Chapter 1409 - Calluses

"In service of the Council of Elders." Su Wan snapped to attention.

"In service of the Council of Elders!" Chen Baibin came to attention as well, his expression solemn and voice booming.

"Service, service." Lei En echoed perfunctorily, then added: "To be honest, your timely arrival is a great help. You know, I'm actually an epidemic-prevention worker..."

Su Wan understood his meaning. During the Battle of Chengmai, she had witnessed him—face ashen—having to run to the seaside several times to "get some air" while working among piles of corpses already displaying signs of bloating putrefaction.

It was indeed somewhat unreasonable to ask someone who had worked at an urban epidemic-prevention station—giving vaccinations, spraying disinfectant, and occasionally doing public health education—to perform autopsies. What Su Wan found rather admirable was that, regardless of his actual skill level, Lei En had at least taken on all of Kaohsiung's autopsy work.

He had graduated from medical school and was no stranger to cadaver dissection, but that had been in a university anatomy lab, with properly sourced and basically treated bodies. What forensic examiners faced were corpses at crime scenes already rendered grotesque by circumstance. Some had incomplete limbs; some were highly decomposed. The stench alone was more than most people could bear.

"It's fine. Let's get to work," Su Wan said.

"Let Comrade Chen Baibin brief us on the situation first."

"All right."

Chen Baibin nodded. He was in plainclothes and had been standing silently to the side, appearing somewhat shy. Only now did he speak: "This case was ordered to be investigated by the Executive Committee itself. To be honest, this time... it's somewhat..." Unable to find the right words, he hesitated before continuing: "We want to verify this person's identity."

"Hey now, verifying identity isn't really a forensic examiner's job, you know?" Su Wan was amused. "Autopsies mainly determine cause of death, time of death, specific age, past medical history, and other physiological matters. How am I supposed to determine someone's social identity? Implantable ID chips weren't even close to being rolled out by the twenty-first century..."

Lei En stepped in to explain: "The idea is to ascertain as many of this person's physiological characteristics as possible so they can infer his social attributes..."

"This person is that important?" Su Wan grew curious.

"Yes." Chen Baibin's face looked troubled. "This person was an enemy of our Hangzhou Station. He was shot dead by our people just a few days ago. But his words, actions, and thinking in Hangzhou and elsewhere exceeded our imagination..." He paused again. "He seems to have transcended this time-space—"

"You're saying this person might be a transmigrator like Lando?"

"That's exactly what we want to find out."

"Now that you put it that way, I'm getting eager. Where's the body?"

Lei En pulled a bell-rope on the wall beside the table. A thick wooden door in the corner of the basement was pushed open, and two orderlies in white isolation gowns emerged carrying a tightly wrapped stretcher. They placed it on the autopsy table.

"This body just arrived from Hangzhou."

"How long has he been dead?"

"One week." Chen Baibin frowned. "The Special Investigation Team raided his hideout. Before he could be captured, he shot himself. Following instructions, the Hangzhou Station immediately refrigerated his body and transported it to Kaohsiung right away."

One week! Su Wan thought. After drifting at sea for seven days, who knew what state the body was in.

But no smell of decay came through the air. Lei En added: "This time we specially used ice blocks as ballast for preservation."

How extravagant! Su Wan's gaze fell on the tightly wrapped body bag. The Executive Committee was clearly taking this matter very seriously indeed.

After changing into autopsy garb, Lei En helped her don gloves and fasten her belt and mask. He changed into work clothes as well, in case he needed to assist.

He could tell Chen Baibin was very uncomfortable: "You can wait next door for the report..."

"No, I'd better stay and watch." Chen Baibin steeled himself, apparently unwilling to appear timid in front of a woman.

The body had already been moved onto the autopsy table. Even the well-experienced Su Wan drew in a sharp breath. The deceased's head was no longer recognizable—like a smashed tomato. The entire face was gone. Black scorch marks from powder burns remained on the surviving skin. From experience, it appeared that a massive bullet had entered through the mouth and simply exploded the skull.

Even in the old time-space, Su Wan had rarely seen such severe gunshot wounds. The fiercest weapons used when local underworld gangs clashed had been five-shot hunting shotguns and Hualong-made pistols. She had never encountered such a terrifying fatal wound. This bullet must have been extraordinarily large...

"What was this fired with?" she asked with a frown.

"A handgun. Twenty-millimeter caliber." Chen Baibin steadied his breathing, forcing himself to face the horrible corpse.

Su Wan shook her head. She carefully examined the remains of the head, then the torso, then the hands, feet, and joints. From the degree of rigor mortis and lividity, the body's preservation was acceptable—many details should still be detectable.

She opened her autopsy toolkit, laid out her "eighteen weapons," and set to work with practiced skill, narrating as she examined:

"...The deceased is male, of the yellow race, approximately twenty-five years old. Living height was approximately one hundred fifty-five centimeters. Nutritional status was good; teeth regular. Body was healthy with no latent diseases."

"Is that all?"

"More or less. I could also examine the stomach contents to determine his last meal..."

"No need. That's already covered in the Hangzhou Station's report." Lei En felt nauseated just thinking about examining stomach contents.

"If we removed all the flesh, we could learn more details from the skeleton... Do you have a large pot here?"

Chen Baibin's face had already turned ashen; suddenly he clapped his hand over his mouth and hurried from the room.

"I don't think removing the flesh would be very meaningful. Just tell us from the skin and anatomy what other characteristics he has."

"All right. My impression is that this person was not a laborer—his muscles are underdeveloped, his bones not thick; he clearly didn't engage in regular physical labor. The skin covered by clothing isn't very rough—in fact, rather delicate. The calluses on the soles of his feet indicate he often walked in shoes rather than barefoot." Su Wan examined carefully. "His hands are smooth, with no signs of long-term manual work. He was not a soldier either; there are no calluses from long-term gripping of swords, spears, or firearms, nor the finger scars common among archers."

She picked up the corpse's hand and examined it closely: "His index and middle fingers have calluses from long-term pen holding. He should have been an intellectual..." As she spoke, she suddenly frowned and turned the hand over several times. "Strange!"

"What is it?"

"The calluses on his middle and index fingers are from long-term use of a brush. But these other calluses—on the outer side of the first and second joints of his index finger, and between the first and second joints of his thumb—they don't match..."

"That's not how you hold a brush." Lei En looked closely, unconsciously miming the motion. He exclaimed suddenly: "These are marks from regularly using a fountain pen!"

"Exactly." Su Wan nodded. "From the calluses, the brush-related ones are older and harder; the pen-related ones have already softened. Clearly that came earlier."

"So he really could be a modern transmigrator?!" Lei En exclaimed.

"Very likely." At this point, Su Wan frowned again. "But there's something I can't figure out. The calluses on his knees are very thick, as if he was someone who often knelt. I can't think of any occupation in modern society that requires working on one's knees for extended periods."

"Let's keep looking for other clues."

The autopsy continued until after three in the afternoon.

"All right, there's nothing more to examine. Stitch him up." Su Wan said with some relief as she removed her gloves, speaking to Lei En and to Chen Baibin—who, after leaving the room once, had looked much better upon returning. "My stomach is famished. I really want to eat something."

Lei En was fine, but Chen Baibin's face went pale again; he turned and hurried out.

"Did I say something odd?"

Lei En smiled and helped her with the suturing and cleanup. Hao Yuan's body would be stored temporarily in the underground morgue of the Kaohsiung Infirmary. How to handle it would await orders from the Political Security General Administration.

"Come, let's go upstairs and get some fresh air." Lei En said apologetically. "You haven't had lunch yet, have you? I've already had someone prepare something."

The two came to the back courtyard of the infirmary, where a small garden had been arranged specially for Elders—in practice, for Lei En's exclusive use. His domestic secretary had already set up a small table under a sun umbrella and was waiting.

"Sit down, rest a bit. I'll have them bring food right away," Lei En said. "We don't have anything fancy here—mostly seafood. But there's plenty of venison, and quite a bit of game too."

"I don't like meat, and I don't like seafood either. Do you have vegetables?"

Lei En started, then hastily said: "Yes, yes. Quite a variety, actually. I'll have them prepare some right away."

Su Wan sank limply into a chair. In the blink of an eye, it had been more than four years since leaving the old time-space. The suffering of not being able to eat her hometown cuisine and her longing for her parents tore at her heart every moment. But on the other hand, in the old time-space she had been merely an obscure forensic examiner who had even lost her job due to a misdiagnosis. Here, she had obtained countless things she would never have dared imagine before—rank, money, honor, respect. To become the nation's sole authority before the age of thirty... what did that feel like?

Then she thought of her sadistic boss in the old time-space with his daily scolding and berating, the indifference and coldness of her colleagues, and the mockery and criticism from family and friends after she lost her job. All those annoying things could go to hell. Thinking of this, Su Wan felt rather smug again.