Law of Steaming corpses in White Vinegar

'The Dead Coming Back to Life' was such a shocking scene that it left everyone dumbfounded.

Huang Xiaotao stared with eyes wide open and asked in astonishment, "Song Yang, how did you do that?"

"There is life in death, and death in life. Even a dead body can have some of its bodily functions restored through special means," I explained.

"This...this is too mystical!"

"There's nothing mystical about it. When people die, there is usually some air left in the lungs, unless they drowned or suffocated. What you just saw with the 'playing dead' was simply the air trapped in the corpse's lungs pushing it up."

I picked up the ice chips on the ground with tweezers and examined them closely - there was blood and some flesh stuck to them.

"How did ice form in the dead man's lungs?" Huang Xiaotao asked the question that all the policemen wanted to know.

"Because after he died, someone froze the body for a period of time. But there was no sign of water on the surface of the skin, so it was probably frozen using dry ice or refrigerant, thus greatly slowing down the decay. That created the illusion that he had been dead for only ten hours. However, the inside of the body cannot lie. Through 'reading the bones', I discovered that the internal organs were already decayed to varying degrees, which is typical for having been dead for forty-eight hours. Because the corpse was frozen, the air trapped in the lungs condensed into ice chips..." I said with a faint smile.

Huang Xiaotao was so shocked that she slammed her palm on me and said, "Song Yang, you're so amazing that I'm starting to doubt if you really are self-taught!"

I laughed: "Stop wasting time, let's continue the autopsy."

I asked a policeman to bring in a long table and lay it down in the middle of the room with the legs pointing upwards.

At the same time, I wrapped rope around the table legs several times to create a makeshift rope bed.

I then placed an electric stove underneath and plugged it in, putting an iron plate on top.

Huang Xiaotao picked up the succulent potted plant from my bag and said, "You college students really live colorfully, dabbling in all kinds of hobbies. What do you need this potted plant for?"

"You'll see in a bit. Come help me take the clothes off the corpse and move it on top!" I ordered.

Two policemen took the pants off the corpse and carried it onto the rope bed. When she saw the dead man's private parts, Huang Xiaotao frowned and averted her eyes, a blush rising to her face.

I thought to myself that Huang Xiaotao probably hadn't dated before, to be so shy at the sight of that thing.

I opened the white vinegar and squeezed ginger juice forcefully into the bottle. When the iron plate was hot, I splashed a whole bottle of white vinegar onto it. With a sizzling sound, the room was filled with the steam of white vinegar, stinging everyone's noses. Many policemen couldn't stand it and retreated to the side covering their noses.

I continued pouring vinegar, staring intently at the body.

In the curling vinegar fumes, purple-red markings began to appear on the corpse. I promptly turned off the electric stove and waited for the fumes to dissipate. Then a chorus of exclamations sounded from everyone in the room!

Numerous handprints had emerged on the body, and they were exactly the same as the ones I had uncovered from the other dead body using a red umbrella!

"Oh my god, these are a woman's handprints! Could it really be a female ghost committing the murders!" Huang Xiaotao exclaimed in surprise.

I laughed to myself. These handprints were smaller than an adult male's, with slender fingers, but that didn't mean they were a woman's handprints, let alone proof that a female ghost did it. I really wondered how Huang Xiaotao made it to police sergeant.

"What are you standing there for, hurry up and take photos!" I urged.

"Yes, yes, Little Wang, bring the camera here!"

At Huang Xiaotao's order, a young policeman immediately came over and started snapping away at the corpse.

This trick of mine was called 'vinegar steaming the corpse', another secret technique invented by forensic expert Song Ci!

A trace amount of alkaline sweat would secrete from the palms. By utilizing the acidity of the vinegar to react with it, the handprints would appear.

But these prints wouldn't last long. Sure enough, they gradually faded after a few minutes.

Huang Xiaotao asked, "Song Yang, in movies ghosts are ethereal without form, how could they leave handprints?"

"Who said it was a ghost, this was clearly left by the murderer, I'm certain the killer is human. Did you notice the clear handprints on the back of the victim's calves, in a grasping shape? Do you know what that implies?" I asked.

While gesturing, Huang Xiaotao guessed: "The murderer had grabbed the victim's calves with both hands at some point..." She suddenly covered her mouth, "I get it now, the murderer is a pervert!"

I was exasperated by her. It was such a simple deduction: "The murderer had dragged the victim's corpse by grabbing his calves!"

"Oh that makes sense!" Huang Xiaotao nodded.

"But that doesn't fit your earlier conclusion. You said the time of death was about forty-eight hours ago, but the two eyewitnesses stated that Deng Chao was still with them last night. Could he have already been dead?"

"Seeing is not necessarily believing. When witness testimony contradicts physical evidence, I tend to trust the physical evidence more. I suspect this isn't Deng Chao's corpse, it was moved here from somewhere else." I said.

"Then why would the killer do that?" Huang Xiaotao was confused.

"It's not yet clear, but the truth of the case will come to light eventually." I replied.

Just then Wang Dali ran in and said, "Yangzi, I've gotten all the stuff you wanted..."

He suddenly fell silent, eyes fixed on the corpse. The body was stripped bare and suspended on the iron plate. This scene probably shocked him.

"Holy crap, every time I leave you guys just get more hardcore. What's going on here, giving the corpse a sauna steam?"

"No no, we were discussing whether to steam it or pan-fry it." I shrugged.

Wang Dali probably imagined eating the corpse at my words. He shoved the stuff at me and rushed out covering his mouth.

Huang Xiaotao beside me was also looking queasy: "When you examine corpses, please don't talk about eating, it's really disgusting. Are you really a student, how can you be so thick-skinned!"

"Sorry, I've always been a bit dense." I laughed.

The magnet Wang Dali found was ripped off a speaker. I wrapped the magnet in white paper and moved it back and forth over the severed neck.

When I was done, I took off the paper and cupped it in my hand to show Huang Xiaotao the 'results' of my effort.

Although the particles were tiny, so small that a sneeze could blow them away, ordinary people could still see them against the white paper background.

"These are..." Huang Xiaotao leaned in to examine.

"Some sharp metal fragments." I explained.

Huang Xiaotao looked at me then looked at the things on the paper: "Hey! These are smaller than mites, how could you see them clearly!"

"Eating carrots regularly gives you good eyesight!" I joked.

"Then where did these 'sharp metal fragments' come from? The guitar strings?" Huang Xiaotao asked.

I showed her a guitar string. The strings were as fine as strands of hair, but if you looked closely they were actually spiraled - made by twisting several fine steel wires together. So even if they were damaged, it was impossible for 'sharp metal fragments' to break off from them.

"The tool that could produce fragments like these is probably a saw or hacksaw blade. Hacksaw blades are made of iron and it's common for them to get abraded during sawing." I explained.

"A saw? Are you saying the victim's head was actually sawn off alive with a saw?" Huang Xiaotao's eyes went wide.

"Let's not jump to conclusions yet. Oh yes, do you have a handkerchief?" I asked.

"Wait a moment!"

Huang Xiaotao borrowed a handkerchief from a policeman. I ripped off some of the succulent plant and wrapped it in the handkerchief, twisting hard to extract the juice. Then I dabbed the juice lightly on the victim's severed neck.

Gradually, the cut turned purple, and you could clearly see sawing marks on the skin and flesh, while the bone had the abrasion marks left by a hacksaw repeatedly grinding back and forth.

"See it now?" I said. "The skin was sliced open with a knife, but the vertebra was sawn through with a hacksaw."

Huang Xiaotao was shocked speechless for a good while before she could close her gaping mouth: "How did you do that!"

"It's simple. Succulents are very sensitive to metals, so when I used their juice to wipe the wounds, it revealed the traces left by the murder weapons." I said.

"Song Yang, I've known you for less than an hour, and you've already used all kinds of strange methods to examine the corpse, methods I've never seen before in all my years as a policeman. No, you have to give me a straight answer - just who exactly are you?"

Huang Xiaotao stared straight at me, looking as if she wouldn't rest until she got an answer!