Chapter Seventeen: The Secret of Blood Types

Ning Shuyi stared intently at the information she had gathered, her mind swirling with unanswered questions.

Before long, Huo Yan returned and informed Ning Shuyi that most of the bodies had been excavated from the cement block. Judging by the degree of decomposition, it appeared the two victims had died slightly earlier than when the neighbors first noticed their disappearance.

This detail, combined with the fact that the cement used to seal the bodies was of high hardness, meant that during the extraction process, the victims’ facial and surface skin inevitably suffered some damage.

The damage to the faces of the two victims was particularly severe, and the smaller extremities such as fingers and toes could not be retrieved intact from the cement. This rendered fingerprint collection impossible.

Fortunately, after examining the situation, the forensic pathologist concluded that the damage would not significantly affect determining the true cause of death. This was perhaps the only optimistic piece of news amid the many frustrations this case had presented from the start.

Additionally, bone age testing for the two victims was already underway.

Several hours later, around midnight, results for bone age and blood type came back. The bone age range indeed encompassed the actual ages of Deng Qingrong and Chang Junchao, and their blood types matched the records in the internal database.

However, upon comparing the data, Ning Shuyi noticed another issue she had previously overlooked.

“This Chang Junchao—his blood type seems off,” she said, pointing to the blood type on the report and showing it to Huo Yan. “Look, the mother, Deng Qingrong, is AB blood type; the deceased father, Chang Rong, is B blood type. But Chang Junchao is O blood type.”

“Parents with AB and B blood types can’t have a child with O blood type?” Huo Yan was not well-versed in genetics, but Ning Shuyi’s tone was enough for him to infer this conclusion.

Ning Shuyi shook her head slowly. “Indeed, they cannot have an O blood type child.

“This makes things interesting. If the blood type mismatch was only from testing the victims, we might suspect the identities aren’t actually mother and son. But now, even the internal personal records clearly list the blood types of the three Chang family members, and those are indisputable.

“So the relationships within this family are quite puzzling.

“Deng Qingrong told her old neighbors she had previously lost two children shortly after birth. After finally recovering her health, she gave birth to Chang Junchao and had successfully raised him to this point.

“But now, it seems that either Chang Junchao has no blood relation to both Deng Qingrong and Chang Rong, or Deng Qingrong is indeed his biological mother, but his biological father is someone else.

“Given this, we have to consider the possibility of hidden secrets—matters that might be best kept in the shadows.

“Typically, unless the child was adopted, such secrets are dangerous to uncover.”

Huo Yan nodded thoughtfully.

After a moment of silence, he spoke to Ning Shuyi again. “At the crime scene, evidence of burglary was found, but the exact amount of stolen property is still unknown and requires further confirmation.

“We can confirm that the mobile phones used by the mother and son during their lifetimes were taken. Apart from large appliances like the television and refrigerator, which remained untouched, no cash, precious metals, or jewelry could be found.

“The door lock shows signs of a skilled break-in, indicating the intruder had some expertise.

“Besides that, there are numerous traces of rough wiping at the scene, but we managed to collect one partial fingerprint. The problem is, the print is of poor quality, so we have yet to obtain a matching result.”

“The exact cause of death hasn’t been determined yet, right?” Ning Shuyi asked.

Huo Yan nodded. “Dr. Zhang and the forensic team are preparing to perform autopsies to confirm the cause of death. We expect results by late night or early morning.”

Ning Shuyi sighed and poured Huo Yan a glass of water, signaling him to take a brief rest.

This case had cast a gloomy shadow from the outset; it seemed they would be busy for the next few days.

On the downside, both Deng Qingrong and Chang Junchao were registered residents of another city and appeared to have no close relatives locally.

The information from neighbors already suggested a problem: they barely had any frequent social connections or friends.

Sometimes, during investigations, a victim’s complex social relationships can be challenging, but at least complexity allows one to prioritize and exclude certain leads, eventually revealing a direction.

But when social relations are overly simple, it becomes even more troublesome—there is simply nowhere to start.

Still, humans are social creatures; they cannot live completely isolated. As long as they engage with society, they leave traces of their activities.

The scant information at hand only meant they hadn’t dug deep enough yet. With further probing, they were bound to uncover something.

Ning Shuyi comforted herself with this thought. She also considered a silver lining: she would have to work overtime frequently over the coming days, but with her brother-in-law, Nie Guang, out of town and her parents staying at her sister’s place, the “last frenzy” of the neighbors upstairs could no longer affect anyone.

For the first time, the prospect of potentially sleeping in the duty room over the next few days stirred a faint sense of anticipation within her.

She no longer dared hope to sleep until fully rested, but at least she wished to remain undisturbed from the moment her head hit the pillow until she opened her eyes the next morning—this was her greatest current aspiration.

And so, they toiled at the office through most of the night, stealing three hours of rest in the duty room before dawn. Early the next morning, they received notification that the autopsy report was ready.

The female victim suspected to be Deng Qingrong had died from asphyxiation. The male victim, believed to be her son Chang Junchao, had a more complex cause of death: first, a blunt force trauma to the back of the head, followed by a broken neck.

What surprised them further was that although Deng Qingrong’s death was attributed to mechanical asphyxiation, it was not solely caused by it. The lung features indicated she had indeed suffered mechanical asphyxiation before death, but forensic analysis found a significant amount of cement slurry deep within her nasal cavity.

Wishing all friends, big and small, a happy holiday!

As long as there is a dream in our hearts, we will forever remain children at heart!