Chapter 19: A New Beginning

Since it was confirmed that this was the first crime scene, Tang Jianing was certain that there would be significant discoveries here, aided by the prompt box.

Soon, another green prompt box popped up on the wall where her finger touched.

“Bloodstains washed by rainwater, faintly showing a spray pattern.”

Spray?

Tang Jianing paused for a moment upon seeing the word, then remained where she was.

“Dahu, come here!”

“I’m coming!”

Hearing Tang Jianing’s call, Dahu quickly approached.

“Stand in front of me and move however I tell you.”

Squinting, Tang Jianing glanced at the spot where the prompt box appeared, then roughly measured the height with her hand.

The girl’s profile said she was 1.65 meters tall, slightly shorter than Tang Jianing.

Bending her knees slightly, she ensured she was the same height as the girl.

“Dahu, hold your phone as if it’s the weapon and swipe it past my neck, at the carotid artery position.”

Following Tang Jianing’s instruction, Dahu swiftly moved his phone across her neck.

Watching Dahu’s awkward posture, Tang Jianing quickly adjusted.

“Bend your knees more, lower about five centimeters.”

Observing the simulated cut again, Tang Jianing frowned slightly and continued the experiment.

“Take a step forward, bend your arm a little.”

“Lean your torso forward, grab me with your other hand.”

...

After repeated trials, Tang Jianing soon arrived at approximate data and quickly jotted it down in her notebook.

“The killer is male, height between 1.7 and 1.75 meters, weight between 54 and 61 kilograms.”

“Age between thirty and thirty-five years old, right-handed.”

Though the bloodstain had been washed by rain countless times, Tang Jianing still managed to extract some crucial information.

Murder is a technical act; different methods leave distinct traces at the scene.

The blood sprayed, and at this height, only the carotid artery was damaged by external force, which must have been instantaneous.

Pressure would cause the blood to spray outward, creating the large spray pattern on the wall.

She slid her finger around again, but this time the clues were limited.

Most were supplementary to the conclusion just reached.

Tang Jianing frowned as she looked at the clues in her hand.

Though these hints seemed helpful for identifying the killer, their actual significance to the entire case was not as great as imagined.

Height, age, gender...

These clues pointed to a group that was, in fact, the largest segment in the entire industry.

If only local residents were involved, perhaps with the help of the police and street contacts, a thorough inquiry could be attempted.

But if migrants were included, even someone like Tang Jianing, who had influence in both legal and underground circles, wouldn’t have enough resources to investigate so many people.

Leaning against the back seat of the car, Tang Jianing exhaled slowly and refocused on the very beginning of the case.

There’s always a reason for murder — impulse, premeditation, even greed — but certainly a motive exists.

Though the perpetrator of this depraved serial killing seemed devoid of humanity, the act was driven by some desire within.

Tang Jianing laid out the victim’s information and examined it carefully.

“Dahu, what do you think of Mountain City University?”

“It’s pretty good. Honestly, a rough guy like me probably wouldn’t have gotten in even if I hadn’t gone into this life.”

Hearing Dahu’s answer, Tang Jianing narrowed her gaze and fixed it on the university column.

Returning to the start of the case, she noticed something previously overlooked.

The victim’s university!

Among all the information, the victim’s school was not a prestigious one.

In fact, one might say the victims owed their admission to the recent university expansion.

Do construction workers differentiate between university students?

No. Most construction workers came from the pre-expansion era, and to them, a university student is simply a university student.

Whether it’s a top school or a lesser one, it’s still a university student!

How could they discern the difference?

Therefore...

After pondering for a moment, Tang Jianing quickly crossed out the construction worker category on her notes.

Thus, in the identity column, only those engaged in the construction industry remained.

Excluding workers, the range narrowed significantly, though still large.

She pulled up a map of Mountain City on her phone and began marking one school after another based on the victim’s data.

“Miss, what are you doing?” Dahu asked from the driver’s seat, dazzled by the flurry of points Tang Jianing was marking on her phone.

“Dahu, do you know how killers usually dispose of bodies?”

Hearing the question, Dahu quickly answered, drawing on his years of experience.

“Anyone who’s killed before knows the safest way is to bury the body in the mountains — some remote cemetery or wilderness. Even if a flood uncovers it one day, no one would care.”

Nodding at Dahu’s response, Tang Jianing pointed to the marked points on the phone and spoke slowly.

“In fact, most murder cases follow a principle: ‘Far throw, near bury.’”

“That means if the body parts are discarded rather than buried, the site where the body fragments are found will be some distance from the initial crime scene.”

“If the body parts are buried, then the fragment site is relatively close to the first scene.”

“What do you think about the buckets used to hide the body? Was that burying or discarding?”

Tang Jianing’s words made Dahu ponder briefly before answering.

“Burying!”

The body had been processed and sealed firmly in cement inside the buckets.

If not for Tang Jianing’s intense curiosity, once construction resumed here, these buckets would be mixed with rubble and sent to a crushing plant for recycling.

A giant machine capable of pulverizing concrete could crush human remains without anyone noticing!

“Yes, burying the body!”

Tang Jianing connected all the points on the map and spoke with firm resolve.

“‘Far throw, near bury.’ According to this principle, the place where the body appeared can’t be far from the first crime scene.”

“Starting from here, it’s at most a fifteen-minute drive to the abandoned warehouse.”

“Tomorrow we’ll purchase a batch of luminol reagent, and have our street contacts spray it everywhere suspicious.”

“Once we see a fluorescence reaction, this case will be close to cracking.”