Chapter 226: Burning To Death In Armor (2/2)

As soon as Lao Yao slid away, Dali reminded, ”Xiaotao-jiejie, you don't know how sneaky this guy is! He’ll definitely go shopping and bring back a stack of receipts for you.”

”Let him try then!” she scoffed.

Unsurprisingly, Lao Yao did exactly what Dali said he would do. Halfway to the crime scene, he stopped to buy a bag that cost more than 1,000 yuan and brazenly returned to submit the receipt for reimbursement. To his utter dismay, Xiaotao only reimbursed his meal and left him with the words: all necessary expenses. As the saying goes, it takes constant vigilance to stave off “evil!”

”There’s still an hour before the meeting starts,” said Xiaotao, glancing at her watch. “Would you like to get breakfast?”

”We’ve already eaten. Why set the meeting so late?” I asked.

”I get the feeling it’s going to be a big case,” sighed Xiaotao. “So I thought I’d let the others sleep in because we might not have the chance for any rest soon.”

These tiny details highlighted Xiaotao's delicate human touch. I suggested taking this extra time to conduct a little experiment to which she nodded. ”Sure thing. I'll keep myself busy with something else.”

When Dali and I arrived at the forensic laboratory, we found Bingxin already there, engrossed in work. Curious, I asked her what she was testing.

”I’m screening the corpse for drugs,” explained Bingxin.

Then, I asked Dali to purchase a piece of fresh pork belly. ”Your autopsy methods are beginning to resemble more and more like cooking,” jested Dali. “This time, you’re even using pork belly.”

”What’s with all the commentary?! Hurry up!” I chided.

In truth, I was planning a simple burn test. When I asked Bingxin if she had any metal here, she pulled out a box filled with some metal sheets made out of copper, iron, aluminum and magnesium, which were commonly used for testing.

Right then, Bingxin announced that she had the test results. ”Song Yang-gege,” she clapped excitedly. “I’ve found anesthetic drug residue in the corpse. Looks like your deductions may be wrong!”

”It’s irresponsible to discuss the drug effect without the dosage!” I argued. “So what’s the dosage?”

Bingxin spat out her tongue and laughed. ”Haha, it seems I can't fool you. I found diethyl ether but the dosage wasn’t large. It looks like it was administered via inhalation.”

”The murderer must’ve knocked the victim unconscious with ether and kidnapped him,” I nodded. “By the way, could you get me a blowtorch?”

With everything ready, all that was left was to wait for Dali’s return. A few minutes later, he sauntered into the room with a piece of pork belly. ”Here you go, fresh pork belly as you asked. What’s it going to be–stir fry or braised?” he laughed.

”Barbecue!” I declared with a cryptic smile.

I placed the pork belly on the table, put on protective gloves and heated up a piece of metal until it glowed red. Then, I carefully picked it up with my tweezers and seared the pork belly with it. A puff of smoke immediately rose from the pork belly, delighting our noses with a delicious barbecue aroma.

I tested the burn effect of each metal in turn and discovered that burns induced by the heated copper sheet resembled closest to the burn injury on the victim. After silver, copper was the metal with the highest thermal conductivity. In the past, hot pots used in winter were made of copper because it had a low melting point and strong malleability.

”It looks like copper is the main component of the metal object that burned our victim to death. Have you thought of anything?” I asked Bingxin.

She shook her head. ”Could the murderer have covered the victim’s body with copper sheets? What in God’s name was the murderer trying to do?”

”Let's not digress,” I urged. “We’ll focus on the murder weapon first. Copper sheets are highly unlikely since that would cause burn edge marks on the victim’s skin. We’ve seen no such marks on the victim’s corpse, indicating that it must be a sheet of copper that perfectly covers the victim’s entire body. What do you think that is?”

Bingxin's eyes brightened with realization. ”It can only be a suit of armor!” she blurted.

Dali was so shocked he stood there mouth open and goggle-eyed. What little he knew about the case was what he had heard from me yesterday. ”The victim was roasted alive in a suit of armor?” he faltered. “Could this be some sort of weird ritual?”

”The soles of the victim’s feet suffered the most severe burns,” I started. “He was most likely forced to walk on fire in heavy copper armor and finally died from extensive burns. I wouldn’t call this a ritual — it’s more like torture!”

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