Chapter 81: Slow Death by A Thousand Cuts (2/2)

“Just tell me what you need,” said Xiaotao. “I’ll get someone to buy them for you.”

“I need a bottle of vinegar of the highest quality,” I answered. “Also, a small funnel along with some seaweed and kelp.”

Xiaotao immediately ordered a policeman to buy the items at a nearby supermarket.

While waiting, I checked the victim’s internal organs via Organ Echolocation. I found that the organs and the ribs were intact and undamaged. Judging by their conditions, I determined the time of death to be about twenty days ago.

“Twenty days?” Xiaotao was alarmed. “But shouldn’t the body be bloated by now if it had been that long?”

“You know about that too?” I smiled.

“Of course!” replied Xiaotao proudly. “I’ve read countless autopsy reports and seen numerous dead bodies. Like it or not, I picked up these technical terms like rigor mortis and livor mortis and corpse bloating.”

“So, what would cause a dead body to bloat?”

“Well… It’s bloated because…”

She fumbled for words but couldn’t come up with an answer, so I explained that after a period of time after death, the bacteria living in the intestines would run out of food to eat, and because the immune system had shut down, they would start to attack and consume the body tissues. This process would produce gas, and that made the corpse expand like a balloon.

The sight of a bloated corpse could be extremely terrifying. The whole body would transform into a pus-oozing swollen balloon, the eyes would bulge out of their sockets, and the lips would look like two fat purple sausages. If the corpse was flipped over or moved, you’d see a pool of putrid fluid underneath it. If the corpse was handled roughly, you might even see a greenish gas escaping from the orifices. It was definitely one of the things that tested a coroner’s psychological strength. If you search for it online yourself, then you’d see exactly what I mean!

In Collected Cases of Injustices Rectified, it was written that after a few days a decomposing corpse would swell up, the skin would fall off, the lips would turn inside out and the eyes would bulge out—just as modern science had discovered. I didn’t want to recite classical Chinese lines in front of Xiaotao and the other police officers though, since that might make me look snobbish. Thus, I opted to cite modern forensic science instead.

Also, I didn’t bring all these things up just to show off my knowledge, but there was something abnormal about the corpse that I needed to explain to Xiaotao. Before I could tell her what was wrong about it, she had to understand what the normal decomposition process was like.

“There are three possible reasons why this corpse isn’t bloated,” I added. “Firstly, because the muscle and fat tissues of the corpse had been cut off, the bacteria had less to consume, so the gas produced was significantly reduced as well. Secondly, the temperature in the sewer is pretty low, plus the plastic bag had been so tightly bound that it inhibited air and oxygen from entering it, thereby stunting the growth and propagation of the bacteria.”

“And the third reason?”

“I’ll tell you later. Look here.” I pointed to the signs that the victim had been bound on her thighs and shoulders.

“You mean the victim was tied up?” Xiaotao asked.

“No, the rope was only tied loosely around her thighs,” I explained. “I don’t think it was tight enough to restrict her movement or to hold her in place. It was more to restrict the blood circulation to her legs.” As I spoke, it dawned upon me that we were not just dealing with a violent murderer, but a psychopathic one with a sick and twisted mind.

“What was the point of that?” asked Xiaotao.

“Have you ever heard of ‘live donkey meat’?” I asked her. “It’s a cruel novelty dish where a donkey’s limbs are tied up to a wooden board. Then hot water is poured onto the donkey directly, half-cooking the muscle tissues where it came into contact with the hot water. Then this piece of flesh is cut off and then dipped into a sauce before it’s eaten straight away. It’s a vile and abhorrent practice.”

I saw a look in Xiaotao’s eyes that told me she understood what I was about to say.

“The victim was probably killed this way too,” I continued. “The murderer probably tied her up in order to cut fresh meat from her body, and she was tied to restrict blood circulation so it would be easier to cut it off!”

I glanced at the unrecognizable body on the iron bed. This meant that the victim really was killed by the Lingchi method!

1. A method of used in Ancient China that involved stabbing or slicing a person’s body part many times, resulting in slow and agonizing death.

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