Collapse Of The Circulatory System

Blood immediately flowed out when the blade came into contact with the skin.

It was a dark red, a little sticky and carried a smell that was difficult to describe. It was in stark contrast to the victim’s deathly pale complexion, so the visuals were quite striking. The entire room seemed to feel even colder now.

All the onlookers felt a chill down their spine as they stared at the tiny knife in Song Caitang’s hand with constricted pupils.

Nobody would have thought that such a small and narrow little knife, a delicate item with a narrow body and a short blade, something that didn’t resemble a proper weapon at all and was easily held in a young lady’s slim fingers, would be this sharp and this unfeeling…

As the one performing the surgery, Song Caitang moved at a comfortable speed. She held the handle steadily and did not hesitate at any point.

She started from the victim’s shoulders, meeting at the chest and drawing a cut downward. Before everyone was mentally prepared for what was about to come, she had already switched to a pair of cutting forceps, swiftly cutting through the skin and pulling open a large part of the skin on the victim’s chest.

Almost immediately, Judge Guo couldn’t take it anymore. He clamped a hand over his mouth and ran out.

Coroner Sun’s face was pale and his fists were clenched tightly. His nails dug into his own skin and he grit his teeth as he told himself that he could still hold out!

This was just a corpse. He had started when he was only 13 and he had been a coroner for nearly 40 years now. He had seen all sorts of things! How could this tiny bit of blood and smell scare him off? He wasn’t afraid!

He was determined to stick around and watch Song Caitang fail to find anything, fail to identify the poison and fail to find the cause of death! He wanted to watch her fail all the way!

The job of a coroner belonged to men, so women should keep their distance! Stop dreaming of becoming a part of this industry! She had no place here!

But despite all those thoughts in his heart, he couldn’t wipe away what his eyes were seeing.

This was different…

Dissecting a body was different from even the most bloody of murder scenes he had seen!

He was used to seeing bodies with pierced intestines and rotten stomachs, or bodies with broken limbs, and even bodies that already had maggots growing on them. It was gross and the smell was terrible, but he could still take it. But taking a knife to a corpse, where the blood still flowed…the smell only grew worse with time and the sound of the blade slicing through flesh seemed to resound in his ears.

The coat around the woman’s hands and body grew redder and redder as the areas covered in blood increased.

Coroner Sun felt like he wasn’t watching a coroner examine a body but a butcher murdering another person!

Not only were Song Caitang’s fingers slim and deft, but she also seemed able to see through a human’s body, as though she had done this many times before. The way she sliced through the skin showed that she knew exactly how the skin on the body was structured and how deep to make her cuts. She worked as though she didn’t need to think or look carefully and the body had been cut open in seconds.

“Surveillance Commissioner Zhao, please have a look.” She even allowed someone to take a closer look and pointed to the skin she had cut through, “The muscle layer under the victim’s skin was bleeding.”

Zhao Zhi came closer to inspect the skin and saw that there were indeed traces of bleeding.

He looked at Song Caitang’s slight frown and a thought popped up in his mind, “It’s not something we should be seeing?”

“Bleeding in the muscle layer with no signs on the outer skin is certainly not common.”

Coroner Sun felt like yelling out things like “You just lack exposure” or “You don’t know how to cut a body,” but his throat felt tight, and he couldn’t get any words out.

He suddenly felt that Song Caitang was very frightening.

This woman wasn’t afraid to cut a dead body open, so would she also be unafraid to slice a living person open? There was no difference between a living person and a dead person’s body, so if she could deal with a corpse without even blinking an eye, was she also able to immediately give a person a lethal blow without any signs on the surface?

Coroner Sun’s teeth began to chatter a little. He swore that he would never, ever, meet with this woman all by himself…

Song Caitang finished cutting through the skin and the muscle tissue, made careful observations, and pointed out any peculiarities out loud. Once Wen Yuansi finished writing everything down, she continued to push the ribs apart to reveal the chest cavity.

Ribs weren’t always extremely hard bones that couldn’t be cut through with knives and required saws and large pliers to pull apart. The part growing out from the backbone was mostly hard bone, but the section closer to the chest was soft bone. This soft bone would slowly harden over time and the hard bone section of the rib would increase with age.

The victim in this case wasn’t even 30 years old. The soft part of her ribs hadn’t hardened yet and her body was not damaged, so she didn’t even need a rongeur.

She simply switched to a scalpel with a tougher blade, held it at an angle at the place where the soft bone and hard bone met, and then sliced through the rib easily.

Her movements were careful as she cleanly sliced the intercostal muscles from the diaphragm, reached over with her left hand to lift the end of the ribs that were attached to the sternum, and then used her right hand to run the knife from the bottom to the top, separating the sternal mediastinum and making sure to leave the lungs undamaged.

She proceeded to separate the sternoclavicular joint and cut through the first rib.

The entire chest cavity was now exposed.

Red and white bits and liquid surrounding the light yellow internal organs were in full view. Coroner Sun couldn’t take it anymore and started vomiting.

He thought he would be able to hold out, since he had seen so many corpses in his life. But what he was seeing before him was way beyond his imagination…

The difference between the action-packed dissection process and the silent scene of the crime he was used to was really too shocking for him to bear.

It was no wonder all the coroners trying to do research into this aspect couldn’t continue. Besides having a gap in knowledge, not having the courage to continue was a big reason as well.

Governor Zhang remained as steady as a mountain and sniggered inwardly as he watched Coroner Sun scramble out of the room desperately.

So much for calling himself the best coroner in the prefecture with a famous mentor and the leader of an entire team of coroners ready to take the provincial governor on! What happened in the end? He failed to endure the autopsy process and was in an even worse state than himself!

And when he looked back at the intelligent, quiet and incredibly steady Song Caitang, Governor Zhang couldn’t help but beam.

Miss Song was still the most reliable person in all of this!

His judgment of others had never been wrong all these years!

He turned around to see a very serious-faced Governor Li, who was forcing himself to sit still even though his face was as white as a sheet and his lips were turning green. Governor Zhang grinned at him and gave a friendly suggestion, “You know, cutting a body open might be the best way to see what happened to the victim and it’s really effective, but it can be a little terrifying too. If you feel unwell, you can always choose to wait outside.”

Governor Li sneered back and said emotionlessly, “There’s no need for that. I’m not young anymore and I’ve seen many things in my day. Something like this isn’t enough to terrify me.”

He was so annoyed. Governor Zhang had merely watched an autopsy once and had just that bit more experience than him. How dare he speak as though he were superior!

Nobody knew who would be the last one standing just yet!

After all, he had gone all out to take the Yun Nianyao case for himself, then gone all out to get rid of it. He had already managed to give himself a huge slap in the face, so there was nothing else he couldn’t endure!

Governor Zhang smirked a little at how hard Governor Li was trying, but didn’t advise him any further.

Since this man preferred to embarrass himself, he could go ahead. He was going to be perfect entertainment.

But when it came to the surveillance commissioner…

Governor Zhang had a look of admiration when he looked at Zhao Zhi.

Even though he had gone through this once with Wen Yuansi, they were able to remain standing without flinching because they had secretly taken a pill from Song Caitang earlier. But this man was a rare one.

This man was really not the slightest bit afraid and not the slightest bit revolted.

Then again, this man was nicknamed the king of chaos because of his achievements in the military. He heard that this man had become a nemesis to another very powerful king, who called Zhao Zhi “Lord of Hades”. This was a man who had seen internal organs bursting out of bodies, bodies piled up as high as mountains, as much blood as the ocean, broken and incomplete limbs and more…

It was normal for him to be unfazed by this.

Zhao Zhi commented, “These lungs…look a little strange.”

Not only was he unafraid, but he could even point out differences.

Song Caitang glanced at Zhao Zhi with some surprise in her pretty eyes. But that quickly turned into a smile, “You’re right. The lungs of a normal person should not look like that.”

“Her lungs are swollen and congested, and there’s so much blood, as though there was a rupturing of blood cells…”

Song Caitang was about to give the conclusion when Zhao Zhi did it for her first, “Because she was poisoned?”

Song Caitang had a glint of approval in her eyes as she nodded, “Should be.”

She looked down and observed the victim’s internal organs carefully, then came to a conclusion.

“The victim’s lungs are swollen and congested, her spleen, liver and other major organs are abnormally swollen and there are signs of blood cells rupturing…Her circulatory system has been badly destroyed by the poison. Even if she didn’t meet with a mishap this time, she wouldn’t have held out for long if no doctor diagnosed this issue.”

The liver was the organ that detoxed the blood, the spleen made blood cells while the heart provided oxygen and pumped blood around the body. Once there was a problem with this system, it made sense for blood to appear beneath the skin. Throwing up blood, nose bleeds and blood in the eyes was also normal, which was why there was blood in the things she had vomited.

There was blood in her irises too…

And so Song Caitang guessed that the victim was bleeding somewhere in her cranium too.

“The effects of the poison are very obvious on the inside, but not on the outside even though she’s already very severely affected. It’s not going to kill her immediately, but she was definitely going to miscarry.”

Before she could miscarry, the victim was killed, and that was how the body ended up expelling the fetus even though it hadn’t reached the stage where it was rapidly decomposing and started accumulating air inside the body.

Song Caitang looked at Governor Li, “Did the fetus come out very early? Was it already out when the body was discovered?”

Governor Li looked a little dazed and did not want to look at the body on the table, “That’s right. The body was fine when it was first discovered, but it suddenly came out when we shifted the body.”

When that happened, everyone was so terrified. Their hair was standing and they sweated profusely like they had seen a ghost in broad daylight. It took a long time before anybody dared to move the body again.

But what about the cause of death?

Governor Li narrowed his eyes at Song Caitang and raised his tone a little, “Are you saying that this poison can cause death, but this isn’t the actual cause of the victim’s death because…she died before it could fully take effect.”

He was trying to remind Song Caitang that she was supposed to find the cause of death. She claimed she could, so she had to!

Song Caitang didn’t wait for him to push her and continued working on the body.

She used her scissors to cut open the pericardial sac to reveal the heart.

“Hmm?” She paused for a moment, “Coronary spasm?”

The victim’s heart was a normal, healthy person’s heart and the effects of the poison were not obvious here. But it wasn’t in a normal state right now.

It was very tight and very hard. It remained the way it was at the instant the victim died.

Zhao Zhi came closer and seemed to understand what was going on, “This doesn’t look right either.”

Song Caitang lowered her gaze and fell into deep thought, “The heart keeps blood flowing around the body. If there was a spasm and it stopped pumping, that can cause death within seconds.”

But what actions could cause someone’s heart to spasm and stop suddenly?

Besides the marks on the victim’s armpits that were caused after death, she wasn’t hurt anywhere else.

“Could she have been agitated?”

Zhao Zhi’s gaze darkened and he did not speak.

Song Caitang paused to think for a while, then said, “There’s a sort of sudden death that’s called death from inhibition, which is when a particular part of the body is slightly agitated or injured, triggering an inhibitory reflex action that causes the heart to stop within a very short time, resulting in death.”

The body often did not have any clear signs on the outside when the person died like this.

Governor Li did not look pleased, “So…there’s still no conclusion?”

“Why not?” Song Caitang smiled, “No matter what sort of agitation it was, the murderer had to agitate the victim in order to cause her death. The victim’s limbs and nails are undamaged, which means that this happened very suddenly and the victim didn’t have the time to react at all. The murderer was within close range of the victim and did this very confidently, which proves two things. One, the victim was not wary of the murderer, so they were acquainted at least recently. Secondly, the killer was very familiar with the victim and knew her very well. They knew the victim’s weaknesses and fears.”

The scope of suspects was immediately set. Those who had only passed by her or met her very briefly and did not have any record of being close to her in any way were basically out and no investigation of these people were required.

Zhao Zhi smirked and let out a scoff, “Well, Governor Li, I guess you don’t have to waste your energy questioning all those assassins, random psychos, enemies of the victim and so on.”

Governor Zhang grinned and chimed in, “The autopsy hasn’t ended yet, so nobody knows if Miss Song has any further discoveries to make. Governor Li, don’t be so impatient.” He then continued to make pointed remarks, “After all, Surveillance Commissioner Zhao is in charge of this case now, so you can just rest easy in your high chair and watch the show!”

Governor Li was so angry that his mustache was turned upward and his eyes were about to bulge out of their sockets.

While they were making snarky remarks, Song Caitang didn’t just stand around and do nothing. She continued slicing downward, then removed the victim’s stomach.

The stomach could tell one many things.

What she ate, what she drank, when she last ate…

This body had been preserved very well and ice had been used too so the state and contents of the stomach should be of great help to the case.

In that moment when Song Caitang sliced the stomach open, sticky, dark-brown stuff flowed out. It came with an unbearable smell that was a real challenge to anybody’s nerves.

Governor Zhang had gone through this before and knew what was going to happen. So, just before she sliced the stomach open, he looked nowhere else but kept his eye on Governor Li. He felt like this guy was finally going to buckle!

Lo and behold, Governor Li had reached his limit.

Governor Zhang thought that Governor Li would be like his two cronies and run outside to vomit, but that wasn’t the case. Governor Li…peed himself.

Nobody knew if it happened because he was too overwhelmed by the smell, or too overwhelmed by fear.

Governor Zhang felt a little bad teasing him now.

Perhaps Governor Li knew that he had embarrassed himself beyond hope and there was no way he could cover this up, so it was better to just accept what happened and move on. He was actually really calm right now and stood with an unusually stern look on his face, as though he was thinking very hard about the case. Anybody who tried to interrupt his thoughts right now must be an idiot.

But Zhao Zhi couldn’t hold his laughter back. Or perhaps he didn’t want to.

“As you know, there’s something men have that’s often difficult to control. When they’re young, it’s a problem around women. When they’re old, it’s a problem around the toilet. Governor Li has truly demonstrated this fact. You’ve reached a certain age already, so you don’t have to be embarrassed by it. We all understand.”

It would have been better if he hadn’t said these cheeky words. Saying this only made it worse.

Governor Li wasn’t even 50 years old yet. He wasn’t old enough to suffer from incontinence.

His lips trembled as his eyes met looks of either pity or mocking, and barely managed to utter these words, “No worries. All of you will come to this point someday.”

It took Governor Zhang a lot of effort to make sure he didn’t burst out laughing.

“I’m not worried about myself, but I’m worried about you. Don’t you think you should get a change of clothes? What if you catch a chill and come down with the flu?”

He smiled very insincerely as he spoke to Governor Li, “Should I see you out?”

Of course Governor Li wasn’t going to insist on remaining in the room anymore.

Never mind the fact that he had peed his pants – that putrid smell in the air was going to make him puke any moment!