Chapter 33: Corpse Positioning (2/2)

“Huang Xiaotao told me that you graduated from an American university,” I said, “so I trust that you would’ve used every method possible to detect fingerprints. That saved me a lot of time, because then I knew I had to use the oil paper test.”

“Wait!” said Xiaozhou. “But if he has no sweat glands, then where did these handprints come from?”

“They’re yang energy prints,” I explained. “At the moment of death, the electrical currents in the body will instantaneously escape from the pores of the skin. And if the skin was blocked by an object, an impression of the surface of the object will be left on the skin. So, it didn’t matter if the murderer had any sweat glands or not. You’ve heard that the weight of our body decreases by 21 grams after death, have you? Some people claim that it’s the weight of our souls, but in fact, it’s the weight of the electric current in our body that dissipates the moment we die.”

Xiaozhou’s eyes widened. He let out a long sigh.

“You are truly extraordinary,” he said. “I’ve underestimated our ancestors’ knowledge — I’m definitely wrong for doing that.”

It appeared that this guy was much better than Dr. Qin. At least he was humble enough to admit his fault. My impression of him started to improve.

“Don’t worry too much about it,” I said. “You’ve been studying science for so many years. It’s only natural that you’d distrust me when you heard that I’m a Traditional Coroner. I hope that we can work together as a team from now on.”

“I’ll keep my mind open and ask for your advice from now on,” he said. “And I’ll try not to be so proud.” He hesitated for a while, then stretched out a hand to me. And so we shook each other’s hands.

“Let’s get back to work!” I said to the police officers who were watching us.

“What more do we have to examine?” Dali asked.

This was clearly not a straightforward case at all. I had to let go of how expensive Xuan paper and Camellia oil were and just examine the whole body with the oil paper test. With Dali’s help, we managed to cover the victim’s wrist, waist, thigh, and ankle.

Oil paper test was a time-consuming method, and it took us almost an hour to complete it. There were signs that point towards the victim being bound by some kind of cloth on her wrists and ankles, and we found another pair of handprints on her waist.

As we were hard at work, Xiaozhou stood beside the dead body and observed our every movement with fascination — he didn’t seem to doubt my capabilities anymore!

“Give us a hand!” I said.

“Okay,” he said. “How can I help?”

“You and Dali slowly lift the victim’s arm up,” I ordered.

As they lifted the victim’s arms, I placed the echolocation rod on her shoulder blade and listened to the sound, then repeated it on the other shoulder. If the victim had been fixed in a position before she died, her joints would secrete a layer of lubricant; when she died, this lubricant would solidify. Because of that, if the dead body was restored back to the position before death, the joints would produce a unique sound that can be detected using the echolocation rod.

This was a technique that enabled the coroner to determine the exact position that the body was in at the moment of death, and it was called Corpse Positioning. It was developed by a member of the Song family who served as a magistrate at the Dali Temple, and his name was Song Tianyang. He perfected the technique of Corpse Positioning to such an advanced level that it was said that he could make the dead body move on its own back to the position before death by using magnetic acupuncture. According to the records, the scene of a dead body moving seemingly of its own accord almost scared another official out of his wits!

This ancestor used to demonstrate this technique in court, and made the dead body ‘move’ on its own, pointing out the murderer among several suspects. The murderer immediately confessed to his crime.

We kept on adjusting and moving the limbs of the dead body carefully, until finally finding the original position that the victim was in before death.

Both of her hands were held up above her head, just like the position of Jesus at his crucifixion, and it seemed that she was hung on the wall! It was truly a harrowing sight.

I carefully observed every inch of the wall. It’s very likely that there would be some kind of hook here that allowed the murder to hang up the victim’s two hands. I touched the wall with my fingers, and discovered that the wallpaper was freshly pasted, and it felt like there was a peephole behind the wallpaper.

“Someone nailed something onto this wall,” I said, “and it was recently patched up!”

I used my Cave Vision to scrutinized every inch of the wall, and found a line on the wallpaper that was slightly bulging up from the flat surface of the wall. I tore the wallpaper away and discovered that it was a black wire.

When electric wires were installed in a building, they’re always buried in the wall and protected by a plastic tube as a fire prevention and safety measure. The fact that this wire was hidden behind the wallpaper meant that someone deliberately installed an electrical device but wanted to keep it hidden.

“We have to find where it connects to!” I said.

“Everyone, give us a hand!”

Xiaozhou ordered the members of the forensics team to tear down the wallpaper and pull out all the wires. They finally found a pinhole camera next to the main ceiling light of the room, and it seemed to be pointing at the bed below it.

Everyone gasped.

“Must be some pervert! That’s disgusting!” exclaimed Huang Xiaotao.

“But this means that we might find a major clue from the camera!” I said.

Huang Xiaotao nodded.

“Get the hotel manager here now!” she ordered one of the police officers. Previous ChapterNext Chapte