Chapter 191: The Bone Density Fluid (2/2)

“It was too dark to tell,” he answered.

Xiaotao slid her car key through the crack of the door and yelled, “The bastards! They even dared to smash a police officer’s car! Move my car to a safer spot with a surveillance camera, will you?”

“Do you need to ask Uncle Wang to do that?” I asked. “Why don’t you do it yourself?”

“I’m not wearing clothes!” answered Xiaotao. I heard the sound of Bingxin giggling behind Xiaotao. It turned out that they had just taken a shower and were having a chat.

Yuanchao and I went downstairs and found that all of the cars from Nanjiang City had been damaged one way or another. Even the windshield of Xiaotao’s car had been smashed into. I looked around and saw no one there.

“This is ridiculous!” I spat.

We went back up and told Xiaotao what we saw, and she yelled, “Son of a bitch! How dare they! I’ll get their fingerprints tomorrow and catch the damn rascals!”

“Who do you think would do this, Uncle Wang?” I asked.

“The local gangsters, perhaps,” he replied.

I’d heard that people in small towns tend to be very xenophobic and distrusting of outsiders. There were even cases when the police went into a village to arrest a suspect, and all the villagers would run out to protect them. They would even push police cars into a ditch to discourage officers from outside of town to ‘meddle’ in their affairs.

The truth is, people in small towns usually form tight-knit communities. Everyone is either a friend or a relative, hence they would obviously protect each other from outsiders, even if the outsiders are the police.

Director Feng welcomed us with great fanfare when we arrived. This meant that the whole town must’ve known that we were here.

I couldn’t go to sleep that night. Early the next morning, Xiaotao reported the incident to Director Feng. He promised that they would pay for the damages and vowed to capture the hooligans who did it.

I asked for an empty room and began concocting a solution. It took me three hours to prepare it. The composition of this solution wasn’t important, only its density was. I then asked Officer Chen if there was a pit or a pond nearby. He responded that there was an abandoned limestone quarry near the construction site, where there was a limestone pit. I told him to take me there.

Xiaotao, Yuanchao, and Bingxin came with me too. Bingxin brought along the victim’s bone fragments. We stopped at the edge of the pit. I told the police officers to pour water into the pit. Once it was a quarter full, I told them to stop and add the solution that I’d prepared earlier. Then I told the officers to add more water until the pit was half full, then I added the solution again. This step was repeated until the limestone pit was completely full.

Bingxin watched on with great interest. “What kind of magic trick are you doing here, Song Yang-gege?” she asked.

“I’m preparing the Bone Density Fluid,” I explained. “As the name suggests, it’s a liquid that has the same density as human bone. Look!”

I picked up one of the bone fragments and threw it into the liquid. The bone sank to the bottom.

“Nothing happened, Song Yang-gege!” cried Bingxin, blinking. I heard some officers sniggering in the background.

“Patience,” I said. “I’ll throw more bone fragments in there. Look!”

This time the bone fragments were suspended in the middle of the liquid. This startled everyone. “Throw it all in!” I ordered.

Two police officers poured the contents of the bag containing the victim’s bones into the ad hoc pool. After a while, the broken bones floated to the top. I pointed and explained, “See, the top layer is the skull, below it are the bones of the hands and feet. Then beneath that are the bones of the arms, the legs, and the pelvis. Then the vertebrae are at the bottom of the pit.”

Bingxin clapped her hands excitedly. “Oh my god, that’s awesome, Song Yang-gege! This method would save half—no, more than half—three quarters of the time!”

I used a net to pick the bones up, then with Bingxin’s help we managed to piece the bones together into a complete human skeleton in less than an hour. Although it might sound wrong, I must admit that when the task was complete, I felt quite proud of myself.

Then, I examined the bones closely, and learned that the human skeleton was not complete—it was missing two phalanges on the right hand!

1. Bones of the fingers.

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