Four hours later, the entire camping area was cordoned off, and all the camping tourists were gathered in the public camping area.

"What happened?"

"I don’t know, it seems something happened over at the small park, I saw the police cordon it off."

"It’s at the small park, just now I was with my kid playing over there, it seems someone died there."

Someone died?

The tourists inside the camping area were puzzled but were discussing privately about what happened over there.

Some who had been camping here all the time, never went to the small park, knew nothing, but some parents were playing with their kids in the small park, and some people were taking an afternoon walk, saw the police cordoning off the fountain in the middle of the small park.

A few people were knocking on that statue with tools.

Yang Sen, carefully wielding the tool, glanced speechlessly at Lu Chuan beside him.

"Lu, don’t you and Forensic Doctor Shen have time to go to the temple and make offerings?"

Old Bai nodded in agreement.

"Lu, I think what Old Yang said is not wrong, you two should really go to the temple to pray, Taoist temple works too, if not, go to a church, pray to the Jade Emperor, Buddha, Satan, God, anyone you can."

Lu Chuan: "..."

They didn’t do it on purpose.

They just came out for a good time, camping and hiking, to relax, but didn’t expect to run into such a thing after lunch.

Shen Yan’s judgment was indeed correct; the statue in the fountain did have a problem.

Normally, this statue in the fountain should be solid, but the sound inside was hollow, accompanied by echoes, indicating that there might be something hidden inside.

Who would hide something in a statue in the boonies?

Lu Chuan immediately called, contacting the construction party of the camping area through the local police station.

According to the construction party, the statue in the middle of the small park’s fountain is made of stone, originally carved from a single block of stone.

The statue had already been placed in the fountain before the camping area was completed.

Since it was carved from a single block of stone, naturally, it shouldn’t produce echoes when knocked.

So, there is certainly a problem here.

But what exactly is the problem, what’s inside, and why did the solid statue become hollow, Lu Chuan was unsure.

Thinking something was wrong, Lu Chuan called the team, asking the on-duty criminal police to retrieve a thermal imaging camera from the laboratory in the crime scene investigation office and send it over.

If the statue is hollow, no matter what is placed inside, there would still be some temperature difference from the stone. Scanning with a thermal imaging camera might reveal the rough shape of what’s inside.

Sure enough, the thermal imaging camera proved useful, and the outline of the revealed object... was similar to human height.

"Most likely a person."

Shen Yan, as a forensic doctor, understood the human structure best.

Comparing the outlines from the thermal imaging camera, she was quite sure of what was inside.

With this discovery, the entire Criminal Investigation Team could not enjoy their weekend anymore.

Except for the officers working overtime organizing last times poison case, everyone else arrived at the camping area.

Qin Yong now stood with his hands clasped behind his back, observing from outside the fountain, watching the four crime scene investigators with tools, knocking and cutting the statue.

"The statue is in two halves, there’s evidence of adhesion here."

The inside of the entire statue was hollow, but not carved out, rather the two halves of the statue were glued together.

While knocking on the statue, Yang Sen found the adhesive seam.

"It’s easier to pry open here, let’s start from here."

The statue was tall and heavy, even though it was hollow, it was still very cumbersome.

Aside from Lu Chuan and the team, there was also a crane to help.

About an hour later, they finally pried the statue open.

Crash!

A desiccated corpse fell out from inside.

Yang Sen reacted swiftly, bracing it with his back, and the other three rushed forward to steady it, preventing the corpse from scattering on the ground.

By the time they extracted the body, the sky was already darkening.

"Captain Qin, I suggest conducting a preliminary crime scene investigation here."

Liu Guodong requested authorization from Qin Yong.

This skeletal body was different from skeletons previously discovered.

The body hadn’t completely decomposed; rather, it seemed to have been dried by the wind.

The shriveled skin clung to the bones, wrinkled, without clothing, like a mummy.

Qin Yong nodded, conducting the crime scene investigation on-site was more arduous, but since the culprit went to such great lengths to hide the body inside the statue, there might well be some clues left behind.

Taking it back might destroy the clues.

"Action team, set up the emergency lights."

At the campsite, Zhang Hui had already led his team to complete the information registration.

Since a body was found inside the statue at the fountain, theoretically everyone in the camping area had to record statements or be questioned.

But judging by the state of the body, it’s been dead for at least a year or two, so after the tourists in the camping area finished their information registration, the isolation was lifted.

Having found the body here, naturally no one was in the mood to camp, so everyone gradually drove away.

But just in case, Zhang Hui still kept the contact information of these tourists, if there are any clues, these people might still need to cooperate.

"Captain Qin, the area has been cleared."

Qin Yong nodded, having a body hidden inside a statue was a first for him.

"First, take a statement from the construction workers from back then to understand the situation."

"Yes!"

With such a big incident, the local police station and those responsible for the construction back then had long been summoned.

The person in charge of the construction crew was a tall, thin man, with wheat-colored skin and a simple smile.

"Hello, officer, we really had no idea about this incident."

A body hidden inside a statue on his worksite, if word got out, how could he continue his work in the future?

"We’re not saying you knew."

Zhang Hui interrupted the man’s lamentation: "Tell us about the conditions of the construction back then, when was it built, when was it completed, who made the statue, and when was it delivered."

When Zhang Hui and his team arrived at the small park in the afternoon, they carefully observed the surroundings of the statue.

Judging by the installation traces, this statue should have been directly installed here originally; the possibility of replacement later is very small.

The entire statue is three meters tall, weighing about a ton. It’s not something one or a few people can swap around with manpower, it requires large machinery.

Moreover, if the culprit went through all this trouble just to hide a body, using large machinery and several people to do this, the likelihood isn’t great.

Further, based on the time the corpse was dried out, the death time was at least one or two years ago.

And this camping area was only constructed and opened in these past two years.