I heard Dali yell, "You actually messaged the guy?!"
"Who are you to tell me what to do?" retaliated Luo Youyou.
"That guy is bad news. It’s known all over Weibo that he likes sleeping with his friends. Are you stupid enough to give him your account?"
"Are you any better? You get so excited and forget everything else when you see another girl!"
It wasn’t convenient for me to interfere in their couple's quarrel, so I turned to leave. Right then, I heard Luo Youyou say, "I quit. Goodbye!"
When I turned around, I saw Luo Youyou storming downstairs. "Song Yang, I’ve quit. I’m going home."
"Calm down," I urged.
Luo Youyou started sobbing, her eyes turning red with tears. "I originally found him very interesting. But I never expected him to be such a flirtatious bastard. He doesn't care about me at all!"
"Let me speak to him," I persuaded.
"No, I'm leaving. Thank you for taking care of me!" With that, she walked off.
When I returned to our apartment, Dali sat there sulking. I thought to myself, Why the hell did I get myself involved in his bullshit?
Turning to Dali, I chided, "Are you stupid? Hurry up! Go after her! School is closed for summer vacation. Where is a girl like her supposed to go?"
Dali snorted, "I can't stop her from quitting."
Resisting the impulse to give him a good beating, I pushed him out of the door and insisted he go after Luo Youyou.
At this moment, I received a call from Xiaotao. "Song Yang, are you at the store?"
"Yes,” I replied.
"I'll see you in a bit then,” said Xiaotao. “We’re headed to the crime scene. We just received a report and it looks like a troublesome case."
I went back home to pick up my autopsy equipment and waited for Xiaotao to arrive. The moment I got into her car, my first sentence was, "I have something to tell you so you won’t misunderstand anything. I stayed at Bingxin's house last night."
"You better come clean right now!" Xiaotao slapped the steering wheel hard.
After I explained the ins and outs of the matter, Xiaotao threw me a veiled look. "Did you do anything out of line?"
"What counts as out of line?" I teased.
Xiaotao stretched out her hand and flicked me on the forehead. "You know perfectly well."
"Ghost bus huh? You guys seem to have a lot of time on your hands. Did you find anything important?" she added.
After a moment’s contemplation, I ventured, "I think the driver may be mentally ill. Anyway, what about the new case?"
"You’ll find out when we get there!"
We arrived in front of an old rental flat. The perimeter had already been cordoned off by the police. Residents were noisily discussing downstairs.
"The person who reported the case is the landlord,” explained Xiaotao. “He found the door wide open this morning and assumed it was a burglar. So he went in to have a look, only to discover the victim lying in bed with no signs of trauma on his body, calm as if he had... "
Xiaotao paused and looked at me, "As if he had drowned!"
"Drowned here? Did he have a bathtub?" I asked.
"No,” Xiaotao shook her head. “There’s nothing here that could drown a man!”
We entered a room with a man lying on the bed still dressed in his undershirt, suspenders and boxers. His skin was deathly pale. Upon examining his features, I was astonished. Wasn't this the burly man we met on the ghost bus last night?
Noticing my prolonged stare, Xiaotao asked, "What's the matter? Do you know this man?"
"I don't know him but I met him once. He was on the ghost bus last night. We exchanged a few words."
Regardless of the coincidence, I began with the autopsy, putting on my rubber gloves. The victim was about 45 years old, slightly overweight, and stood at 1.7 meters tall. The time of death was about five hours ago. His whole body appeared pale and wrinkled, known as washerwoman skin, a phenomenon that only occurred after a body had been soaked in water for a certain period of time.
I noticed some mud under his fingernails and aquatic plants on his body. Grabbing the Echolocation Rod, I listened to his chest, then opened his mouth and examined the interior. "His lungs are filled with water and displays signs of oral mucosa trauma. There’s a large amount of fluid in his stomach, which is typical in drowning."
When I moved the Echolocation Rod to his abdomen, I heard signs of spleen rupture as if he had been beaten.
I checked the victim’s skin and found bruises and broken ribs. A quick examination of the back of the victim’s head revealed depressions in the skull. I turned the body over and discovered blood clots in the back of his head suggesting a blow by some blunt object.
There were no obvious lacerations on this skin which indicated the weapon was either smooth and rounded or wrapped with something soft.
I cut the victim’s clothes and looking downwards, I noted, "The victim had sexual intercourse before his death!"
Fixing my gaze on the naked body, I analyzed, "It looks like he was kicked in the abdomen, but after being soaked in water for quite some time, the traces are no longer obvious. Anyway, I'll try to find it."
I grabbed the Autopsy Umbrella and got Xiaotao to open the window. Under the Autopsy Umbrella, a faint footprint appeared on the victim’s abdomen. The killer was most likely an adult man over 1.75 meters tall.
"But here lies the problem–how could he have been drowned in this flat?"
"That’s not a problem at all!" I grinned.
I turned the Autopsy Umbrella and found similar footprints on the ground. They appeared heavier as if the owner of the footprints was carrying a heavy object. I followed the footprints out the door and downstairs where they disappeared on the road, replaced by vague tire marks.
"The victim was attacked, drowned, and then transported here!" I surmised.
Xiaotao mused, "This man looks quite heavy. Why did the murderer go to great lengths to get him out of the water and move him to a rented flat?"
"This is indeed a cause for suspicion. Perhaps the original crime scene is very close to the murderer’s place of residence. Or maybe there were some traces and evidence difficult to remove at the crime scene."
"Can you pinpoint the original crime scene?"
"Since the murderer drove here, the search radius is rather wide. It’ll take too much time to locate the original crime scene. Let’s continue looking for clues from the body."
We U-turned and headed back into the flat where a stack of cash and a knife were discovered in one drawer, and several pornographic pictures often found in hotels scattered in another drawer.
Additionally, the room was left in a mess with empty alcohol bottles strewn all over the floor, evident of the victim’s drinking habit. My intuition told me the victim was probably on the wrong side of the law.
A thought suddenly crossed my mind. "Where’s the victim's cell phone?"
"We couldn’t find it!" answered Xiaotao.
Thinking back to the clothes he had worn last night, I gathered he wouldn’t have had the time to change if the attack happened four hours ago. The murderer was the only one who could’ve removed his coat. Perhaps important evidence had been left on that coat.
A thorough scrutiny of the body revealed parallel abrasions on the back of his leg which was left while the victim was still alive. I endeavored to restore the positions of the murderer and victim in my head. From all the traces I found, it was clear that the murderer had kicked the victim into the water. The blow on the back of the victim’s head was most likely caused when the victim resurfaced to call for help. The blow was heavy enough to cause a seizure. The victim eventually sank to the bottom and drowned...
Thus, the distance from the surface to the edge of the water was rather close, only an arm’s length at most, but the water was deep enough to submerge and drown an adult man.
After a considerable reflection period, I finally opened my eyes and concluded, "The original crime scene must be an artificial reservoir! It has concrete surfaces and the distance from the water to the edge of the reservoir is around thirty to fifty centimeters."