"Next is the neck." Xie Qingyan's voice dropped lower. He took a deep breath, held up the scale ruler, and measured against the stark, horrifying dark purple-red mark on the deceased's throat.
"The neck shows a clear ligature furrow. Furrow width approximately three centimeters, edges smooth, with fine cross-hatched fabric impressions at the base."
He switched to a finer forceps and examined along the edges of the impression under the magnifying glass.
"The impression texture is uniform. Rope is excluded—rope would leave crossed striations. This is a texture created by a smooth, soft material of considerable width. The key is the direction—"
Yin Wuwang brought the camera lens closer, following Xie Qingyan's pointing finger.
"The ligature furrow is deepest at the front of the neck above the thyroid cartilage, gradually becoming shallower toward both ears, the mastoid processes, and the occipital region. It does not form a complete closed loop. The overall pattern shows a clear oblique angle of 'pulling upward and backward from the front.'" Xie Qingyan set down the ruler, bracing both hands on the edge of the autopsy table, his gaze sharp as he looked at Yin Wuwang.
"The deceased was lying face-down on the ground. If the killer had strangled him face-to-face, the furrow would be horizontal. This upward pulling angle only indicates one thing—"
Yin Wuwang's eyes sharpened. In his mind, a dynamic reconstruction of the crime scene instantly materialized: "The killer attacked from behind. After Chen Wan was knocked unconscious by the bottle and collapsed face-down, the killer straddled his back, wrapped the weapon around his neck, then pulled upward and backward with both hands. The killer used the leverage of their own body weight leaning backward to compensate for insufficient arm strength."
"Exactly correct." Xie Qingyan nodded, then lifted the deceased's hands, carefully examining the fingernail beds and backs. "The deceased's ten fingers show abnormally clean fingernail beds—no skin fragments, blood, or clothing fibers. No 'Kiyogawa lines' around the neck furrow where the victim might have clawed trying to remove the ligature. No defensive wounds on either forearm or wrist."
Yin Wuwang let out a cold laugh: "When a conscious person is being strangled, even if restrained, survival instinct makes them struggle frantically. The fact that Chen Wan died so 'quietly' proves that when he was strangled, he had already completely lost consciousness."
"Summarizing external examination findings." Xie Qingyan turned to look at Old Sun's clipboard. "The deceased shows facial cyanosis. Both conjunctivae show dense petechial hemorrhaging—capillary rupture caused by oxygen deprivation, consistent with standard asphyxiation characteristics. The head blunt trauma was an antemortem injury, but not fatal. The actual lethal mechanism was mechanical asphyxiation sustained while unconscious."
Old Sun felt a chill run down his spine. This completely overturned Zhang Yunxiang's confession. This wasn't a simple case of drunken conflict leading to death.
"Prepare to open the body cavity." Xie Qingyan extended his right hand toward Old Sun.
Old Sun immediately slapped a sterilized number ten scalpel firmly into Xie Qingyan's palm.
"Prompt: Thoracic-abdominal cavity opening procedure. Use standard Y-incision. Start from behind both ears, descend to meet at the suprasternal notch, then cut along the abdominal midline to above the pubic symphysis. Be careful to avoid deep vessels." Little Deer Assistant 9528's voice provided precise navigation in his mind.
Xie Qingyan gripped the scalpel.
Standing two steps away, Yin Wuwang—who had been preparing to continue photographing—froze. His gaze locked onto Xie Qingyan's hand holding the blade.
That grip—index finger pad pressing steadily on the front of the blade spine, the other four fingers curled around the handle like iron yet flexible, wrist slightly lowered, the entire arm relaxed yet channeling force from shoulder straight through to fingertips, perfectly balanced, all in one fluid line.
Yin Wuwang knew this posture all too well.
It was identical to how Xie Qingyan held his natal immortal sword, "Frost Radiance."
The scalpel's thin blade touched the deceased's chest. The next second, it glided smoothly forward.
No hesitation whatsoever. Not a trace of a beginner's clumsiness. That Y-incision was clean and precise—subcutaneous fat and fascia parted with exact depth, perfectly exposing the thoracic structure without damaging a single organ membrane that shouldn't be breached.
Yin Wuwang's heartbeat inexplicably skipped a beat.
He watched those slender, cold-white hands under the shadowless lights. He knew this wasn't some medical talent—this was the ultimate "muscle memory" the Sword Sovereign had forged through millennia of life-and-death combat, through countless instances of driving a blade into enemy vitals.
This sword dao, once capable of cleaving apart the laws of heaven and earth, of severing sun, moon, and stars, was now impossibly compressed into a scalpel less than fifteen centimeters long.
Whether holding a longsword for slaying demons or a scalpel for cutting mortal flesh—Fuguang was always the sharpest, most precise, most dazzling one. His expression of concentration on the task at hand was beautiful almost to the point of being impossible to look away from, carrying a kind of fatal attraction.
Yin Wuwang drew in a breath of cold air, forcing his gaze away from those hands, pressing down that flicker of stirring deep in his heart.
He silently berated himself—this was investigation time. If he got distracted watching Fuguang and missed a clue, causing mission failure and point deductions, wouldn't that be letting down Fuguang's meticulous dedication?
As the thoracic and abdominal cavities were opened in sequence, the intense smell of blood and internal organs instantly permeated the autopsy room. Yin Wuwang didn't so much as furrow his brow. He'd spent more days rolling among corpses than these modern detectives had eaten meals.
Little Deer Assistant 9528 diligently guided the dissection sequence and organ removal techniques in Xie Qingyan's mind, while the vast pathology knowledge base Xie Qingyan had memorized last night now perfectly took over the analysis and judgment.
He picked up the rib shears. Accompanied by several tooth-aching crack sounds, he cut through the costal cartilage on both sides and removed the sternum.
"Pericardium intact. Blood in the cardiac chambers is dark purple-red in color, flowing state." Xie Qingyan removed the heart and lungs, placing them on an adjacent dissection board. Using a dissection knife, he gently sliced open the lung lobes. "Lungs show obvious edema and congestion. The epicardium and lung surfaces show scattered pinpoint dark-red hemorrhages. In forensic science, these are called 'Tardieu spots'—definitive evidence of death by mechanical asphyxiation."
Yin Wuwang quickly stepped forward, aiming the lens at those tiny hemorrhage points for macro photography.
Next, Xie Qingyan separated the neck tissues.
"Obvious hemorrhaging around the superior horn of the thyroid cartilage and greater horn of the hyoid bone. The left greater horn of the hyoid shows a fracture." Xie Qingyan displayed the cartilage structure for the camera. "This further confirms that the neck sustained extreme external pressure. The cause of death is beyond doubt—strangulation."
[End of V2_Chapter 08]
Next: One cause of death down—but what about that cyanide report?