Chapter 82: The Vinegar Corpse

After I finished speaking, Huang Xiaotao's eyes widened in disbelief."What kind of monster would do something so inhumane? The killer must have had a deep grudge against the victim!"

"No," I shook my head. "There wasn't a grudge. In fact, I'd say killing wasn't even the main goal."

"What do you mean?" she looked utterly confused.

"Did you see the victim's face?"

Huang Xiaotao and a few other officers leaned in for a closer look, and someone gasped."She's... smiling?"

One officer offered a theory. "Could be a grimace from unbearable pain. That's not a smile."

"No, it's a genuine smile. A smile involves more than twenty facial muscles. You can't fake that expression under extreme pain."

The temperature in the morgue seemed to drop after I said that. The same officer hesitated, then asked, "So... why would she be smiling?"

"The answer is simple. The killer made her inhale nitrous oxide—commonly known as laughing gas. It relaxes all the muscles and induces euphoria, sometimes even uncontrollable laughter."

There was a moment of silence before realization slowly dawned across everyone's faces.

"But wait," Huang Xiaotao frowned. "If the killer was planning to kill her anyway, why bother with anesthesia? Just gag her to stop the screaming. Using hospital-grade anesthetics seems unnecessarily risky—not to mention traceable."

I didn't answer right away. I already had a theory, but even I found it disturbingly twisted.

Just then, an officer returned with what I had requested. I took a small pill and dropped it into a bottle of dark vinegar. Then I asked for a basin and began burning seaweed and kelp into fine ash, turning them into a purple-black powder.

"What are you doing?" Huang Xiaotao asked.

"This is seaweed ash. It's a traditional method for detecting fingerprints. Seaweed contains high levels of iodine, which can react to the oils left by fingerprints. Forensics teams sometimes use iodine vapor for this purpose."

I carefully sprinkled the ash over the victim's skin—what little remained unscathed, anyway. Then I gently blew off the excess.

But no fingerprints appeared.

"Bring me a UV lamp," I requested.

One officer fetched one quickly. My forensic umbrella was still under repair, so I pulled out a strip of red silk soaked in chemical solution—another method for detecting Yin energy residue.

Covering the UV lamp with the silk, I waved it over the corpse. Glowing handprints emerged—distinct palm shapes, but no fingerprints. Only a woven-like pattern.

"The killer wore work gloves," I concluded. I mimicked the palm size. "Judging by the strength and size, I'd estimate he was between forty and fifty years old."

A skeptical officer looked at his own hand."Hold on, Consultant Song. I thought people's physical strength starts to decline after thirty. Would someone in their fifties really have hands that large?"

I smiled. "True, most of the body does weaken with age. But hands are the exception."

"How so?" he asked, unconvinced.

"Because hands are used constantly. The more you use them, the stronger they get. You can see this with chefs, carpenters—anyone who does heavy manual labor. Their hands become even more muscular with age."

Huang Xiaotao nodded. "That's true. Laborers in their forties often have rougher, thicker hands than younger men. Like Wang Yuanchao—his hands are like bricks."

Then she turned to me. "Do you study people's hands for fun or something? How do you even know all this?"

I gave a modest smile. "It's a personal hobby."

My family has a long lineage of corpse examiners. One ancestor compiled a manual called The Palm Chronicle. It wasn't about palmistry or fortune-telling, but rather a detailed study on how hand shapes vary by profession and age. Over time, I memorized many of its patterns and tips.

I asked the officers to document everything before turning off the UV light. Then I sprinkled the leftover ash over a nearby plastic bag found at the scene. When I blew the ash away, something unexpected happened—countless fingerprints appeared, overlapping in chaotic patterns.

Gasps filled the room. Forensics officers rushed to photograph the prints."But… why would the killer leave so many prints on this?" Huang Xiaotao asked, confused.

I stared at the bag, just as baffled."It could mean there were two people involved. One did the killing, and the other cleaned up."

I noticed the knot on the bag was messily tied, with a few ends sealed in dead knots. This carelessness didn't match the killer's previous precision—someone panicked while tying that bag.

Unfortunately, on closer inspection, my excitement faded. The prints were smudged and warped—likely damaged while being dragged through a filthy drain. They were almost unusable.

Huang Xiaotao sighed. "Let's send them to the lab anyway. Maybe something can be salvaged."

I shook my head. "Not likely. With smears like this, and a panic-tier knot, I doubt this person has a criminal record. Probably just a scared amateur."

I turned back to the vinegar bottle. The pill had fully dissolved, turning the liquid a murky purple-brown.

"What did you put in there?" Huang Xiaotao asked.

"A dissolver. It transforms vinegar into clear water after about an hour."

"Why not just use water in the first place?" she asked, half-laughing.

"Because vinegar is heavier than water. I need it to flow into the stomach evenly for this test. But vinegar's acidity could damage internal tissues—so this pill neutralizes it later. We corpse examiners follow a principle: honor the dead as if they were living. Preserve the body whenever possible."

She gave a half-understanding nod. "You're very... particular."

"Of course," I replied proudly.

The pill wasn't pharmaceutical—it was a rare fungus cultivated from the roots of a decade-old willow tree. I had to haggle with woodcarvers for a low-quality stump just to grow it. That's the price of respecting tradition.

I had one officer prop up the corpse, and another insert a funnel into the victim's mouth. We began pouring in the vinegar.

I placed my listening rod—a special wooden tool—on the abdomen and closed my eyes, focusing all my hearing. Even the faintest sounds could help me reconstruct an echo-map of the organs, to detect abnormalities or trauma.

I stayed like that for five full minutes. Everyone else held their breath.

When I finally stood up, they all exhaled in relief.

"Well?" Huang Xiaotao asked.

I frowned.

"The abdominal cavity is… completely empty."