Chapter 72: Chen Shi's Reasoning

Translator: Azza

Editor: Conspiracing

Leaving the community, Lin Dongxue asked Chen Shi, "Do you already have a good idea of everything?"

"Yeah." Chen Shi replied calmly.

"Hurry up and tell me!"

"No, I want to look at the expressions of surprise and respect on your faces when I reveal the whole truth."

Lin Dongxue snorted, "Hey, then I don’t want to hear it at the time."

"Just playing. I’m not saying it because it’s only a guess right now. I’m afraid it might be a mistake. I have to verify it. Wait until the bread is baked before I reveal it along with the nice smell."

Chen Shi’s mobile phone started ringing due to a call from Peng Sijue. He asked, “Are you investigating the case?”

"How did you know?"

Peng Sijue did not answer. "If you have time, I have some findings to tell you."

"Okay, I will be there soon."

"I’m not at the bureau. I’m in the autopsy laboratory of the Medical University."

Chen Shi looked at the time. It was already four o'clock in the afternoon. He told Lin Dongxue and Xu Xiaodong to go get off work first. Lin Dongxue refused. "I’m not going to leave. Why are you driving us away? I want to go see too."

"Well, I think the discovery of Lao Peng may be boring for you."

"To be a qualified policeman, you have to know everything."

"Let’s go. Get in the car!"

The three people went to the Medical University. At this time, it was still class time and the campus was very lively. Looking at the young men and women on campus, Xu Xiaodong said with envy, "A serious university like this must be nice."

"Yeah, it’s good. The police academy is not so good." Lin Dongxue also expressed envy and before turning to ask Chen Shi, "Have you ever been to college?"

"Does social college count?"[1]

As they passed by the basketball courts, Lin Dongxue suddenly heard a burst of wind. She turned her head to see an "unidentified flying object" flying right at her. She got scared and screamed. Chen Shi reached out and grabbed the basketball flying over with one hand.

Lin Dongxue, who was scared held her head and squatted down on the floor. Realizing that the pain hadn’t come, she turned her head and looked up. It turned out that a group of young men who were like skinny monkeys were playing basketball and had almost accidentally injured her. They shouted from the court, "Sorry, beauty!"

"Little bastards!" she yelled wearily with tears welling in her eyes.

"Be more careful next time!" Chen Shi skillfully dribbled the ball, then did a three-step layup. The boys all cheered.

Lin Dongxue’s eyes widened in fascination as she watched Chen Shi playing basketball for a brief moment. She immediately slapped her cheeks to restore her senses.

Xu Xiaodong asked, "Dongxue, you like people playing basketball? In fact, I also know how to play... Inside games."

"Cut your crap!"

"You’re even going to go on about your abilities inside a game?" Chen Shi patted the dust from his hands and walked back over.

"Brother Chen is really amazing. Have you considered joining the police team's basketball team?" Xu Xiaodong asked with a smile.

"Do I get money for it?"

"No."

"Then no thanks!"

The three went to the lab. When they entered the door, they felt a chill run down their backs. There were a lot of bottles and jars filled with human organs. Peng Sijue held a skull and smiled to greet them.

Xu Xiaodong shivered and asked, "Captain Peng, are you trying to summon the devil?"

"I'm doing a comparison." He set the skull down on the table, where many other skulls were placed. "My former professor allowed me to borrow this place for a day. I was looking for..."

"Looking for a similar case of bone hyperplasia as the deceased?" Chen Shi finished.

"Yes!" Peng Sijue pointed at a skull. "This is the closest one so far. It is a pity that there is no information recorded for the parts here. I don't know how long the bone hyperplasia took to proliferate."

"How do you think that bone hyperplasia is formed?"

"Through strong blunt force. It should be an injury sustained while he was alive. The affected area did not receive timely care, so the bone healed naturally to form a hyperplasia. Unfortunately, I’m uncertain of the time it took to form.”

Chen Shi looked at the skull on the table and probed, "You have been here for a whole day. Surely this isn’t the only thing you’ve checked?”

"You’re right, there is an oddity that I particularly care about. The long-term bed-ridden symptoms that appear on the deceased is my focus. Most of the remains here were sent by the hospital. I found a lot of similar cases here, proving that the deceased had experienced staying in bed for an extended period of time."

Lin Dongxue carefully questioned, "Captain Peng, this long bed rest means lying still every day, or..."

"Literally like a vegetative person, lying in bed all the time. There will be so many consequences."

“This includes going to the bathroom and eating?”

"Yes! I wrote on the report that the dead's esophagus had old scratches and I suspected that someone had used a nasogastric tube to feed him."

"The truth seems to have come out to the surface." Chen Shi laughed with sadness.

"I still don't understand!" Xu Xiaodong groaned.

Lin Dongxue revealed, "I seem to understand. What you mean is that the deceased had been lying on the bed for a long time before he died. If this is the case, it would be impossible for him to be able to drive out! That means the angle of Ximen Qing buying his murder needs to be re-examined. But this thing, why did Wu Hao and Pan Xiuying not mention it..." As soon as she said this, Lin Dongxue widened her eyes. "They are the murderers!"

“Not bad! Not bad” Chen Shi smiled. “After the last case, your ability to think independently has become stronger and stronger. I couldn’t even hide it from you. Let’s continue!”

"Wow, nice! Dongxue just graduated." Xu Xiaodong acknowledged with surprise.

Lin Dongxue wondered, "Why would Wu Hao kill his own brother? Pan Xiuying is a nurse and taking care of bedridden patients is a normal part of her work. She may have participated in this matter... But motivation! What is the motivation?"

"If you don't know the motives, let's take a look at all the possibilities." Chen Shi raised his hands and counted them one by one. "Killings are nothing more than murder, passionate killing, accidental killing. Which one do you think it is?"

"For passion? Or maybe it was an accident?"

"Or both. Wu Hao has a bad temper, and the neighbors have testified that the brothers had a bad relationship with each other. Perhaps Wu Hao hit the victim over a quarrel, but the deceased did not die; instead, he went into a vegetative state. So, Wu Hao and his sister-in-law 'raised him’ and prepared to deal with him when the timing was right... Guess why the brothers were arguing? I’ll give you a hint. More than one person reflected that Pan Xiuying’s looks were getting better. They said her figure became better and plumper. One of her nurse colleagues even mentioned that she had given sanitary napkins away to someone else."

"She is pregnant!" Peng Sijue announced calmly. "The amount of estrogen produced increases when a woman is pregnant, thus causing their body to change significantly.”

Lin Dongxue’s and Xu Xiaodong’s jaws hung open.

Chen Shi crooned, "Ximen has had a vasectomy. Guess who this child’s dad is?"

"Wu Hao's! He had a thing with his sister-in-law!" Lin Dongxue exclaimed.

"Oh shit, no! I can't believe it!" Xu Xiaodong said with amazement and disbelief. "Didn’t he struggle really hard to prove that his sister-in-law had an affair with someone?"

Chen Shi shared, "This pair of adulterers is playing the same instrument[2], shifting our focus. Interestingly, their low-level tricks have actually fooled a bunch of people. From the opening of this case, has anyone even asked Wu Hao for his alibi?"

1. Growing wiser through jobs. Street-wise education.

2. An expression where one pretends to be good and the other bad and they are just acting together. When two people play the same instrument, nobody can tell who is the one truly playing the instrument.