I Sent You to Take the College Entrance Exam, and You Ended Up Solving a Murder Case?! - Chapter 52

A quick glance revealed at least forty-odd entries.

The elites from various departments of the Criminal Investigation Bureau, the Provincial Department, and the Municipal Bureau have almost all gathered here.

Everyone’s expression was unusually serious, and the hushed conversations stopped abruptly the moment Chen Mo entered the room.

Dozens of sharp gazes were cast at him simultaneously.

Wu Xiubing, the director of the municipal bureau, who was sitting on the side of the conference table, waved to him.

“Chen Mo, come, sit here.”

Wu Xiubing pointed to an empty seat at the end of the long table in the middle.

Chen Mo nodded and walked over to sit down.

His gaze quickly swept over the head of the table.

Sitting in the very center was a middle-aged man with slightly graying temples.

Liu Degang, Deputy Director of the Criminal Investigation Bureau.

Chen Mo made a judgment in an instant.

This is a legendary figure; he has personally handled so many earth-shattering cases that you can’t count them all on your fingers.

To Liu Degang’s left is a refined and scholarly leader, Xu Jianguo, the deputy director of the provincial department.

On the right is Wu Xiubing, the director of the municipal bureau.

Liu Degang’s sharp gaze slowly swept across the entire room, his voice loud and steady.

“Comrades, I won’t go into details about how dire the situation is.”

“After deliberation by the Ministry and the Provincial Department, it was decided to immediately establish a special task force for the ‘September 19th Hualong Mountain Major Murder and Burial Case’.”

“I, Liu Degang, will serve as the head of the special task force.”

“Deputy Director Xu of the Provincial Department and Director Wu of the Municipal Bureau will serve as deputy team leaders.”

“Everyone here is an elite backbone drawn from the General Administration, provincial departments and municipal bureaus.”

“I don’t care what level you were at before or what qualifications you have.”

“Once you join this task force, you only have one identity: a member of the task force!”

“Everyone must unconditionally obey the commands of their respective squad leaders!”

“Anyone who dares to act like a senior or throw a tantrum here.”

“Don’t blame me, Liu Degang, for being ruthless; you’ll be the first one kicked out!”

As soon as he finished speaking, the atmosphere in the meeting room became even more tense.

Many of the veteran police officers who had come down from above unconsciously sat up straight.

Chen Mo’s heart skipped a beat.

Squad leader? It seems this organizational structure is going to break with convention.

Sure enough, Wu Xiubing cleared his throat and took over the conversation.

“Next, let’s invite Comrade Chen Mo, the discoverer of this case and the captain of the Fifth Team of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Municipal Public Security Bureau, to introduce the preliminary facts of the case.”

All eyes were once again focused on Chen Mo.

Chen Mo stood up and walked to the whiteboard in front of him.

On the huge projection screen behind him, the internal affairs officer had already pulled up the photos of the scene.

The first picture shows the first burial pit that was dug up.

The stark white bones, even in just a photograph, elicited a soft gasp in the conference room.

Chen Mo didn’t look at the photos; those images were already etched into his mind.

“On September 19, the Municipal Public Security Bureau received a report from the Qingliu County Branch.”

“A group of hikers discovered what appears to be human remains deep in the Hualong Mountains.”

“After I led my team to the scene, we confirmed the first burial site and immediately organized police forces to conduct a thorough search of the surrounding area.”

“As of early this morning, we have discovered five burial sites.”

He picked up the laser pointer and circled the locations of the five pits on the projection screen.

“A total of 35 corpses were recovered from the five burial sites.”

“Whoosh…”

Although everyone present was a seasoned veteran detective.

But hearing the exact number still caused a stir.

“All the deceased were women. According to the preliminary forensic examination, the cause of death for all of them was blunt force trauma to the back of the head.”

“Among them, the three bodies in the No. 2 burial site were fresh, while the remaining thirty-two were all skeletons.”

“Based on the on-site investigation, we have a preliminary, but very disturbing, conclusion.”

He paused for a moment, his gaze sweeping over everyone present.

“The number of skeletons unearthed from burial sites No. 1, No. 3, No. 4 and No. 5 is eight in each case.”

“Only at burial site number two, there are three bodies.”

“We have reason to believe that the killer was following some kind of special pattern, or rather… ritual.”

“The quota for Pit No. 2 is not yet full.”

“This means that he is very likely to continue committing crimes in order to make up the other five spots.”

After he finished speaking, the entire conference room fell into a deathly silence.

After a brief silence, Liu Degang raised his hand.

“You can ask questions now.”

One of the police officers raised his hand first.

“Comrade Chen Mo, I would like to ask about the progress of the investigation and screening in the area surrounding the crime scene. Are there any eyewitnesses or surveillance footage?”

Chen Mo shook his head.

“No.”

“The Hualong Mountains are a vast area, and the crime scene is located in a no-man’s land, rarely visited by people.”

“We have already sent the comrades from the First and Fourth Squadrons to visit all the villages and intersections at the foot of the mountain.”

“There were no valuable clues. It was an absolute blind spot for surveillance.”

This result was expected by everyone.

Another forensic expert from the provincial department asked, “Is there any progress in identifying the 35 victims?”

“Our technical investigation team is already extracting DNA from all the remains and comparing it with the national missing persons database.”

“However, since most of the remains are severely skeletalized, DNA extraction and comparison will take time.”

The scene fell into a brief moment of reflection once again.

There were no witnesses, no surveillance footage, and they didn’t even know who the deceased was.

This is practically a perfect locked-room murder, except…

This “secret room” is located in a barren mountain area spanning hundreds of kilometers.

Just then, Liu Degang, the team leader who had been silent all along, suddenly spoke up.

“Comrade Chen Mo.”

“Here,” Chen Mo replied immediately.

“You were the first to be present at the scene and the first to propose the idea of ​​‘ritual killing’.”

“Now, I don’t want you to tell me about those objective evidence and procedures.”

“I just want to hear your most intuitive judgment.”

“This murderer, his burial routine, his motives…”

“What kind of person do you think we’re dealing with?”

All eyes were focused on this excessively young criminal investigation captain.

A high-ranking official from a ministry was parachuted in, and at the very first meeting of the special task force, he actually asked a junior criminal police officer what he thought?

But Liu Degang’s eyes had a penetrating quality.

Chen Mo met his gaze, and at that moment, his heart skipped a beat, which was quite inopportune.

He knew this was both a test and an opportunity.

Under the watchful eyes of everyone, Chen Mo slowly stood up and walked towards the whiteboard at the front of the conference room.

He picked up a black marker and drew five irregular circles on the whiteboard, labeling them with numbers.

“Director Liu, distinguished leaders.”

“We only noticed the number before. Pit No. 1, No. 3, No. 4 and No. 5 all contained eight skeletons.”

“Pit number two contains three bodies.”

“But we ignored their geographical distribution.”

Chen Mo used his pen to connect the four circles numbered one, three, four, and five with thick lines.

An irregular quadrilateral appeared on the whiteboard.

“If we project a map of the Hualong Mountains here, we will discover an even more interesting phenomenon.”

“These four burial sites almost perfectly correspond to the four stars of the ‘Dou Kui’ of the Big Dipper on the ancient star map.”

The Big Dipper!

A soft gasp filled the conference room