Miss Forensics – Chapter 26
by Little PandaVolume One: First Scroll
The Human Heart
“Is this pregnancy?” “Yes, your father’s1, hurry up and call me mom.”
Song Yuhang ran downstairs, through the crowd of onlookers, looking around, but still found nothing. She was quickly surrounded by reporters again.
“Officer, officer, say a few words.”
“Team Leader Song, what are you looking for?” Duan Cheng poked his head out of the car window to look at her.
Song Yuhang came back to her senses and shook her head. She grabbed the car door, jumped in, and shut the annoying reporters out.
“Let’s go, back to the city bureau.”
Jiangcheng City was divided into east and west districts by the Jiang River. The East District was filled with high-rise buildings and towering skyscrapers, with wide roads and well-maintained landscaping. Even the roadside greenery was uniformly arranged in height. This was where the municipal government, the public security bureau, the procuratorate, and other functional institutions were located. It was also a paradise for the wealthy.
The West District was mostly inhabited by the original residents of Jiangcheng City. It was close to the river and nestled between mountains and water, with an excellent geographical location. It also happened to catch the wave of reform and opening up, and housing prices soared. Some original residents were unwilling to move, while others wanted to sell for a good price and take advantage of the government. The Jiangcheng City government took the lead in several bidding projects, but the developers who came were all scared away by the sky-high prices demanded by the nail households2. Therefore, in today’s rapidly changing economic development, it was like a rat dropping embedded in the pearl of Jiangcheng City, the kind that couldn’t be removed no matter how hard you tried.
The alleys were low and narrow, and the sky overhead was divided into pieces by a spiderweb of electrical wires.
The ground was uneven, and people were squatting in the ditches by the roadside washing clothes. An old man riding a bicycle rang his bell, making a jingling sound.
On such roads, the criminal police team’s car moved like a snail.
Lin Yan leaned back in her seat, her face pale: “Can you drive faster?”
“This is already the fastest. It’ll be better once we get out of that alley ahead.” Duan Cheng said, gently pressing the brakes to avoid an oncoming electric scooter.
Song Yuhang looked back at her. Half of Lin Yan’s face was hidden in the shadows, making it impossible to see her expression. There were many people in the car, so she couldn’t ask directly. She bit her lip and gave up.
When they finally arrived at the city bureau after a bumpy ride, the car door opened, and Lin Yan was the first to rush out, leaning against the wall and retching. She hadn’t eaten breakfast, so she only vomited up stomach acid.
A few gossiping female colleagues followed behind, whispering: “Is this pregnancy? With such a messy private life, which unlucky guy is it⦔
“Shh, keep your voice down, don’t let her hear you.”
Song Yuhang frowned slightly, intending to walk over and hand her a tissue. But the person had already wiped the corner of her mouth and straightened up, her gaze like lightning. Although she wasn’t wearing high heels, she walked with a powerful stride, walked up to the person who was talking, and slapped her across the face. Her beautiful face was full of arrogance.
“Yes, your father’s, hurry up and call me mom.”
The young policewoman stomped her feet and ran away crying.
Lin Yan slung her uniform jacket over her shoulder and walked inside with one hand in her pocket. Song Yuhang stood in her path. When their shoulders bumped, she grabbed her arm.
“Why do this?”
Lin Yan glanced at the hand on her arm, her tone flippant: “I think Team Leader Song isn’t a police officer of Jiangcheng City, but a police officer of the Pacific Ocean3. Why do you have to meddle in everyone’s business?”
“She was wrong, but there are people coming and going at the entrance of the city bureau, you don’t have toβ¦ How will you face people in the future?”
The implication was that she was impulsive, and there was also a hint of protecting the other person. Lin Yan felt a surge of nameless anger rush to her head, and she shook off her hand.
“If you want to talk about being a human being, everyone is doing it for the first time. Why should I endure it?” She tilted her head and spat fiercely: “I p*ui4! It’s good enough that I didn’t tear her mouth apart. What does it have to do with you, Song Yuhang? Jumping out here and acting all high and mighty, you’re so fake!”
She finished speaking and, with the same flat shoes, walked with the aura of someone wearing high heels and a height of 1.8 meters, heading straight into the city bureau, leaving Song Yuhang alone and bewildered.
“Inexplicable.”
Fang Xin looked at her sympathetically and left.
Duan Cheng patted her shoulder and also left.
Zheng Chengrui pushed up his glasses: “A woman’s heart is like a needle at the bottom of the sea.”
Song Yuhang completely agreed and nodded, following the others: “A woman’s heart is like a needle at the bottom of the sea.”
Strictly speaking, even in the case of a homicide, the family of the deceased should be found before an autopsy is performed. But now the body was in this state, and there was nothing at the scene that could prove the identity of the deceased. The only piece of paper had its ink completely smeared and required further technical restoration, which would take time.
Therefore, Lin Yan decided to perform the autopsy first. The external characteristics of the corpse would change with time and temperature. Every minute of delay moved them further away from the truth.
She turned on the faucet and splashed water on her face to cool down, and her dizzy head regained some clarity. Then she washed her hands, disinfected, put on protective clothing, and wore a mask, all in one go. Fully armed, she walked into the autopsy room.
Even though it was an unidentified body, she still maintained sufficient respect. She placed the scalpel vertically on her chest, bowed her head slightly, and observed a minute of silence.
Duan Cheng turned on the camera.
“June 1, 2008, 1:45 PM. The deceased is unnamed. First autopsy, now beginning.”
Training room.
A whiteboard, with photos of the scene and clues currently known written in black marker.
“Through interviews with witnesses at the scene, we learned that the suspect, Li Li5, drove into the construction site at around 4:55 AM last night. He prepared to unload goods in front of the building and ran over the area more than ten times. Around 5:30 AM, the construction site foreman, Liu Zhi6, got up to start work and discovered the victim.”
“The victim was already dead when discovered. Everything below the neck was rolled into the wheels. The body was severely damaged, and the blood pool area was approximately 1.0 x 1.2 meters. It was distributed in a shape that was deeper in the middle and shallower around the edges. Through the forensic doctor’s on-site examination, we learned that the deceased was a young woman under the age of eighteen.”
“Her skull had a comminuted fracture, and the wound showed clear signs of vital reaction, consistent with the characteristics of a high-fall injury.”
“Wait a minuteβ” Zhang Jinhai interrupted the detective: “So you’re saying the deceased died from falling from the building, not from being run over by the truck?”
“Yes.” Song Yuhang stood up and handed over the dried paper in the evidence bag: “This was found on the roof of the scene.”
The paper was dry, but the ink could not be restored. Everyone stared at it for a long time, but they could only make out the two words “suicide note.”
Zhang Jinhai took off his glasses: “If a suicide note was found, it’s highly likely to be suicide, right?”
“Not necessarily. Although no traces of a fight were found on the roof, and no fingerprints or footprints of a second person were found, there are still doubts. She was not even eighteen years old, a young woman in the prime of her life. Why would she commit suicide?”
No one wanted homicides to occur one after another in their jurisdiction. This question made Zhang Jinhai frown. He suppressed his displeasure and turned to instruct others.
“The priority now is to confirm the identity of the deceased. Have there been any reports of missing persons in the major police stations in the jurisdiction recently, especially minors?”
A detective opened the computer, looked at it, and stood up: “There are reports of missing persons, one in the East District and two in the West District, but they are all elderly people, the ages don’t match.”
“What about the surveillance footage at the scene?” Song Yuhang turned her gaze to Zheng Chengrui.
Zheng Chengrui tapped his fingers on the keyboard, entered a string of code, and brought up a map of the entire block. He turned around with a somewhat grim expression.
“The nearest camera to the scene is more than a hundred meters away.”
The Green Building was one of the West District renovation projects subsidized by the city government and contracted by Jianxin Company7. The initial plan was to build a comprehensive large-scale shopping center to attract major businesses. But from the six-story scale and size, it was clear how difficult the project was.
A small piece of land was also designated as a parking lot, but now it was just a pile of stones and construction waste. The incident occurred in front of the building, and the camera was over by the parking lot, more than a hundred meters away. It couldn’t even capture a ghost.
DNA comparison, bloodstain analysis, fingerprint comparison, and even the autopsy would take time. The case was once again at a standstill.
Song Yuhang propped up her chin, always feeling that something was wrong. She also wished that this was just a simple suicide case, but it involved a minor, so it was necessary to be cautious and verify everything. Even if it was suicide, there should be a reason.
Her gaze fell on the piece of paper in front of her. This was the only clue at present. She stretched out her arm and took it again, examining it carefully.
The paper was ordinary notebook paper, nothing special.
Notebook paper?
A flash of inspiration struck her. She flipped the palm-sized paper over and took out a flashlight from her pocket, shining it through the paper and studying it carefully.
Ink smudges easily, but what about printed characters?
When schools in Jiangcheng City started, they would give students notebooks. In order to distinguish themselves from other schools, they would generally print their school name and logo.
Finally, her efforts paid off. Song Yuhang read out the line of small characters: “Yuβ¦ Yu what?”
The rest was completely illegible.
“Immediately contact all schools in Jiangcheng City that start with the character ‘Yu’8, including high schools, and ask if any students were absent from school today.”
“Okay.” A police officer hurried out to make a phone call.
As the discussion here was in full swing, the autopsy work also entered a critical stage.
The body was so badly damaged that many key autopsy procedures could not be performed. They spent a lot of time piecing together the approximate shape of the bones, classifying them according to skull, scapula, clavicle, tibia, femur, etc., and placing them on the autopsy table.
Lin Yan wore gloves and a mask and used a soft ruler to measure the data. Duan Cheng was responsible for recording, writing everything on the whiteboard.
He was still calculating: “Uhβ¦ the approximate height is⦔
Lin Yan had already calculated it mentally using the regression equation: “2.30 x maximum femur length 40cm + 64.38 Β± 3.48 (cm) equals 159.86cm, but due to the severe damage to the femur, the extreme deviation is about 3cm.”
“Clatterβ” The pen in Duan Cheng’s hand fell to the ground, and he looked at her in shock.
Lin Yan said irritably: “What are you looking at me for?! Continue calculating the tibia, fibula, humerus, ulna, and radius, and then give me an average!”
After cleaning up the basic bones, it was time to examine the internal organs. Even the hardest bones in the human body were crushed to that extent, let alone the organs and tissues. It was basically a shot in the dark.
But Lin Yan insisted on searching for useful clues in a pile of bloody, fragmented flesh. The temperature in the autopsy room was low, but the equipment was heavy. She had been standing for more than two hours and was gradually bending over, beads of sweat forming on her forehead, and her vision gradually blurring.
The pale light in front of her turned into stripes, circling around her. Other staff members wearing white protective suits were walking around, and she gradually couldn’t hear what they were saying.
Until someone behind her called her name over and over again: “Forensic Doctor Lin, Forensic Doctor Lin⦔
She shook her head, shaking off the dizziness, steadied herself by holding onto the autopsy table, and turned around: “What is it?”
“I calculated it, the height is approximately 160cm, with an error of 3cm⦔ Duan Cheng said excitedly, but he saw that the sweat on her forehead had already soaked her hat, and the exposed part of her face was frighteningly pale. He looked at her with concern.
“Areβ¦ you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Lin Yan turned around, bit her lower lip, picked up the tweezers, took a deep breath, and when she opened her eyes again, her expression had returned to clarity.
The organs that could be identified with the naked eye had been classified, labeled, and placed aside to be frozen. Lin Yan was buried in a pile of minced meat, picking and choosing. Suddenly, her tweezers found a piece of tissue about the size of a fingernail, which was lighter in color than the other pieces of meat.
She held it up to the light, her brows furrowed tightly: “Bring a glass slide.”
A transparent glass slide was handed to her. She carefully picked it up with tweezers and placed it on the slide, then said something that shocked everyone.
“Do an embryo test.”
Duan Cheng was disgusted: “I’ll be damned, this is too f*cking9 cruel!”
After coming out of the autopsy room, she looked around the corridor to make sure no one was there, then squatted down to rest for a while. When someone came by, Lin Yan quickly stood up again and walked back to her office, step by step.
She opened the drawer to find chewing gum, but when she shook it, it was empty.
Damn, it’s finished.
Lin Yan threw it on the table, just as someone came in to put something down.
“Hey, why is Forensic Doctor Lin here? Aren’t you going to the meeting?”
Lin Yan held onto the table and stood up: “I’m going now.”
As soon as she walked into the training room, she felt that the atmosphere was a little off. Everyone’s eyes were fixed on her, staring straight at her face.
She then realized, damn, she forgot to wear a mask.
The bruise on her face from Song Yuhang’s punch was still there. In full view of everyone, she couldn’t go back and get one, so she had to bite the bullet and walk to her seat, step by step.
To make matters worse, the only empty seat was next to Song Yuhang. Who the h*ll arranged the seating!!!
Lin Yan cursed the person a thousand times in her heart.
Song Yuhang also felt a little uncomfortable and touched her nose, coughing lightly: “Everyone’s here, let’s continue. Forensic Doctor Lin, please tell us the autopsy results.”
It would have been better if she hadn’t spoken. As soon as she spoke, Zhang Jinhai’s gaze also turned to them, looking back and forth between their faces.
Song Yuhang had a long bloody mark on her face, obviously made by a woman’s fingernails, and Lin Yan’s face was also injured. Her perfect ten score could only be a seven or eight today. No wonder the brothers at the scene said she had to wear sunglasses all the time.
These injuries appearing on the same day looked very suspicious.
Thinking that someone said Song Yuhang’s blind date was Lin Yan’s cousin, everyone’s gossip fire burned fiercely, wishing they could poke a hole in the two of them.
Lin Yan couldn’t stand being stared at like this. She slammed the file in her hand on the table: “What are you looking at, what are you looking at! Look at the case file, why are you all looking at me?!”
Everyone lowered their heads or drank water.
“Get up, I’m talking to you, switch places with me!” She said, not caring what others thought, poking the shoulder of the person next to her, signaling him to get up. She also stood up, and at that moment, perhaps because she got up too quickly, her vision went black, and she lost her balance and fell backward.
“Lin Yan!” In a daze, she heard the sharp sound of a chair, and she was already being held horizontally by someone. Before the world went dark, she saw her anxious eyes.
Song Yuhang walked quickly, without looking back: “I’ll take her to the hospital, you guys continue.”
LP: Re-translated on March 25, 2025
Footnotes
- δ½ ηΉη | nΗ diΔ de | A very strong curse, similar to βgoddamnβ but more vulgar due to referencing the father. It expresses extreme anger or frustration.
- ιεζ· | dΔ«ngzihΓΉ | Residents who refuse to relocate during urban renewal projects, often demanding exorbitant compensation.
- ε€ͺεΉ³ζ΄ηθ¦ε― | TΓ ipΓngyΓ‘ng de jΗngchΓ‘ | A humorous way of saying someone is meddling in affairs that donβt concern them, as the Pacific Ocean is vast and covers a large area.
- εΈ | pΔi | An onomatopoeic expression of disgust or contempt, similar to βbahβ or βughβ in English.
- ζε | LΗ LΓ¬
- εεΏ | LiΓΊ ZhΓ¬
- ε»Ίζ°ε ¬εΈ | JiΓ nxΔ«n GΕngsΔ« | βJianxinβ likely means βBuild Newβ or βEstablish New.β
- θ² | YΓΉ | This character often appears in school names and means βeducationβ or βnurture.β
- δ»ε¦η | tΔ mΔ de | Literally βhis motherβsβ; a common and highly offensive curse word, used to express anger, frustration, or disapproval. Similar in usage and intensity to βdamnβ or βfuckβ in English, but often considered even more vulgar due to the direct reference to someoneβs mother. The βf-wordβ is the closest equivalent in terms of intensity and vulgarity.
no way that someone just stole chewing gum from inside of a police department
lolll
no way that someone just stole chewing gum from inside of a police department