Starting with dissecting ghost stories

"It's okay, everyone feels guilty about what happened."

Lu Wenying calmed down and used Lao Wang's rhetoric to comfort Shen Xing: "The only ones who are wrong are criminals who lack the empathy of normal people, but often it is the people with empathy who are the victims."

"I'm sorry." Shen Xing's shoulders slumped, seemingly somewhat deflated.

"This isn't your fault, no need to apologize. I've already figured out everything I wanted to know," Lu Wenying said after thinking for a moment. "But there are a few things I don't understand, and I'd like to ask you for your advice."

"What's wrong?" Shen Xing looked at Lu Wenying, his eyes slightly red from the excitement just now.

"Old Wang's initial report stated that Li Xiaohua's time of death was estimated to be around 8 p.m. on Friday night, with an error margin of no more than 12 hours."

"The autopsy results of other victims also differ somewhat from the accounts of the last known contacts... Did Captain Chen show you the initial autopsy report? Was Old Wang's judgment wrong?"

It's very similar to my own judgment; the forensic doctors at the municipal bureau are quite competent.

After pausing for a moment, Shen Xing spoke, his voice heavy with unease: "When the body was discovered, it had been more than 48 hours, and there was only a head, no torso, no stomach contents to examine. The inner room had no windows, and the temperature was lower than outside."

"If Li Ya sprayed a lot of insecticide and air freshener, the maggots might breed more slowly, and it would be difficult to judge by their age. If the corpses that died at the beginning had already started to show signs of gigantism, then it would be normal not to be able to determine the exact time of death."

Shen Xing saw the body a day and a half earlier than the city bureau's forensic doctor. At that time, Xiao Hua's head was still relatively intact. Female heads have already begun to show signs of gigantism. As long as the police have performed an autopsy, they can prove that Shen Xing's "inference" is correct.

"Okay... thank you." Lu Wenying nodded, feeling guilty for having doubted Lao Wang's professionalism earlier.

Lu Wenying stood up, extended her right hand to Shen Xing, and said in a more formal manner, "Comrade Shen Xing, thank you for your cooperation. If possible, I hope you can come to the police station to leave a statement."

"I'll be ready to cooperate at any time." Shen Xing stood up and took Lu Wenying's hand.

"However, senior brother," Lu Wenying didn't let go of his hand, but her tone wasn't as serious as before, and she changed how she addressed Shen Xing, as if she were talking to him in a more personal way, "if we find the body fragments and confirm the location where the body was dumped, the case should be closed."

"Although the recording studio floor was burned, some items extracted before the fire clearly showed a large amount of blood, indicating that the primary crime scene was the video studio."

"But... I still don't understand why, when Li Ya committed the murders, he didn't arrange the scene at all, but on the day of his suicide, he suddenly started arranging the scene?"

"And Li Xiaohua, and the other victims, why did they choose to go back to the video parlor... even Li Xiaohua..."

Is a simple statement like "schizophrenia leading to paranoia" the closing statement?

Could there be some areas that I haven't considered?

Shen Xing could feel that the right hand he was holding was slightly cool, and his palm was slightly sweaty.

She was nervous.

"Does Li Ya usually go online?" Shen Xing asked after thinking for a moment.

"Go online...?"

"Have you checked the internet cafes in the vicinity to see if Li Ya used his ID card to go online? If so, you can check his browsing history... He may have learned some knowledge online, but only superficially, which led to his accidental death."

After a moment of silence, Lu Wenying said, "Okay, I'll look into it."

"As for the last one... I really don't know either." Shen Xing had no way of explaining why they went back to the video rental store on their own, nor did he know how to explain why the surveillance cameras couldn't capture them but there were witnesses.

No matter who comes to check the surveillance footage, they won't be able to find out the truth about this matter.

Illegal internet cafes cannot be investigated.

Lu Wenying knew.

Shen Xing's methods of handling cases are still too reliant on established approaches.

This isn't the provincial capital, and not every internet cafe requires users to register with their real names.

Lu Wenying had considered this approach, but when she learned that there was only one legitimate internet cafe in the area, she knew that the investigation would be impossible to continue.

There are tons of illegal internet cafes here, and many of them are just places with only one or two second-hand computers in their shops or garages. They operate as illegal internet cafes, and if you investigate them one by one, you won't find anything even if you search until the sun goes down.

Not to mention, as soon as the police start investigating one illegal internet cafe, many other illegal internet cafes will receive messages from their competitors and scatter like birds and beasts, dismantling their machines.

However, Lu Wenying will definitely not give up.

A group of police officers investigating might make illegal internet cafes panic, but as long as I conduct undercover investigations after get off work, there won't be any problems.

Even if there's only the slightest possibility, she wants to make the chain of evidence as complete as possible.

As for the last question, not only Shen Xing, but the entire municipal bureau had no idea how to answer it.

Shen Xing saw Lu Wenying off, and only after Lu Wenying left did he pack up the things he was going to take to the school clinic.

Lu Wenying is quick-witted and daring, but the nature of this matter means she will never find out the truth.

Shen Xing checked the time and realized he was going to be late, so he simply called the logistics department and asked for half a day off, explaining that he was assisting the police investigation and that it had taken up too much time.

Train the puppet and see if it can be used to dispose of corpses; those internal organs should be exposed to the light of day.

The question now is, what is the furthest distance a puppet can obey commands?

It's important to know that the further away abnormal flesh and blood is from the school clinic, the lower its activity becomes; Shen Xing had experienced this before.

I might be able to pretend to be a school clinic staff member and temporarily act as a mobile signal tower for the dolls, but I can't get too close to the dolls.

The best method is to measure the extreme distance, place yourself in a location where it is absolutely impossible to dispose of the body, but you can still control the puppet and instruct it to dispose of the body.

Shen Xing has several suitable locations for disposing of the body.

In the backwaters or near debris barriers in the lower reaches of the river, many cases of floating corpses are found in these places or shallows, where bodies or body parts are discovered.

But if Shen Xing could think of these places, the police certainly could too. Moreover, the police started searching along the river yesterday, and they will definitely check these common places as well.

The riverbank is a better choice than the riverside.

The contents should not be washed away by the water, but should be fully soaked in water to reabsorb water and swell, so that the internal organs exhibit the putrefaction and swelling that should be present when a corpse is disposed of in water.

Therefore, a container that is permeable, conspicuous, easy to spot, and not easily washed away is needed.

There is a container that would be perfect, and it would also be related to Li Yaneng.

A cotton children's mannequin.

Printing photos, buying wigs, buying children's clothes... these are all minor things. The hardest thing is finding a similar old doll.

If he goes to buy them directly, he definitely can't just throw them away. There aren't many places in this small town that sell mannequin dolls, so if Shen Xing goes to buy them, he'll definitely leave a trace.

The easiest way is to "use the original soup to digest the original food".

The internal structure of the doll was completely cut out and transplanted onto a new doll.

The old dolls were left by the riverbank as dolls used by Li Ya to dispose of the body.

At that time, Shen Yuan can also testify that the doll was brought by Li Ya and given to Li Xiaohua.

Do you dissect the doll and completely separate its internal structures?

Can it be completely transplanted onto a toy doll or other contents?

Can a part of it... be sewn onto one's own body like abnormal flesh?

If possible, what would be the effect?

It also has to be done within the specified time.

Shen Xing glanced at the time; it was exactly eight o'clock.

I start work at 1:30 PM, and I need to allow half an hour for my commute, so I have five hours left...

enough.