Beneath the Dome, Sin within Sins - Chapter 66 - Bloodsucking

Su Mo looked at me, his expression growing even graver than before. “The fact that I’m telling you this means it’s really important. Can you stop being so indifferent about it?”

Honestly, I thought I was being pretty attentive. But why Su Mo would think otherwise was a bit puzzling to me.

Seeing his urgency, I decided to suppress my own temper and said, “I understand. Don’t worry, I’m ready for this. After all, I studied medicine; I’ve seen all kinds of situations. You can rest assured.”

Su Mo still seemed hesitant, but maybe my demeanor was convincing enough for him. In the end, he nodded and led me into the forensic pathology lab.

It wasn’t until I stepped inside that I realized why Su Mo kept insisting I prepare myself. What lay inside was truly astonishing. The sight before me left me frozen in place.

On the autopsy table lay the delivery driver. At this moment, his entire body was shriveled, his face completely void of any color-exactly what you’d expect from a victim. But as I looked at this corpse, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. Yet, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was.

I glanced at the forensic doctor standing off to the side and asked, “What have your tests revealed?”

The forensic doctor hesitated and gave Su Mo a difficult look, which I caught out of the corner of my eye. I frowned, puzzled, and turned to Su Mo. “What’s going on? Don’t tell me you’re hiding even this from me now?”

“It’s not that I don’t want to tell you,” Su Mo replied, “but this is really… something I can’t explain to you right now.”

His words stunned me for a moment. Confused, I pressed, “What exactly is going on?”

Su Mo opened his mouth as if to speak, but then quickly closed it again. His reluctance to explain was really starting to irritate me. Just as I was about to voice my frustration, I saw Su Mo exchange a meaningful glance with the forensic doctor.

Without another word, the forensic doctor handed me a pair of medical gloves.

I looked at Su Mo. Judging by his expression, he clearly expected me to conduct the examination myself!

Taking the medical gloves and putting on the appropriate clothing, I positioned myself in front of the autopsy table. The victim’s body showed no extra external injuries except for the neck. On the victim’s neck were two small puncture marks, as if something had pierced through. There were also scratch marks and ligature marks around the neck, likely caused by someone strangling the victim who then struggled desperately to break free.

To confirm my hypothesis, I lifted the victim’s hands. Underneath their fingernails, I found traces of human tissue. Combined with the scratches on the neck, this suggested that the victim had been strangled from behind and had frantically scratched and clawed at their own neck in an attempt to escape.

However, as my examination dug deeper, beads of cold sweat began to trickle down my forehead. Finally, I lifted the white sheet covering the corpse, confirming the thought that had been gnawing at me.

The body beneath the sheet had already undergone partial dissection by the forensic pathologist. Now, it was clear-the cause of death was exsanguination.

At that moment, Su Mo approached me and patted me on the shoulder. “Well? Was I wrong?”

Looking up at Su Mo, I nodded slowly and said, “You’re right. This case is far beyond peculiar.”

The cause of death was massive blood loss-or more accurately, the complete absence of blood in the body.

What kind of situation was this? Could it really be possible that there was someone out there draining blood from living people?

“What’s your take on this case?” I asked Su Mo casually, turning toward him.

He shrugged and sighed. “I have no idea.”

“Neither do I. With the first two cases, no matter how strange they were, we could at least address them using logic and reason. But this… I’ve never seen anything like it before. It seems our approach needs to change.”

Hearing this, Su Mo’s face lit up with a glimmer of hope. He clearly thought I had come up with some brilliant plan to identify the real murderer. I wanted to tell him that he was, unfortunately, overthinking things.

“Do you have a plan?” Su Mo asked.

I nodded, then shook my head. “I don’t have a specific method yet, but I do have a general direction.”

“What do you mean?”

“If we want to solve this case, the first thing we need to identify is what kind of modus operandi the murderer used. With so many criminal cases worldwide, there must be something similar. Let’s start by searching online for analogous cases and then see what commonalities they share.”

I paused for a moment before continuing, “Here’s the plan: You and Lu Xun can look into this angle. As for the corpse, bring my sister in. I feel we might still be able to uncover something valuable from it.”

Su Mo nodded and left the room. A short while later, my sister arrived, fully suited up for the task at hand.

She held a scalpel in her hand and gave a small laugh as she looked at me from across the autopsy table. “Brother, this is the first time we’re working on a case together, isn’t it?”

“Is that so? I clearly remember you used to run into my laboratory all the time to mess things up when you were little,” I replied.

“Ha! If anything, you were the one causing the chaos!”

Sensing that we were about to delve into an argument over something so trivial, I quickly cut in, “Alright, alright. Let’s drop it. The case is more important right now.”

Hearing this, Lu Che rolled her eyes dramatically but quickly slipped into professional mode.

“The victim’s body is completely drained of blood. That’s the cause of death, but as for what caused it-we have no idea yet,” she commented.

“Have the traces of epidermal debris under the victim’s fingernails been analyzed yet?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t know. I’m here to assist with the analysis. You know, this is the first time I’ve encountered a corpse like this, too.”

With that, Lu Che began examining the victim’s head.

“Then we’ll do the tests ourselves,” I said decisively.

I grabbed the necessary tools and carefully extracted the material from beneath the victim’s fingernails. Handing it to Lu Che, I said, “Take this to the laboratory for testing.”

She took the sample from me but hesitated for a moment, looking at me with concern. “Will you be alright staying here alone?”

I raised my head, giving her a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. Just focus on the analysis.”

With that, she left the room, and I resumed examining the areas she had begun to inspect.