Chapter 7 - Case 1: Dismemberment

Chapter 7

Song Wen wanted to ask for more details, but Zhou Yining moved to pack up the papers on his desk. Zhou Yining was ready to leave work, his tone was relaxed, as if whatever he had just said was an irrelevant joke, “However, that’s just one of the possibilities. Maybe I’m overthinking it, and it’s not that serious. Captain Song can listen to it as a story; but in the spirit of comrade, I think I should tell you that when in a leadership role, there’s nothing wrong with taking precautions.”

Song Wen pondered for a moment, “Dr. Zhou rest assured. I will still be there and no matter how unusual it is, it is only a trainee police officer. I will keep him by my side and watch over him, nothing will happen.”

Song Wen had a habit of encountering things, and predicting both the best possible outcome and then the worst possible outcome; so that no matter what ensued, he would be in between the two and wouldn’t be unprepared for the situation at hand. He rubbed his forehead. The image of Lu Siyu floated around in his head, looking like a little angel, but in fact he might be a little devil. The current situation was a bit unusual, but he judged that he should be able to handle it.

“By the way…” Zhou Yining paused. He no longer wanted to entangle the question of Lu Siyu and changed the subject, “Tian Ming complained to me during his appointment earlier, saying that the pressure was too much. Captain Song, you set him up in a deep trap before, just let him go if you can.”

“I also sent him a suspect today, how else can I let him off the hook?”

“You deliberately lost to him during last year’s test, didn’t you? You let him think that you’re not as good as him, and only used your real skills when you were formally tested. It’s become a sore spot for him.”

The corners of Song Wen’s mouth picked up, neither denying nor admitting.

Zhou Yining continued, “It seems like Tian Ming is the one who cares the most, but you’re actually the one who’s the most strict. Even if you’ve forgotten to sleep and eat, don’t force your subordinates to do the same. Others can’t be like you. Your strength sometimes puts pressure on them. And masking your inner anxiety with strength is not a good choice.”

Song Wen spread his hands, refusing to admit anything, “What did I cover up?”

“Your fear. Sometimes fear is not just physical hostility, but a self-protective mechanism. I don’t know what are the root causes of your fears, but I can sense that you hate weakness.” Zhou Yining thoughtfully added, “These must be related to your childhood experiences. I think these emotions may stem from your father’s experiences…”

Song Wen knew that this was Zhou Yining’s occupational disease. The doctor was trying very hard to convince him, but he didn’t want to hear it. “Forget it, Doctor Zhou, I’m not here to do the talking today. I haven’t eaten dinner yet and I don’t want to drink this chicken soup*.”

(T/N: 鸡汤 : Chicken soup for soul: feel good, motivational stories)

Zhou Yining said, “Captain Song, don’t be so dismissive. This is just a friendly follow-up consultation to a friend, it’s not charged by the hour.”

As they were talking, the little nurse outside knocked on the door, “Doctor Zhou, the flowers you ordered have arrived.”

Zhou Yining shouted at the door, “Just leave them outside, I’ll be out soon.”

Song Wen raised his eyes and asked, “Going on another date?”

This wasn’t the first time he’d run into Zhou Yining on a date. Some people use ‘love’ as a tonic but this Dr. Zhou, he used ‘love’ as a daily necessity, just like breathing and eating. He wasn’t married, but he has a lot of dates. No matter how busy he was at work, he will meet them at night and have a sweet date.

“Falling in love is the best way to study relationships between humans.” Zhou Yining continued to persuade earnestly. “Captain Song, you should also fall in love. Love makes people better. Emotions change people, promotes hormone secretion and regulates the body’s mechanisms.”

Song Wen only discovered today that this Dr. Zhou wasn’t just an alarmist but was also even more naggy than his own mother. He replied, “I don’t really have the time. Today I encountered another dismemberment case.”

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Zhou Yining replied without hesitation, “It’s not like you need a murderer to give you permission to take a vacation and fall in love. In your opinion, do all police officers have to reproduce via mitosis*?”

(T.N: welcome CIN biology refresher.

Mitosis is a process where a single cell divides into two identical daughter cells (cell division).

Song smiled, “If this service option is available, I will be the first one to buy it.”

♛♛♛

The next morning, Song Wen cheerfully stepped into the office as usual with a bag full of buns and generously said, “I bought these buns on the way here this morning. Anyone who didn’t eat earlier, come and take one.”

When he walked to his desk, Song Wen saw that there was a survey report placed on his desk. Song Wen opened the plastic bag, took a bun out and bit into it, while casually looking over the report with the other hand.

At first glance, the report was written very neatly; and upon taking a closer look, the contents were very detailed and factual. In some cases, the materials were detailed and the records were clear. Even the forensic work which they weren’t in charge of, were clearly organized and recorded. All the physical evidence was sorted out making it convenient to facilitate an investigation later. After seeing such a report, Song Wen was in a better mood. He felt that even if Lu Siyu had a big secret, it was worth keeping him just for the excellent job he did on organizing the information.

He was about to compliment him, but when he looked up, he noticed that Lu Siyu wasn’t in his seat.

The personnel work efficiency was quite high. Lu Siyu’s office seat was opposite of Song Wen’s, his newly printed badge hanging on it. No one was there at the moment, just a bag in place to show that the person had arrived. The desk, like the person, was clean and neatly arranged; with all the office supplies lined up from left to right, from high to low, making the other people’s desktops look messy in comparison .

Old Jia unceremoniously came over and took two buns, accounting for two hands: “Captain Song is very generous these days.”

Zhu Xiao looked at him: “Old man is quite bold these days. I don’t dare to eat the landlord’s grain. Whatever you eat, you have to return its worth later.”

Song Wen said, “No, there’s really no need to think too much. I’m just celebrating that I don’t have to suffer from the headache of writing summaries anymore.”

Fu Linjiang laughed, “Aren’t you relying on squeezing the new colleague?”

Old Jia looked at the bun in his hand and suddenly said, “It turns out we’re exposed to someone’s light”

As they were talking, Lu Siyu came in with a cup of water and an expressionless face.

He was holding a stack of notebooks and freshly printed office papers. They don’t know how much he has heard, so Old Jia raised the bun in his hand in greeting and said: “Xiao* Lu, come here and have some breakfast.”

(T/N: 小 : Xiao :Affectionate way to call someone younger/smaller)

Lu Siyu calmly and politely refused: “Thank you, I have eaten.”

Old Jia bit into the bun and lamented vaguely, “That’s a pity, it’s (bun) the fruit of your slavery.”

Lu Siyu, not sure if he didn’t hear or understand, raised his head with that dazed expression on his face again.

Song Wen walked over and kicked Old Jia: “There’s no ivory in a dog’s mouth.*”

(T/N: 狗嘴里吐不出象牙 : No ivory comes out of a dog’s mouth. No good words are to be

expected from a scoundrel.)

Fu Linjiang laughed and shook his head, watching these people joking around. He picked up a cup and took a sip of the freshly poured tea.

Song Wen looked up at the clock, got up and seriously said, “Is everyone here? Let’s go to the conference room and meet with the Appraisal Section when you’re done.”

Seeing that Song Wen had spoken, everyone no longer joked around leisurely and busily began to pack up their things to gather in the conference room. Song Wen walked up to Lu Siyu’s desk and used his pen to tap on the desk to remind him: “Remember to take the minutes of meeting.”

♛♛♛

All the people who were at the scene yesterday arrived one after another, and nearly ten people took up the small conference room. The atmosphere was serious. Song Wen took a seat at the head of the table and simply opened the briefing: “Everyone, summarize the new situation and clues.”

Lin Xiu Ran got up, “Let me start first.”

Those body parts had arrived too late yesterday. Lin Xiu Ran had spent half the night feeling as if he was doing a jigsaw puzzle, trying to distinguish the location of where the body parts should go, and had slept on the military bed in the forensic room. Now it was time to show the results. He fiddled with the equipment and the projector showed a picture of a barely assembled corpse.

Lin Xiu Ran started with a surprising statement, “First of all, let me talk about a discovery. The condom was not left behind by the deceased. That is, there had been another man in that room before.”

Everyone present, except for Lu Siyu all revealed surprised expressions. With an unsurprised expression, Lu Siyu lowered his head, spread out the small notebook neatly and began to take down the minutes of the meeting.

There was a moment of silence in the conference room, and only heard the humming of the exhaust fan overhead. After a moment of shock, everyone understood Lin Xiuran’s meaning and calmed down.

Only Zhu Xiao didn’t understand too much. He raised his head ignorantly and asked, “What does it mean to have traces of another man? Could it be, another woman was there too?”

Lin Xiu Ran propped his hands on the table, looking like a gentle and elegant professor: “That is literally what it means. Although the deceased was missing some organs, from the clues I gathered, I can still judge that he was a comrade*.” He was a forensic doctor and was used to seeing life and death. No matter how extraordinary it was, he couldn’t be surprised anymore. So his voice was as calm as usual.

(T/N: comrade is the slang used to address homosexuals)

“Gay?! But he has a wife?!” As a standard straight man, Zhu Xiao was extremely shocked.

Song Wen continued to spin the pen in his hand, “Why can’t someone having a wife be gay? A lot of gay people get married. It’s just that it’s not very ethical.”

After all, homosexuality has been a taboo subject for everyone.

Lin Xiu Ran also explained academically, “Homosexuality is one of the three courtship tendencies of humans and are even found in mammals: heterosexual courtship, homosexual courtship, and bisexual courtship. It is also known as heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality. Scientific research shows that the homosexual population makes up about 5% of the human population, and bisexuality makes up 1%. In other words, among the friends and relatives you’ve been exposed to since you were a child, a few must be homosexuals, and you just may not know it. Of course I think this is just one of the factors in this case, not necessarily the whole point.”

Lin Xiu Ran interpreted it in a serious manner. These things were perfectly normal in the first place. It was just the general public, who seemed to find homosexuality quite abnormal and far away from their normal lives, and Zhu Xiao was clearly one of these people. As if he didn’t believe or accept that such people still existed in this world.

Fu Linjiang also righteously said on the side: “What should be scary are not the gay men who are honest and socially harmless, but moreso the people who are afraid to face their sexual orientation due to their parents’ persecution and the influence of their environment. They put on a heteronormative cloak and suppress their true nature, but instead make themselves as monsters hiding in the world. The resulting AIDS problem, the problem of promiscuity, is what’s more dangerous.”

Zhu Xiao cleared his throat, “So, this comrade died at home after having sex with someone?”

Lin Xiu Ran said, “The deceased was married. Whether this person who used a condom was a short term lover or a long term lover, or whether he was just looking for someone to meet up for sex, it’s up to you to investigate.”

Then he pointed sideways at the image on the projector, “Let’s take a look at the body: the deceased’s head, separated limbs, severed torso, and strangled internal organs, all of these were found at the scene. The neck scars on the human head found in the refrigerator were rather messy, and they are basically post-mortem injuries. We found some body parts, most of which were ribs and associated parts of the abdomen, from which we picked out the bones and spliced them. As they had been stewed and many muscle marks were unrecognizable.”

A recovery of the chest appeared on the slide projector, and those bones were pieced together on a clay model based on the figure of the deceased. Most had been completed except for a few missing pieces that were not pieced together.

“As we can see, most of these bones are divided into four to five sections, only this location…” said Lin Xiu Ran, drawing a red circle on the left center side of the chest, “Here the bones that were broken by an extra cut.”

“Covering up the wound?” Song Wen turned his pen slightly and asked softly.

If there had been a cut there, the best way to make it invisible would have been to add another cut to the wound. However, it didn’t occur to the killer that doing by doing so, the extra cut would be more noticeable when the body was put back together as if they were drawing a snake*.

(T/N: huàshétiānzú : draw legs on a snake, or overdoing something and ruining the original effect)

Lin Xiu Ran, putting on his gloves and taking out two sections of the sternum, pointed it out to Song Wen: “Look at this part right here. The killer cut off the ribs one by one after splitting them. Each cut was made vertically, and the fracture is almost flat. Since human ribs themselves have a slight curvature……” He spoke, mimicking the two ways to lower the knife, “Even though the killer lowered the knife at more or less the same spot, he still didn’t destroy these two marks.”

Following Lin Xiu Ran’s finger, there were two shallow gaps on two small sections of ribs, which were hard to find if you didn’t look carefully: “These two marks, on the fourth and fifth ribs on the left, are two relatively shallow oblique scratches; and these marks can be said to be caused by coincidence or due to other reasons. But on the arched ribs here, there are two completely matching wounds, which are absolutely not coincidental. It is certain that this wound was the first puncture point of the murder weapon.”

“What would be the consequences of a knife stabbing from here?” Song Wen asked.

Hearing this, Lu Siyu stopped recording and raised his head. Then he turned to look at Song Wen. Unexpectedly, Song Wen was also looking at him firmly. The eyes of the two met for a moment, and Lu Siyu hurriedly bowed his head and avoided the gaze. The pen in his hand poke a point on the notebook.

“If it’s long enough, it will pierce directly into the heart.” Saying that, Lin Xiu Ran pulled over a small human anatomy model in the conference room. Putting together two fingers like a knife, he pierced the ribs of that model. The slender finger-tips were like sharp weapons, passing through the chest cavity to reach the heart.

♛♛♛

Translating team shenanigans

Mochi : /Very stressed due to job hunting/ Posting a recruitment ad for editor/(ง’̀-‘́)ง

Good Samaritan : Hi there, I can help you edit and proof read (ᵔᴥᵔ)

Mochi : /Still highly stressed and struggling with last 2 brain cells/ Omg you can? Ahhhh, but I can’t pay you. I’m so poor. ヽ(°□°ヽ)

Good Samaritan : ….

Mochi : Okay! Lets negotiate, choose one; my kidney or my first born. I’m telling you, you can only chose one. I need to offer the other one to my PR （︶︿︶）

Good Samaritan : (. ❛ ᴗ ❛.) …. so yeah, I said I’m volunteering .. you…you don’t need to pay me anything / highly doubting if the translator is okay/

And that’s how we have our new editor. Y’all, let’s welcome another Mochi to the team.

@mochiusagi

~(˘▾˘~) (ﾉ ◕ヮ◕ )ﾉ*✲ﾟ*｡⋆ ~(˘▾˘~)

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Usagi :