Chapter 101 - 99: I Don’t Know, But There’s a Sense of Familiarity

Chapter 101: Chapter 99: I Don’t Know, But There’s a Sense of Familiarity

It was late by the time they returned to the City Bureau.

「The first day of the Lunar New Year.」

The City Bureau was much quieter than usual.

Only the officers on duty were there.

And the few of them who were still working.

Su Miaoyi and Yan Cheng went to the autopsy room to lay out the skeleton in its proper anatomical position.

The skull, tibias, and pelvis were easy enough.

It was the smaller bones that were difficult—identifying what they were and where they belonged.

Zhuang Yanzheng went to pull the case file from five years ago.

After a quick look, he went to the autopsy room as well.

There wasn’t much he could do to help, other than lending a hand.

"Here." Zhuang Yanzheng picked up a piece, gently brushed the dirt off its surface with a brush, and handed it to them.

Su Miaoyi took it, observed it for a moment, then set it down.

Zhuang Yanzheng looked at the two of them. "No wonder Yan Cheng fought so hard to get you."

"That’s just how excellent I am," Su Miaoyi said.

"You’re quite the jack of all trades, learning a bit of everything," Zhuang Yanzheng remarked.

Hearing this, Yan Cheng also glanced at Su Miaoyi before lowering his eyes and returning to his work.

One or two similarities could be a coincidence, but this many was a bit strange.

"I’m a jack of all trades, and master of all," Su Miaoyi said, but her expression faltered for a moment after she spoke.

’I’ve never learned any of this...’

’My brain was barely enough to get me through the college entrance exams. If I had to learn all this, I probably couldn’t do it.’

After all the bones were laid out, Yan Cheng first took some photos, then began a more detailed examination.

Su Miaoyi assisted from the side.

The cervical vertebrae were broken, and so were some of the ribs.

These injuries were consistent with a fall from a great height.

For example, being pushed into a cellar after death.

They worked late into the night.

She didn’t see a vision of the attack from the bones.

The work here was nearly finished.

So, Su Miaoyi followed Zhuang Yanzheng to the office area, wanting to learn about the case from five years ago.

As the two left the forensic center, Su Miaoyi said, "I wonder if we’ll be able to identify the body."

Zhuang Yanzheng didn’t say anything.

Su Miaoyi continued, "The other three cases, the three bodies were a family of three. Could this one be related to them too? A relative, maybe?"

Zhuang Yanzheng, walking ahead, replied, "The same M.O., four cardinal directions... they’re likely related. It just depends on whether we can still extract any DNA."

As soon as he finished speaking, Su Miaoyi suddenly stopped in her tracks.

Hearing the footsteps behind him cease, Zhuang Yanzheng also stopped and turned to look at her.

Su Miaoyi stared at him, her eyes wide with shock. After a two-second pause, she asked, "The other three bodies... they were really from the same family?"

Seeing her strange reaction, Zhuang Yanzheng took two steps toward her and asked, "A family of three. Didn’t Yan Cheng tell you?"

"I don’t think he told me," Su Miaoyi said.

’Yan Cheng didn’t tell me. So how could I have known?’

So what she thought was certain had become uncertain.

And so the words that came out of her mouth became "I don’t think."

Zhuang Yanzheng looked at her, then strode back to find Yan Cheng and confirm.

Su Miaoyi remained standing where she was.

Zhuang Yanzheng went to the autopsy room. He opened the door but didn’t step inside.

Yan Cheng looked up at him. "What’s wrong?"

"Did you tell Su Miaoyi that the three bodies in the other three cases were a family?" Zhuang Yanzheng asked.

Yan Cheng had no idea why he had come rushing back to ask this. It wasn’t like the information was off-limits to Su Miaoyi, so what was the hurry? Regardless, he hadn’t brought it up with her.

"No," Yan Cheng said. "You were there the whole time I was with her today, and... we barely mentioned the old cases."

Zhuang Yanzheng said nothing.

Yan Cheng asked, "She knows?"

"It’s nothing." Zhuang Yanzheng shook his head. "Get back to work."

With that, he closed the autopsy room door.

Yan Cheng stared at the door for a moment, then looked down and resumed his work.

Su Miaoyi was still standing in the same spot.

She watched Zhuang Yanzheng hurry away and then hurry back to stand before her.

Su Miaoyi looked at him. "Did Yan Cheng say anything?"

"No." The walk to the autopsy room and back had given Zhuang Yanzheng time to compose himself. "So how did you know?"

"Can I say that I don’t know?" Su Miaoyi replied. "It... just slipped out. But..."

"But what?" Zhuang Yanzheng asked.

"I do have a sense of familiarity with this case," Su Miaoyi said with a frown. "I can’t pinpoint why, but the M.O. of nailing the bodies feels... familiar."

Zhuang Yanzheng watched her.

Su Miaoyi thought for a moment and said, "I should have all my memories from five and three years ago. The case has nothing to do with me."

’Five years ago, Qin Leyan was still at the City Bureau. This was her case.’

Zhuang Yanzheng was focused on how she knew, wanting to confirm the suspicion in his mind, however absurd that suspicion was.

But Su Miaoyi’s focus was on establishing her innocence.

Seeing that she genuinely didn’t seem to know what was going on, Zhuang Yanzheng didn’t press her further. "Let’s go."

The two of them continued toward the office area.

Then, they went to the conference room with Qi Feng and a few other officers.

First, they discussed the skeleton discovered today.

Then, they went over the cases from five and three years ago.

Five years ago, a body was first discovered in a forest in the western part of Jinghai. The victim was a fifty-two-year-old male named Ma Yan.

It was shortly after a heavy snow. Some local families had gone into the forest to gather branches for firewood.

The body had been buried, but not very deeply.

His skull and hands had also been nailed to the ground.

At the time of discovery, his time of death was estimated to be over a week prior.

The cause of death was strangulation.

The body was nailed post-mortem.

Then, two months later, another body was found on a mountain in eastern Jinghai.

It was also buried and had been dug up by a dog.

The victim was a fifty-five-year-old female named Zhu He. She was Ma Yan’s wife.

Her skull and hands were nailed down.

The cause of death was a heavy blow to the head, resulting in intracranial bleeding.

The nailing was done post-mortem.

Her time of death was over two months prior, which was basically consistent with Ma Yan’s.

The case from three years ago involved a body discovered on a mountain in northern Jinghai.

A landslide during the rainy season unearthed the body.

By then, it had completely skeletonized.

The skull and hands had also been nailed.

The landslide scattered the bones, and it took a long time to find them all.

DNA testing confirmed it was the son of the deceased, Ma Yan and Zhu He.

He was about fourteen years old at the time of death.

His death was therefore dated to two years prior to the discovery of his body, putting his time of death around the same time as Ma Yan and Zhu He.

A family of three, killed at the same time.

Buried in three different cardinal directions.

Discovered at different times.

After Ma Yan’s body was found and identified, the police discovered that Zhu He and her son were missing.

No signs of a struggle, bloodstains, or other evidence of the crime were found in their home.

The search for them yielded no results, until the next bodies were discovered.

"The Ma Yan family ran a chicken farm outside the village. They had no neighbors, so no one in the village knew something had happened to them until we started investigating after Ma Yan’s body was found."

"The village had no surveillance cameras, and their house wasn’t the primary crime scene. We couldn’t lift any fingerprints or footprints. There had been a heavy snow around that time, so we found no other tracks in the area; any drag marks or tire tracks were gone. We couldn’t identify a suspect. We only inferred from the M.O. that the killer was likely an acquaintance, and female."

"We investigated everyone who was acquainted with the Ma Yan family—people from the village, relatives—and ruled them all out."

"Ma Yan and Zhu He had another daughter?" Su Miaoyi asked.

Qi Feng sat to one side, quietly reviewing the files for these three previous cases.

He hadn’t joined the force yet at that time.

"Yes," Zhuang Yanzheng said. "She passed away from an illness at sixteen."

Su Miaoyi frowned.

’The entire family... gone, just like that...’