Miss Truth
Chapter 174 - 111: Blood That Disappeared Without a Trace

Chapter 174: Chapter 111: Blood That Disappeared Without a Trace

Strictly speaking, this corpse could only be classified as moderately to highly decomposed.

After death, decay gases first generate in the head, face, and the hollows of the chest and abdomen before finally moving to the lower limbs. No matter how beautiful a person was in life, or how perfect the figure, after death they all become a fierce and terrible "big-headed ghost" with bulging eyes and a protruding tongue and lips.

Yet, the lower limbs of the corpse before me had not yet been filled by decay gases.

Ran Yan first conducted a general examination of the body, and concluded that the age of the deceased was between eighteen to twenty years old, male, who died on August 4th, most likely between midnight and the early morning.

In spring and autumn, a "colossal chance of decay" occurs between three to seven days. According to Judge Yu, the body had been found six days prior, and it could be preliminarily judged that when they found the corpse, only a short time had passed since the time of death, meaning it was close to the early morning.

Why did the first body die at midnight while this one was delayed until early morning?

Some of the injured areas on the body had already shown obvious signs of healing, indicating that the deceased had gone through a prolonged struggle before death.

"When he was found, was there a lot of bloodshed?" Ran Yan looked up and asked.

She noticed that the amount of lividity on the body was very sparse. Lividity is a phenomenon where blood settles in the lower parts of the body after the heart has stopped beating. With red blood cells breaking down and hemoglobin seeping into the surrounding tissue cells, purplish-red blotches appear on the skin.

If one hadn’t bled excessively, or for some other special reasons, there would normally be extensive lividity. How could there only be so little?

"No, there were only a few spots found scattered on the ground," Yu Bohao replied.

This was strange. A thought flashed through Ran Yan’s mind as she immediately examined the body’s major arteries, the neck, wrist, arms, and so on, finally discovering a small blood spot the size of a mung bean on the left arm, and then a wound of similar size at the bend of the right leg. Such injuries would not be easily found on a body in such a state of decay.

Ran Yan instructed the Government Official to splash water to clean the body, then grasping the scalpel, she made an incision down the middle of the neck, separating the neck skin, subcutaneous tissue, and muscles from both sides of the cut.

No congestion, bleeding, or hematoma was found, but there were blackish substances attached to the esophageal wall, which could not be identified. Ran Yan gently scraped it off with tweezers onto a plain cloth, and continued the dissection.

After completely peeling it back, the entire neck seemed odd. Ran Yan gave it some thought, then gently cut open an artery with the tip of the knife. Seeing the neat incision and the condition inside, she was momentarily startled. There was not a drop of residual blood!

Twelve hours after death, the blood completely coagulates, and it’s normal for there to be no blood flow during an upper dissection at that point, and even less so after six days. However, some clotting should remain in the vessels, yet the amount of blood in this severed vessel was absurdly sparse!

Unable to confirm the suspicion in her mind, Ran Yan immediately began dissecting the chest and abdomen. Regardless, there should always be some blood remaining near the heart.

After making an incision in the abdomen, everyone exited the room, waiting for the decay gases to dissipate sufficiently before re-entering to continue.

Ran Yan deftly opened up the chest and abdomen. As she tightened her gloves, she meticulously checked for any adhesions in the pleura, as well as their location and the degree to which they could be easily peeled away. Then she made a "Y"-shaped incision in the pericardium starting from the tip of the heart, fully exposing the organ.

After a careful examination, Ran Yan carefully cut the arteries attached to the heart and found that it contained clotted blood, but the quantity was still very scant.

Next, Ran Yan dissected a few other places before standing up straight and announcing a shocking piece of news, "All the blood in the corpse is gone."

"What?" The others, who had been tolerating the strong stench, couldn’t help but widen their eyes at this astonishing news.

Ran Yan lowered her head to carefully inspect the blood spots at the bends of the arms and legs. Using tweezers, she gently parted the clotted blood and discovered a small orifice about three millimeters wide. It looked as though someone had inserted a tube or something similar and later flattened it deliberately.

"What’s going on here?" Liu Pinrang immediately asked once Ran Yan finished her examination.

Ran Yan replied, "Wait until I’ve thoroughly dissected this body before I explain in detail."

After opening the abdomen, Ran Yan separated the stomach and took it out, laying it on a clean white cloth, where the insides were filled with a black substance.

Ran Yan removed the contents and arranged them neatly before handing them over to Xiao Song and the others for identification.

By the time Ran Yan finished dissecting the entire body, she realized that it had already turned dark outside. Her eyes needed to adjust to the light, or else if she continued with the other two bodies, some details might be easily overlooked.

Ran Yan tugged the white cloth over the body and left with everyone else.

Although Xiao Song, Liu Pinrang, and Yu Bohao were present and had watched the entire dissection process, they didn’t understand the human body, so as soon as they stepped outside, they stared directly at Ran Yan, waiting for her to provide a detailed explanation.

Ran Yan removed her gloves, mask, and apron, exhaling deeply as she said, "The blood in this body has been drained by someone. Well... not exactly drained, but at least three-quarters of it has been removed."

Upon hearing this, even those like Xiao Song and Liu Pinrang, who rarely showed their emotions, looked utterly astonished.

Yu Bohao was even more visibly shocked.

"A person’s blood volume cannot be this low. There are no large wounds on his body. The most likely scenario is that someone extracted his blood. I found two small incisions on his arm and leg, and on the one on his leg, there were residues of plant vine fragments. The murderer possibly used some kind of plant vine to withdraw the blood." Ran Yan felt a bit perplexed; she hadn’t been involved with the subsequent two bodies that turned up, but she had personally examined the first body. The post-mortem lividity on that body was mostly normal, which did not suggest that the body had been moved or that large amounts of blood had been extracted.

"There’s also the black powdered substance taken from the stomach." The substance was somewhat solidified due to mixing with gastric fluids; its most likely original state was powder. Ran Yan continued, "This substance was neither digested nor excreted in the stomach, indicating that the victim died within less than half an hour after eating it, or, this substance simply cannot be digested by people. I surmise that the victim may have been forced to ingest this substance while his blood was being drained, it is highly probable he was under some threat and took it voluntarily because I didn’t find any signs of his mouth being forced open. There were no signs of bleeding, bruising on the neck, throat, or jaw."

Judge Yu suddenly thought of something and said, "This body was found in a dilapidated temple, while the other two were on the mountainside. No bag was found next to him, jade orchid bouquets were placed in his arms, along with two tufts of hair. His clothing was also very neat. Is there any special reason for this?" (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to come to Qidian (qidian.com) to cast your recommendation ticket, monthly ticket. Your support is my greatest motivation.)

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