All day, there were no cases for the criminal police team. As it was approaching five o’clock, Wang Lei and a few others had already started packing up, preparing to leave work.
Just then, Yang Su hurriedly walked in from outside, just entering the office.
"We just received a reported case; a murder occurred over at Dragon Beard Creek. It’s said that a child drowned in the ditch," Zhao Donglai spoke quickly.
Upon hearing that a murder had occurred, Luo Fei and the others imdiately stood up, quickly gathering their things and heading out the door.
At 5:30 PM, the criminal police team arrived at the cri scene. The local police from Songxin Town were already there, cordoning off the area under the leadership of Zhou Weimin. Zhang Haiyang, Liu Haiquan, Zhao Le, and Wu Wei were all present.
Luo Fei didn’t approach to greet anyone, as it was inappropriate at a cri scene. He simply nodded towards them as a form of greeting.
"The victim is nad Zeng Xiaoguang, 9 years old, a second-grade student at Sunshine Primary School. Last Saturday, his parents reported him missing, saying he disappeared after attending a tutoring session. We’ve been investigating this whole ti, thinking he might have been kidnapped, but we didn’t expect he’d been killed," Zhou Weimin inford Zhao Donglai of the situation.
Luo Fei noticed that the drowned child was found in a small pond, about thirty square ters in size. It was not large, but looked sowhat deep, likely ford from previous sand mining. The child had already been retrieved from the pond, placed in the grass by the edge.
Luo Fei followed Zhao Donglai to the side of the body—a nine or ten-year-old child, naked, with a fully bloated body emitting a foul odor, indicating he had been dead for several days.
"Alas, such a young child, died just like that," Zhou Weimin said sorrowfully, looking at the body.
"Who was the first to discover the body?" Zhao Donglai asked Zhou Weimin after observing the body for a while.
Hearing this, Zhou Weimin looked toward the area beyond the police line and called out, "Gong Dahe, co over here, I have sothing to ask you?"
A tall, thin, dark-skinned man, who had been standing outside the police line, walked over.
"He was the one who discovered it first and reported it to the police," Zhou Weimin pointed at Gong Dahe and said to Zhao Donglai.
Zhao Donglai looked over at Gong Dahe, scrutinizing him carefully, and then asked, "How did you discover the body?"
Gong Dahe appeared sowhat nervous and stamred, "I was planning to go to the rear hill to gather mulberry leaves for the pigs. As soon as I got here, I saw a child in the pond. I quickly went down to pull the child out, but found he was already dead, so I called 110."
When Luo Fei first arrived, he indeed noticed a basket outside the police line, and coupled with the fact that the man’s head wasn’t surrounded by dark aura, Luo Fei was fairly certain Gong Dahe had nothing to do with the case.
While Zhao Donglai continued to question Gong Dahe, Luo Fei moved to the other side of the pond. There, the boy’s clothes were neatly placed in the grass beside the pond, where Wu Xiaoyue and another mber of the forensic team were investigating.
Currently, it seed the case was fairly straightforward—the boy had co to the pond to swim and accidentally drowned.
But was the truth really so simple?
Luo Fei looked at the pond, crouched down, and dipped his hand into the water. The water wasn’t cold but rather warm. Although it was already December, the temperature in Ningjiang County was still quite high, so it wasn’t strange for a child to co swimming.
However, it was odd for a child to co all the way here to swim. Moreover, the grass by the pond was mostly untouched, indicating that few people usually ca here to swim. So why did this little boy co here?
Soon after, the forensic team led by Yang i completed their inspection of the scene and the body.
"The victim has foam coming from the nose and mouth, initially judged as drowning death. However, a forensic analysis is needed to determine if the lungs are swollen with water; also, based on livor mortis and body swelling, the estimated ti of death is about six days, roughly aligning with the ti of disappearance."
"The reason the body wasn’t discovered for so long is because after drowning, the victim inhaled a large amount of water, making the body heavier than water, causing it to sink to the pond’s bottom. After four or five days, as the body began to decompose and produce gas, it beca lighter than water and floated up, explaining why it was only discovered today."
"Furthermore, we found twelve sets of footprints at the scene, all relatively new. It rained on Monday, so these prints should have been left after that; and since the forensic analysis indicates the ti of death to be last Saturday, these footprints likely weren’t left by the suspect."
Once Yang i finished speaking, Luo Fei nodded quietly. While there were slight discrepancies between this and his assessnt, they were minor. The verification of his theoretical studies in trace evidence was satisfying, affirming the effectiveness of what he had learned. This pleased Luo Fei greatly.
However, Luo Fei was still only familiar with the theoretical knowledge from books and lacked practical experience, which he needed to accumulate slowly. rely relying on textbook theory would be far from sufficient.
"So, does this an the child indeed died from drowning?" Zhao Donglai asked, frowning at the group, though harboring doubts.
Seeing no one responding, Zhao Donglai continued, "But don’t you find it strange for such a young child to swim all the way out here alone?"
"It is indeed strange. I also tested it just now; though the pond appears small, it’s actually quite deep, about two ters deep. I think most kids wouldn’t dare swim in such a deep pool, especially since the victim was only nine years old," Yang Su agreed, expressing his doubts.
"Could it be that the child assud the pond was shallow and decided to swim, only to realize it was deep once in, and couldn’t swim back up?" Wang Dong, the leader of Group Three, posed a question.
"It’s possible, but I don’t think the case is so simple."
While everyone was discussing, a middle-aged couple hurriedly approached from outside the police line.
The man was wearing a Polo shirt, black trousers, and black leather shoes, his hair neatly combed, giving off an air of success; the woman had brown wavy curls, wearing a plaid dress, possessing a classical beauty and slightly plump figure, exuding mature feminine charm, though her face was haggard, with heavy dark circles.
"Are those the victim’s parents?" Zhou Weimin whispered.
Soon, the man and woman reached the pond, imdiately noticing the white cover by the pond.
At that mont, the woman staggered, almost fainting, but the man beside her held her arm, and Yang i quickly ca over to support her other arm.
As they reached the body, the man tremblingly lifted the white cover.
At the sight of the body, the woman fainted, though the body was already bloated, she was sure it was her child.
The middle-aged man beside her stared at the body, his face ashen, grief-stricken.
A parent burying their child, the scene weighed heavily on everyone present, whether from the criminal or the local police.
Yet at this mont, Luo Fei frowned, his gaze fixed intently on the middle-aged man.
Just as the man approached, Luo Fei had imdiately noticed a strong dark aura above him, and within the center of that aura, a grotesque figure.
Luo Fei knew very well what this signified—that the middle-aged man had committed an unforgivable cri.
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