Po Sir's Police Affairs: The Hunter

When Su Min opened the corpse's chest cavity, Zhou Xiao couldn't hold it in and went outside to vomit.

Jiang Bo stood to the side, his complexion not much better. It wasn't that he felt nauseous, but rather that he had stayed up all night, and the back of his head was still throbbing. He leaned against the wall, watching Su Min's gloved hands rummage through the contents, her movements as practiced as if she were turning over a drawer.

The body was recovered at 10:00 AM. The shipping department found the floating object in the middle of the river, scooped it up with a net, and upon seeing it was a person, took it directly to the forensic center. Su Min was having lunch when she received the call; she put down her chopsticks and came immediately.

"The results of the stomach contents test won't be available until this afternoon," Su Min said without looking up. "But to my naked eye, there's a possibility of sleeping pill residue."

Jiang Bo walked over and stood beside the autopsy table, looking down. Fang Min's body lay on the stainless steel table, her skin pale and wrinkled, having been soaked for over ten hours, but not yet severely decomposed. Su Min cut open the stomach and used tweezers to remove some undigested food.

"What did you eat for your last meal?"

"Her husband said they ate dinner at 6:30 pm, braised pork and vegetables." Zhou Xiao came back after vomiting, his face pale, and stood at the door, not daring to approach.

Su Min picked up a piece of food and examined it: "There's braised pork. Judging from the degree of digestion, the time of death should be about two hours after the meal." She put down the tweezers, looked up, and said, "But there's a problem."

Jiang Bo waited for her to speak.

"There was no river water in her lungs." Su Min picked up the report next to her. "I just did a lung biopsy. Under the microscope, the alveoli are clean, with no mud, sand, or plankton. She didn't drown."

Zhou Xiao asked from the doorway, "How did he die?"

Su Min pointed to the corpse's neck: "Look here."

Jiang Bo lowered his head and looked closely. There were two shallow indentations on Fang Min's neck, slightly darker than the surrounding skin, almost invisible without close inspection. Su Min picked up a magnifying glass and handed it to him. Jiang Bo took it and examined it closely.

The indentation runs horizontally, extending backward from both sides of the Adam's apple and converging at the cervical spine. It is a typical strangulation mark.

"You pinched him with your bare hands?" Jiang Bo asked.

Su Min nodded: "It should be. There was also skin flakes under the fingernails, not her own. I've already taken samples and sent them for testing." She picked up the deceased's hand. The nails were neatly trimmed, but there was indeed some dark red stuff stuck under the nails.

Jiang Bo straightened up, looking at the deceased's pale face, flushed from being soaked in water. He recalled the scene he had witnessed in the early hours of the morning: a pair of men's hands choking a woman. Now, the image and reality aligned.

"Can the time of death be determined?"

"The body had been in the river for about fourteen hours. Based on the stomach contents and lividity, the time of death should be between eight and nine o'clock last night." Su Min took off her rubber gloves. "She was put into the water after she died, probably half an hour to an hour after she died."

Zhou Xiao asked from behind, "How did you determine that?"

Su Min glanced at him: "The fact that there's no water in her lungs is the most direct evidence. If someone falls into water alive, they'll desperately try to breathe, and water will get into their lungs. Her lungs are completely empty, which means she wasn't breathing when she went into the water."

Jiang Bo walked to the window and lit a cigarette. Smoking was prohibited at the forensic center, but he lit one anyway, and Su Min didn't say anything. She knew this man; he needed to smoke when he was thinking.

"The body floated in the river for more than ten hours, why did it take so long to come to the surface?" Jiang Bo asked.

"Water temperature, water flow, and the degree of decomposition of the body—all these factors combined," Su Min said. "Yesterday, the river temperature was around 20 degrees Celsius. At this time of year, a body usually takes 24 to 48 hours to float. The fact that she floated quickly is probably because—someone helped her."

Jiang Bo turned around.

Su Min pointed to the deceased's abdomen: "Look here, there are small, shallow incision marks, like they were made with a needle. If air is injected into the abdominal cavity, the body's buoyancy will increase, and it will float for a shorter time."

Zhou Xiao leaned closer to look: "Is someone trying to make her float up faster?"

"He might have wanted to keep her afloat," Su Min said. "If the murderer wanted to hide the body, he would have tied stones to it and sank it to the bottom. He didn't use stones and even injected air into her, which means he wanted the body to be discovered."

Jiang Bo took a drag of his cigarette: "What about the one from last year?"

Su Min was taken aback: "Li Hongmei?"

"Yes, how long did she stay afloat?"

Su Min thought for a moment: "The report was filed on the fifth day after the disappearance, and the body should have surfaced on the fourth or fifth day. I can't remember the exact time; I'll have to check the records."

Did she have water in her lungs at the time?

Su Min frowned. "Yes. At the time, we didn't suspect homicide, so we didn't do any toxicology testing, just a routine autopsy." She looked at Jiang Bo. "You mean, the one last year might also have been strangled?"

Jiang Bo didn't answer. He stubbed out his cigarette, walked back to the autopsy table, and looked at Fang Min's body. Thirty-six years old, an accountant at a state-owned enterprise, she enjoyed night jogging and had a husband who owned a cat. Last night around eight o'clock, someone strangled her somewhere in this city and then threw her body into the Yangtze River.

The man pumped air into her stomach, hoping to make the body float to the surface faster.

Why?

Zhou Xiao's phone rang. He answered it, listened for a few minutes, and then hung up, saying, "Liu Tong has found Fang Min's phone data. A week before she disappeared, someone used her phone to search for several keywords—'how long does it take for someone to float after drowning,' 'Yangtze River current speed,' and 'how to get to the middle of the river.'"

Who searched for it?

"Technically speaking, the search was done using her phone, but the account logged in using the IP address wasn't hers," Zhou Xiao said. "It's likely that someone used her phone to search and then deleted the search history. Liu Tong recovered the data from a cloud backup."

Jiang Bo looked at him: "Where is her husband?"

"Chen Zhiming? He's still at home, hasn't left the house," Zhou Xiao said. "Our people are watching him."

Jiang Bo nodded and walked out of the dissection room. The corridor was quiet, the fluorescent lights humming softly. He leaned against the wall, took out another cigarette, and put it in his mouth, but didn't light it.

Chen Zhiming has cat scratch marks. Fang Min has dander under her fingernails. Fang Min's phone was used to search for how to make a corpse float.

But Chen Zhiming has an alibi—company surveillance footage, attendance records, and colleagues’ testimonies; he worked overtime until 11 p.m. last night.

Jiang Bo took the cigarette out of his mouth, crushed it, and threw it into the trash can.

"Zhou Xiao, come with me to the riverbank."

At 2 PM, they stood on the observation deck below Zhongjiang Pagoda. The sun was out, its heat making them dizzy. The police tape had been removed, and the shoes on the ground had been taken away as evidence, leaving only the bare concrete surface. Tourists were taking pictures at the foot of the tower, and several children were running around, completely unaware of what had happened there the night before.

Zhou Xiao turned on the drone; the remote control was connected to a screen. The drone buzzed as it rose and flew over the river. Jiang Bo stood by the railing, watching the scene on the screen.

"The straight-line distance from here to the middle of the river is about 450 meters," Zhou Xiao said, operating the drone. "But the Yangtze River has a current, so if we dump the body here, it will drift eastward."

"Where was that body found last year?"

Zhou Xiao pulled up the map: "Here." He pointed to a point on the screen, "About two kilometers downstream from Zhongjiang Pagoda, near the shipyard."

Jiang Bo stared at the screen. The shipyard, an old industrial area, abandoned for years, the riverbank overgrown with reeds and garbage. It was a remote place, usually deserted. If the body hadn't been discovered by shipping workers, it might have drifted even further.

The drone flew over the middle of the river and hovered. On the screen, you could see the river water swirling downstream. The river surface looked calm, but only those familiar with the Yangtze River knew about those whirlpools—they were undercurrents that would cause boats to spin around.

"This is the backflow area," Zhou Xiao pointed to the screen. "The water flows here and gets blocked by the reefs below, creating a backflow. If a body enters the water from here, it will spin in place before drifting downstream."

Jiang Bo stared at the vortex for a while: "Where did Fang Min's cell phone signal last appear?"

Zhou Xiao pulled up another set of data: "It's right here. The signal stayed at this location for about ten minutes, then disappeared." He looked up at Jiang Bo, "But the last location where the cell phone signal appeared isn't necessarily where the body was dumped. It's possible the killer left the phone here and then went somewhere else to dispose of the body."

"Ten minutes," Jiang Bo said. "How long does it take to row from the shore to here?"

Zhou Xiao was taken aback: "Pole a boat?"

"There are many small fishing boats on the Qingyi River that sneak out to fish at night," Jiang Bo said. "If you board the boat at the old pontoon bridge and exit along the mouth of the Qingyi River, you can bypass all the surveillance cameras in Binjiang Park."

Zhou Xiao's eyes lit up: "You mean the killer traveled by water?"

Jiang Bo didn't answer. He turned and looked in the direction of the Qingyi River. That river flows through the entire old town, with old streets and alleys on both banks, docks, fishing boats, and old houses, bustling during the day and quiet at night. If one is familiar with the waterway, it is indeed possible to avoid all road surveillance.

"Let's go to the old pontoon bridge."

The old pontoon bridge is long gone, but the place name remains. This area along the Qingyi River is the old town, a ten-mile-long street paved with bluestone slabs, lined with small shops selling sundries and old houses that have been partially demolished. Jiang Bo parked the car at the intersection and walked in with Zhou Xiao.

It was three in the afternoon, and the streets were mostly deserted. Demolition workers sat in the shade drinking water. They glanced at two men in plainclothes as they walked by. Zhou Xiao pulled out his badge and asked one of the workers, "Are there any fishing boats around here?"

The worker pointed to the riverbank: "It's just down there. There are a few old men still fishing."

They descended the steps to the riverbank. The Qingyi River was much narrower than the Yangtze, and the water was murky, but the current was slow. Several small wooden boats were moored along the riverbank, their paint peeling and their bottoms covered in moss. An old man sat on one of the boats mending a net, wearing a straw hat and tanned dark by the sun.

Jiang Bo walked over and offered him a cigarette: "Master, are you a fisherman?"

The old man took the cigarette and tucked it behind his ear: "I won't call in the afternoon, I'll call in the morning."

"And at night?"

"We won't fight at night, and we won't allow it on the river." The old man glanced at him. "Who are you people?"

Zhou Xiao showed his ID, which the old man glanced at but didn't react. Jiang Bo squatted down and pointed in the direction of the Yangtze River: "How long would it take to row from here to the Zhongjiang Pagoda?"

The old man thought for a moment: "If we go with the current, it will take twenty minutes."

"Will anyone see us rowing past at night?"

The old man chuckled. "Who's watching you at night? It's pitch black on the river, no lights." He pointed to the river. "If you follow the edge, you can paddle all the way to the Zhongjiang Pagoda. But there are a lot of rocks, so people who aren't familiar with the area don't dare to paddle."

Jiang Bo looked at the few small wooden boats, each equipped with oars, a flashlight, and an old raincoat. He asked, "Has anyone rented your boat recently?"

The old man paused for a moment, then thought for a moment: "A few days ago, someone said they wanted to go fishing in the middle of the river at night and wanted to rent my boat. They gave me two hundred yuan and didn't even ask for a deposit."

"What does it look like?"

"It was dark, I couldn't see clearly." The old man frowned as he recalled, "Probably in his thirties or forties, a man, of medium height, speaking the local dialect. I can't remember anything else."

Jiang Bo stood up and looked towards the mouth of the Qingyi River. It takes twenty minutes by water to get to Zhongjiang Pagoda from here, and over forty minutes round trip. If the killer is familiar with this area, they could easily bypass all surveillance.

He asked the old man, "When did that man return the boat?"

"The next morning," the old man said, "I came in the morning, and the boat was moored here properly, and the oars were in place. But I didn't see anyone."

Zhou Xiao, standing nearby, asked, "Master, do you remember which day it was?"

The old man thought for a moment: "About a week ago, anyway, it was last week."

Jiang Bo and Zhou Xiao exchanged a glance. A week ago, it was the same time Fang Min was searching for those keywords on her phone.

As they walked back, Zhou Xiao whispered, "If they really came by water, then the killer must know this area very well. They must have grown up around the old pontoon bridge, or they must have worked along the river before."

Jiang Bo didn't speak, his mind replaying the boats he'd just seen. The bottoms of the boats were covered in moss, indicating they weren't used often. But there was an old, wet raincoat inside one of the boats.

The old man said the boat was fine this morning, and the oars were in place. But his raincoat was wet.

What does a wet raincoat signify?

This indicates that the person rowing the boat was wearing it that night.

But it didn't rain that night.

Jiang Bo stopped. He turned around and looked back. The old man was still sitting on the boat mending the net, his straw hat pulled low so that his face was not visible.

"Zhou Xiao," he said.

"Um?"

"That old man, did you notice his hands?"

Zhou Xiao thought for a moment: "Your hand? I wasn't paying attention. What's wrong?"

Jiang Bo didn't answer. When he offered the cigarette, the old man reached out to take it. There were several fresh scratches on that hand, scabbed over, exactly the same as those on Chen Zhiming's hand.