National Forensic Doctor-Chapter 937 - 873: The Skinner

Shiting County was once the place where Jiang Yuan led his team on a campaign to clear out the dens and nests—this is literally what they did. The biggest case that Jiang Yuan and his team worked on in Shiting County was about someone stuffing bodies into ancient tombs. For that, the special case team dug up a large number of tombs and ultimately cracked the case... and wiped out the group from Qinghe City and the entire family of the Yuan’s, who were the leaders.

Despite Jiang Yuan’s recent completion of the "Poison Capture Net" case, which took down three crystal and Crystal Cruise’s new type of drug kingdoms, in terms of scale, especially in terms of impact, "Poison Capture Net" still couldn’t compare to Jianyuan Group.

After all, Jianyuan Pharmaceutical was a pillar enterprise in Qinghe City, and the whole economy of Qinghe City worsened after it was taken down.

Shiting County became even poorer as well.

Accordingly, the leader of Shiting County Bureau, Bai Jian, should have become particularly poor too, since they had contributed to the construction of the new integrated building for Ningtai County back then...

Huang Qiangmin looked Bai Jian up and down and said, "Old Bai, being generous with money doesn’t seem like your style."

"That’s an old mindset of yours, looking down on people, as if units from poor counties are unwilling to spend money," Bai Jian looked at Huang Qiangmin, his stubborn mouth unwavering as he said: "Honestly, I don’t like your attitude. We poor counties are the ones who know to spend money where it’s needed!"

Listening to this, Huang Qiangmin shook his head: "You’re not cultured enough to hear that you’re actually praising our Jiang Yuan in various ways."

"I’m not praising anyone. I’m talking about our county’s fiscal strategies." Bai Jian’s mouth was always harder than granite. He added, "Just tell us how much funding your Taihe Working Group needs."

Huang Qiangmin waved his hand: "This matter isn’t so simple. Your Shiting County really doesn’t have access to the Tai River, so it’s indeed inappropriate to ask you to fundraiser for the Taihe Working Group."

Bai Jian frowned: "You think we in Shiting County have no money, right?"

"Old Shi, don’t hang on to the matter of money. It’s not all about that." Huang Qiangmin smiled and glanced around at everyone, saying, "Our brother units within Shannan Province should mainly help and support each other; otherwise, we would just go straight to Beijing, where they offer A6 support, which is significantly stronger in every aspect, but we are not about that."

"You’ve made your comparison. I don’t care about that; in short, Shiting County must participate in the Taihe Working Group. The Tai River is Shannan Province’s river, and it’s historically Shannan’s river. It’s equivalent to the mother river of Shannan Province, so it’s everyone’s duty to join the Taihe Working Group, and every county should join." Bai Jian’s words were so firm they were hard to resist.

Other captains at the scene looked at Bai Jian with admiration; an old detective should have the ability to bluff with open eyes, otherwise, wouldn’t they be easily confused by the riffraff on the streets?

Huang Qiangmin looked again at Bai Jian: "Old Shi, you’ve improved. Can you make the decision?"

A captain of the detective unit is only a middle-ranking official within the police department, in charge of operational leadership, and can’t decide on major issues.

Bai Jian raised his head: "I have indeed improved by becoming the deputy director in charge of criminal investigations."

"Wow, congratulations." Huang Qiangmin and the other captains all began to speak auspicious words, sensing at least eighty percent of them knew this news.

Huang Qiangmin couldn’t help but introspect whether he was too insensitive to news within the province.

"Director Bai," Huang Qiangmin cupped his hands.

"Commissioner Huang, you are too kind," Bai Jian laughed heartily, then with a tight-lipped smile, said, "This year, we’ve solved many cold murder cases and a series of major crimes. The leadership appreciated it, so I couldn’t help it... how about it, coming to Shiting County to celebrate?"

Huang Qiangmin was amused by Bai Jian’s words; this guy always managed to deliver soft words with a tough tone, a true master of tough talk.

"What kind of case was it?" Huang Qiangmin asked.

"Our case is quite peculiar," Bai Jian said with a more solemn expression when it came to the case, "I wasn’t in a hurry just now because I know that once I bring this case out, Captain Jiang will definitely be willing to take a look."

Jiang Yuan had dealt with Bai Jian many times during his investigations in Shiting County. Hearing him say this, he came over with a smile tinged with emotional intelligence: "Director Bai, please give us an introduction." freewebnσvel.cѳm

"In our case, it’s only happened for five days. Let me summarize it in one sentence: A woman died, and her scalp, along with her facial skin, was peeled off." When Bai Jian reached this point, his face lost all traces of amusement, and he said coldly, "The scene was too gruesome to bear; the victim’s face, her scalp, everything had been stripped, leaving no lips or nose, just the eyeballs hanging on the white teeth ridge."

With his words, everyone immediately visualized the scene at the site.

Hou Le couldn’t help but shudder: "A major case from Shiting County!"

Bai Jian ignored him and looked at Jiang Yuan: "Our forensic doctor, Wei Qun, whom Captain Jiang has met, determined that the victim was strangled to death first and then gradually had her scalp and face skin peeled away. Additionally, there were signs of struggle at the scene, and the victim had marks of being hit on the head with a blunt object."

"The victim was a 42-year-old woman living alone, her husband worked out of town, and she ran a small shop in the village with a fairly good reputation."

"The body was discovered by a villager who came to shop. The estimated time of death was the previous evening. The village is near a main road, and the shop is near a county road. At the preliminary stage, we suspect that it was a non-local person who committed the crime, but if that’s the case, this investigation will be quite difficult."

Jiang Yuan was also taken aback.

Although he hadn’t seen the specific case files yet, based on Bai Jian’s description, there were already signs of a potential serial killer.

Especially the action of removing the scalp and facial skin is typical of a serial killer. Noted examples include the face-cutting demon Ma Yong from Shenzhen-Hong Kong, who killed more than a dozen job-seeking girls by cutting their faces and dismembering their bodies, and the American frontier settlers who scalped Native Americans...

Yet in Shannan Province, in Qinghe City, the existence of such a murderer was somewhat unexpected.

Further considering, was this the killer’s first crime, or was it a mistake among many crimes?

Considering this aspect, the small shop’s location near the main road makes it convenient for committing the crime, but also likely to be discovered. If the murderer was startled and abandoned the body halfway through, fleeing in a panic, that could be possible.

But regardless of the reason, if the crime was committed by an outsider, especially if it was a serial killer, the difficulty level of this case would be very high.

"Have you investigated to see if there are similar cases elsewhere?" Jiang Yuan couldn’t help but consider the worst-case scenario.

Bai Jian shook his head slightly: "We did research, and there are no similar cases in recent years."

"Let’s look at the case files first, and then we’ll go to Shiting County," Jiang Yuan said, standing up, leaving the others to attend to Commissioner Huang.