There are several landfills of varying sizes scattered around the city of Wujin, which are temporary gathering places for domestic and industrial waste in the city. After all the waste is sorted and processed, most of it will be transported to the incineration plant, turning into a thick smoke that rises from the ground to the sky.
Wujin City is built by the water. A river called Yujiang River flows through the east side of the city. One branch of the river is unable to flow into the sea and has become a dead lake. The largest garbage disposal site in Wujin City is located next to the dead lake.
The person who found the body parts and reported the case was a garbage sorter. Because of the strong winds and heavy rains in the past two days, the garbage pollution in the lake has become more and more serious, so the workers put on raincoats and worked overtime to sort and dispose of the garbage.
A black plastic bag containing body parts suddenly appeared under the layers of household garbage.
When Theo Hammond arrived with the large force, the police officers of the investigation team were already spread out on the garbage dumps that looked like small hills, searching for body parts in the wind and rain.
Heavy rains could not suppress the proliferation of bacteria in the garbage dump. Even with the rain, the smell of the garbage dump was quite suffocating. In this suffocating environment, the police built a temporary awning on the open space and placed the several black plastic bags they had searched under the awning.
Langston Xing trotted into the awning and opened one of the black plastic bags. He saw scattered intestines and body parts lying in the bag. The corpse fluid was sticky and insects and ants were crawling around.
A few inexperienced detectives took a look inside, then ran to the awning, covering their mouths and retching.
Although Langston Xing was experienced, it was rare to see such a cruel method to dismember the body so "detailedly". He closed the bag with a gloomy face, took off his white gloves, took out his cell phone and made a call.
"Where are you? Why are you taking a break when you're on the scene? Come back quickly!"
He was negotiating with the forensic doctor when he suddenly saw Theo Hammond squatting beside him. He opened the bag again, stretched out his index finger to press on the body part through the white gloves, and then observed the cut surface of the body part.
Theo Hammond had a calm face and a focused look, looking like a seasoned and methodical person.
Langston Xing watched him turn over his intestines with skillful techniques. The yellow-brown liquid immediately stained his ten fingers, but he seemed unaware of it and opened another garbage bag filled with stones.
Theo Hammond's tolerance for these bloody corpses was beyond his imagination. He thought Theo Hammond would be like the previous elite, holding his nose and vomiting for a long time after taking one look at the corpses. He never expected that Theo Hammond could turn this pile of rotten intestines into a flower.
All of a sudden, Langston Xing began to trust this person a little.
"Can you do forensic work?"
he asks.
Theo Hammond tilted his head to observe the marks on the cut surface of the body and said calmly: "A little bit."
He moved to another plastic bag and observed it while saying, "The muscles and subcutaneous tissue have begun to produce gas, causing the surface of the body to decay and emphysema. The time of death is probably seven to eight days and nights."
"You're talking about the time of death, but what about the time of body disposal?"
Theo Hammond opened the plastic bag, looked at Langston Xing and asked, "Do you think this is not the first scene?"
Langston Xing gave him a look that said "Aren't you talking nonsense?", then raised his hand and pointed around, saying, "Look at the environment here. The only people coming in and out are the staff of the garbage dump. If this is the first scene, the identity of the deceased can basically be fixed as a staff member. Death is equivalent to missing. Even if we don't know if anyone is missing, don't the people inside know? Now that body parts have been found, and there has been no movement at the garbage dump, it means that these body parts are not from insiders, but can only be 'outsiders'."
Because of the bad first impression, Theo Hammond only thought that Langston Xing was rude and cunning. Even though Langston Xing's analysis was very logical, he was reluctant to admit that Langston Xing's mind was sharp and clear.
Theo Hammond said: "The outsiders you mentioned can only be transported here by garbage trucks."
Langston Xing glanced at the detectives who were still searching for body parts in the garbage dump, then lowered his eyes and looked at him: "Tell me your reasons."
Theo Hammond stood up and walked to the awning. He stretched out his hands to wash the dirty water on his gloves with the rain, and said lightly: "The ground here is uneven, with a lot of rocks and broken glass. The body parts were thrown in the place closest to the lake, far away from the edge of the field. It is difficult for electric vehicles and bicycles to enter the garbage dump. Carrying plastic bags containing body parts is very conspicuous. In addition, the garbage pile is very high, and it is difficult to throw it up manually. At present, it seems that the last possible tool to dump the body is the garbage truck."
Langston Xing took a raincoat from someone and put it on while saying, "Don't rush to identify the suspects. Try to determine the time when the garbage truck dumped the body."
Theo Hammond didn't say anything. He asked the assistant medical examiner for an evidence bag, then squatted back in front of the body, took a pair of tweezers and cut off a piece of skin and flesh from the rotten body, and put it into the evidence bag: "The garbage dump is a place where mosquitoes proliferate. There are many mosquitoes, flies, and other egg-laying insects of the order Diptera. Generally speaking, a person's death in the wild will attract flies to lay eggs within ten minutes. Although it has rained heavily in the past two days, the temperature was high two days ago, which is good weather for breeding eggs. I just checked the weather chart. The average temperature two days ago was around 34 degrees. The eggs can decompose into maggots after eight to twelve hours. The growth rate of this maggot is 0.24 to 0.30 cm per day. Take a few maggots back to identify the age of the maggots and measure their length, and you can roughly know the date when the body was dumped."
After listening to him, Langston Xing also put on his raincoat, fastened the buttons of his raincoat, and asked with a smile: "Have you also studied biology?"
Theo Hammond stood up and walked away from the pungent smell of the corpse, handed the evidence bag to the forensic assistant, met his gaze, and smiled hypocritically and politely: "A little bit."
Langston Xing buttoned his shirt much more slowly, carefully and leisurely looking him over again from head to toe, as if the meeting in the office just now didn't count.
It was his overly straightforward and unreserved look. Theo Hammond felt uncomfortable again when he saw this familiar look. He met his gaze and looked at him for a few seconds before he could no longer bear it and could only turn his head away and ignore him.
Langston Xing was a little puzzled, thinking, why does he look so unapproachable? Why does Teacher Wei always avoid him? Could it be that he has been quietly disliked by this person?
However, Theo Hammond turned sideways to avoid his gaze, stepped on the soil supporting the awning poles for no reason, and talked to the criminal police next to him that the awning could not withstand the wind and rain and was about to collapse.
Indeed, the makeshift awning was of very poor quality. It was soon swayed by the wind, and its cover was blown away like a broken umbrella by the strong wind.
"Boss!"
Walkie-talkies cannot be used outdoors during heavy rain, so the criminal police at the scene basically communicate by shouting.
A criminal police officer standing by the lake put his hands around a megaphone and shouted, "Another bag!"
Langston Xing raised his hand towards him, but did not rush over. Instead, he picked up a shovel and shoveled a few shovels of soil to make the soil around the poles firm, and finally stomped his feet hard. After making sure that the poles were firmly planted, he lifted the raincoat hat to cover his head and walked into the wind and rain.
Theo Hammond took off his white gloves and threw them on the ground. He stood beside the pole with his hands in his windbreaker pockets, watching his back gradually disappearing into the wind and rain out of the corner of his eye.
He thought Langston Xing would not let any laborer go and would drive him to the garbage dump to look for body parts. Unexpectedly, when Langston Xing planted the pole and prepared to work, he just glanced at the umbrella in front of him, and said nothing. He put on his raincoat and hat and went out.
Theo Hammond didn't know whether the care he was receiving was the care a newcomer deserved, or was Langston Xing's special care for him.
In the rainstorm, he saw Langston Xing standing in a small path between two piles of garbage, holding his waist, and shouting to the criminal police who were standing in the waist-deep lake water to fish out the body: "Those in the water, come up first!"
Someone asked him what was wrong.
"The water in the lake is dirtier than a manure pond. Do you want to save your life? Protect your crotch before you go down to retrieve the body!"
Several criminal police officers in the water quickly waded up to the shore, took a few plastic bags from him, and hid behind an empty garbage dump.
Seeing this, Theo Hammond breathed a sigh of relief, glad that he didn't have to go into the water, protect his crotch, or worry about inflammation down there.
Bags of body parts were brought under the awning, and Theo Hammond and the forensic assistant opened each bag and looked at it. He found that the decomposition conditions of the body parts were significantly different, and when he found the left hand of a second human body in one bag, he was sure of his guess.
Langston Xing, who was standing in the water fishing for the body, suddenly shouted over here: "Teacher Wei!"
Theo Hammond responded to him subconsciously, but his voice was not as loud as his. However, he couldn't raise his voice any higher, so he walked to the awning and looked at him from afar.
Langston Xing asked: "Can you put together a complete person?!"
Theo Hammond pursed his lips, took a deep breath, and with great effort, barely made his voice pass through the wind and rain and reach his ears.
"If you guys try harder, I can spell two for you!"
Then, he saw Langston Xing seemed to be stunned for a moment, standing in the water for two or three seconds without moving. Then Langston Xing kicked hard on the water surface, raised his arm and pointed around, directing the criminal police to expand the search area.
Although the distance was too far and Theo Hammond couldn't hear what he was saying, he could tell from his lip movements that what he said must be unpleasant, and there were even a few swear words.
Theo Hammond raised the corner of his lips, looked away and looked up at the sky where it was still raining.
The search lasted for more than two hours. During these two hours, Theo Hammond measured the two right feet of different lengths and inferred the height and weight of the deceased. He also classified and weighed the body parts that had been found. He stopped only when he felt that he could almost piece together two complete bodies.
The weather conditions were so bad that Langston Xing left a few people to continue searching the scene and retreated with the main force.
As soon as he came out of the sewage lake, Langston Xing took off his rain boots and threw them into the garbage dump. On the way to the police car with a group of people, he received a phone call: "You come here? Where are you coming from? We have all withdrawn, wait in the forensic room. Qin Fang, don't think I don't know, you kid did it on purpose---"
Theo Hammond walked beside him, barely able to keep up with him. However, the road was slippery and the ground was not stable due to the rain, forming puddles of water. Langston Xing walked around in the water in a pair of thick-soled hiking boots as if he were walking on flat ground, but of course he couldn't do that.
He was leaning on an umbrella and picking and choosing around for a place to stay. He had to quicken his pace to keep up with the leader Langston Xing. Suddenly his feet slipped, his body fell backwards, and he immediately lost his balance.
Just as he was about to fall into the mud, an arm suddenly reached out and grabbed his waist, pulling him forward with force.
Langston Xing was talking on the phone while doing two things at once. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Theo Hammond's thin body about to fall, so he helped him up.
The man showed no intention of putting down the arm that was across his waist, so Theo Hammond took a step to the side, just looking down at the road, pretending that the accident had never happened.
After a moment, Langston Xing hung up the phone, turned his head and smiled at him: "Your waist is quite thin."
Theo Hammond: ...
On the way back, Theo Hammond deliberately avoided him and did not take his car, but took a car of a tall and handsome criminal policeman. In addition to Langston Xing, he was the only one who directed the search of the scene just now, and everyone else called him "Brother Yu".
On the way, he took the initiative to introduce himself: "Lu Mingyu."
Lu Mingyu had regular facial features, and his eyebrows looked like they had been trimmed and slanted into his temples, which was very similar to the description of the righteous men in ancient martial arts novels as "dignified and imposing, with heroic eyebrows and bright eyes."
After a brief chat with him, Theo Hammond felt that a people's policeman should be like him, upright and approachable.
After returning to the police station, Theo Hammond was the first to go into the men's bathroom to wash his hands, face and neck. Seeing that there was no one else in the bathroom, he tore off a few pieces of paper, dipped them in water, and squatted down to wipe his shoes.
Hearing footsteps approaching in the corridor, he quickly stood up, threw the tissue into the trash can, and turned on the faucet to wash his hands.
He didn't greet anyone, turned off the faucet, picked up the umbrella leaning against the sink and walked out of the bathroom, ignoring the whispers of people behind him.
Langston Xing just said that there would be a meeting in the conference room on the fourth floor, and specifically asked him to attend. Theo Hammond went up one floor, and just as he turned the corner of the stairs, he saw two men standing in front of the forensic room diagonally opposite the captain's office.
One of them was Langston Xing, who was almost completely soaked. He took off his coat and held it in his hand, wearing only a thin gray round-neck sweater. He was talking to a young man in a white coat.
Although there were people coming and going in the corridor and the sound of footsteps was complicated, Langston Xing was still able to cleverly capture the orderly sound of umbrellas hitting the ground.
Theo Hammond had just taken two steps towards them when he saw Langston Xing suddenly turn his head and wave at him.
The moment Langston Xing waved to him, Theo Hammond saw the document in Langston Xing's hand and saw his name on the first page of the document. That was his file.
Theo Hammond suddenly slowed down his pace, gripped the umbrella handle tightly, and took a deep breath silently as he walked a few steps towards him, deliberately ignoring the file in his hand.
When Theo Hammond approached, Langston Xing rolled up the document in his hand naturally and tapped the palm of his left hand slowly. He glanced at Theo Hammond and then looked at the man in the white coat: "Let me introduce you briefly. This is the consultant hired by Director Liu, Mr. Wei. This is---"
"It's you!"
Theo Hammond was only thinking about the file in Langston Xing's hand, when he was suddenly startled by the loud shouting of the man in the white coat.
"Oh my God! I can see you here. Don't you remember me? I'm Qin Fang, Qin Fang!"
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