Mentioning this bag of ice cream, Li Yunfei felt a pang of heartache.
Originally, he had planned to buy some ice cream for Xu Mo and the rest of the police station to cool off, and also to let Xu Mo take a break and not be so hardworking. Before buying, he had specifically asked the shop assistant if there were any slightly more expensive ice creams. After all, Xu Mo was a guest, so it was only right to buy something more expensive for him to eat; otherwise, it would be inappropriate.
The shop assistant pointed out a brand of ice cream for him. When it came time to pay, Li Yunfei was dumbfounded—he never expected that this bag of ice cream would be so expensive! But the shop assistant was a pretty girl, and he didn't have the heart to put it back, so he gritted his teeth and paid for it...
After taking out the ice cream from the bag and handing one to Xu Mo and Zhang Sitong each, Li Yunfei couldn't help but pat Xu Mo on the shoulder: "Take a break, don't push yourself too hard."
"Thanks," Xu Mo said as he accepted the ice cream, then picked up the portrait he had already drawn from the table: "I've finished drawing it. Go ahead and try to compare it with the face database to see if there's anyone who matches."
"Finished?" Li Yunfei was initially stunned, then took the portrait from Xu Mo and examined it for a while.
"You take a rest first, I'll go and compare it!" After that, he hurried away with the portrait and the bag of ice cream that hadn't been distributed yet.
After Li Yunfei left, Zhang Sitong looked at Xu Mo again, blinking her beautiful big eyes.
"Are you here at the police station to help with the buried corpse case?"
"Yes," Xu Mo nodded.
"What were you doing just now? Drawing a face based on the shape of the bones?"
"Restoring the skin from the bones, reconstructing the appearance of the deceased based on the skull. The identity of the deceased hasn't been confirmed yet, so I'm trying to help restore the appearance."
Xu Mo's words confirmed Zhang Sitong's earlier guess. She had been wondering if Xu Mo was reconstructing the deceased's appearance from the skull. It turned out she was right; restoring the skin from the bones, it sounded so impressive!
The case that had occurred at their school, she naturally knew about it, which was why she had come to the police station to inquire about the progress of the investigation. In the previous few days, the police officers had been at a loss, unable to even confirm the identity of the deceased, let alone solve the case.
It was precisely because of this that the atmosphere in the police station had been very heavy. Without even knowing the identity of the deceased, how could they investigate the case? If Xu Mo could really restore the deceased's appearance, it would be a huge help to the police station!
Soon, Li Yunfei came running back excitedly: "It's incredible! The person you drew based on the skull really might be the deceased! I checked, and the girl you drew is from a neighboring city. She went missing ten years ago at the age of twenty. She's been missing for a full ten years and hasn't been found, most likely already deceased. All these details match the deceased's situation... If she's from a neighboring city, it makes sense why we couldn't find a match among the missing persons in our city from ten years ago. She wasn't from our city at all!"
As he spoke, Li Yunfei placed Xu Mo's drawing and the photo he had taken from the face database side by side for comparison: "Apart from the different hairstyle and a mole on the girl's face in the photo, everything else is exactly the same! Look!"
Zhang Sitong looked at the comparison and found that Xu Mo's drawing and the photo were indeed identical except for the different hairstyle and the mole on the girl's face in the photo. The eyes, nose, mouth, and face shape... it was unmistakably the same person!
She couldn't help but look at Xu Mo beside her. This was too impressive. Zhang Sitong had now become a loyal little fan of Xu Mo.
Just relying on a skull, he could conjure up a face, and this face could be matched in the face database rather than being a dead end. This showed that Xu Mo wasn't just drawing randomly; he had drawn correctly!
Moreover, the time of disappearance and age of the person in the drawing matched the deceased's details. Therefore, the person Xu Mo had drawn was most likely the deceased found in the small woods near the Police University's playground.
Upon hearing this news, the other police officers in the station were also shocked and gathered around.
"You've drawn it? Let me see!"
"Wow, you really could draw it?"
"Let me see, let me see, is it really the same?"
"..."
The officers who gathered around looked at Xu Mo's drawing and the photo in Li Yunfei's phone, and for a moment, they were all a bit dazed.
Even the police station's portrait artist widened his eyes, looking at Xu Mo and then at his drawing.
Wow... so Xu Mo wasn't bragging; he really could restore the deceased's appearance from just a skull!?
Where did he learn that? The portrait artist thought, I want to learn too!
"The person in the drawing and the person in the face database do look exactly the same, but, if I may speculate, is there a possibility that the person in the drawing is not the deceased but someone whose skull is identical to the deceased's, and she just happens to be a twenty-year-old girl who went missing ten years ago, not the deceased we are trying to investigate?" One officer quickly voiced his thoughts: "If the person Xu Mo drew isn't the deceased, then won't we be unable to uncover the truth by investigating this person?"
At this moment, the portrait artist spoke up.
"There's no such coincidence. Two skulls wouldn't be exactly the same. When I was studying at the art academy, I drew countless skulls and never saw two that were identical. You're just being pedantic."
As soon as he finished speaking, the other officers also nodded in agreement.
"There aren't even two identical leaves in the world, let alone two identical skulls."
"Exactly, where are all these coincidences coming from? The deceased should be the one Xu Mo drew. In my opinion, we should start our investigation from the person Xu Mo drew."
Seeing everyone agree, the officer who had spoken earlier scratched his head, feeling a bit embarrassed: "I said it was just a possibility, no other intention..."
...