Overly Intense [Criminal Investigation] 13

Chapter 13: The Stamina for Staying Up All Night

Lin Puping was cleaning the morgue. Although the ventilation had been turned up to the maximum speed, and he had been standing in this room for six hours, he still couldn’t get used to the foul stench.

He felt as if he had rolled around naked in a cesspool, his entire body covered in a thick green sludge.

He looked up and glanced at the female director.

Director Shen was leaning her head against the wall, her eyes fixed on the corpse, her expression frozen. Her gloved hands were held in front of her chest, a look of weariness on her face, her usual sharpness gone. No matter what he had just said to her, she would reply softly with an “okay,” no longer refuting him, no longer trying to guide him. Her sharp edges had vanished due to the setback, making one feel a sense of pity.

It was true. This case had too many suspicious external factors: the boy had run away from home, had no communication, and had eaten a full meal before his death. If it were exposed to the public, it would surely be linked to some conspiracy theories.

So Dr. Shen’s desire to perform an autopsy to clarify the results was also to reassure the family.

But now they had opened the chest cavity, removed the internal organs for fixation, and there were no serious violent injuries on the body’s surface. The possibility of homicide was currently zero. Sometimes, being too meticulous and persistent could easily lead to mental exhaustion.

He glanced at the director’s face again.

Shen Yiyi’s makeup-free face was clean, her temperament intellectual. In a crowd, she would be considered beautiful and elegant. As long as she wasn’t working, she was usually very gentle. Just now, when the director had opened the chest, the swollen tissue fluid inside had been squeezed and sprayed directly onto her face. The stench was unbearable for anyone. It was truly hard work for such a beautiful woman to be sawing open corpses every day.

Lin Puping couldn’t help but ask with concern, “It’s almost five o’clock. I’ll take you to get some breakfast in a bit. You should skip this morning’s meeting. I’ll ask for leave for you from Captain Li.”

Shen Yiyi was engrossed in the case. She hadn’t given up yet. If she didn’t examine it carefully this time, the next time it was thawed, some specific signs would be even less obvious.

She stood up and walked to the body. The CT scan of the brain was normal, with no skull fractures. But there were a few dark red spots on the back of the head. Because of the decomposition and peeling skin, the boundaries of the bruises were blurry.

During her initial examination, she could barely tell with the naked eye whether there was an inflammatory reaction in the bruised area before death.

Little Wang probably hadn’t been able to determine it during his preliminary examination either, which was why he had used written phrases like “no conditions for examination,” “difficult to rule out,” and “high probability” in his report.

Shen Yiyi had only been focused on determining whether the victim had drowned while alive and hadn’t paid attention to the minor details. She followed all the marks on the body, from the scalp down to the toes.

Now the body was just a loose bag of skin, the chest cavity clamped open, the internal organs empty. She re-examined the multiple bleeding points, both subcutaneous and in the muscle groups, and made two extra marks at locations 23 and 12.

“Cut these two damaged tissues as well and send them for histopathological examination.”

Lin Puping took a deep breath and put on his mask and gloves again.

“He took off his clothes and went into the river himself, even his shoes and socks,” Shen Yiyi said to herself, tilting her head. “Was he going for a swim?”

While waiting for Lin Puping to deal with the family before the autopsy, Shen Yiyi had looked up the victim’s information. The boy was at the bottom of his class, not in a relationship, and his biggest hobby was playing mobile games.

“Maybe he had a mental illness.”

But the boy’s father was a teahouse owner, and his mother owned a jade shop. The family was well-off, with no academic pressure, and no family history of mental illness.

Shen Yiyi repeatedly compared the wounds on the heel, sole, and the bottom of the toes. They had the texture of a decomposed paste, bluish-gray, and a soft, thick liquid flowed out after thawing. She seemed to be unable to smell anything, her eyes fixed on the specific details of the wounds.

He must have walked barefoot in the grass for some time.

“I can feel he was very excited.”

Shen Yiyi squatted down again and looked at the myocardial tissue that had been dissected and placed in the fixation box. The congestion and dilation of the heart were normal for drowning, but non-specific. The thickness of the left ventricular wall was specially increased…

“Perhaps he took a stimulant?”

“Huh?” Lin Puping stood beside her, also looking at the heart. The endocardium was stained red, the left endocardium redder than the right. The overall color was very pale, a non-specific sign of drowning. What was different?

So he also squatted down and observed carefully.

“Petechial hemorrhages.” Shen Yiyi pointed with her forceps from a distance. “Do you see them?”

Oh, there were indeed tiny petechial hemorrhages on the left endocardium.

“The small blood vessels in the endocardium ruptured due to hypoxia,” Lin Puping answered very quickly.

“For him, there are two other possibilities,” Shen Yiyi stood up. “Either his heart stopped suddenly due to the shock of entering the water, or he was poisoned.”

“Then how can you tell with the naked eye?”

For Lin Puping, this was a classic textbook case. In drowning, the hypotonic fluid inhaled passes through the alveolar walls into the blood vessels, causing the fragile vessel walls to rupture and form spots. Now, to say he was poisoned, he was a bit dizzy.

“You can’t tell with the naked eye. You can only say it’s a possibility.” Shen Yiyi began to take off her gloves. “If you analyze it in conjunction with the case details, he wasn’t in an emotional crisis, he took off his clothes, and he could swim, yet he fell into the water and died. If he had suddenly choked on water and died, the blood spots would be more obvious due to the increased pressure from struggling.”

He nodded. “If there was a violent struggle and respiratory shock, the rupture of the small blood vessels in the endocardium would be more severe.”

“Keep a close eye on the toxicology. The possibility of him taking a stimulant or hallucinogen is very high. I even think the source of these drugs is very likely his family. Give Old Wang a call later and check the background of those men who came tonight. Also, see if the deceased’s family’s social network could have access to hallucinogens. Start looking for clues there.”

Lin Puping nodded vigorously. “Okay.”

“Should I stitch, or you?” Shen Yiyi held her hands in front of her chest. Her fingers, which had been in gloves for six hours, were a little pale.

“I’ll do it.” Lin Puping volunteered. “Director Shen, you can take care of the reports and stuff.”

“Alright.”

***

At seven-thirty in the morning, Shen Yiyi was dozing in the passenger seat. Lin Puping let out a huge yawn and woke her up.

“Take the things to the various labs, and give Captain Li a call to postpone the meeting until ten o’clock.” Shen Yiyi really couldn’t take it anymore. She said wearily, “Tell him to give us some time to recover.”

Lin Puping said with concern, “You don’t actually have to go today. The materials are all sorted. I can go to the analysis meeting by myself.”

Shen Yiyi looked him up and down. “If you could sign the report, I definitely wouldn’t go.”

“Uh…”

“Alright, hurry up and deal with the autopsy materials.”

“Then I’ll go to the cafeteria to get food later. You still want the usual three, right?” Lin Puping looked at the director’s retreating back, rolled down the window, and asked.

“Send the materials first, then eat!!!!”

“Got it!” Lin Puping pouted, not understanding why this female director’s mind was only filled with work.

Shen Yiyi went to the locker room on her office floor, took a change of clothes, and went to the bathroom to take a shower. Summer was here, and she could take up to eight showers a day. The balcony of the women’s restroom was completely taken over by her t-shirts and police uniforms.

After her shower, she took her phone out of her locker and sat on the bench, wiping the case with an alcohol wipe. But she stopped halfway through.

It was fine when she hadn’t taken out her phone, but now that she saw it, she couldn’t help but want to open WeChat, as if she were being bewitched.

She opened WeChat. At the very top was always her father’s red bubble.

Shen Yiyi scrolled past it, looking for Qin Luo’s name. But after a few swipes, all she saw were messages from various department groups, case groups, and family groups.

Qin Luo’s profile picture was bare, with no little red dot.

She unconsciously opened the chat box and confirmed once again that the other person hadn’t sent her anything.

The last message was:

[My car is parked at the main entrance of the police station. I’ll wait for you to get off work.]

Shen Yiyi shoved her phone back into her pocket and threw the wet wipe into the trash. She couldn’t figure out why Qin Luo had changed so much in sixteen years.

In high school…

In high school, Qin Luo would at least call her after getting home, to say she had arrived safely and to ask when she would be free to go out again. Even if she rejected the invitation, she could sense Qin Luo’s disappointment over the phone.

Yes, Qin Luo had really changed.

It wasn’t the sense of superiority that came with a higher social status, nor the sense of distance that came with a confident appearance and elegant temperament. Instead, she had become softer, no longer clinging to every little thing, no longer sticking so closely to her. Instead, she had drawn a blank space between them.

Shen Yoyi walked into the dorm, found her bed, and lay down. She was drowsy, but her mind was flashing with images from the past. She turned over, set her alarm, and closed her eyes.

“Are you sleepy?”

The past Qin Luo seemed to be talking to her, or maybe it was someone else. “If you’re sleepy, why don’t you take a nap?”

“Very sleepy. The kind of sleepy that could lead to sudden death.”

Shen Yiyi felt she was on someone’s lap. Someone was touching her ear, their fingertips brushing over the auricle, gently patting her back. It was soothing, like being lulled to sleep, but her heart ached with a sour, swelling feeling. Yet the pain was easily dissolved by the comfort, scattering throughout her body. She couldn’t help but put her hand on her leg.

In her daze, Shen Yiyi clutched the corner of her pillow, as if holding tightly to that person’s waist. Before falling into a dream, she mumbled, “Don’t blame me.”