Reborn in 97, I solved a cold case at the Municipal Bureau

Chapter 366 A Massive Case Has Arrived! (Flashback)
last life.

May 6, 1997.

Wu Yongcheng walked into the office of the Third Brigade as usual.

Chen Yan looked up and said, "Good morning, Master."

"You're here pretty early." Wu Yongcheng glanced at the file in front of Chen Yan and asked, "The 316 case?"

Chen Yan nodded: "I'd like to review the list of recently released prisoners from surrounding cities again. We've already checked Du Xiaolin's social connections twice, but several suspicious targets have clear alibis. It's possible that the March 16 case really wasn't committed by someone we knew."

Wu Yongcheng took a deep breath and unconsciously pulled out a Daqianmen cigarette from his pocket.

"Master, you're smoking so early in the morning?"

Wu Yongcheng took out a cigarette and lit it: "Isn't it because you brought up this case first thing this morning and it bothered me? This heavy rain has completely ruined the scene, and even the autopsy results have been affected."

As he spoke, he exhaled a puff of smoke and continued, "Director Xie has asked me about this several times."

"Has Director Xie urged us to solve the case?" Chen Yan asked.

“He keeps urging us to solve the case, but I don’t care anymore,” Wu Yongcheng said, flicking his cigarette ash. “The director of the Third Municipal Hospital complained to him, saying that we had groundlessly suspected their medical staff without any evidence and had repeatedly investigated the hospital staff, which seriously affected their normal work.”

Upon hearing this, Chen Yan said indignantly, "How is it a problem? We don't go there every day. Besides, the hospital was very nice when the case first happened. They even gave us a room specifically for questioning."

Wu Yongcheng patted him on the shoulder and said, "You're still young. The dean's words weren't what they seemed."

"what does it mean?"

"What do you mean?" Wu Yongcheng chuckled. "They just want to pin the blame on us."

Chen Yan was extremely displeased. For this March 16th case, their Third Brigade had worked through the night for several nights in a row, their legs almost numb from all the interviews and investigations. All they wanted was to seek justice for the deceased and solve the case, especially since the victim was so young.

The case has been dragging on for a long time, and they are more anxious than anyone else, but the hospital is trying to shirk responsibility.

We police officers didn't kill the person, so why blame us? That's ridiculous!
"Alright, I was just saying. Investigate what needs to be investigated. Since it's unlikely that the crime was committed by someone you know, let's focus on crimes committed by people who move around the country. We'll have another meeting this afternoon to review the case."

Before we knew it, it was afternoon.

The weather in May has already warmed up, with temperatures reaching around 26 or 27 degrees Celsius after noon.

It was a sunny day, and after lunch, the air was filled with a drowsy feeling.

Wu Yongcheng wasn't sleepy, after all, he smoked half a pack of cigarettes a day, so it wasn't easy for him to fall asleep.

Looking up, I saw Jiang Biao's burly body already slumped on the table, practically snoring away.

Wu Yongcheng clapped his hands and said loudly, "Everyone, cheer up! Let's have another meeting about the March 16th case."

Jiang Biao raised his head and stretched.

Just as Wu Yongcheng finished speaking, the phone on the table suddenly rang.

The shrill ring of the telephone immediately roused the other three.

With all members of the three squads present, there's at least a 50% chance that the phone ringing isn't good news.

That's why they perked up.

Wu Yongcheng took the cigarette out of his mouth and put it in the ashtray on the table, then answered the phone.

"Hey, Third Squadron."

Chen Yan and the other two didn't know who was on the other end of the phone or what they were saying. They only clearly saw that Wu Yongcheng's originally flat eyebrows slowly began to tighten, eventually forming a deep "川" (river) shape.

They knew something terrible must have happened!

"I understand. Please protect the scene. We'll be there right away." Wu Yongcheng hung up the phone in a somber voice.

"Captain Wu, what's going on?" Jiang Biao asked impatiently.

But Wu Yongcheng had already stood up before he could even ask the question.

"Someone retrieved a bag of body parts from the eastern section of the Nansha River in Nanming District. Police officers patrolling nearby arrived and confirmed that the bag did indeed contain body parts. They have now secured the scene and notified us to come over."

"Dismemberment?" The three of them were startled.

Jiang Biao exclaimed, "Holy crap, a dismemberment case! Hongcheng hasn't had a dismemberment case in years!"

"Xiao Qiao, notify the technical department and forensic experts to go to the scene immediately."

"Yes."

Several police cars sped out of the city police station gate and headed east.

When Wu Yongcheng and his group arrived, there were already quite a few people watching along the riverbank, craning their necks to look curiously at the river. Two uniformed patrol police officers were advising the crowd not to get too close.

On the riverbank, a small fishing boat, more than three meters long, was moored, and the boatman sat helplessly on the muddy ground beside it, holding the oar.

The crowd was about three to five meters away from the fishing boat, whispering among themselves, curious about what had happened.

Someone with a keen eye pointed out that there seemed to be a gray bag inside the fishing net on the fishing boat.

Several police cars quickly arrived at the scene.

The crowd became even more curious when they saw so many police cars arrive.

But as soon as Wu Yongcheng got out of the car, he saw a crowd gathered on the riverbank and immediately said to Jiang Biao, "Put up the police tape and drive the crowd away." Jiang Biao nodded. As a veteran criminal investigator, he naturally knew that forcibly driving people away from an outdoor scene was unrealistic, since some people just love to watch the excitement. Moreover, forcibly driving them away could easily lead to complaints and rumors, causing social panic.

Especially complaints, although they sound outrageous, these kinds of things still happen.

He called to several colleagues, set up a cordon, and then moved outwards by pulling the cordon directly against the crowd.

While moving, he shouted loudly, "Come on, everyone back up! Don't touch this line! Touching it is illegal and you could get detained!"

His height of over 1.9 meters and his imposing physique gave him a natural sense of intimidation, and with his words, no one dared to refute him; they could only retreat repeatedly.

Jiang Biao pulled the cart a few meters away, and seeing that it would soon reach the road, he knew it wouldn't be good if people all gathered on the roadside.

Moreover, at this distance, he couldn't hear or see what was happening on the small fishing boat, so he nodded to his colleagues and asked them to secure the warning line.

Wu Yongcheng surveyed the situation and gave Qiao Jiali and Chen Yan a look.

Chen Yan immediately walked over to the fisherman sitting there to find out what was going on, while Qiao Jiali walked over to the two patrolling police officers.

"Team Leader Wu, this distance should be enough," Jiang Biao said as he walked over.

Wu Yongcheng glanced back and nodded.

The two were now standing on the bank of the Nansha River, with the small fishing boat in front of them.

These fishing boats are very common. They have no canopy; they are just flat fishing boats with a trough in the middle to store the fish that are caught.

These small fishing boats used to be very common, generally used by fishermen along the Nansha River, since the soil and water of the Nansha River are quite fertile.

However, it was mostly used in the 1970s and 80s, and is now relatively rare, usually only used by the elderly.

There were a few fish in the tank of the small fishing boat, but none of them were very big.

On the fishing boat was a patched fishing net, and inside the tangled net was a gray travel bag, wet and still seeping water.

The travel bag was already open, like the mouth of a dead beast.

"Biaozi," Wu Yongcheng called out, reaching out to grab the boat.

Jiang Biao understood and immediately stepped forward to grab the other side, then with a forceful pull, dragged the boat directly to the shore.

Song Yiming walked over, already wearing white gloves, followed by Xu Nian carrying a toolbox.

Without exchanging words, Wu Yongcheng simply nodded to Song Yiming.

Song Yiming squatted down and opened the travel bag.

Wu Yongcheng leaned over for a look, and even as a veteran detective, he still felt a chill run down his spine.

Inside the travel bag were piles of human tissue; perhaps because they had been soaked in water, these body parts were eerily white.

Wu Yongcheng patted Song Yiming on the shoulder and whispered, "Old Song, you should take the body parts back for an autopsy. There are too many onlookers here, which could easily cause public panic."

“Okay.” Song Yiming glanced at the body parts in the bag, then zipped it up, picked up the travel bag, and walked towards the criminal investigation vehicle parked at the back.

Sure enough, the crowd all looked at the bag in his hand.

"Biaozi, notify the salvage team to start salvage within a one-kilometer radius in front of and behind this location."

"Okay, Captain Wu, I'll go right away."

The travel bag that Song Yiming just took weighed at most a dozen kilograms; it couldn't possibly be all of one person's belongings.

Since the body was retrieved from the river, it means the murderer dismembered and disposed of the body multiple times, so there must be other body parts.

Unfortunately, the last two salvage boats searched along the Nansha River for a full three kilometers, one in the south and one in the north, but found nothing.

The boatman's questions were of little value; he simply noticed a bag floating on the river and, assuming it was some unwanted clothing, hauled it up with a fishing net.

I was quite pleased to find that the bag was quite heavy.

When he unzipped the zipper, he was terrified.

His exclamation was noticed by a patrolling police officer, who asked him to bring the boat ashore. After confirming the situation, the officer immediately reported it to the police station, which then contacted the city's major crime squad.

Although the technical department conducted a detailed on-site investigation of the riverbank, since the bag was retrieved from the river, the riverbank was neither a crime scene nor a place where the body was dumped, so naturally nothing was found.

Because it was a particularly heinous murder case involving dismemberment, Wu Yongcheng immediately reported the case to Xie Guoqiang.

A large number of police officers were then mobilized to conduct a thorough search of the area where the travel bag was recovered, with a focus on trash cans, garbage dumps, or neglected wastelands.

Meanwhile, a search and retrieval operation was also conducted in the lower reaches of the Nansha River to prevent any body parts from being washed away by the current.

Since May 6th, the police have been continuously expanding the scope of their search.

Up until May 9th, eleven bags of body parts were discovered in multiple locations, totaling more than three hundred pieces.

However, the victim's head was never found.

The head was not discovered until five days after the body parts were found, on May 10th.

The identity of the deceased was thus confirmed.

　Thank you all for your monthly votes. I won't list all the names, I'll remember them all.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)