flstandardbreds Chapter 980 Remains in the Ashes
Chapter 980 Remains in the Ashes
The autumn downpour came unexpectedly, large raindrops pounding against the windows of the Criminal Investigation Division, creating a dense, pattering sound. Li Ming had just picked up his thermos when the phone in the duty room rang shrilly. "Captain Lu! A charred body has been found at Yongsheng Farm in the outskirts of Xishan!" The operator's voice trembled noticeably. "The person who reported it said the burnt smell could be detected from a great distance, and it looks like deliberate attempt to cover up the crime!"
Li Ming's brows furrowed instantly. He quickly put down his cup, grabbed his coat draped over the back of his chair, and said, "Notify the whole team to assemble in five minutes!" The alarm bell rang suddenly in the corridor, and the sound of hurried footsteps and the clanging of equipment broke the silence of the downpour.
Twenty minutes later, three police cars, their red and blue lights flashing, sped along the muddy country road. Rain blurred the windshields as Xiao Wang gripped the steering wheel, the wheels splashing water up to waist height. Through the rain, Yongsheng Farm was faintly visible in the distance, a few wisps of smoke rising eerily against the gloomy sky.
At the farm gate, the old farmer who had reported the incident stood there, his face pale, shielding himself from the rain with a straw hat. "Officer, it's right behind the warehouse!" he said, his voice trembling as he pointed deeper into the farm. "I came to feed the chickens this morning and saw black smoke coming from over there. When I ran over..." The old man couldn't finish his sentence and just kept shaking his head.
Li Ming led the way into the rain, nearly slipping on the muddy ground. The moment they turned the corner of the warehouse, a strong, nauseating smell of burning flesh assaulted their nostrils. Xiao Zhou instinctively covered his mouth and nose, but Li Ming glared at him: "Keep the scene intact!"
The charred corpse lay curled up beside a pile of abandoned firewood, its entire body in a bizarre "boxer's pose"—a unique posture formed by muscle contractions caused by high-temperature burning. The surface of the corpse was carbonized, the skin and muscle tissue completely charred, making it impossible to discern any facial features, resembling a charred sculpture.
"Xiao Sun, Xiao Yang, begin the investigation immediately!" At Li Ming's command, the two technicians sprang into action. Xiao Sun put on rubber gloves and cautiously approached the body, the beam of his flashlight moving across the charred remains. "Preliminary assessment suggests the deceased suffered intense burning before death. The time of death is difficult to determine; we'll have to wait for the autopsy to examine the skeletal changes." He crouched down and used tweezers to pick up a piece of melted plastic from beside the body. "There are traces of gasoline at the scene; this is a fragment of a plastic bucket. The murderer likely used gasoline to fuel the fire."
Xiao Yang, holding a metal detector, slowly moved around the body. "Ding—" the device emitted a sharp beep. He immediately crouched down and carefully cleared away the dirt with a small shovel. A moment later, a deformed, burnt metal object was revealed. "Captain Lu, it looks like a keychain. Maybe we can extract some useful information."
Li Ming squatted beside the body, his eyes scanning the surroundings. The burning marks on the pile of firewood were uneven; some areas were burned very thoroughly, while others still had unburnt straw remaining. "The murderer was very particular about where he started the fire," he said, pointing to the ashes near the body's head. "The burn marks here are the deepest, indicating that the fire started from the head. He poured gasoline first, then set it on fire, his purpose being to destroy the evidence."
The rain intensified, and Xiao Wang and Xiao Zhou opened their umbrellas to shield the surveyors from the downpour. Xiao Sun turned on his survey light, and in the bright light, a section of silver chain was faintly visible on the corpse's wrist. He held his breath and gently parted the charred skin with tweezers, revealing a deformed, burnt bracelet with several partially melted diamond fragments embedded in it.
"Collect the evidence and send it for testing." Li Ming stood up, rainwater streaming down his hat and into his collar. He looked at the muddy ground in the distance, where several tire tracks were faintly visible in the rain. "Xiao Zhou, check the surveillance footage around the farm, focusing on vehicles that entered and exited before and after the incident. Xiao Wang, interview the nearby villagers and ask if there are any unusual circumstances."
Just then, Xiao Sun suddenly shouted, "Captain Lu, we've made a new discovery!" He used tweezers to pick up a small, hard object from the corpse's mouth. "It looks like a tooth, but it's burned too badly. We need to take it back for DNA testing."
As darkness fell, the torrential rain continued to pour down. Li Ming, his brow furrowed, gazed at the rain-soaked scene as the body was carefully lifted onto the stretcher.
Judging from the scene, this case is very difficult to solve, but there's no other way but to grit our teeth and proceed. Li Ming continued to instruct Xiao Yang and Xiao Sun to conduct their investigation at the crime scene.
The torrential rain sliced Yongsheng Farm into blurred patches of color. Xiao Sun knelt where the charred corpse had been, his investigation light piercing the rain to illuminate the winding black streams of water on the ground—traces left by rainwater mixed with corpse oil and ash. "Protect the scene!" he suddenly roared, reaching out to cover a piece of cloth being washed away by the rain. Xiao Yang rushed over at the sound, quickly opening an evidence umbrella. Beneath the transparent canopy, dark purple remnants of fabric trembled gently in the puddles.
"It's made of silk." Xiao Sun picked up a fragment with tweezers and examined its warp and weft structure under a magnifying glass. "The edges are charred and carbonized, indicating the clothing was directly burned by a flame." When he placed the fragment into the evidence bag, he noticed light gold threads remaining on the inside. "This isn't ordinary fabric; it might be custom-made." Rain dripped continuously from the brim of his hat onto his protective mask, blurring his vision, forcing him to frequently wipe it with his sleeve.
Xiao Yang's metal detector suddenly beeped. Two meters from the body, buried in the scorched earth, lay a twisted metal ring. "It looked like a belt buckle." He carefully brushed away the surface ash; the gold-plated material gleamed eerily under the searchlight. "The buckle had English letters engraved on it, now burnt and indistinct." When he tried to remove it intact, the metal, brittle from the heat, broke in two with tweezers.
Xiao Sun was currently lying on the ground, using a syringe to collect soil samples from beneath the body. Mud mixed with ash seeped into his sleeves, unnoticed. "The soil here is an unusual color." He lifted the test tube; tiny white particles were suspended in the murky liquid. "It's not ordinary wood ash; it's probably residue from an accelerant." However, with the torrential rain washing away more soil samples, he had to speed up the collection process.
Xiao Zhou ran over, his trousers covered in mud, holding an umbrella: "We found tire tracks to the northwest, but the rain has washed them away, leaving only shallow marks." He handed over a photo he had taken; two blurry lines appeared and disappeared in a puddle on the screen. Xiao Yang immediately took out a ruler to measure: "The tire width is 195mm, and the wheelbase is over 2.7 meters, so it's probably a mid-size SUV." But when they tried to follow the tracks, they found that the traces completely disappeared in a puddle ten meters away.