Chapter 343: The Examination

2022-05-20

Uncle Chen said, “Let’s leave the autopsy to the coroner. There’s nothing to see in a corpse.”

I shook my head and replied, “An autopsy can only tell us conclusions, but when you’re face to face with a body, sometimes it’s as if the corpse can speak to you. You can find answers for yourself in the tiniest details. The dead may say nothing, but most of the time their ‘testimony’ is even more important than anything the living can offer!”

Uncle Chen listened to my explanation and nodded seriously, patting his thigh. “Our young comrade here really knows what he’s talking about. I must be falling behind. Alright, let’s go to the funeral home with Coroner Wang right away.”

I turned to Sun Qingqing. “Ms. Sun, the autopsy won’t take very long. It’s nearly noon and the children will be getting out of school soon. After that, we’d like to ask the classmates about Hu Ningning and Li Jun. Could you notify their parents in advance?”

Sun Qingqing didn’t say anything, just nodded.

As we headed out, Sun Qingqing spoke up again. “Excuse me, but isn’t it better not to mention any of this to the students? They’re only eight years old. Should they really face death at such a young age? Isn’t that too cruel for children?”

I let out a helpless sigh and rubbed my temples. “Don’t worry. I’m not about to share any terrifying details with them. I just want to understand what exactly Hu Ningning and Li Jun—who live in different places—were trying to do yesterday. That direction wasn’t toward Li Jun’s home, and it wasn’t toward Hu Ningning’s either.”

Uncle Chen chimed in, “So you’re still suspecting those two kids might have been in puppy love?”

“Maybe,” I said quietly. “Sometimes children understand each other better than adults do.”

When we stepped outside, the principal was already arranging to have the body transported to the funeral home. Coroner Wang was sitting in the car. Uncle Chen greeted him, and we followed the vehicle.

The funeral home in town was equipped for autopsies, but only with examination tables discarded by big cities.

Modern cities now use advanced autopsy tables that cost upwards of 300,000 yuan. On those tables, you can barely smell anything rotten or bloody. The steel surfaces have rows of round holes to help blood drain away.

Above the table, there’s a ventilation system to refresh the air. Below, there are suction vents to remove the stench and gases of decomposition. The faucet can twist ninety degrees—one way for water to clean the table, the other for suction to draw out any lingering blood.

Below the sink, there’s a grinder powerful enough to crush bone fragments and hair, keeping the pipes from clogging.

In that sort of environment, a coroner’s job is pretty manageable. But in this town, the equipment was old and the smell of blood and rot was much stronger.

We undressed the little boy. The moment we saw his body, everyone froze in shock. Earlier, I’d checked his uniform and found no rips or knife marks. Aside from a few bruises on his face, I’d assumed he didn’t have any injuries.

But now that he’d been undressed, I realized how wildly off the mark I’d been.

No one said anything for a long time. We just stared at his tiny body, stunned.

The truth was, there weren’t no wounds—there were wounds everywhere, just hidden under the school uniform. After committing an atrocity against the child, the killer had dressed him again. But why would someone do that?

Every action a killer takes may seem pointless to us, but to them, every act carries meaning.

I glanced down at the body, at a loss for words to describe what I was seeing.

On that small, eight-year-old frame, his back and stomach were covered in so many wounds it made my scalp tingle. Even an adult wouldn’t stand a chance against this kind of suffering, let alone a little child.

The autopsy room fell utterly silent. It felt as though time had stopped. I’d seen plenty of bizarre deaths and disturbing corpses before, but none had ever looked like this.

After a long while, Coroner Wang finally found his voice. “If I didn’t know this was a real body, I’d swear it was some kind of forensic training model. Just about every classic wound from medical textbooks can be found on this child.”

He swallowed hard, glanced at all of us, and continued, “And judging by the wounds, there are signs of life response. That means they were all inflicted while the child was still alive.”

Wang took another look at the corpse. “This examination will take a while. It’ll probably be several hours before I can finish documenting every wound. If you have anything urgent to do, you might want to go investigate and wait for my report.”

I shook my head. “Let’s proceed. Gu Chen, tell Ms. Sun to arrange the interviews for after school. This corpse could yield a lot of clues. With so many wounds—so many different types—the killer probably left something behind.”

Coroner Wang’s judgment was spot on. By the time he finished the autopsy, it was past four in the afternoon.

He worked straight through lunch, only pausing for Uncle Chen to wipe his sweat every now and then. Each time he finished with a wound, he dictated the cause, length, depth, and so on, while the townsfolk took notes.

When it was all over and the results were in, we were stunned. The little corpse bore a total of fifty-two wounds—some shallow, some deep, all different.

Finally, Coroner Wang set down his scalpel, wiped his forehead with a cloth and asked, “Well?”

A recorder answered, “On Li Jun’s body we found a total of fifty-two wounds. Twenty-two are blunt force injuries—bruises and mechanical trauma caused by fists and kicks. Five are stab wounds, all from the same sharp object—a ten-centimeter dagger. Four wounds were caused by blunt objects, all different sizes, so not from the same weapon.”

“That’s twenty-six so far.” The recorder paused, then continued, “There are also six burns, all matching cigarette butts in size. Eight wounds are abrasions, probably caused while dragging the child. Nine are contusions from blunt trauma. The ankles, wrists, and the left side of the ribs all show linear fractures.”

“And the last three?” I cut in when the recorder stopped.

The recorder checked his notes and glanced around at us before saying quietly, “Yes, the last three are bite marks. They’re on the right side of the waist, deep, two of them forming a paired, arched impression.”

As he finished, I felt a chill in my heart. Calling the murderer a beast would be an insult to animals.

Coroner Wang let out a heavy sigh. “Judging from the time of death, Li Jun was killed at around midnight last night.”

“What time was the last surveillance footage?” I asked Uncle Chen.

Uncle Chen thought for a moment. “The last time the two kids were seen on camera was about 6:15. After they disappeared, and judging by the distance to where the backpack was found, it would have taken them thirty minutes or so at a child’s pace.”

I nodded. “So if we allow one or two hours for the kidnapper to grab them, that’s three or four hours total. In that short window, the killer inflicted all those wounds and then the child died.”

“Exactly,” Coroner Wang replied.

I asked, “So what ultimately caused the death?”

Coroner Wang examined the body again. “There are a lot of wounds, but the cause of death was a linear fracture in the ribs. It’s an incomplete break where the bone compressed and tore into the lung, resulting in slow internal bleeding. He finally died from organ failure due to blood loss. By the pattern of injuries, it’s clear the killer didn’t intend to kill him quickly.”

Wang peeled off his gloves. “I suspect the killer accidentally killed him during the torture. I can’t say for certain, but it’s very likely.”

“Also,” Wang added, “there’s something the killer did afterward that I just can’t figure out…”