“Why did the murderer just cut this victim’s throat?” Xiaotao asked.

I sighed before answering, “I think he’s improving his skills.”

“Improving… his skills?” Xiaotao was stunned.

“Wait, I’ve got something else to confirm.”

I opened the victim’s mouth and looked inside. I noticed that it was severely decayed. When it opened, it made a faint movement, and I saw a few sticky threads between the upper and lower jaws. It seemed that the cheek muscles on both sides of the victim’s mouth had begun to rot. The upper cartilage had decayed too, and so the unsupported nose began to collapse inward.

The putrid liquid in the nasal cavity seemed to have flowed inwards. The gums and the tongue had severely decayed, and the warm and humid environment in the mouth had spawned many bacteria and molds, making it impossible to look any further than the mouth.

I resisted the urge to vomit and sniffed at the victim’s nose. The stench was so vile and revolting I could’ve fainted on the spot. After all, my nose was much more sensitive than other people’s. But through that stench, I detected the smell of blood. It seemed that the victim’s nose had been flooded with his own blood!

Was the victim hung upside down when his throat was cut?

I checked his ankles and found traces of bondage.

The whole body had almost completely decayed. The stomach and the intestines had basically spilled out of the body. Because the human intestines contained a lot of fat, bugs and maggots feasted on it, and there were numerous squirming maggots that crawled in and out of the intestines. They had all grown big and fat.

I pressed on the stomach with my hand. It was filled with gas, which was a byproduct of decomposition, but apart from that, I could feel that it contained… something else.

“Does anybody have a scalpel?” I asked.

“I thought you Traditional Coroners don’t dissect dead bodies?” Xiaotao was slightly surprised.

“There’s no other choice,” I explained. “The body is in a severely decayed state, and the articular cartilage is completely ruined. If I move it just a little, it’ll definitely fall apart. If there’s no scalpel, a small pair of scissors will do. I just want to look at the contents inside the stomach.”

Xiaotao asked around and finally got me a pair of scissors. I used my hands to hold the whole stomach pouch, and let Xiaotao put a plastic bag underneath it to prevent the things flowing out of the stomach from contaminating the other internal organs.

Then I told the others to step back because something might squirt out of the stomach soon. I held my breath and started to cut it open.

Sure enough, as soon as the scissors punctured through the stomach tissue, I heard a faint ‘pop’ like a burst balloon, and a strong pungent smell filled the air. I was too close to the thing — the smell hit me so hard I almost couldn’t keep my eyes open, but I did see black fluid spilling out of the stomach.

Many officers were so disgusted they kept stepping further backwards. I desperately held my breath. If I did take a whiff of that toxic smell, I knew I would surely faint on the spot!

I continued to cut the stomach open. The tissue that made up the stomach lining was solid muscle, so the small pair of scissors weren’t exactly the perfect tool to cut it cleanly. The sound it made when I cut through the stomach was something out of an alien movie. I asked Xiaotao to get me another plastic bag, which I filled with the undigested matter that came out of the stomach. I then wrapped the stomach tightly in another clean plastic bag, then stuffed it back into the victim’s belly. That way, if the coroners needed to dissect the body afterwards, the other internal organs would not be eroded by the residual stomach acid.

I took the plastic bag containing the stomach contents in my hand and rushed out to a spot further away from the bridge and breathed in the fresh air. Suddenly, a hand stretched out to me, offering a cigarette. I looked up and saw that it was Wang Yuanchao.

“Thank you, but I don't smoke,” I politely declined.

Wordlessly, he lit up that cigarette and smoked it himself.

“When did you get here?” Xiaotao asked him.

“I came immediately when I received the call.”

I held the plastic bag to the light and examined it. Xiaotao asked me what I found, so I asked her to smell the contents of the bag. Xiaotao jerked backwards in disgust at first, but when she caught a whiff of it, she exclaimed with amazement, “The contents of the victim’s stomach smells of spices!”

“That’s right,” I replied. “There are peppercorns, star anise, cinnamon, and nutmeg.”

“That damned psychopath, is he trying to turn me off from these spices too?” Xiaotao grumbled with furrowed brows. Then she asked me, “But why are there such things in the victim’s belly?”

“The murderer probably wanted to improve the taste of human flesh…” I deduced.

“Improve… the taste?” Xiaotao’s cheek twitched when she said that.

“I noticed scratches in the victim’s esophagus. It was probably due to the spices being forced down the throat and into the stomach, just like a Beijing roast duck.”

“That’s awful!” cried Xiaotao.

“Also, there are signs of binding at the ankles and a lot of blood in the nose. The victim may have been hung upside down when his throat was cut...” I paused. “Just like how chickens and ducks are slaughtered!”

Upon hearing this, all the people present turned sickly pale.

This victim was the first person to be kidnapped by the murderer. The murderer must’ve forced the deceased to eat a lot of spices. Judging by the degree to which the spices had been digested, the murderer must’ve force-fed the victim these spices around twelve hours before he eagerly cut his throat so the victim bled to death.

It would be nearly impossible for any ordinary person to do these things calmly and efficiently. I concluded that the murderer must have two distinct characteristics: firstly, he was totally devoid of any humanity; secondly, he must have a wealth of experience in slaughtering animals!

This corpse was much different from the previous one, but it could still be concluded that they were killed by the same person. By comparing these two bodies, it seemed that the murderer had been ‘researching’ a slaughtering method that would make the human flesh taste more delicious.

Obviously, the way to improve the meat quality with spices had not been successful, so the murderer later used anesthesia to kill the victim instead!

After saying this, I took a long breath and tried to speculate on the inner psychology of such a cannibalistic madman. It was like exploring a dark, dirty, wet sewer, and it made me feel particularly disgusted, depressed, and stifled.

It was especially so when I thought of how I would need to face such a terrible corpse one more time.

Everyone looked at me, but no one spoke a word. The stifling silence probably lasted about five seconds, but it felt much longer than that. Even for most of the police officers, they might not have ever faced such an inhuman and abnormal case in their lifetime.

In the end, it was Dali’s voice that broke the silence. He rushed over to me and yelled, “Dude! There you are! I’m not too late, am I?”

Dali then perceived the oppressive atmosphere around him. When he saw the dead body on the ground he jumped up as if he just touched a high-voltage live wire.

“Holy shit! What the hell is that?!”

“Did you get everything?” I asked.

“Yeah, dude.”

I asked Dali to take out a little box in my bag which contained my sweetgum candies. I couldn’t stand the stench any longer. When Dali found it, I quickly put the candy on my tongue, and the fresh minty fragrant filled my nose and refreshed my mind immediately. I instantly felt much better.

There was still some leftover seaweed ash from last night that I kept in a paper bag. I asked Dali to get it, along with the red silk cloth that I used to detect Yang Energy Prints.

I checked the dead body with these two tools, and just like the previous body, I found no fingerprints on the body because the murderer had worn gloves. There were some Yang Energy Prints though. Meanwhile, on the plastic bag, there was a whole host of fingerprints left there. It’s a pity that the plastic bag had been soaked in the water for too long and couldn’t be used for identification.

I stared at the Yang Energy Prints and the fingerprints on the plastic bag. Dali kept asking me questions, but I was so focused I couldn’t hear a word he said.

“What did you find, Song Yang?” Xiaotao asked after a few minutes.

“I think I’ve made a major discovery!” I declared.