Chapter 31 1. Skeleton

Lao Cheng put something in front of me: "See what this is?" I almost spit out the tofu nao I just drank: "Boss, don't just put this kind of thing in front of the people who are eating!?" This is a skull, the skin and flesh have been completely rotted away, leaving only the bare bones.The gum part is a little incomplete, and the yellow dies are stuck on it, which looks like it is smiling at you. Lao Cheng disagrees: "Your nerves need to be strengthened, and this kind of thing will appear around you at any time—as long as you are still a policeman." I said angrily: "Then why did this thing appear in the cafeteria during breakfast?"

He smiled slyly, "You guess." I said: "You just said that you have nothing to do when you are full and go for a walk to digest and digest. Could it be the treasure you picked up while walking?" He nodded: "I guessed half right, but I didn't pick it up, it was an old man who scavenged. At around six o'clock this morning, this skull was picked up by a scavenger from the trash can outside the 'Tianyuan Famous Products' commercial building, with newspapers wrapped around it And a plastic bag. The person who picked it up thought he had found a treasure. As a result, he almost had a heart attack at the same moment he opened it.”

I muttered, "With so many things packed, the clues should be easy to find." He said: "It's not that simple. The plastic bags are ordinary black plastic bags, which can be found in every fishery store, and the newspaper is yesterday's daily newspaper, with the largest circulation in the city." Lao Cheng showed me the skull while talking, but fortunately, there were only the two of us in the cafeteria, and this is the police station, so no one cared about his weird behavior.If we were in a five-star hotel, we would have been kicked out as lunatics. "What do you think?" he asked.

"Boss, you are judging me again." I drank the tofu nao in one gulp. Looking at the skull, my stomach was always convulsed. If I didn't drink it up, I might lose my appetite in a while. "Competition? Whatever you think, I just want to hear the opinions of the newcomers first. Sooner or later, you will have to handle the case independently from us veterans." "Okay." I could only be patient, and reached out to touch the face of the skull. It was disgusting when my hand slid over the greasy bone. Lao Cheng reluctantly said: "I suggest you observe its mouth carefully." So I put my index finger into the gaping mouth and checked the teeth one by one, followed by the dark eyes.At this time, I couldn't hold it any longer, so I handed the skull back to him.

"How does it feel?" I honestly replied: "I want to vomit." "What is this?" He sneered contemptuously, "It won't be fruitless, tell me what you think." I said, "This is an elderly man with a well-to-do family." He asked, "What's the reason?" I said: "This person's gums have incomplete traces. After careful observation, there are yellow metal residues. It is suspected that this person once had gold teeth inlaid, and was later pulled out, resulting in damage to the gums. Therefore, it is inferred that his family is rich. Inlays There are more men with gold teeth, but women seldom use them for fear of being unsightly, so it is inferred that he was a man during his lifetime. With so many teeth lost, he should be quite old, so it is inferred that he is an elderly person."

Lao Cheng looked at me intently: "It's okay." "What do you mean by okay?" "That means it's a little stronger than I expected." "Are you still trying to say 'not quite right'? 9" "Hey," he smiled strangely, "You guessed it right, do you want to hear how the veteran analyzes it?" "I would like to hear more about it." I spread out my notebook seriously, ready to start listening to the class. He blinked and said, "You get into the mood pretty quickly." "Now I have developed a habit of taking notes frequently."

"What follows is an inference from observation in a more rigorous way—" he said. I exclaimed, "Is my statement not strict enough?" "Shut up and listen carefully. The deceased is a male. He is about 30 years old. His appearance features are: the lower lip is more protruding than the upper lip. Eight-character eyes." I wondered: "Huh? How did you know that!" "Cut," he said dismissively, "I'll tell you the method. Men's browbones are thicker, while women's are thinner. This skull obviously belongs to men. The inner side of the upper edge of the eye socket of the deceased is higher than the outer side, and it is also That is to say, the inner corner of the eye is higher than the outer corner of the eye, so I say it is a splayed eye. The position of the nostril on the skull, that is, the pyriform hole, can be used to measure many things. Generally speaking, if the pyriform hole is long and triangular, The nose of the deceased is long and narrow. On the contrary, it is short and wide. The size and shape of the nasal bone determine the size and shape of the back of the nose. The valley of the nose is high, the root of the nose is high, and the nose protuberance is high.”

"Oh, it's really not easy." I frantically recorded in my notebook, these extracurricular knowledge are not something teachers can teach. He said: "I have another question for you, do you think he is white, yellow or black?" "Damn, they must be of the yellow race. There are very few foreigners here." He said, "What if there are exceptions?" "I really don't know, how can I tell?" He said: "Anthropologists believe that the nose of white people has a high nose bridge, large nose tip, and high nose wings; while black noses have a low nose bridge, small nose tip, and short and wide nose wings; yellow people's noses are in between the former two. This skull It belongs to the yellow race, that’s right.”

I said, "By the way, you judged his age and the characteristics of his lips just now. On what basis?" "The wear and tear of his teeth told me his age," he said. "He had the lower teeth in front and the upper teeth in the back, so I judged his lower lip was more prominent than his upper lip." "It's amazing, I didn't expect you to know so much about the human body." I was completely convinced. It happened that Lao Mu from the forensics department opened the door and came in: "Yeah, you two are here too. Lao Cheng, why are you still holding this skull? I ran to our room early in the morning and said that there was no way to start. Let me tell you about the skull. The knowledge of forensics is showing off to newcomers now, isn’t it?”

That's it, I glared at Lao Cheng, and Lao Cheng said with a playful smile: "Old Mu, don't say it, I am shaping my bright and great image." Old Mu snorted: "I knew to show off, Team Wang is looking for you, and the skull case is probably yours. Hurry up." "Let's go," Lao Cheng put away his skull and patted me on the shoulder, "Let's handle the case!" "You...are you rubbing your hand on my body after touching the dead man's bones!"