NOVPUB68: Chapter 44 The First Autopsy in Great Tang
68 -44 The First Autopsy in Great Tang
Ran Yan lifted the plain cloth and saw the corpse of Judge Yang, heaving a slight sigh.
The man, who had retained a semblance of his past valor just the day before, was now swollen beyond recognition.
The summer heat was intense, especially in the humid climate of Jiangnan, so preserving the body to this extent must have required a great deal of effort.
Ran Yan took out bidentate achyranthes and Atractylodes, lit them, and drizzled strong vinegar over the body, yet she did not immediately begin the autopsy; instead, she quietly waited for a moment.
Yu Bohao watched Ran Yan with amazement, as if what laid before her wasn’t a dreadful corpse but rather something fascinating.
How many wives in this world would be attracted to a corpse?
His gaze shifted to Judge Yang’s body; his stomach churned violently, nearly causing him to vomit.
From this pile of decaying flesh, it was completely impossible to imagine this had once been a dignified and handsome Han man.
Ran Yan, hearing Yu Bohao’s retching, looked up and said, “Judge Yu, are you sure you want to continue watching?”
Yu Bohao’s brow furrowed, unwilling to be looked down upon by a young lady, he immediately composed himself and said, “Of course.” He then asked, “Why haven’t you started yet?”
“Haven’t I already begun?” Ran Yan arranged her gloves and started to examine the neck of the corpse, “The wounds on a body show differently at various times.
An injury that was not apparent at the start might become visible after the body has decomposed, like this bruise here.”
Yu Bohao and Liu Pinrang, despite the discomfort in their stomachs, looked towards where Ran Yan was pointing.
Indeed, there was a faint trace that could easily be mistaken for postmortem lividity if not observed closely.
Ran Yan took out a small autopsy knife.
The blade was short, the handle long enough for an adult to grip with room to spare, and the blade itself was just two inches, thin and sharp.
It was several times better than those she had commissioned.
She couldn’t help but admire Liu Pinrang’s small but shrewd eyes.
He hadn’t appeared to be looking closely that day, yet he was able to have a set of autopsy knives made!
Dispelling distracting thoughts, Ran Yan made an incision in the skin of the neck, revealing the tissue beneath.
Cutting into the subcutaneous tissue of the neck revealed no bleeding.
Typically, if someone was strangled to death, even if no bruising was evident on the neck, the muscles there would honestly reflect it, showing a stove-like hemorrhage.
Ran Yan held the autopsy knife, methodically delving from the superficial muscle layer of the neck into the deeper muscle layers.
The exposed flesh made Yu Bohao’s stomach roil, the sensation reaching up to his throat, but he forcibly held back his urge to vomit, all the while trying to distract himself by focusing all his attention on Ran Yan.
Her delicate features were set in a serious expression, her deep black eyes reflecting the flickering light of the surrounding oil lamps, giving the impression that they danced with a fleeting excitement.
The autopsy knife had reached almost to the hyoid bone, yet no bleeding in the muscles or between the muscles had been found.
Ran Yan paused slightly.
Could it be that the bruise on the neck was indeed postmortem discoloration?
Doubting herself for a moment, yet trusting her judgment, she kept cutting down following the bruise, not stopping until she had peeled back to the deeper layer of the neck, revealing the hyoid bone and a hint of something else.
“Bring the lamp closer,” said Ran Yan.
Yu Bohao quickly brought over an oil lamp.
The lamps here were typical of the Tang Dynasty, made of copper and floor-standing, with a tree-like structure atop which were placed a dozen to twenty lamp pans each, illuminating the area brightly.
“There is a small amount of bleeding on the strap muscles of the hyoid, but there’s no fracture of the bone.
It suggests that the killer’s force wasn’t sufficient to have strangled Judge Yang to death,” Ran Yan mused.
A bruise on the side of the neck did not necessarily mean that the killer had strangled him from the front; it could also be that the killer had grasped the cervical spine from behind, just as…
she had died in her previous life.
With that thought, Ran Yan’s surgical knife quickly stripped the muscles away, exposing the ghastly white vertebrae, but the situation puzzled her.
There was no fracture in the cervical bones, and even the muscles surrounding them had no signs of injury.
The current evidence only proved that the deceased had been grabbed by the neck while he was still alive.
It was just a grab, not the cause of death.
Ran Yan fell silent.
She remembered from the last examination that Judge Yang had been attacked in the lower body.
The killer had struck quickly and accurately at a man’s most vulnerable part from the front, rendering Judge Yang instantly incapable of resistance and even unable to cry out for help.
Afterward, the killer gripped his neck, delivering the fatal blow somewhere on the body with no hesitation since there were no signs of struggle on Judge Yang’s body, implying the process must have occurred within thirty seconds.
