Chapter 201: Chapter 200 Unexpected Joy_1
Half an hour later.
In the No.2 High Corrosion Autopsy Room of the technical department.
The bag had been removed, and the deceased’s head and limbs were placed on the autopsy table.
The exhaust system was already running at its maximum. Zhou Ning tightened the third layer of gloves, clasping his fingers together to squeeze out the excess air before approaching the autopsy table.
Mr. Zhao had already photographed the deceased’s head and limbs, while Sun Gaotie had taken X-ray images. Zhou Ning glanced at the screen and then noticed that the condition of the deceased’s right foot was much worse than it had been during the physical examination in January, with two misaligned bone calluses that had swelled significantly, and the entire foot was severely deformed.
Zhou Ning caught a glimpse of Zhu Xingxing with a tray and saw she was about to take it to the lab. He quickly spoke up to stop her.
"If you don’t want to be scolded by other departments for half a year, put the tray in a bag, seal the opening, and then send it up," he said.
Zhu Xingxing seemed to realize only then and hurried to comply.
Zhou Ning didn’t pay any further attention and, pulling along the LED light-equipped magnifying glass, leaned in close to the deceased’s right foot.
The deceased’s foot was relatively intact. The dorsum was swollen significantly, with both appearing wider than the right foot, the arch of the foot had completely disappeared, and the ankle bone protruded. The wrist part of the right foot was clearly thinner than the left. In this condition, training would be out of the question, let alone fitting into ice skates.
Upon cutting open the dorsum, the bones of the metatarsus were exposed. The healing areas of the two fractured bones had swollen into spherical calluses. Seeing this, Zhou Ning stopped his movements, as there was no need for further dissection.
Zhou Ning shifted sideways and pulled the LED light-equipped magnifying glass over to illuminate the deceased’s hands. The deceased’s fingernails were long, and the flesh had burst open. He directly pulled out the nails and dropped them into the tray. Zhu Xingxing made a retching noise at this action.
"Sorry, boss, I really couldn’t help it," she apologized.
Mr. Zhao waved his hand dismissively.
"If you can’t help it, go outside and vomit. Don’t retch here. That sound is contagious; it’ll make others unable to help themselves," he said.
Zhu Xingxing headed out quickly, while Mr. Zhao stayed put. This surprised Zhou Ning somewhat, though hearing Mr. Zhao speak in a muffled voice suggested he had probably blocked his nose.
Zhou Ning did not speak but lifted a nail to carefully examine the edges. Between the gaps of the index finger’s nail, he found a lump of something. He extracted it with tweezers, spread it out in the tray, and it turned out to be a piece of diamond-shaped flesh. Zhou Ning became instantly excited.
"Quick, send the nails for analysis. Tell Xu Dayuan to have someone check Zhang Yu and Wang Ligang’s necks and arms for scratch wounds. Take a photo of this skin flap and send it to him; tell him to look for this pattern," he instructed.
Mr. Zhao sprang into action, picking up the tray and snapping photos to send to Xu Dayuan before running off with the tray.
Zhou Ning then examined the deceased’s head. No remnants were found in the gaps between the teeth. However, there were breaks in the hyoid and thyroid cartilage. Although the flesh had decayed and it was impossible to see any ligature marks around the neck, it was determined that the victim had been strangled unconscious and scratched the assailant in the struggle before being strangled to death.
Yang Xuetong and Sun Gaotie were the only ones left in the autopsy room. Sun Gaotie stood near the air vent without approaching the autopsy table. Zhou Ning glanced over; as long as Sun Gaotie did not interfere with the autopsy, his position was acceptable.
Tearing open the skin on the victim’s head and sawing through the skull, the stench in the room rose to a whole new level. There were fracture marks at the base of the skull, and discolored material within the cranium that had completely turned into a yogurt-like consistency. After cleaning the autopsy table, he placed these bone fragments in a large tray.
Zhou Ning started to remove one layer of gloves and looked towards Yang Xuetong.
"Can you handle this? Take these to extract the bones. It seems Gao Tie is unable to do so," he said.
Yang Xuetong nodded, rushed to the sink, rinsed everything vigorously, and disposed of the remaining bones into a pressure cooker. Zhou Ning stripped off all his equipment and waved to Sun Gaotie.
"Clean the autopsy room and then ventilate it!" he instructed.
....
Zhou Ning pushed open the door to the lab.
On the big screen, Mr. Qu had captured over twenty images. Hearing the door, Momo saw Zhou Ning arrive and quickly waved him over.
"Zhou Ning, come quick," she called.
"Did you find something?" he asked.
"Mr. Tao sent a photo. Tan Ran checked into the Sofia Hotel on September 6th. At 12:28 on September 7th, she left by taxi. This is the surveillance screenshot of her leaving: wide-leg pants, a short-sleeved crop top, a sun-proof jacket, a baseball cap, sunglasses, and no backpack.
Compared to the call logs, she had a less than a minute conversation with the figure skating team’s office landline at 12:05. After analyzing the surveillance footage from the Enbo Residential Area, we determined that person was Tan Ran.
At 13:13 on September 7th, Tan Ran returned to the dormitory; the timeframe matches the taxi ride seen in the videos, but it’s unclear whether she went to room 201 or 202," she explained.
"Have you found any footage of Zhang Yu entering or leaving the Enbo Residential Area and the south side road in the surveillance?" he inquired.
Mr. Qu tapped on the keyboard, and the big screen changed to display all the images, then pointed to two of them and explained.
"I saw this figure in the hoodie at 12:52, carrying a backpack; his height matches Zhang Yu’s. Also, look at his shoes, there’s a little bee logo at the heel, which is consistent with the shoes Mr. Zhao found in the car wash."
However, there’s only footage of him going in and none of coming out; I don’t understand this part. After all, there’s no footage of him leaving in the following days. Could it be he jumped out the window?"
Zhou Ning rubbed his chin, thinking, and nudged Mr. Zhao’s arm.
"His car is a Jetta, do you know how tall a Jetta is?"
"The height is about 1.47 meters. This building is flat from the ground up, with a ceiling height of about 2.7 meters. The road outside is slightly higher, but there are three steps on the first floor, which, if accounted for, leaves a two-meter drop if jumping from the window onto the rooftop.
I’ve looked out the window. There’s a ten-centimeter-high ledge at the same level as the second floor, right outside the bathroom window. If one stands there, the distance to the car rooftop is only 1.23 meters. An adult could jump down without a problem, especially if wearing soft-soled shoes, and not leave any trace on the car roof."
"First drop the bag out the window, then jump out after; this could make sense. Did the surveillance on the south side capture his car?"
"It did. At 14:21, there’s footage of a car leaving. Mr. Xia did a skeletal comparison, and it’s Zhang Yu. However, the front and rear number plates and the car logo were obscured by ’happy forever’ stickers, and many other cars coming out were like this too, so it wasn’t screened out initially."
Zhou Ning nodded. Traffic police had recently been checking for these stickers, but with surveillance not being dense enough, it was impossible to catch everything.
As the image on the big screen was enlarged and became clearer, Zhou Ning stared at this person’s face: baseball cap, sunglasses, face mask—not one accessory missing. With the face covered up to this extent, that Xia Momo could make the comparison impressed him, and he gave her a thumbs-up.
Xia Momo smiled.
"It seems like you haven’t talked to Doctor Lu these days; the third phase of the software has been completed and begun testing. It collects skeletal information from footage for data comparisons—after all, you can disguise yourself, but you can’t fake your skeleton."
Zhou Ning got slightly embarrassed and quickly changed the subject.
"Have fingerprints been found on the bags discovered near Haibo River?"
At the mention of this, Mr. Zhao came over, grinning.
"We’ve found quite a few. We compared these with the prints found on the bags of car interior decor discarded by Zhang Yu. We found several matching prints: one from the shop owner, one from the little apprentice, and the other is Zhang Yu’s own fingerprints—with bloodstains on them. Looks like the bags were taken from the car wash.
Also, we found a dry fragment of veratrine on the seat abandoned by Zhang Yu. We scraped it off for testing, but whether the bloodstains on the yellow wire are the victim’s or Zhang Yu’s, we don’t know yet."
"Veratrine was found on the car cushion?"
Mr. Zhao nodded, grabbed the camera, connected it to the computer with a data cable, shifted his weight to bump Mr. Qu aside a bit, and claimed the spot in front of the computer. Mr. Qu just laughed, watching him clumsily plug into the big screen, then found a picture.
Indeed, on the brown cushion, there’s a white spot visible, but the faint color was so subtle that it was impressive that Mr. Zhao could recognize it as veratrine.
"Not bad, finding this; nobody else could have."
Liu Yongxin patted Mr. Zhao’s shoulder continuously, shaking his head.
"Kid, less time on the weird stuff, or you’ll make finding a partner even harder."
Mr. Zhao froze, not immediately catching Liu Yongxin’s teasing. Seeing everyone laughing, he just got the joke.
"Cut it out. Why do all of you have to think like that? Everything I do is for the job."
Zhou Ning held back a laugh, feeling relieved. No matter what, the case was becoming clear: Zhang Yu was the killer. If all the lab tests come back, it’s as good as confirmed.
"Alright, compile all the relevant videos and comparison images into a file; that wraps up our work over here."
Zhou Ning glanced at the time—it was now 18:22—and waved to Mr. Zhao.
"Mr. Zhao, go to the forensic department; the tests should be out by now."
No sooner had he finished speaking than the door to the lab was pushed open, the alarm blared non-stop, and Mr. Zhao quickly rushed to turn off the alarm. Cui Lili rolled her eyes at this and walked over to Zhou Ning, handing him a hefty stack of reports.
"I guessed you’d all be here, all the reports are done."
Zhou Ning browsed through them: the DNA results of the blood found in Wang Ligang’s trunk matched Tan Ran. As for the subsequent tests, Zhou Ning skipped them, looking directly at the last two items—the conclusion of the soil composition analysis and the DNA comparison from the skin found under Tan Ran’s fingernails.
Cui Lili continued:
"Oh, and there’s been an unexpected bonus."
"What unexpected bonus?"
