Miss Forensics – Chapter 37

Volume One: First Scroll

Meeting

“Give you some leeway and you think you own the place?¹ Learned that roses have thorns now?”

Lin Yan bit down on the gauze with her teeth and wrapped it another turn around her shoulder, tying a dead knot before putting on her clothes. She tilted her head up to the mirror; the wound on her neck was still there. She dipped a fingertip in some ointment, applied it, and spread it out. Only then did she take out a sterile dressing, cover the wound, and secure it with medical tape. Looking at herself in the mirror, she frowned. It looked awful, like a cake riddled with holes.²

Forget it, forget it, she thought. Anyway, it would heal eventually if she took care of it.

As Lin Yan thought this, she subconsciously reached for the mechanical baton at the small of her back, only to realize she’d thrown the baton away long ago.

She froze for a moment, then casually picked up a fruit knife from the table. She gave it a few practice swings in her hand. Alright, felt right enough. This would do.

Everything packed and ready, Lin Yan put on a mask, pulled her hat brim low, slung her backpack onto her shoulder, and pushed open the room door with large strides.

The car was already parked at the entrance of the nursing home. Seeing her get in, the driver lowered his voice, “Miss, we’ve investigated thoroughly. The funeral home is heavily guarded. The guards change shifts every half hour. Cameras cover the entire facility grounds from all angles; there are no surveillance blind spots.”

Lin Yan leaned back lazily against the seat, looking at the tablet in her hand. She swiped a finger across it, generally committing the entire facility map to memory.

“Five minutes is enough. Can you cut the power for five minutes?”

The driver thought for a moment. “Yes, possible. But if the Old Master finds out…”

He looked at her in the rearview mirror. Lin Yan was slumped in the seat, her face pale as if recovering from a serious illness, and she still bore injuries. This was far too dangerous.

Lin Yan gave a slight smile and sat up a little straighter. “How long have you been with me?”

“Replying to Miss… sev-seven… seven years.” The driver couldn’t figure out her intentions and stammered somewhat.

“Since you’re an old hand,³ you should know what I hate most is divided loyalty.⁴

I am me, and Lin Youyuan is Lin Youyuan, that old bastard.⁵ If you want to go back to Jingtai, I won’t stop you.”

Having spoken coolly, Lin Yan closed her eyes to rest. The driver, however, was startled and swallowed hard. Never mind that Lin Yan held his family’s privacy and lives in her hands; just looking at how she’d used suicide to threaten Lin Youyuan this time—on the surface, it looked mutually destructive,⁶ but in reality, Lin Yan had won by a narrow margin.

As long as she didn’t die, she was Lin Youyuan’s only heir. This was a certainty,⁷ a fact set in stone, and also her inescapable destiny.

When Lin Youyuan passed away,⁸ never mind him, the entirety of Jingtai would likely… There was absolutely no benefit in offending her now.

“I wouldn’t dare. Miss is my only master.”

The scenery outside the car window flew past rapidly. Night had completely fallen. The Binhai Province Funeral Home was built halfway up a mountain in the suburbs, nestled by the mountains and near water,⁹ desolate and uninhabited.

Halfway there, Lin Yan had him stop the car. She got out to walk, glancing at her wristwatch. It was now 11:30 PM.

“Cut the power on my signal later.”

The driver quickly stood straight, just short of saluting. “Yes, Miss! After you succeed, I’ll be waiting halfway up the mountain to meet you.”

Lin Yan nodded once and, carrying her pack, disappeared into the pitch-black woods. She avoided the main road to evade passing vehicles and surveillance cameras. If someone saw her at this hour, it would be hard to explain.

After hurrying along the mountain path hunched over for some time, Lin Yan braced her hands on her knees, panting heavily. Her wounds also began to ache faintly.

She grit her teeth, looked ahead at the brightly lit¹⁰ funeral home, slung her pack onto her shoulder again, and continued climbing.

Pushing aside dense bushes, her face stung from being scratched by branches. Lin Yan kept low, crawling forward. When the searchlight swept over, she relaxed and dropped flat on the ground, her black windbreaker blending perfectly with the night.

She counted to three. The searchlight moved away. Lin Yan sprang up from the ground, darted like a leopard¹¹ to the base of the wall, and pressed her body tightly against it, taut as a straight line.

She activated the video watch on her wrist and ordered in a low voice, “Cut!”

The entire brightly lit building instantly plunged into darkness. The computer screens in the surveillance room abruptly went black.

The searchlights also stopped operating.

Staff on duty ran out. “What happened? What happened? Sudden power outage?” “Guards, guards, go check!”

Amid the chaos, a head peeked over the wall. Lin Yan vaulted over. Her landing form was standard, but ultimately, she lacked the strength; her body swayed, twisting an ankle. Beads of sweat instantly broke out on her forehead as she struggled to climb up from the ground.

“Who? Who’s there?!” A flashlight beam shot over as several guards holding electric batons¹² ran towards the spot. The base of the wall was already empty. “Damn it, I definitely heard something just now. Am I seeing ghosts?” The leader smacked the speaker on the head. “Don’t talk f%cking nonsense! Look where we are! You seeing things, kid?”¹³

Near the western courtyard wall, Song Yuhang pulled the hood over her head. This power outage was a bit too coincidental, wasn’t it?

While the guards weren’t paying attention, she slipped straight through an open window and then quietly closed it behind her.

This seemed to be an office. She turned on the light on her watch, scanned the surroundings, and seeing no danger, pulled the facility map from her pocket. After locating her target, she tapped the map twice with a fingertip, put it away, stealthily pushed open the door, and darted into the corridor.

Lin Yan clutched the wound on her shoulder, panting raggedly, trying hard to steady her breathing. She pressed herself below the window ledge, listening to the sounds outside. Flashlight beams swept randomly, shining into the room through the window. Lin Yan remained motionless until the footsteps outside gradually faded away, becoming silent.

She took the fruit knife from her backpack, holding it ready for self-defense, and also stealthily pushed open the room door.

She only had five minutes to cross the corridor and find the morgue. After five minutes, the cameras in the corridor would instantly capture her position.

Fortunately, she had already generally reviewed the floor plan before coming, so she navigated with familiarity.¹⁴ Just as she darted to the stairwell entrance, a group of guards with flashlights came up. ‘Why do you think the power cut out so coincidentally? Let’s go, let’s go check the main control room.’ Lin Yan ducked into the adjacent women’s restroom stall. As the group gradually walked away, she slipped out again, hugging the wall.

Up to the third floor. The morgue was located next to the cold storage unit. Lin Yan scanned her surroundings above and below as she climbed the stairs. At night, the funeral home was deserted; every room was pitch-dark. She swallowed hard, rubbing her bare arms. When she looked up again, she finally saw the floor sign: Three.

Ignoring the stabbing pain in her ankle, Lin Yan ran forward quickly, her flat shoes making no sound on the floor.

The watch on her wrist emitted a slight vibration, reminding her that time was almost up. Lin Yan pressed the [device]¹⁵ against the airtight door,¹⁶ opened her own watch interface, and rapidly manipulated it. The numbers on the stopwatch were counting down quickly.

Five. Four. Three… Sweat beaded finely on Lin Yan’s forehead. Finally, a faint ‘beep’ sounded in her ear. The airtight door opened.

She swiftly removed the [device], pushed the door open, and entered. Simultaneously, a dark shadow lunged towards her, pushing her into the morgue almost at the exact same moment she stepped inside.

The red lights on the corridor cameras lit up again. The airtight door swung shut.

A cold glint flashed in the darkness. The fruit knife in Lin Yan’s hand was already unsheathed, stabbing towards the opponent’s throat from a viciously cunning angle.

Song Yuhang tilted her head to dodge, grabbed Lin Yan’s wrist, pressed it down, and pulled her closer. “It’s—”

Without a word, Lin Yan launched a side kick, but due to her lack of strength, Song Yuhang easily spotted the opening. As she bent down to evade, she leveraged her lower body, wrapped an arm around Lin Yan’s waist, and pushed her against the wall.

Lin Yan tried to smash her elbow into Song Yuhang’s head.

“It’s me!”

The elbow stopped just one centimeter from her temple.

Lin Yan’s eyes widened as she stared at her in disbelief.

Song Yuhang pulled down her face mask. Their eyes met. A faint smile touched her lips. “It’s me, Song Yuhang. We meet again, Forensic Doctor Lin.”

They hadn’t seen each other in over two months, and now they met again in a place like this. Looking at her smile, her eyes shining brightly in the darkness, Lin Yan somehow didn’t feel estranged, perhaps because of the life-or-death experiences they’d shared.

Especially in their current position—not only was it not estranged, it was very… intimate.

Her knife hand was held high and pressed against the wall, unable to move. Her other arm was pinned by Song Yuhang’s arm, equally immobilized. They stood toe-to-toe, belly-to-belly. When Song Yuhang spoke, it felt like her breath was tickling Lin Yan’s face.

Lin Yan grit her teeth. “You’re not dead?”

Song Yuhang didn’t seem angry. “Weren’t you the one who told me not to die?”

“I…” Lin Yan felt the words catch in her throat, almost choking on them.

But Song Yuhang just smiled again, the grip on her wrist suddenly tightening. “I’m very obedient.”

Lin Yan winced in pain as the knife was snatched from her hand and put into Song Yuhang’s own pocket. “This is dangerous. Confiscated.”

“I…” Lin Yan was furious and struggled to push her away, but Song Yuhang covered her mouth and pressed her against the wall again.

Song Yuhang slid one leg into the space between them. Lin Yan’s entire back was now pressed flat against the wall, while Song Yuhang was pressed just as seamlessly against her.

“Mmph…” Lin Yan shook her head desperately, trying to break free from the restraint. Song Yuhang held her head steady and whispered in her ear, “Don’t talk. Someone’s coming.”

Several erratic flashlight beams flashed beneath the airtight door.

Every hair on Lin Yan’s body stood on end.

“No way, are we really seeing ghosts tonight? The power finally comes back on, we hear something over here, rush over, and there’s nothing?” a voice said from behind the iron door. Another spat three times. ‘Pah, pah, pah! Jinx!¹⁷ What kind of place is this? If there really was something moving in there, wouldn’t that be terrible!’ ‘Exactly! It’s pitch dark. You must be paranoid, kid. Let’s hurry back to sleep.’ The men were skeptical but gathered around the airtight door for a look. The lock was intact. The first guard who spoke straightened up, scratching his head. ‘Did I really mishear? But I definitely heard someone talking inside just now.’ His companion glanced at the pitch-dark room and shivered. ‘You’ve been watching too many damn ghost movies, haven’t you?’ Grumbling and cursing, the men prepared to leave.

Lin Yan breathed a sigh of relief.

But before she could fully relax, the guard who had spoken first came back. “No, I still need to take a look inside to be sure.” He was already preparing to enter the code on the electronic lock. Hearing the beeping sounds so close,¹⁸ Lin Yan broke out in a cold sweat.¹⁹ She could feel Song Yuhang holding her even tighter.

Song Yuhang’s heavy breathing was right beside her ear, the warm air brushing her earlobe, creating an untimely, faint itch.²⁰ With her mouth covered, Lin Yan could only taste the scent of Song Yuhang’s palm—a hint of sweat, and a smell like sunshine.

Lin Yan narrowed her eyes slightly. Song Yuhang knew she was about to cause trouble again.

Sure enough, the next moment, a sharp pain shot through the web of Song Yuhang’s thumb.²¹ She almost cried out right in front of the guards.

Lin Yan was ruthless enough; she bit down without mercy, as if simply grinding her teeth.

Little wolf cub.

Just as this term popped into Song Yuhang’s mind, the airtight door was pushed open.

Several flashlight beams pierced through the swirling cold mist and shone directly inside.

Song Yuhang instantly tensed her body. She and Lin Yan were standing in the shadow behind the door, out of the direct light. If they took just one more step, one step…

She swallowed hard. The breathing and heartbeats of the two women seemed to be almost synchronized.

Strangely, in such a tense moment, she still had the presence of mind to register the peculiar sensation of Lin Yan’s tongue lightly sweeping across the web of her thumb.

This feeling was too novel.

So much so that sweat slid down the forehead of the person who was usually calm and self-possessed.

Perhaps because she was swallowing too frequently, Song Yuhang inexplicably felt her throat go dry.

The faint floral fragrance enveloping Lin Yan seemed to grow stronger. Song Yuhang almost buried her head in the crook of her neck.

There, a piece of gauze deeply stung her eyes. If those guards hadn’t still been there, she might have ripped that gauze off right then and there to find out what was underneath.

Her curiosity about Lin Yan was evident from this alone.²²

For every inch Song Yuhang pressed closer, Lin Yan bit down harder, as if in mutual retaliation, neither willing to let the other off.

The doorway drew closer and closer to them. The flashlight beam also crept across the floor, inch by inch, until it landed on the wall right beside them. Just a fraction lower…

Hasty footsteps echoed from the corridor. “What are you all doing here?! Opening the morgue door in the middle of the night? You’re letting all the cold air escape! Close it immediately! Don’t you know the main breaker²³ in the control room is broken? Hurry up and get it fixed!”

The beam of light retracted. The guards nodded and bowed subserviently,²⁴ closing the airtight door again.

“Yes, yes, yes, you’re right, sir. We’ll go right away, right away.”

The world plunged back into darkness. Lin Yan finally let out a breath. By the time the footsteps completely faded, her tongue could taste a hint of blood. Feeling drained and her jaw muscles aching,²⁵ she was the first to release her hold.

Song Yuhang also withdrew her hand.

Lin Yan took several deep breaths of the fresh, cold air, shivering. “Hey, can you—”

She looked up and met the other woman’s gaze, and the rest of her words caught in her throat.

It was an expression she had never seen on Song Yuhang’s face before, containing pity, heartache, regret, self-blame… and a trace of possessiveness that perhaps even Song Yuhang herself wasn’t aware of.

Lin Yan was all too familiar with that last emotion. Almost every man and woman she had shared physical intimacy with had shown such an expression at some point.

Lin Yan felt a jolt internally and deliberately averted her gaze. When she spoke again, her tone had shifted completely. “What, Captain Song, are you planning to embrace me in the morgue until the end of time?”²⁶

She habitually used teasing to cover up her unease.²⁷

Song Yuhang didn’t seem to care. She just stared intently at Lin Yan’s face and said, word by word, “You’ve lost weight.”

Lin Yan impatiently raised an eyebrow. They were too close. She didn’t like it.

In this situation, any normal conversation would inevitably veer towards an ambiguous direction.

It wasn’t so much that she disliked Song Yuhang’s proximity, but rather that she disliked anything developing beyond her control. Song Yuhang was an exception, one after another.²⁸

“Isn’t losing weight good? Am I not allowed to diet?”

“That’s not dieting, that’s clearly… clearly starvation!” Song Yuhang roared this sentence in her ear, keeping her voice low. The moment she had grabbed her, she knew Lin Yan had lost too much weight; she was practically skin and bones.²⁹

The current Lin Yan was just an empty facade,³⁰ unable to withstand even a few of her moves.

Lin Yan heard the tremor at the end of her words. A casual glance caught the glint of moisture in Song Yuhang’s eyes. Lin Yan’s heart trembled slightly; she bit her lower lip and said no more.

“You told me not to die… yet you yourself go seeking death? Lin Yan, is there any meaning in that?”

She finally called her by her full name, no longer ‘Forensic Doctor Lin,’ but it was under these circumstances.

“You said He Miao shouldn’t have died unjustly. Then what about you? You’re only thirty-two, exceptionally brilliant,³¹ so young, with a limitless future!³² You… can you accept this?”

Lin Yan finally lifted her head to meet her gaze directly, but her look was contemptuous, mocking, disdainful.³³

She used her free hand to lightly tap her own chest, articulating clearly, “The real Lin Yan died when she was six years old. The one who survived, standing before you now, is a shell, a demon.”

She too had once lived, briefly. Pulled out of the abyss, she chased after that ray of sunlight, wanting to become a better version of herself, only to be brutally slapped back by reality into an even deeper, colder swamp.

Lin Yan died. “She” lived.

Reborn completely,³⁴ from then on, she wore a different, ruthless mask.

Wearing the mask for so long, she had almost forgotten what her original self looked like.

“I won’t accept it! Shell or demon, I don’t care! I only know you are Lin Yan, the forensic doctor from the Jiangcheng City Bureau’s Technical Investigation Department, the living, breathing Lin Yan standing right in front of me, the Lin Yan who is my comrade, who has faced life and death with me!”

‘Faced life and death together’ and ‘comrade’—what beautiful words they were.

So beautiful that just thinking of them felt like brilliant sunshine.

A corner of Lin Yan’s gloomy heart felt as if it had been gently lifted by a breeze. She stared blankly at the face of the young police officer before her.

She was so valiant and spirited,³⁵ so full of youthful energy.³⁶ When calm, she was like the vast blue sky and slow-drifting white clouds.

She wasn’t anxious or impatient, nor did she strive or grasp for things. She could stay in the same position for years without a single complaint.

Yet, she also despised evil like a personal enemy. Even when their views differed, she was willing to use her own methods to uncover the truth.

When she moved, she was swift as lightning, powerful as thunder.³⁷ Her fists flew like the wind, smashing hard into the enemy’s face, using her own flesh and blood to carve out an escape route for her.

She was filled with righteous spirit, and she valued relationships and loyalty deeply.³⁸

She didn’t care which “Lin Yan” she was; she only cared that she was Lin Yan, the Lin Yan standing before her, the Lin Yan who had faced life and death with her.

It was as if they had exchanged eyes sometime before.

In the darkness, their eyes met and held for a long time, so quiet that only their breathing could be heard, not even the humming of the morgue’s refrigeration units.

Lin Yan pressed her lips together slightly. Then, she was suddenly pulled into an embrace. Song Yuhang held her head, almost pressing her entirely into her own chest, her voice suppressed, almost pleading.

“Don’t die… don’t die.”

She had finally said the words.

Lin Yan closed her eyes. Her throat, where the slight prominence of an Adam’s apple might be on a man, moved as she swallowed. She lifted a hand as if to return the embrace, but ultimately let it fall weakly.

“I’m sorry… I can’t promise you that.”

Her ending had been determined from the very beginning. She was bound to strive for the truth she pursued her entire life, even if it meant sacrificing that life.

“It doesn’t matter. You don’t have to answer me now. I just hope that in the future, at some moment, some instant when you want to end your life, you might think of me, think of what I said today. That you might think again, pause for just a moment.”

“Lin Yan, in this world, there are people who want you to live. You have the right to choose. But death… once that switch is flipped, it means everything resets to zero. The game is over forever. You never get another chance to start again.”

Song Yuhang hadn’t actually finished saying everything she wanted to. But she sensed Lin Yan’s stiffness, felt her silent resistance. She felt that perhaps the next words might be a bit too abrupt. It was enough that she herself understood.

If that time truly came in the future, she would seize that moment of Lin Yan’s hesitation, yank her back from the hands of death, and pull her back to her own side.

It wasn’t just about Lin Yan; it was the same for anyone attempting suicide in front of her. She always believed that living required more courage than dying.

And if you live, you’ll always see tomorrow’s sun. Good things will eventually happen, won’t they?

Lin Yan had never imagined that she and Song Yuhang would reach a point of reconciliation,³⁹ much less a day where they would embrace each other.

She certainly hadn’t expected that their first truly meaningful hug would happen in a morgue.

It was both absurd and laughable, but it had truly and undeniably happened.

Feeling that small hand clutching tightly onto the fabric of her shirt at her back, Song Yuhang’s lips curved upwards, and getting carried away with herself,⁴⁰ she said, “Let me see the wound on your neck.”

As she spoke, she raised her hand to peel off the gauze on Lin Yan’s neck. Lin Yan tried to block but failed, instead having both her hands twisted behind her back and pinned above her head.

Lin Yan, flying into a rage from humiliation,⁴¹ bent her knee and thrust upward sharply.

Song Yuhang’s face turned green.⁴² Clutching her groin, she stumbled back several steps, her face contorted in excruciating pain,⁴³ trembling as she pointed at Lin Yan, unable to speak.

Our fine Miss Lin slung her backpack onto her shoulder and smugly blew away a strand of hair that had fallen into her eyes. “Give you some leeway and you think you own the place? Learned that roses have thorns now?”

Song Yuhang watched her walk towards the refrigerated cabinets⁴⁴ storing the bodies and followed, limping.⁴⁵ “Fine… fine, you’re ruthless! Just you wait! You… Hiss…”

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LP: Re-translated on April 08, 2025

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