Shen Xin squatted by the edge of the pit, watching Du Xin Kai work.
He carefully lifted the female victim’s skull and examined it closely under the beam of a searchlight.
’He must be looking at the cranial sutures.’
The degree to which the coronal and sagittal sutures have closed can be used to roughly estimate age.
"Old Du, she seems really young," Shen Xin couldn’t help but state the obvious to an expert.
Du Xin Kai nodded slightly, handed the skull to Yu Peixin, and then picked up the teeth to observe them.
An experienced forensic examiner can also estimate a victim’s age by looking at tooth wear.
Of course, they also had to examine the pubic symphysis.
Examining the ridges and grooves there is another important piece of evidence for estimating age.
"What’s the verdict?" Chen Chao asked, crouching down.
Shen Xin was incredibly nervous too.
Du Xin Kai pondered for a mont before speculating, "Based on my personal experience, the female victim should be between eighteen and twenty years old."
After a pause, he hesitated and added, "Old Chen, didn’t you say this Zhu Guishen was about to go bankrupt? He probably wouldn’t have had the money for a mistress this young."
Shen Xin let out a small sigh of relief.
Du Xin Kai’s reasoning made sense.
’To get a mistress, you’d at least need money.’
Zhu Guishen couldn’t be called ugly, but he was a far cry from handso.
He probably didn’t have the kind of charm that could win over young girls.
So this might not have been his mistress.
Following that line of thought, a reasonable speculation would be that Zhu Guishen went up the mountain, and near Lotus Peak, he accidentally witnessed soone committing a cri—the murder of this woman.
He then got involved and was killed by the murderer as well, after which they were buried together.
If the killer was the young man Wang Linhong saw, then that guy is a ruthless one.
Chen Chao remained noncommittal. "Let’s look at the evidence."
An hour later, Sun Zhao arrived, panting for breath.
The one bad thing about this place was that getting to any cri scene ant climbing a mountain.
He first gave Shen Xin a thumbs-up, then surveyed the scene and asked Chen Chao to brief him on the entire investigation.
He hadn’t been following this case closely and only knew the general situation since the investigation was reopened.
Chen Chao explained everything, then furrowed his brow and said, "Lao Sun, there’s actually another possibility."
He lowered his voice, speaking with a sense of unease, "What if it’s the other way around?"
He made a flipping motion with his hand.
Shen Xin’s heart skipped a beat, and a chill ran down his spine.
Sun Zhao understood imdiately. "You an that after their marriage fell apart, Zhu Guishen was the first to have murderous intent, so he deliberately bought a life insurance policy for Yang Huixia."
"But Yang Huixia found out and killed him first in retaliation."
He sucked in a sharp breath.
The farm was doing poorly and short on cash, and Zhu Guishen had gotten a mistress.
Or perhaps he had been taking money from the farm to support his mistress.
The mistress was pressuring him for money, so Zhu Guishen got the crooked idea to buy the insurance policy. Then, he planned to murder Yang Huixia as soon as the waiting period was over.
But Yang Huixia found out in advance and waited for an opportunity to strike back.
The murder happened in May, right after the waiting period ended, which makes the timing highly suspicious.
Chen Chao nodded slightly. That was exactly what he was thinking.
Shen Xin’s scalp tingled.
’Could this be another love-hate tragedy like Zhang Qin and Li Shanjie?’
Just then, Ding Yuwei, who was next to Shen Xin, suddenly said, "Captain Sun, Captain Chen, I don’t think that’s necessarily..."
She stopped halfway, then abruptly clamped her mouth shut and shook her head, indicating she had nothing more to say.
Chen Chao said, "If you have a thought, speak up."
Ding Yuwei said, "It’s not that I don’t want to say it, it’s just that I think I was on the wrong track. At first, I was wondering, if Yang Huixia killed him at the farm, why would she choose such a high-up spot to bury the body?"
"But then I thought that maybe Lotus Peak was where Zhu Guishen t his mistress, so Yang Huixia chose to do it there."
Her expression was unnatural as she finished speaking.
She was trying to find evidence that proved Yang Huixia wasn’t the killer.
But the more she analyzed it, the more suspicious Yang Huixia seed.
Shen Xin knew what Ding Yuwei was thinking. He considered it seriously for a mont and said, "The monkey."
When the others looked at him, Shen Xin continued, "We found the burial site because of Bubu. And from what I know, Bubu was very close to Zhu Guishen. Zhu Guishen raised him by himself."
Shen Xin felt that even if Yang Huixia was putting on an act and lying about other things, she probably wouldn’t lie about Bubu.
After all, he was just an animal. How could she have ever imagined the police would start their investigation with an animal?
So the information she gave about Bubu should be accurate.
For example, when Zhu Guishen called out that it was ti to co ho and eat, Bubu would imdiately run over.
"So Bubu might have witnessed the burial. If the killer was Yang Huixia, given his bond with Zhu Guishen, he probably wouldn’t be so attached to Yang Huixia like he is now."
Bubu was very dependent on Yang Huixia; their relationship was excellent.
"Of course, you could argue that he’s just an animal with no mory or feelings. That’s also possible."
Shen Xin added a disclair.
But Chen Chao waved his hand, glanced at Shen Xin, and said, "No, you have a point. Sotis, I really think animals’ feelings are more genuine than humans’."
Sun Zhao also nodded in agreent.
Just like Lele, who guarded Wu Jiawang’s burial site for years and imdiately recognized Gao Jinrui when he saw him.
Animals know who’s good to them and who’s hurt them. Their feelings are truly purer than humans’.
Speaking of which, Sun Zhao said, "Actually, I don’t want Yang Huixia to be the killer either. If she really is, wouldn’t that make us look incompetent?"
We investigated Yang Huixia from the start, and the case still went cold. We never found clear evidence proving she was the killer.
If she really is the one, it would be too embarrassing.
"Let’s identify the female victim first. And that young man the cleaning lady ntioned—find a way to track him down," Sun Zhao said in a grave tone.
With two bodies here, this was no longer a minor case.
"Of course, we need to reinvestigate Yang Huixia as well."
Shen Xin couldn’t just stand by and watch.
Going ho was out of the question. He and Ding Yuwei went to the Dingshan Police Station to help go through the missing persons records.
’A girl in her late teens or early twenties, dead for two years, and no one filed a report?’
So a report must have been filed, but she was never found.
And just looking through the Dingshan Police Station’s records wasn’t enough. They needed to search the records of all the police stations around Dingshan, and even the entire city.
Because they weren’t sure where the female victim was from.
anwhile, updates on the on-site autopsy and forensics kept coming from the mountain.
The bodies were already skeletonized, so so injuries were no longer visible.
The male skeleton was estimated to be around 40 years old, which matched Zhu Guishen’s age.
Neither body had a phone or any form of identification. The killer had clearly searched them before burial.
The male skeleton had deep scratches and a linear fracture on a rib near the heart, which was presud to be the fatal wound.
However, no bone injuries were found on the female victim, so the cause of death couldn’t be determined. It could have been a stab wound to the abdon leading to fatal blood loss, or she could have been suffocated by having her nose and mouth covered.
With the bodies skeletonized, many things were impossible to confirm.
Next was the clothing on the two bodies.
The man was wearing flip-flops, black track pants from so brand, and a light gray short-sleeved shirt.
The woman was wearing classic black-and-white canvas shoes, skinny jeans, a white cotton off-the-shoulder short-sleeved top, and underwear.
The bra size was 36C, which provided a physical characteristic.
"Is that considered big or small?"
Shen Xin pointed at the ssage in the group chat and casually asked Ding Yuwei, who was next to him.
Ding Yuwei’s face instantly turned red.
She bit her lip and snapped, "It’s the sa as mine."
Shen Xin glanced over and imdiately got a clear idea.
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