Desperate Forensic Doctor - Chapter 7 - Bone Hunting

In the early days of setting up the new team, Chief Ding arranged an adaptation period for them, and no cases came in for a while.

The criminal police sorted out files, arranged offices, and conducted drills.

Qi Yian and Shen Junci had no fixed jobs to do. Sometimes Qi Yian was bored and went to the autopsy room to help other forensic doctors.

Shen Junci checked the latest forensic research documents every day.

As soon as they got to work that day, Chief Lu from the Forensic Medicine Centre knocked on their office door.

Qi Yian went to open the door, and Lu Can adjusted his glasses and said, “Dr Shen, I just signed the autopsy report on the infant’s death a few days ago. The floatation test was done well.”

Shen Junci nodded and said modestly: “It was completed with the help of Dr Wen and Dr Cheng.”

Lu Can said: “Dr Shen, you don’t have any cases on your hands for the time being, right?”

Shen Junci: “The department has just been established and the cases haven’t come in yet.”

Lu Can said straightforwardly: “That’s right, someone recently found a withered skeleton near Fengliang Mountain. The bones were severely damaged and need to be pieced together and restored. However, our forensic doctors are a bit overwhelmed. Can Dr Shen help us out?”

Shen Junci closed the information in his hand: “Let me understand the situation first.”

Seeing work coming, Qi Yian also stood up.

Lu Can took Shen Junci and Qi Yian to the autopsy room No. 3 nearby.

The white light was on on the workbench and the exhaust fan was also turned on, but Shen Junci still smelled the smell of rotting corpses. He put on his gloves and looked at a rotten skeleton on the autopsy table.

He had no idea what the body had gone through. The bones were in pieces, and many of them were incomplete.

Lu Can pointed out to him: “This corpse was just discovered the afternoon before yesterday. It was severely decomposed and partially whole. The identity cannot be confirmed.”

Shen Junci asked: “Were there any other items around it? Where are the clothes?”

“The clothes were found not far away, and all the records are here.” Lu Cun said and handed Shen Junci a piece of information. It was the forensic investigation record where the bones were found. It recorded in detail the time when the bones were found, the location, temperature, surrounding environment, and several photos were also taken.

It seemed that every once in a while, such bones would appear in the city. They didn’t know who they were, where they came from, and how they died. It seemed that they had been forgotten by the whole world.

Lu Cun said: “This corpse was found by the police in the forest of Fengliang Mountain in the south of the city the night before yesterday. I went to see the scene. I judged that it might have been eaten by wild animals. Overall, the damage was relatively serious. The top priority is that we need to confirm the identity and cause of the death of the deceased.”

Shen Junci nodded: “I’ll give it a try.”

Lu Cun saw that he had accepted the task and turned around to leave with satisfaction.

Qi Yian waited for Chief Lu to leave, closed the door of the autopsy room, and whispered: “I saw them discussing this corpse in the group yesterday.”

Shen Junci lowered his head to study the bones and hummed.

Qi Yian said: “This job was rejected by Dr Liu before.” He hesitated for a moment, then continued, “As for the autopsy of the infant a few days ago, Dr Liu later found out about it and lost his temper in the group. He said we should have called him and waited for him to come over and do it.”

This Dr Liu’s name is Liu Weiying. He returned from studying abroad. He was 32 years old this year. He was the first line in the Municipal Bureau and the successor of Chief Lu. Especially after Chief Lu became the director, many precise anatomy were performed by him.

However, although Liu Weiying’s skills were good, he was a bit narrow-minded and difficult. He rushed for the limelight jobs, and some troublesome basic tasks were pushed out to the others on the grounds that he was too busy. It’s called killing a chicken without a butcher’s knife.

Qi Yian felt that Liu Weiying was a little unhappy because they had overstepped their control over the past two days, so he assigned this job to him. He understood why other forensic doctors rejected it. The damage to this withered skeleton was very serious, and its restoration was very difficult, time-consuming and was a bit of a thankless job.

Moreover, even if they could put it together, what would happen after they finish it?

Could craniofacial restoration be achieved? Could they confirm its identity? Could the cause of death be confirmed?

There were too many undetermined factors and this case may become an unresolved case.

“Don’t think so much, someone always needs to do the basic work.” Shen Junci said while concentrating on distinguishing the pile of bones and found half of the skull.

He quickly found two teeth from the body and a piece of the lower jaw.

Shen Junci picked out a small strand of silver-white hair from a piece of soil. Then he picked out a few bones and quickly distinguished them based on their shapes and placed them in their proper positions.

The head, torso, and limbs slowly differentiated into a very crude human form.

This was a good exercise on human anatomy. Shen Junci asked Qi Yian: “What can you see?”

Qi Yian looked at the rotten bones in front of him: “The deceased should be a woman, relatively older. She was about 1.6 metres tall, and most of the body was skeletal. Judging from the environment at the scene, the death time was more than a year, and the remaining costal cartilage tissue can be used to do a DNA test, and other detailed examinations are needed before we can be sure.”

Shen Junci asked him: “How long do you think it will take to complete this?”

Qi Yian said: “It will probably take a few days of hard work……”

Shen Junci said: “It won’t take that long. Let’s pick out the big bones first, restore them, inspect them and distinguish them.”

Lights were turned on above and below the autopsy table, with a shadowless lamp on the upper level and a white light box on the lower level.

Shen Junci divided the table into several areas, placing the skull, trunk bones, and limb bones respectively.

Some bones were very smooth and clean, and some had animal teeth marks on them.

Shen Junci added another sentence: “You divide the parts you feel confident about and leave the unclear parts to me.”

Qi Yian looked down and saw a longer bone in front of him. He could distinguish the radial tuberosity, which was a section of the radius.

He put together a few pieces and encountered another problem: “Mentor, this piece is……”

Shen Junci took one look and quickly judged: “Scaphoid bone.”

Qi Yian hesitated: “But in terms of shape……”

Shen Junci said: “It was an old injury. About two years before her death, the deceased fell and fractured the scaphoid bone. It healed well. This shows that the deceased received timely medical treatment, and the hospital should be a relatively standardised large hospital.” He paused and said, “So I suspect that this old woman was lost.”

Elderly people fall often. Once they used their hands to support the ground, they were prone to fractures of the navicular bone.

Qi Yian suddenly realised.

There are a total of 206 bones in the adult body, and piecing together the bones required a lot of patience.

As things really progressed, Qi Yian discovered that Shen Junci had a profound understanding of human bones.

Just by looking at it, he could quickly tell which bone it was and put it in the right place. Shen Junci would also patiently tell him how to identify the bones and how to read the person’s life from the bones.

This was like a unique anatomy class. In just a short period of time, Qi Yian learnt more than when he was in school.

Within an hour, the basic human form was completed.

In two more hours, many fine bones were returned to the right places.

In three hours, the entire skeleton was put together, and the locations of the missing bones were marked with sticky notes.

At this time, in the chief medical examiner’s office, several medical examiners were finishing the autopsy.

Wen Wan took a moment to relax and thought of the corpse that came the day before yesterday: “By the way, what happened to the nameless skeleton? Do you still need help? I have nothing to do this afternoon, so I can work on it.”

Cheng Gong looked at Chief Lu’s absence and said, “Chief Lu assigned this job to Dr Shen early in the morning, and he should be working on it right now.”

Wen Wan was stunned: “Dr Shen is from the Special Criminal Division. This…He just gave him the task without asking Captain Gu. Isn’t it not too good?”

Liu Weiying, who was on the side, laughed after hearing this: “We are all forensic doctors from the city bureau. We can’t be too busy here while they are idle. Those who can, should do more work.”

After hearing what he said, everyone stopped talking, and the big office became quiet for a while.

There was a forensic intern who joined the city bureau around the same time as Qi Yian, named Song Qiancheng. He timidly asked Liu Weiying: “Teacher Liu, how long will it take to piece together such a damaged body?”

Liu Weiying was a good teacher and patiently explained to the intern: “Skeletons like that test the forensic doctor’s understanding of bones. For those of you who are not very skilled, it will probably take a week to recover it.”

He then asked Wen Wan, “Dr Wen, how long do you think it would take if it were you?”

Wen Wan thought for a while: “If I have nothing to do and work hard slowly, it will take about two days.”

Liu Weiying was very satisfied with the answer. He said to Song Qiancheng: “For someone like me who is familiar with the human skeleton, it can be completed in less than a day.”

Song Qiancheng showed admiration: “Teacher Liu, you are so amazing.”

While everyone was talking, someone knocked on the door of the big office.

Wen Wan ran to open the door and saw Shen Junci standing outside the door. She hurriedly greeted him: “Dr Shen, are you okay?”

Shen Junci looked inside and found that Chief Lu was not there, so he said, “Excuse me, I wanted to see Chief Lu…”

Liu Weiying said loudly: “Chief Lu is out on the field, you can tell me if you have anything.”

Shen Junci said calmly: “Then please tell Chief Lu. He asked me to assemble a skeleton this morning. Now that it’s finished, it’s placed on the autopsy table in autopsy room No. 3.”

The air in the office became tense and solidified instantly.

It’s only been a few hours and it’s all over?

Especially after everyone had just discussed it, this was a bit too shocking.

“You finished it?” Liu Weiying suddenly lost his composure, and he stood up and said, “I’ll go take a look.”

As he spoke, he strode out directly.

Wen Wan, Cheng Gong also stood up, and even Song Qiancheng didn’t miss this learning opportunity and walked to the autopsy room together.

Liu Weiying entered the autopsy room and looked down. Sure enough, a complete withered skeleton was lying quietly on the autopsy table.

Dr Liu’s first reaction was to find fault, but after searching through it with his eyes, there was nothing wrong. Some broken bones were put together, and the missing ones were marked with sticky notes.

Wen Wan hurriedly smoothed things over: “As long as it’s over, I’ll contact the criminal police team and ask them to check the missing records.”

Cheng Gong turned to Shen Junci and asked: “Dr Shen, do you have any ideas about the identity of the deceased?”

When Shen Junci heard him ask, he told them everything he knew: “The deceased was about 75 years old, female, and the time of death is estimated to be one year and five months. Most of the damage marks on the bones were caused after death. The left hand of the deceased was once broken and had a period of healing. I think we can focus on investigating elderly people near Fengliang mountain, especially those with Alzheimer’s disease.”

Liu Weiying frowned and asked, “What about the cause of death?”

Shen Junci said: “When the body was discovered, the bones were in a sheltered place, the seams in the skull were cracked, and the clothes were not far away. There were no signs of damage. I think it might have been abnormal undressing.”

Qi Yian said: “She took off her clothes abnormally, and froze to death?”

Shen Junci said yes: “I suspect that the deceased died of hypothermia. The specific conclusion needs to be tested and can only be confirmed after ruling out some causes.”

After saying a few words, the other forensic doctors standing in the autopsy room fell silent for a moment.

Especially Liu Weiying.

In such a short period of time, the remains were pieced together and a reasonable cause of death was found. He had to admit that Dr Shen’s ability might be better than his.

Dr Liu frowned when he thought of this, but it didn’t make sense. He had also seen Shen Junci’s resume and even asked a friend who graduated from that school.

According to Shen Junci’s current skills and performance, there was no way he should have achieved such results in school.

Seeing that they were still stunned, Shen Junci said calmly: “Do you have anything else to do? If nothing else, I’ll go eat and rest first.”

Liu Weiying racked his brains and thought about how to save his face. After hesitating for a while, he knelt down and said, “It’s okay. Thank you Dr Shen for your hard work……”

Qi Yian chased him out: “Mentor, where did you learn these techniques?”

Shen Junci said calmly: “Accumulated through practice, there are billions of people in this world, and there are always a lot of corpses somewhere.”

The author has something to say:

Forensic Dr Liu: Should I kneel directly or go through a ritual?