Miss Forensics – Chapter 35
by Little PandaPart One
Freedom
She would dedicate her life to the relentless pursuit of truth.
Due to her physical condition, Song Yuhang’s request to join the task force was ultimately denied.
Zhao Junfeng’s intention was to award her a merit citation this time. The person sitting on the bed heard this and pursed her lips after a long moment.
The hospital bed creaked as Song Yuhang pulled out her own IV and sat up, bracing her arms on the edge of the bed to get down.
Zhao Junfeng spun around and closed the distance in one stride, holding her down. “You’ve barely healed — do you have a death wish?!”
Song Yuhang raised her eyes to meet his gaze, pushing against his hand as she struggled to stand. “I have no right to accept this citation. Lin Yan was out there with me. There’s no principle by which I take the award while she takes the punishment. What’s more, by rank, I was the lead — I misjudged the situation, underestimated the threat, and failed to request a firearm from my superiors. If I’d had a gun, we might never have been in that position.”
“And in the heat of the moment, how could anyone confirm the suspect had truly lost the capacity to resist? She did it for me… I’m willing to accept responsibility for this.”
She had just come out of the ICU and was nowhere near able to walk. Zhao Junfeng didn’t dare keep holding her down, afraid that her struggling would tear her wounds open. His grip loosened.
Song Yuhang braced herself against the edge of the bed and slowly stood. Her face was deathly pale, beads of sweat standing out on her forehead.
She clenched her teeth, her legs trembling, and slowly raised her right hand. Her very fingertips were shaking, but her voice rang out clear and firm: “I request to undergo disciplinary review alongside Lin Yan. Please, grant approval!”
Zhao Junfeng’s lips trembled with frustration. When these two dug in their heels, they were cast from the same mold!
He paced back and forth, hands clasped behind his back, glancing at her, barely able to stand. Finally he couldn’t hold back. “Sit down! That’s an order!”
Song Yuhang didn’t budge — if anything, she stood even straighter.
Zhao Junfeng was beside himself, jabbing a finger at her nose as he cursed her out. “What bewitching potion did Lin Yan feed you?! Every last one of you from the Technical Investigation Division has come to plead for her — why don’t I just step down and let you all run things?! You’d arrest and release people based on your feelings, wouldn’t that be grand?! And with all these eyes watching from above and below, you think this is something I can decide on my own?!”
Above the Department Director sat the Provincial Party Committee, the public security oversight bodies.
He genuinely couldn’t decide this alone.
But Song Yuhang’s eyes lit up. A smile crept onto her lips, her hand still raised straight as a rod. Pale as she was, her eyes shone like stars.
“Reporting: Lin Yan didn’t feed me any… bewitching… potion. I’ve been lying in a hospital bed. I had no idea anyone else from Technical Investigation was pleading for her. To imagine that personal feelings could interfere with judicial justice is pure delusion! Director Zhao’s impartiality is truly a model for us all!”
Zhao Junfeng was so angry he laughed. He swung his wide-brimmed hat straight at her head. “Why, you—”
It was like being back at the academy. Every time she’d made a mistake, she’d stood just as straight, taking her scolding.
Zhao Junfeng would go down the line, rapping each of them on the head like knocking on winter melons.
“Are you in the wrong?”
A whole group of them with miserable faces, drained of energy: “Yes.”
Zhao Junfeng: “Louder!”
Song Yuhang led the shout: “Reporting to the instructor — we know we were wrong!”
Now, looking at the head before him — the girl had grown taller than he was. Ten years of relentless honing had forged her into an exceptional criminal investigator, bearing the weight of protecting the nation on her shoulders.
His hand wouldn’t come down.
Zhao Junfeng reluctantly withdrew his hand, clapped the hat on his own head, and straightened his tie. “All right, save the flattery. How did I raise a two-faced ingrate like you? She has people behind the scenes looking after her — it’s not your place to meddle where it’s none of your business1. Heal your own wounds first!”
Hearing this, Song Yuhang finally lowered her aching arm. She could hold on no longer — she sank onto the bed, clutching her chest, breathing hard, and looked up at him.
“In… in that case, I have one last request.”
Three days later.
Lin Yan lay on her bed peeling a banana, eating with relish. The prison doctor had just administered her injection when the iron door clattered open. Two prison guards walked in with a jangling ring of keys and unlocked her handcuffs.
Lin Yan lifted her gaze slightly. “Well, well. The higher-ups found their conscience and decided to let me out?”
The words had barely left her mouth when she saw two young men in suits wheeling Lin Youyuan through the door. Her expression changed. She tossed the banana straight into the trash.
A prison guard with some rank followed behind Lin Youyuan, bowing and scraping. “Forensic Examiner Lin has been here recovering, eating poorly, sleeping poorly — high time she went home, high time.”
Lin Youyuan smiled, the very picture of warmth, and personally took the guard’s hand in gratitude. “You’ve all been put to so much trouble — the bureau, the provincial department, all the leaders. I’ll call on each of you personally to express my thanks.”
The Lin family was enormously wealthy and powerful. To avoid conflicts of interest, no family member held government posts — Lin Yan was the sole exception — but going back three generations, their roots intertwined with the political establishment in countless ways.
These officials had all, to varying degrees, benefited from the Lin family’s patronage. Who would dare accept such thanks?
“We wouldn’t dare, you’re too kind. The higher-ups have already issued an official document certifying Miss Lin’s innocence. She’s suffered terribly these past weeks.”
Lin Yan watched this dance between power and money without batting an eye, her teeth nearly rotting from the sweetness of it all.
Lin Youyuan smiled his fill, then genially withdrew his hand, finally ready to end the conversation. “Of course. I’d like a few words with Lin Yan…”
The guard tactfully ushered the prison doctor out as well. “Of course, please go ahead. Just call us when you’re done. Once the paperwork is signed, she can leave.”
Lin Youyuan smiled and nodded in acknowledgment, watching him go. The aristocratic bearing came so naturally to him — and made Lin Yan want to retch.
She wouldn’t give her father the time of day.
Lin Youyuan, of course, had nothing pleasant to say to her either. The moment the others left, his smile vanished. He got straight to the point. “I’ve had someone draft your resignation letter. Just sign it.”
One of the young men accompanying Lin Youyuan offered her a sheet of paper and a pen. Lin Yan glanced at it, thoroughly uninterested.
“Which subsidiary am I being seconded to this time?”
Lin Youyuan rubbed the Green Thumb Ring2 on his right thumb. Father and daughter were, if nothing else, united in their mutual impatience.
“CEO of Jingtai Group. You’ll be taking over from me.”
Jingtai Group was the Lin family’s crown jewel. It was no small title.
Lin Yan’s mouth twisted into a sardonic smile. “Not going. Not signing. Get lost.”
Lin Youyuan gave a thin, humorless smile, as if he’d expected exactly this.
He stopped rubbing the ring. He didn’t even need to signal — the two young men moved toward Lin Yan to lift her off the bed.
No one saw how she moved. The IV tube hissed, spilling fluid — the needle was already gone.
Lin Yan tilted her chin up. Something cold glinted at her fingertips, her tone casual but edged with a blade’s precision.
“Nobody move. I’m a forensic doctor — I’m not sure I can kill both of you in ten seconds, but I can definitely kill myself.”
The steel needle pressed against skin so delicate it seemed it would tear at a breath — ready to plunge in at any moment.
The two young men exchanged looks.
Lin Youyuan watched her performance in silence, then laughed. “Guts. You’re my daughter, all right. Go ahead and stab. Even if I have to carry your corpse out of here today, I’m burying you in the Lin family ancestral grounds.”
Lin Yan still had a wound on her shoulder. She couldn’t hold this position for long.
She breathed harder, her wrist beginning to tremble, his words churning the blood in her veins.
Father and daughter locked eyes in silence. Lin Youyuan had weathered storms far greater than this. Lin Yan’s petty gambit was an ant trying to topple a tree3 before him — barely worth acknowledging.
He didn’t need to say a word. He didn’t even need to put on the kind of careless smiles Lin Yan used to mask her true thoughts.
That gaze of indifference, tinged with disgust, was enough. The last straw.
Lin Yan’s hand shook. She could barely grip the needle. She started swallowing repeatedly.
A telltale sign of tension and fear.
Lin Youyuan sat in his wheelchair, perfectly composed. Were it not for the iron walls on all sides, he might as well have been enjoying tea and a newspaper.
Lin Yan’s trembling hand pushed the needle tip in a fraction deeper. The two bodyguards began circling like wolves, ready to pounce and grab her at any moment.
Lin Youyuan remained utterly indifferent. He even tapped his foot with a hint of impatience, as if urging her on: if you’re going to die, hurry up and do it. Stop wasting time.
Lin Yan swallowed. She’d read his body language.
The corner of her mouth curved — the first genuine smile she’d shown since he arrived.
“Then why did you even have me?”
After she said it, her eyes drifted shut.
Lin Youyuan’s pupils contracted — too late to stop her. The moment Lin Yan released her grip, a jet of blood spurted from the base of the needle, instantly staining her hospital gown, splattering across the floor.
Lin Youyuan’s lips trembled. His jaw muscles worked. The Green Thumb Ring in his hand stopped moving.
He watched helplessly as Lin Yan fell back onto the bed. She’d aimed to kill — she’d hit the artery. The thin jet of blood sprayed like a showerhead, impossible to staunch.
She lay collapsed on the bed, hair fanned around her, but her eyes were still bright — fixed on him, as if to make him remember: her death today was his doing, his forcing.
As if time and space had folded back on themselves — that woman, all those years ago, had collapsed before him just like this. Defiant even in death.
The same face. The same unyielding spirit.
His right hand began to tremble violently, shaking as though gripped by Parkinson’s.
The two bodyguards rushed to steady him. “President Lin! President Lin!”
The last thing she saw before the world went dark was him wheeling himself around and leaving. Lin Yan knew. She had won.
The first half of her life had been aimless, drifting with the current. Choosing forensic medicine had been her first independent decision — and it would be her last.
She would not compromise again.
The last time she compromised, she lost Chunan forever.
She would dedicate her life to the relentless pursuit of truth.
Only…
She thought of a name, a face — and felt an unexpected flicker of regret.
What a pity. She and Song Yuhang had never settled their score.
During her recovery, Song Yuhang had called the detention center more times than she could count. Every single time, the answer was the same: “The case is still under review. No outside inquiries accepted.”
This was a case directly under the provincial department, with the highest level of attention. At her rank, she had neither the reach nor the authority to intervene.
For a month, Song Yuhang couldn’t see Lin Yan, couldn’t get any news of her. It was as if the woman had evaporated into thin air.
She was frantic.
If, as Zhao Junfeng had said, the Lin family was pulling strings to get her out, there should have been some sign by now.
The informant she’d stationed at the detention center entrance had never seen Lin Yan come out either.
What had gone wrong?
At Zhao Junfeng’s rank, directly intervening to get someone released wasn’t a matter of capability but of principle. The only thing he could do was return the physical evidence to its owner.
Song Yuhang stroked the battered mechanical baton, nearly driven to distraction.
She had never missed its owner this much.
Had Lin Yan’s injuries healed?
Was it hot in the detention center? Was she coping?
She was so particular about food — could she stomach what they served?
Were the guards giving her trouble?
Were the other inmates bullying her?
Song Yuhang’s lips curved in a faint smile. Never mind — it’d be a miracle if she wasn’t the one bullying them.
But why hadn’t the Lin family posted bail? Or had something else happened?
The more Song Yuhang thought about it, the more restless she grew. A nurse knocked, coming in to change her dressings.
She tucked the baton into the backpack by her bedside. “Come in.”
“Officer Song, you’re recovering well. A few more days and you should be discharged. This is your last IV bag for today. Just press the call button when it’s done, and let us know if you need anything.”
The young nurse got the IV started, propped her up comfortably against the headboard, and slipped a thermometer under her arm.
Song Yuhang cooperated fully, a gentle smile on her face. “Thank you.”
She noticed the nurse’s pager blinking nonstop. “Go ahead, I’ll call you when I’m done.”
The nurse had rarely met a police officer so good-looking, so gentle, so even-tempered.
The nurse was flustered with pleasure. “All right, I’ll go now and come back in five minutes.”
She pushed the medicine cart out.
When she returned five minutes later, the IV was still dripping in the vast, empty room. The thermometer sat on the bedside table. The bed was empty.
Wearing a mask and cap, Song Yuhang squeezed through the crowded outpatient hall, sprinted to the hospital entrance, and hailed a taxi. “Binhai Provincial Detention Center.”
Running from the fifth floor to the entrance in five minutes — her body could barely take it.
The driver glanced back at her pale face. “You okay, miss?”
Song Yuhang coughed twice, clutching her chest, leaning back and panting. “I’m fine… cough… please, drive faster.”
The day Song Yuhang went to visit was the seventh day of Lin Yan’s hunger strike.
After her failed suicide attempt, she’d woken to find handcuffs back on — not to prevent escape this time, but to prevent self-harm.
Lin Youyuan’s message was clear: bail, yes. Come home.
He wouldn’t come in person again.
The day after Lin Yan woke, Lin Youyuan’s personal Grand Steward arrived.
Lin Yan smashed her food bowl in front of him and pressed a shard against her wrist. “Give me liberty or give me death4.”
The Grand Steward left.
Lin Yan began her hunger strike.
On the third day, Lin Ge’s mother came. Standing outside the iron gate, a woman of her years looked at the skeletal figure inside and nearly wept.
Lin Yan couldn’t bear the sight. She pulled the blanket over her head.
On the fourth day, Lin Ge came himself. Lin Yan said one sentence and sent him away: “If you’re here to persuade me, we can’t be bros anymore.”
On the fifth day, the warden came in person. Looking at Lin Yan lying there, refusing food, sustained only by IV nutrients, he nearly dropped to his knees. “This queen! At least have a bite!”
If she actually died in his detention center, his career was over!
Lin Yan still bore her wounds, gauze wrapped around her neck. She’d grown even thinner, her face deathly pale, barely clinging to life.
When she heard his words, the only part of her body she could still move was her hand. It drifted slowly toward the IV needle in the back of her hand.
The warden reacted as if he’d stepped on a landmine, retreating with his entire entourage, hands raised to signal calm. “Okay, okay, we’re leaving. Forensic Examiner Lin, don’t get agitated. Just lie down, lie down and rest.”
On the sixth day, she finally earned herself a moment’s respite.
She lay in that lightless cell, curled on the damp, cold bed, staring open-eyed, counting the hours until dawn.
The seventh day.
The iron door rang again.
Lin Yan was so weak she couldn’t lift a finger.
Only her eyes could move, and even her gaze was unfocused.
The guards called her name, over and over, but couldn’t pull her back to lucidity.
“Quick! A cardiac stimulant injection — now!”
Amid the frantic commotion, she heard the clatter of a medical tray overturning. A sharp sting in her wrist — and she surfaced enough to catch a name.
“Who… who wants to see me?” Her voice came out hoarse and gravelly — nothing like her.
“Captain Song of the Jiangcheng City Bureau. Officer Song.”
Lin Yan turned her head, buried her face in the pillow, and gritted her teeth. “I won’t see her… tell her to get lost.”
How could she let her see her looking like this?
But she was already walking?
That was good.
Song Yuhang still carried the same backpack. Under the blazing sun, she stood outside, sweat beading on her forehead, waiting for a guard to call her in. What she got instead was Lin Yan’s message: get lost.
Song Yuhang bit her lower lip, her own expression none too pleasant. “She really said that?”
“Absolutely.” The junior guard had practically talked his lips raw. “Lots of people have come to visit Forensic Examiner Lin these past few days. That’s what she says to everyone.”
The iron gate was forbidding, armed police standing on all sides. Song Yuhang couldn’t force her way in.
She stepped back a few paces, then turned once more, her gaze steady. “Please tell Forensic Examiner Lin—”
“I’ll wait for her.”
On the way back, she rejected every call and message on her phone, one by one, then held down the power button until the screen went dark.
When the outdoor goods street came into view, she called out to the driver to stop, tossed some bills onto the seat, grabbed her bag, and jumped out.
The shop owner examined the bent mechanical baton, tapped it lightly with a small hammer — chipped paint everywhere — and shook his head.
“Can’t be fixed. This isn’t domestically made, is it? Not just a technical problem — this aviation-grade aluminum is expensive. You’d be better off buying a new one.”
But a new one could never replace what this baton meant to Lin Yan.
Song Yuhang cradled it carefully in both hands and slipped it back into her bag. “Thank you.”
That afternoon, she dragged her ailing body through every shop on the outdoor goods street and found no one willing to repair the mechanical baton.
The author has something to say:
Thank you for reading.
I really can’t add more updates.
Nothing left, nothing left, not a single drop left.jpg
Footnotes
- A northern Chinese colloquial idiom: literally 'eating salty radishes and worrying about bland food' — meaning to meddle in matters that are none of your business.
- A green jade ring worn on the thumb, traditionally associated with Chinese aristocracy and scholarly status.
- A Chinese idiom: literally 'a large ant trying to topple a tree' — an absurdly futile gesture against overwhelming force.
- A famous line from Patrick Henry's 1775 speech, widely used in Chinese to express a willingness to die rather than live without freedom.
aww mayn