Chapter 179: The Living Corpse (1/2)

“Do you think he was injected with poison?” asked Xiaotao. “Should we test it?”

“I’ll get a sample now,” I replied.

I brushed the inside of a cup used in cupping therapy and held it over a flame. Then, I placed it on top of the puncture wound. I repeated the process and placed a few more cups on the victim’s abdomen where the liver should be. If there was any toxin in the human body, it would penetrate the skin and hair follicles, which could be pulled out using this traditional Chinese medicine technique.

Apart from that, this technique worked best on slow-acting toxins. I suspected that the victim was not poisoned but was injected with an unknown drug that turned him into a ‘living corpse!’

We waited for a while, then suddenly Xiaotao exclaimed, “Song Yang, look!”

Droplets slowly seeped out from the skin under the cups. I pulled off the cups and used cotton swabs to collect samples of these droplets. These would be given to the forensics team for further testing. The samples collected from the puncture wound and those from the liver area were kept separate and should be tested separately too.

At that moment, an officer came in and said, “Huang-jie, someone just died at the hospital!”

We were both shocked. Xiaotao instantly asked, “Is it the rich lady?”

“No,” answered the officer, “it’s her secretary. The rich lady has been kidnapped!”

Xiaotao and I exchanged a look. We had planned to question the rich lady after the autopsy. Neither of us had predicted that the murderer would make his next move so quickly.

“Let’s go to the hospital now!” Xiaotao shouted.

We got into a police car immediately. Dali came along too, and I explained what was going on to him on the way. The idiot paid no attention to the details of the case, though. All he asked was what kind of food and drinks were served at the party and whether I saw any celebrities there.

Several police cars were already parked outside the hospital. We headed straight to the rich lady’s ward and found that the door had been cordoned off from the public by police tape.

One of the officers tasked with guarding the rich lady reported that the rich lady was very flustered when she woke up. She kept begging them to protect her and to stay alert at all times, but when asked who was trying to harm her, she clammed up and refused to speak. At noon, the officers went out to grab lunch, and that was when things went south. When they came back, they found the secretary killed and the lady gone.

“Have you checked the surveillance video?” Xiaotao asked.

“We’re still talking to the hospital about it,” the officer answered.

As soon as we entered the ward, the heavy stench of blood filled my nostrils. The secretary lay dead on the floor face down in a pool of blood. Glass fragments littered the floor.

I kneeled down to examine the body. The victim’s back was riddled with deep wounds, and they were all round in shape. I pried one of the wounds open with a pair of tweezers and picked out a glass fragment from it. I looked up and saw that the IV bottle was missing from the stand. That gave me an idea of what the murder weapon could be.

“There should be a serial number on the IV bottle, right?” I asked the officer.

“Yes,” he nodded.

“Go to the nurse and find out this serial number,” I ordered. “Search for it around the hospital. If you find a broken IV drip bottle with the corresponding serial number, that’s the murder weapon!”

“That’s awful!” Dali commented while covering his mouth. “He was beaten to death with the IV drip bottle?”

I asked Dali to put on the gloves and help me turn the body over. I found that two of the victim’s nails were broken. I looked around and find that the curtains were closed and undisturbed. There was no sign of fighting in the room either. I turned my gaze to the door and asked the officer, “Was the door open when you found the body?”

“It was open when we came back,” he replied. “The nurse did mention that they usually leave the doors to single wards like this one closed for hygienic purposes, though.”

“Let’s check for fingerprints!” I said to Dali.

I pulled out the Autopsy Umbrella and an ultraviolet lamp from my bag. Dali held the lamp as I turned the Autopsy Umbrella around the body. The same set of fingerprints were found on the bed, on the victim’s body, and on the doorknob.

I looked at the victim’s hand again. It looked like there was dandruff under his nails. The murderer’s skin cells were often found under the victim’s nails in many murder cases, so this was very important evidence. Xiaotao jumped up excitedly when she saw it.

“I’ll call the forensics team right away!” she cried.

“Don’t get too excited,” I shook my head. “This is not dandruff or any kind of human skin tissue at all.”