Chapter 33: Corpse Positioning (1/2)

I pulled out a stack of Xuan paper from my bag and shoved them into Xiaozhou’s hand.

“Go ahead, check it yourself!” I said. “Then tell me what kind of trick I used!”

Xiaozhou’s expression turned ugly and he stared fixedly at me.

“Go get my toolbox now!” he barked.

He then took out some gadgets and tools and chemicals from his toolbox and began to scrutinize the Xuan paper. I couldn’t be bothered with him so I went back to the dead body and examined the two handprints. Huang Xiaotao ordered a police officer to take pictures of the handprints as evidence.

Each of the two handprints was very clear and they were both on the victim’s shoulder blades, which meant that the murderer pressed her down with immense force while sucking her blood.

I compared the handprints with my own palm, and found that they were slightly bigger than mine. Judging by the shape and size, the murderer was probably an adult male aged between twenty to thirty.

There was one strange thing about the handprints.

“Why aren’t there any fingerprints on these handprints?” asked Huang Xiaotao. So she noticed it too.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“The murderer probably damaged his fingerprints somehow, or maybe he wore a glove.”

I shook my head and pointed at a few spots on the handprints, saying, “Look at these. These are clear lines of joints, which meant that the murderer didn’t wear gloves. And if they did damage their fingerprints, there would’ve been messy folds and lines where the fingerprints should be, but instead, they’re all smooth and featureless.”

“Then what could be the reason for it?” wondered Huang Xiaotao. She looked adorable as she leaned her head to the side as she was thinking hard.

At that moment, Xiaozhou was done examining my Xuan paper. His face looked even worse than before, almost as purple as an eggplant.

Naturally, there was no problem with my Xuan paper, but the bastard refused to acknowledge it.

“It makes no sense that this ordinary piece of paper is more effective than my high-tech American equipment!”

“You’re as stubborn as a mule!” I sneered. “Just because you lost to me doesn’t necessarily mean that my traditional method is better than your high-tech equipment. You just lost to your own conceit. You never bothered to learn these ordinary methods that our ancestors left for us, yet you’re so eager to applaud and defend these foreign gadgets.”

“Here you go,” said Dali. “Piping hot ashes and cigarette butts, fresh from the oven!” He took the ashtray and handed it to Xiaozhou, but Xiaozhou refused to take it.

I took the ashtray and held it in front of him.

“Come on,” I said, “Honor your words. If you eat them, I’ll tell you why you didn’t detect any handprints earlier.”

This time everyone in the room swarmed around us with excitement. Most of them were on Xiaozhou’s forensics team.

“Go away!” he barked. “You’re not allowed to watch me!”

Then he grabbed the ashtray from my hand and dumped the whole contents into his mouth. Most of it missed his mouth and just fell to the ground, though, but I couldn’t be bothered to point it out.

His mouth was covered with ashes, and he forced himself to chew the cigarette butts in his mouth with a torturous expression on his face. I had to bite my lips very hard to stop myself from laughing because I didn’t want to humiliate him any more than that.

Dali had no such restraint, though. He openly laughed and tapped at my shoulder to say, “Dude, look at his face! Do you think he likes the taste of cigarette butts?”

Even Huang Xiaotao couldn’t control her laughter, but she at least tried to do it discreetly and covered her mouth with a hand.

You didn’t need to try them to know that the cigarette butts tasted horrible. Xiaozhou strained himself and forced them down his throat, then wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

“Now tell me why.”

“I have read Western books on forensic science before, and the methods you use to detect fingerprints is based on the principle that human sweat glands produce a certain amount of oil, so anytime our fingers come into contact with the surface of an object, there will be fingerprints left on that surface. So, you use aluminum powder and ultraviolet light to detect these fingerprints. Unfortunately, the murderer in this case is out of the ordinary…”

“How?” Xiaozhou asked impatiently.

“He has no sweat glands,” I answered. “Or even if he does, their secretory function is defective.”

“But all humans have sweat glands!” said Xiaozhou, astounded. Everyone else was stunned as well, and they began to debate about it among themselves.

“You know, I have to thank you,” I said.

“Thank me?”