The Forensic Doctor Better Than a Detective

”Brother, don’t scare me like that!”

Just now, Jiang An’s speculation made Wan’s heart jolt; he even felt his head go a bit blank.

He practically had a funeral face on, his voice trembling a little, ”Bro, c-can we not scare ourselves like this, okay?”

”Don’t tell me this is another homicide?”

”The ink on the last case report hasn’t even dried yet! Isn’t this case-taking frequency a bit too much?”

”Even the commune’s donkey wouldn’t dare get worked this hard!”

Jiang An didn’t answer immediately; his gaze was locked tightly on the stiff corpse in front of him.

He clicked his tongue and only after a long moment did he slowly speak, ”Of course I also hope this is just an accident.”

He squatted down, his finger hovering as he pointed at the victim’s clothes. ”But look, there are too many suspicious points.”

”With a body found in a dry well, generally we’d first consider three possibilities: suicide, accidental fall, or... homicide with body disposal.”

”If she jumped down herself to end her life, or accidentally slipped and fell—”

Jiang An’s voice echoed along the well walls. ”—then the main impact points and damage should be on the bones, especially the legs and spine.”

”The instinct to survive would make someone who’s fallen to the bottom of a well struggle; their clothes would likely bear marks of friction against the ground and well walls.”

His fingers moved to the victim’s disheveled collar at her chest, his eyes sharp as a blade. ”Look here, the clothes, especially the part at the front of the chest.”

”This kind of unnatural stretching and twisting focused on the front panel looks very deliberate.”

”Even if she’d clawed around instinctively while falling, it’s almost impossible for that to create this kind of intense pulling pattern so concentrated in one specific area.”

”It’s more like... damage caused by an external force violently yanking at it.”

Jiang An lifted his head and looked at Wan, whose face had already gone a bit pale, and said word by word, ”So, I have a rather unpleasant hypothesis.”

”Before this person died, there is a strong possibility she was sexually assaulted.”

”The marks on the clothes are very likely remnants of violent behavior during that process.”

Listening to this, Wan felt like his face was about to turn green and glow.

His mind had already started planning which little restaurant he’d go to for a couple of drinks to unwind after work, and he’d even half-dreamed of soaking in a hot bath when he got home.

And now?

Forget the nice dreams; even getting a breather this Monday was in doubt!

It hadn’t even been two hours yet, had it?

Why did it feel like he had just escaped a wolf’s den only to fall straight into a tiger’s jaws?

He felt completely out of sorts, his mouth opening and closing, not knowing what to say.

Just then, Jiang An’s voice sounded again, dragging his thoughts back to the cold reality.

”Also—”

Jiang An’s gaze swept over the minute details around the corpse like a searchlight.

”Look here, pay attention to the front side of the victim’s clothes. Although there are some mud spots dampened by the rain and a few fallen dead leaves, overall it’s too ’clean.’”

He deliberately stressed the word ”clean”: ”It lacks those large, chaotic, multi-directional friction and scraping marks that would inevitably be left behind by desperate struggling and attempts to climb in such a narrow space. That’s abnormal.”

Wan forced himself to focus, following along with Jiang An’s line of thought.

He furrowed his brows and pondered for a moment, trying hard to keep his voice steady.

”Boss, you mean... at the bottom of this well, there are no signs of death throes?”

”If she fell in by herself, even if she fainted for a bit, once she came to she’d definitely scream for help in terror and try like crazy to climb out!”

Then, Jiang An squatted down again and carefully lifted the victim’s already stiff hands.

”Wan, I need you to take a few close-ups of her fingernails. They’ve got to be clear.”

”Focus on any trace evidence that might be left in the nail crevices, and whether the nails themselves show damage or breakage. This is crucial.”

Click—

With the crisp sound of the camera shutter, a spine-chilling image froze on the screen.

The young Wan leaned in for a closer look; his Adam’s apple bobbed involuntarily. ”Bro, these nails... is there something special about them?”

”Look here.” His fingertip hovered just above them. ”The gaps are too clean; you can hardly find any traces of mud.”

”And what does that tell us?” Wan blinked, still not quite keeping up.

”It points to a key issue: there’s a very good chance she had already lost all vital signs before being dumped into this well.”

”In other words, she did not struggle for her life here.”

He raised a hand and pointed at the damp, moss-covered well walls around them.

”Look at this well. It’s been here for years; the inner walls are mostly slick with green moss, but at the bottom and in some sections there’s still loose soil.”

”What would a living person do, whether they slipped in by accident or were pushed in, under the desperate instinct to survive?”

Following his lead, Wan pictured the scene. ”They’d... they’d grab wildly? Use their fingers to dig into any place they could get a grip?”

”Exactly!”

Jiang An nodded. ”Their nails would be scraping madly at the walls, trying to find a foothold; their fingertips would be driven deep into the mud.

If that had happened, her nail crevices could not possibly be this ’clean.’ They should be packed with bits of moss, wall dust, and above all—mud.”

”But now, there’s nothing, absolutely nothing.”

”We can say with near certainty that when she was thrown into this well, she was already a completely motionless corpse.”

Before long, the initial examination at the bottom of the well was finished, and the two of them were hauled up by the firefighters at the mouth of the well.

Chief Liu Liang, who had been waiting at the edge, immediately hurried over.

His face was full of anxiety and hope, like a man clutching at the last straw, as he asked urgently, ”Mr. Jiang, how is it? Down there... is there any chance it was suicide, or an accidental fall? Just an accident?”