window and sent a message. Three minutes later, his assistant delivered an encrypted file: "Interesting. These five dead people—all of them were involved in a shipwreck accident twenty years ago."
Archival photos show that in 1998, a fishing boat named "Qingyu" sank, with only three survivors. The five dead now are the other crew members who failed to provide assistance back then.
“One of the survivors is named Chen Haisheng.” Li Weimian pointed to the blurry figure in the photo, “Now he is… a mortician at the funeral home.”
Situ Jin suddenly looked up: "The way the corpse's skin was cut does indeed resemble that of a professional mortician."
Fan Jinci looked towards a spot on the riverbank: "He's watching us."
Everyone turned around—
A hunched figure could be vaguely seen in the fog, slowly pulling up a wet "fishing net".
1:23 AM, Municipal Public Security Bureau Forensic Center.
Under the operating lights, the dissected chest cavity of the corpse resembled a twisted fishing net, with ribs violently broken and jagged edges.
Fan Jinci wore a mask, and his gray-blue pupils reflected the emptiness of missing organs.
His scalpel gently parted the remaining mucus in the stomach, then the tip suddenly paused—
There's something in my stomach.
Situ Jin immediately handed over the tweezers.
The tweezers pulled a rusty bronze plaque from the slime, on which were faintly engraved characters:
"Blue Fish" 1998
“It wasn’t an accident.” Fan Jinci’s voice was as cold as ice. “He swallowed it before he died… He was identifying the murderer.”
Yu Yan leaned against the door frame of the dissection room, an unlit cigarette between his fingers, his eyes fixed on the back of Fan Jinci's neck—there was an almost invisible red mark there, left by Jiang Zhaoyan's "consolation" last night.
"The victims of the fisherman's case were all crew members of the 'Bluefish' ship back then." He sneered, biting his cigarette butt. "Of the three who survived, one went mad, and one disappeared—"
"There's another one bringing us late-night snacks."
No sooner had he finished speaking than the door to the dissection room was pushed open.
Chen Haisheng stood at the door with a thermos in hand, his temples graying, and a gentle smile on his face: "Thank you all for your hard work. I brought ginger tea to warm you up."
There was a bit of dark red wax stuck in his fingernails—exactly the same as the sealing wax extracted from the corpse's ear canal.
Li Weimian's scalpel necklace suddenly became hot.
She stared at the teacup Chen Haisheng handed her, and in the reflection on the water... his pupils were eerily vertical.
"Master Chen," she said with a sweet smile as she took the teacup, "what do you think the murderer who used human skin as a fishing net was—"
"Is he a madman, or an artist?"
The moment the teacup fell to the ground, shards of porcelain scattering everywhere—
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