Chapter 718: The Midnight Experiment

Late at night, Chen Shi parked the car near Heping East Street, the site where the body parts were discovered. Accompanying him were Lin Dongxue and Tao Yueyue. Tonight, they were here to conduct an “experiment.”

Through DNA analysis, Peng Sijue had identified the type of bags used to contain the body parts. However, this didn’t provide much guidance since the bags retrieved from the scene were common black biodegradable plastic bags. These used to be common before Long’an enforced garbage sorting, leading supermarkets to now sell transparent plastic bags.

The three sat quietly in the car. Chen Shi took out his phone to read Xin Bai’s latest novel update. Tao Yueyue was munching on potato chips, the crunching sound echoing in the car, while Lin Dongxue stared into the night.

“I recently read a novel where they completely decomposed a body using chemical means. Is that possible?” Tao Yueyue asked.

“Haha, you must be talking about ‘The Deer and the Cauldron.’ That corpse-dissolving liquid is fictional!” Lin Dongxue responded cheerfully, happy to find a common topic.

“No, it’s ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray.'”

“Dor… I haven’t heard of that one,” Lin Dongxue admitted awkwardly, smiling, “I haven’t read it.”

“The premise of chemically decomposing a body is flawed!” Chen Shi said. “According to the law of conservation of mass, a substance reacting with another will produce a third substance. For instance, using strong acid to corrode a body would generate a lot of foul-smelling gas. If you did this at home, your neighbors would call the police. You’d have to do it in a remote area, but if you had that space, you might as well burn the body. Burning is the most effective chemical method, and the police wouldn’t trace you through the purchase of large amounts of strong acid.”

“Can we talk about cartoons or something?” Lin Dongxue grumbled.

“Think outside the box. Just turn the body into something else,” Tao Yueyue suggested excitedly.

“Haha, that could work.”

“What if you burned the body to ashes and made it into a diamond?”

“You should send that idea to Xin Bai,” Chen Shi laughed.

“Why didn’t the person disposing of the body burn it?” Tao Yueyue asked.

“Yeah, why not?” Chen Shi looked at Lin Dongxue.

“Is that a professor-style question or a student-style question?” Lin Dongxue asked.

“I’m thinking… Yueyue has a point. The method of disposal must serve the perpetrator’s interest. Dumping the body parts in trash bags is bound to be investigated by the police, and it’s a big case. Why not just burn the body in a remote area?”

“You said the person who disposed of the body wasn’t the killer. Maybe they didn’t care if the police investigated,” Lin Dongxue speculated.

“Maybe they wanted the police to investigate. I once heard from Peng Sijue about a case where a rural woman was found dead at home with a knife in her chest. It turned out she had committed suicide by drinking pesticide. Her son, upset about his parents’ constant fighting and his mother’s death, staged it as a murder to get the police involved.”

“If they wanted the police to investigate, they could just call them. It still doesn’t make sense,” Lin Dongxue objected.

“Uncle Chen, maybe they considered the deceased as garbage, not worth elaborate disposal,” Tao Yueyue suggested.

“Haha, psychological interpretation. You’ve grown! The deceased was a young woman, appearance unknown, slim. Who would think she’s worthless?”

“You’re overthinking it!” Lin Dongxue said. “Maybe the group had limitations, like no car or being too busy.”

“Or they had poor legal knowledge and didn’t know about the crime of desecrating a corpse…” Chen Shi pondered.

“They’re coming, a lot of them!” Lin Dongxue said, looking out the window.

It was already 11 PM, and a large group of people appeared on the street like a parade, each holding a black plastic bag, looking solemn.

The trio prepared their trash bags, filled only with waste paper. Chen Shi said, “Let’s go,” and they joined the procession.

As they got closer, they heard people talking: “What’s with this garbage sorting? It’s put scavengers out of work. These bottles and cans used to support many families. Now the government takes this resource, leaving them with nothing!”

“Yeah, I already pay for garbage disposal. Now they want me to sort it too. It’s such a hassle. They should refund my disposal fee!”

The more they talked, the more intense their discussions became, forming their own philosophy. Chen Shi whispered to Tao Yueyue, “Don’t grow up to be like this.”

Lin Dongxue was observing if there were small groups because the body parts came from nine bags, indicating at most nine people in this disposal team.

But people walked in twos and threes, not in large groups.

They searched for garbage bins because at night, to prevent littering, the district office removed the bins.

Someone suggested, “Just throw it here. Finding a bin at night is like a treasure hunt. I still have to shower and go to bed. The cleaners will take care of it in the morning.”

Saying this, the person threw their bag on the roadside, followed by others. This is the broken windows theory in action. Soon, a small mountain of garbage formed, and the people left, satisfied as if they had earned two hundred bucks.

“No manners!” Tao Yueyue said, “Uncle Chen, should we throw our trash here too?”

“Let’s make it look convincing.” Chen Shi threw his bag of waste paper.

Back in the car, Lin Dongxue said, “I didn’t see any small groups. Given they know people litter here every night, one of them must live nearby.”

“Is this area hard to manage?”

“Yes, I read online that Heping East Street has many residential areas and no commercial zones nearby, so people come here every night to dump trash. Some joke that people come here to make friends through these ‘collective activities.'”

“I saw a guy chatting up Sister Lin,” Tao Yueyue said.

“Ugh, so annoying,” Lin Dongxue said with disdain.

“Hmm, seems they don’t all live here. They must have come from elsewhere last night, just like us. Right, check the cars!” Chen Shi’s eyes lit up.