The crackdown on organized crime began with the arrest of the mother-in-law.

Chapter 991 Skeletons in the Deep Foundation Pit

A building construction site in Dongchuan City.

The gloomy clouds hung low, and the roar of the excavator suddenly stopped. Foreman Lao Li's hand, gripping the walkie-talkie, trembled slightly. A worker's terrified cry came through the walkie-talkie: "Brother Li! We dug out bones! They look like human bones!" Lao Li wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, shakily pulled out his phone, and dialed 110.

Half an hour later, the red and blue lights of the police car pierced the gloom of the construction site. Li Ming jumped out of the car, his gaze sweeping over the workers gathered around the foundation pit, their faces still bearing the lingering fear. "Xiao Wang, Xiao Zhou, go and question the person who reported the incident and the relevant workers; Xiao Sun, Xiao Yang, prepare for the on-site investigation," he gave the brief orders, his voice steady and powerful.

Xiao Wang and Xiao Zhou hurried towards the pale-faced Old Li. "Tell me slowly, how did you find the remains?" Xiao Zhou pulled out his notebook, pen nib hovering over the paper. Old Li swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing: "Just now, excavator number three was digging the foundation when suddenly there was a 'crack,' like it hit something hard. The driver went down to check, and there were white bones sticking out of the soil! They were terrified!"

"What exactly was the time?" Xiao Wang pressed. "2:17 PM, I checked my phone." Old Li opened his call log; the time he reported the incident was clearly displayed on the screen. Xiao Zhou continued, "Before the remains were found, was there anything unusual in this area? Like ground subsidence or a strange smell?" Old Li scratched his head, pondering for a moment, "There wasn't any strange smell, but last month when it rained, a small patch of ground here sank deeper than the rest. We thought it was just loose soil, so we filled it with some gravel. Now that I think about it, maybe underneath..." His voice trailed off, a look of fear crossing his face.

On the other side, Xiao Sun and Xiao Yang, already dressed in their surveying suits, latex gloves, and goggles, cautiously approached the excavation pit. Xiao Sun crouched down and gently brushed away the dirt from the surface of the skeleton with a small brush, while Xiao Yang held up his camera, taking pictures from various angles. "The skull is intact; the initial assessment is that it belongs to an adult," Xiao Sun's voice came from behind his mask. "But there are obvious fracture marks on the ribs, which don't seem to be naturally formed." He picked up a piece of bone with brown stains using tweezers. "This leg bone has knife-like cuts; we need to take it back for further testing."

Xiao Yang carefully observed the soil around the skeleton: "The soil around the skeleton is clearly layered. The top layer is freshly turned construction soil, and the bottom layer is darker in color, mixed with some fabric fragments." He picked up a piece of rag with tweezers. "Judging from the texture, it looks like denim. It needs to be sent to the technical department for testing." Xiao Sun nodded and began to measure the position and posture of the skeleton: "The body is curled up, with its hands protecting its chest. This posture... looks like it's defending itself against something."

At this moment, Li Ming walked over, his gaze sweeping over the skeleton and the surrounding traces: "Expand the investigation area; anything within a ten-meter radius could be a clue." He turned to Xiao Wang and Xiao Zhou, "What was the situation at the construction site before? Had anyone gone missing?" Xiao Zhou opened his notebook: "I asked around. This area used to be wasteland, located in the urban-rural fringe, with complex population movement. Before construction started, nearby residents would occasionally come here to dump garbage, but I haven't heard of any missing persons."

Li Ming frowned: "No matter what, first find out the missing persons records for the year before construction started, especially those with similar ages, heights, and skeletal remains." He then looked at Xiao Sun and Xiao Yang, "Send the remains and evidence back to the bureau as soon as possible, focusing on examining the damage to the remains, the time of death, and the information on the fabric fragments."

As night fell, the white light from the construction site's searchlights blurred into a hazy mist in the damp air.

The first thing the two did was to conduct an on-site investigation and take photos.

Xiao Yang knelt at the edge of the pit, the soil beneath his knees pressed into dark indentations. He held his breath, his left hand gripping a miniature LED survey lamp, his right hand holding a macro camera, the lens precisely aimed at the skeleton's curled-up right hand—where a rusty button was half-clutched, the etched English letters "JC" faintly visible in the cold light.

“30-degree angle, aperture F8.0?” Xiao Yang’s voice came through the mask. Xiao Sun half-squatted behind him, his eyes scanning the composition in the viewfinder, his fingers quickly adjusting the camera settings: “Add two more stops of exposure compensation, the reflection in the dirt will eat up the details.” The shutter clicked, and the RAW file instantly recorded the texture of the oxide layer on the edge of the button, as well as the subtle drag marks in the dirt below.

Switching to a close-up of the skull, Xiao Sun took out a ring flash and fixed it to the front of the lens. The cool white light evenly enveloped the sunken right temporal bone of the skull, and the concentric circles at the fracture were clearly visible under the strong light. "Take three sets of superimposed focus photos from different angles," Xiao Sun instructed while operating the tripod's fine-tuning knobs. "Use Helicon Focus in post-processing to composite them; it will reveal the layers of the bone fracture."

The skeleton at the bottom of the pit was curled up like a fetus, and the dent on the right side of the skull was shocking. Xiao Sun took out a magnifying glass and brought it close to the wound. The concentric cracks on the surface of the decaying bone were clearly visible: "A blunt object strike, powerful enough to be fatal." He suddenly frowned and used tweezers to precisely pick up the black fiber stuck between the teeth. "Cotton fabric, the same material as the fragments next to the leg bone."

While extracting the black fibers from between the teeth, Xiao Yang switched the camera to time-lapse mode. The shutter automatically triggered every 0.5 seconds, recording the entire process from the tweezers touching the decaying bone, picking up the fibers, to placing them into the evidence bag. "The ISO can't exceed 800, otherwise the noise will swallow the fiber details," Xiao Sun said, leaning closer to the display screen to check the histogram. After confirming the exposure parameters were correct, he added, "Place the scale bar in the lower left corner of the image to maintain a 1:1 scale with the actual object."

As Xiao Yang gently peeled away the soil beneath the skeleton with his shovel, his movements suddenly stopped. A piece of bluish-gray cloth, wrapped around some hard object, was revealed. He held his breath and cleaned it with a brush, and a deformed silver pendant gradually emerged—on the pendant shaped like angel wings, the solidified dark red substance glowed with a ghostly blue fluorescence under luminol.

"Take it back for bloodstain testing." Xiao Sun's voice unconsciously rose, and the sound of the evidence bag being sealed was particularly jarring in the quiet construction site. At this moment, technician Xiao Chen approached with a 3D scanner, the laser beam weaving a fine grid on the surface of the skeleton: "After the on-site modeling is completed, it can restore the stress angles and burial posture of the bones."

Below the skeleton's left hand, Xiao Yang discovered an unusual indentation. He took out plaster powder and a syringe and carefully poured it into the indentation: "This is the outline of a rectangular object with serrated edges." When the plaster model took shape, the clear brick patterns made everyone gasp—it was clearly the imprint of half a brick.