Chapter 82: Vinegar Echolocation (1/2)

After hearing my conjectures, Xiaotao’s eyes widened as she exclaimed, “But what would drive a person to such an extent! How intense was the hatred that the murderer had for the victim?”

“No,” I shook my head. “I don’t think this had anything to do with hatred at all.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look at the victim’s face.”

Xiaotao and several other police officers immediately went over to examine the victim’s face. They all gasped in horror.

“It looks like… she’s laughing!” Xiaotao exclaimed.

“Maybe it isn’t laughter,” commented a policeman. “Maybe it’s an expression she makes under extreme pain.”

“No, she definitely was laughing,” I corrected. “When a person smiles or laughs, we contract more than twenty facial muscles. There is no doubt that the expression on her face is laughter.”

The atmosphere in the morgue became tense after I spoke.

“But… why would the victim laugh?” asked the policeman.

“The answer is very simple,” I replied. “Because the murderer made her inhale nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas. When the gas enters a human body, it will cause their muscles to twitch and contract and involuntarily laugh.”

The whole room seemed skeptical.

“But that doesn’t make sense,” noted Xiaotao. “Why would the murderer go through such trouble? If he was afraid that she might scream, why didn’t he just cover her mouth? Why go through the trouble of acquiring anesthesia? Wouldn’t that make it riskier for him to be traced?”

I didn’t answer her right away, because even I felt that the answer to this question was incredibly appalling!

Soon after that, a policeman returned with the things that I required to perform the autopsy. I began by adding a small pill into the bottle of vinegar. Then I found a washbasin so I burned the kelp and seaweed into fines ashes, then I poured them into the basin.

Xiaotao asked me what that was, and I answered that it was seaweed ash used to detect fingerprints.

Why did I have to use seaweed ash? Because kelp and seaweed contained a lot of iodine, and iodine could make fingerprints appear. Similarly, forensic scientists also used iodine to detect fingerprints in crime scenes.

I took some of the fine seaweed ashes and sprinkled it on the corpse. I took the utmost care not to spill the ashes onto the open wounds of the body. Then I waited for a while and gently blew away the top layer of ashes.

But alas, no fingerprints were detected at all!

“Get me the ultraviolet light!” I requested.

A policeman rushed out and soon came back with an ultraviolet lamp. I broke my Autopsy Umbrella last time and hadn’t fixed it yet, so instead I prepared a makeshift replacement that consisted of a small piece of red silk cloth coated with a blend of medicinal herbs.

I covered the ultraviolet lamp with the red silk cloth and gently shone it over the victim’s corpse. Shapes of human palms appeared, but there were no fingerprints still, only some textures similar to that of woven fabric.

“The murderer wore gloves,” I stated. I compared the palm print with my hand and continued, “The murderer has been used to heavy physical labor for a long period of time. His palm looks strong and powerful. He should be about forty to fifty years of age.”

“But Consultant Song,” the policeman who had asked questions before argued, “Shouldn’t human hands begin to age after they are thirty years old? Can people in their forties or fifties have such wide palms?”

I smiled. Perhaps not all police officers were observant.

“You’re right,” I replied. “Our bodies will age after we turn thirty years old. But there is one exception.”

“What exception?”

“As is common with human bodies,” I said, “whichever part was used more would strengthen and develop, and whichever part was not used would deteriorate with age. The physical state of our bodies reaches its peak at the age of thirty, and then it slowly declines from there. But for those who are engaged in heavy physical labor daily, not only would their bodies not deteriorate, but they would even go on to become even stronger. If you don’t believe me, you can check the hands of chefs and carpenters.”

The policeman still looked doubtful, but Xiaotao nodded in agreement.

“That’s true,” she remarked. “I’ve seen labor workers who looked more muscular and stronger at forty or fifty years old than some people who are barely thirty. Wang Yuanchao’s palms, for example, are very wide.”

Then she turned to me and asked, “Do you like looking at people’s hands, Song Yang? How do you know all this?”