Chapter 224: The Strange Explosion Case (2/2)

”Song Yang-gege! Song Yang-gege, did you hear what I said?”

Bingxin’s repeated calls pulled me out of contemplation. ”We can't use the same method,” I clarified. “Last time, we were dealing with a pile of bones. This time, the corpse was burned. Throwing the pieces into the water would destroy them.”

Bingxin stared at me in astonishment. ”Wasn’t the deceased killed by the explosion? Why do you say that the corpse was burned?!”

”Come over here and take a look,” I pointed. “There’s a gel-like layer under the carbonized epidermis tissue of the corpse. This is liquefied fat. The blood vessels under the skin are rosy and have expanded, which is the result of the body being heated over a small fire. The momentary burst of heat during an explosion has no way of producing such an effect.”

I pulled apart the epidermis with my tweezers and showed it to her. Bingxin slowly leaned in until our skin was almost touching. We were both so focused on the corpse we didn’t notice how close we were. Xiaotao suddenly coughed loudly and interrupted, ”Song Yang, do you mean that the body was destroyed to wipe out any evidence?”

I looked around and nodded, ”It’s been done very thoroughly too, perhaps a little overdone!”

”What do you mean by that?” Xiaotao expressed puzzlement.

”The corpse was originally burned which already is the best way to destroy evidence, yet it was still blown apart in the end. Isn’t this overkill? Did the murderer want to conceal the fact that the body was burned after death? Or maybe the burning of the corpse itself would reveal clues to the crime!” I speculated.

I suddenly noticed a chicken claw-like object on the tarpaulin–it was the hand of the deceased. I examined it in my palm, repeatedly looking for clues.

”The victim’s hand wasn’t tightened into a fist, which means he wasn’t burned alive,” observed Bingxin.

”After killing the victim, the murderer burned the body over a small fire and then blew it up. Is the murderer some sort of sick pervert?” I wondered.

Bingxin clapped her hands excitedly. ”Ah, I get it now!” she squealed. “The murderer must be a man-eating maniac belonging to an evil cult. He roasted the victim’s body until the skin turned crisp and the flesh tender, but only ate the internal organs so he would gain the victim’s strength. Then, he stuffed a bomb into the victim’s stomach and blew the body to pieces.”

”Miss Sun, there you go again with your wild imagination!” admonished Xiaotao as she clapped her forehead.

At the word ”internal organs,” I was immediately struck with an idea. I grabbed some of the corpse fragments and pulled apart the carbonized skin. The signs that indicated the corpse had been burned were atypical. At first, I thought it had been slowly burned over a small fire but my gut told me there was something else. I suddenly understood what it was.

“What are you looking for?” asked Xiaotao as she watched me search among the corpse fragments.

”Internal organs!” I said.

Even after going through all the fragments, I hadn’t found any internal organs. Could it have been as Bingxin speculated?

”Please do a carboxyhemoglobin test on the corpse,” I instructed Bingxin.

Bingxin agreed and immediately took a few corpse fragments into the police vehicle to do the testing. Xiaotao asked me if restoring the corpse was possible. Glancing at the officers still busy searching for corpse fragments, I shook my head and sighed, ”It’ll be difficult and I don’t think it’s important.”

”Why do you say that?” she asked.

”What the murderer was trying to cover up with the explosion wasn’t the victim’s identity, but the cause of death,” I explained. “Let's wait for Bingxin's results. Meanwhile, I’ll try piecing together as many corpse fragments as I can!”

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