Chapter 1 (1/2)
Chapter 1: Prologue
Tonight the moon is exceptionally bright, it is covered with a layer of bloody red clouds, originally it should make the moonlight elegant, tonight it unusually causes the moon to look grim and eerie, even the air also seems to smell faintly of blood, two o’clock in the evening it’s unusually quiet, only the gentle sound of rustling leaves can be heard, no one cares about the night sky’s strange appearance.
The room is bright, every kind of surgical instrument is readily available, however, this is not an operating room in the traditional sense.
The woman’s face was mostly obscured by a mask, a pair of bright, piercing eyes was staring intently at a corpse lying on a white platform. Putting aside the measuring tape in her hand, the woman’s cold voice resonated: “The victim was a female, height 168 cm, between the ages of twenty to thirty years old. The body has decomposed, the findings, she should have died a month or more ago.”
Behind her stood a young girl, carefully taking notes, her hands not daring to be the least bit sloppy.
Scrutinizing each mark on the body, upon seeing the corpse’s fingers, Zhuo Qing frowned, but her cold voice remained calm, “The deceased had all her ten fingernails removed.”
“The ten nails were plucked again?” Xing Lan’s hands paused, quickly looked up and asked, “Doctor Zhuo, this isn’t a case of serial murders, right? Including this woman, this is already the fourth whose fingernails were pulled out!”
Zhuo Qing focused on inspecting the hands and did not answer, after a while, the cold voice just replied: “Whether serial murders or not, the Criminal Investigation department will find it out, as a forensic examiner, my responsibility is to record in detail all the features on the body and determine the cause of death of the deceased, provide evidence and clues to help solve the case. Arbitrarily concluding as a serial case is a simple preconceived notion, ignoring the other details.”
“I know.” Xing Lan secretly bit her tongue, Doctor Zhuo in just a few years is the youngest, most prominent expert forensic examiner, to follow her around learning, she has really improved quickly, but her work constantly seeing cold faces and icy eyes, it’s rather scary!
“The deceased has distinct fingerprints bruises on her neck, color is black, the rest of her body has no obvious injury, the cause of death was asphyxiation. The genital area is intact, ruling out the possibility of sexual assault before her death.” While Zhuo Qing took off the surgical gloves, she said, “Xiao Xing, collate the data and submit the report to me before dawn for my signature, afterwards hand it over to the Criminal Investigation department, also the collected samples, send it to the laboratory tomorrow morning, you can then take a break.”
Xing Lan’s heart wailed, but on her mouth was not a trace of hesitation, immediately she replied: “Yes.” Another sleepless night!
Xing Lan cut out samples of clothes and skin from the deceased, suddenly she saw a palm-sized, round metal object, and asked: “Doctor Zhuo, this is something found in the coat of the deceased, should I hand this over to the Criminal Investigation department?”
Zhuo Qing casually glanced back and replied: “send it first to the laboratory, they’ll take care of it.” After she finished talking, she went out of the autopsy room.
“Yes.” Collecting her notes and the samples, Xing Lan quickly followed after Zhuo Qing who quickly left the autopsy room. Although she had been working in the forensic department for six months now, she still could not stay with a corpse alone late at night.
“How are things? Is the autopsy report ready to come out?” Just now as they were approaching the office, they were immediately stopped by somebody head on! Leaning on the doorframe is a slim woman, her short cropped hair fresh and neat, her vitality abnormally high, the look in her eyes resolute!
Xing Lan cried out, “Team Leader Gu, you are too much! It’s middle of the night, it’s only 3:00 o’clock in the morning!”
Gu Yun lightly arched her eyebrow, smiled and said: “And so?”
Defeated, Xing Lan dropped her shoulders, reluctantly replied: “So you wait for a moment, I’ll go and finish it, the report will certainly be out before dawn!” No wonder Team Leader Gu and Doctor Zhuo can become good friends, these two people are workaholics!
Looking at Xing Lan’s drooping head as she entered her office, Gu Yun laughed, raised her voice said: “Thank you very much!”
Zhuo Qing opened her exclusive office on the opposite side, Gu Yun immediately followed her inside, before she could open her mouth, Zhuo Qing with her unique low voice unhurriedly said: “What, on this long night you’re not in the mood to sleep ah?”
“Screw you!” Giving her a sideways glance, Gu Yun denounced: “Since this month’s frequent homicide cases of women, Department Li’s both eyes are almost shooting flames, at the moment criminal investigation department has two teams assigned to work day and night!”
Zhuo Qing casually pulled out the fountain pen which she used to fix her hair, immediately her waist-long hair dangled down, she tiredly sat on the couch, half-squinted her eyes as if she had something in mind, idly asked: “Yesterday, was there any thrill in the results of the provincial level martial arts competition?”