The victim’s face has been neatly skinned. What remained was the sight of red flesh and muscles that seemed as if it were burnt by fire. Trace of blood could still be seen, dried, but silloning from certain parts on the face and ending their course in the victim’s hair which had pieces of grass stuck in. From the face alone, this corpse looked like a mummy! Because the victim was found naked, her body was flimsily covered with some cloth. Yet it couldn’t hide that her hands were chopped and missing. The corpse was extremely sinister and terrifying to look at.
Faced with that kind of corpse, Ji Yunshu tightly pressed her lips and a trace of pity could be seen deep in her eyes.
Although the corpse doesn’t have a face, Ji Yunshu was able to determine that this woman had a beautiful appearance when she was alive. Ji Yunshu walled herself in silence as she saw the incision made on the deceased’s abdomen and chest. The suturing technique used was very crude and lacked finesse. “Really…” Ji Yunshu glared at the coroner. “Some corpses don’t need to be cut open for autopsy.”
The coroner coldly smiled. “If I don’t open them, how can we investigate?”
“I don’t blame you. After all, your skills are lacking.”
The coroner couldn’t retort. Ji Yunshu’s words sounded as if she was blaming him instead despite saying the contrary.
Meanwhile, the instant that Ji Yunshu lifted the cloth covering the corpse, the governor, who was behind her, immediately lowered his head and tightly closed his mouth. As for Jing Xuan, her eyes widened and she opened her mouth in shock for a few seconds. After which, she suddenly closed her mouth. Her face quickly paled before turning green. Finally, she madly dashed outside while on the verge of retching. Not long after, everyone could hear the vague and irregular sounds of Jing Xuan emptying her stomach.
‘Didn’t she want to see the truth? Wasn’t she the one who said she wanted to follow and watch me? She still lacks determination.’ Ji Yunshu naturally didn’t care much about Jing Xuan as she put on her gloves.
Although the victim’s face was destroyed and her appearance couldn’t be ascertained through observation, it was still possible to be determined through other methods. Ji Yunshu pried open the corpse’s eyes and observed the opacity of the cornea1. Then, she saw the livor mortis on the victim’s chest. “According to the degree of corneal opacity and the appearance of livor mortis2 on the victim, the time of death isn’t a day ago but barely six hours ago,” declared Ji Yunshu.
The coroner’s expression turned ugly. He stretched his head to look. He appeared as if he wanted to say something, but he kept quiet in the end.
Then, Ji Yunshu raised the amputated arm for closer examination and said, “The place where the arms were severed is extremely smooth. It must have been chopped by a very sharp knife. In addition, the wound edges are quite even. The blade itself must have been a flat one.” After stating that, she rimmed the inside of wound with her finger and then smelled it.
Her brows creased as she continued to explain further. “The flesh inside it had already started to rot, and not to mention the rotting smell is very pungent. The blood around the wound edge had turned dark purple and had completely congealed there. It is evident that the victim’s hands have been chopped at least three days ago. In fact, she didn’t die from blood loss.”
“What kind of nonsense are you spouting? How could she have not died from blood loss?” The coroner argued.
The hands were obviously chopped off and the face was also peeled off, so how could all those wounds not cause the person to die by massive bleeding?
Ji Yunshu wasn’t in a hurry to explain. She continued to examine the corpse carefully. First, she examined the head. She parted the hair for a better view of the scalp. Suddenly, her expression became stunned. She immediately went to the victim’s legs and uncovered it, revealing a pair of small and jade-like feet. There was pieces of grass stuck on them.
She pinched the victim’s feet. Although the body had underwent a certain degree of rigor mortis, the feet…
Ji Yunshu’s expression twisted and she examined the body even more carefully. This should be it. A conjecture formed in her mind.
1. Corneal opacity could be used as a meant to estimate the time of death through observation, but only if the time of death is not too long ago. However, it’s one element amongst many signs that could help estimate the time of death. For more information, click here: https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/estimating-the-time-after-death-on-the-basis-of-corneal-opacity-2157-7145.1000269.php?aid=36967 ?
2.Livor mortis is the purple coloration of blood deposit after blood circulation stopped. It started to appear around 2-4 hour post-mortem depending on environmental factors and deepened in color until around 12 hours after death.