SFTD -Chapter 386 White Spots Reappear (Part 27)

Behind them, Xiao Liang covered his mouth and snickered. Watching the two bicker seemed to wash away some of the exhaustion and tension from earlier.

At that moment, Zhou Hai suddenly slapped the autopsy table. The abrupt movement startled Fengzi and the others. Xu Biao set down the culture dish and stretched his neck toward Zhou Hai.

Looking confused, he asked: “What’s wrong, Hai Zi?”

There was excitement in Zhou Hai’s eyes. Pointing at the stomach contents, he widened his eyes and said:

“These meat fragments in the victim’s stomach are barely digested, while the grains and vegetables have already turned into chyme. What does that tell you?”

Xu Biao thought for a moment.

“What does it tell us? That the meat was tough. Bad quality meat, and it wasn’t stewed long enough.”

Zhou Hai didn’t refute him. Instead, he nodded encouragingly.

“That’s part of it. What else?”

Fengzi stepped closer and thought it over.

“It means the meal was eaten pretty late. If lunch had been around 11:30 to noon, even the meat should’ve been more broken down by now. This looks like it was eaten within an hour after the meal.”

Xiao Liang leaned over, tilting his head as he looked between the chyme and the chunks of meat.

“Brother Hai, could it be that he ate two meals? Just with a very short gap between them?”

A faint smile appeared at the corner of Zhou Hai’s lips.

“You’re all right. But you have to look at the whole picture.

The victim definitely ate lunch. And judging from the food residue in the digestive tract, he probably ate two meals within a short period of time.

The gap between those meals was less than two hours. The meat was hard, and it wasn’t chewed thoroughly at all—he practically swallowed it whole.

That means he ate in a hurry. Almost like it was a compensatory meal… the kind of feeling you get from a last supper before execution.”

Realization dawned on Xu Biao.

“I get what you mean now. If this really were Yang Duxiu, then he would’ve planned his own death long ago. Why would he act like some heroic martyr? And how could he force himself to swallow meat like that?”

Zhou Hai nodded and opened the medical record again.

“The missing section of the file isn’t very large, but someone deliberately tore out the liver examination pages. Look—even during the physical examination, there are no imaging records related to the liver or gallbladder.

I think someone intentionally tried to mislead us. If liver cancer had been thoroughly examined during the checkup, it should’ve been detected.”

After rinsing and wiping his gloves clean, Zhou Hai began examining the victim’s mouth. Sure enough, the lower molars were damaged. In this untreated condition, it would’ve been very difficult for the victim to chew hard meat properly.

He sighed softly.

What a pity there wasn’t a fixed dental record system in China. If it were like the United States, where dental treatment records followed a patient for life, today’s identification would’ve been much easier. A dental X-ray alone could’ve confirmed it.

Looking at the victim’s deformed head, Zhou Hai pulled out several strands of hair and handed them to Xu Biao.

“Check whether there are signs of hair dye.”

Xu Biao looked utterly baffled. He had no idea what had gotten into Zhou Hai today. Zhou Hai seemed absolutely determined that this corpse was not Yang Duxiu.

But Xu Biao had personally met Yang Duxiu before. Even though the corpse lying here was badly mutilated, one glance was enough to tell it was him. How could they possibly mistake that?

Still, Xu Biao followed Zhou Hai’s instructions and examined the hairs under the microscope. From the follicle to the root, there were no traces of dye. The strands were simply extremely fine, fluttering constantly during observation.

Xu Biao frowned slightly.

If he remembered correctly, when Zhou Hai had previously brought back Old Yang’s hair, Xu Biao had handled it himself during testing and examined it carefully. Though the hair had turned white, the strands had been very coarse and stiff. They did seem somewhat different from this sample.

“Hai Zi, there’s no dye… but the hair does seem finer.”

At that moment, Zhou Hai was scraping tartar from the inside of the victim’s teeth. With only a little force, a large yellowish chunk came loose. He dropped it into the tray Fengzi was holding, where it landed with a sharp ding. A heavy odor immediately spread through the air.

“Good. Keep it for comparison.”

Fengzi looked at the tartar and caught the smell. He quickly tugged at his mask.

“Damn, that smell is brutal. How long would someone have to go without brushing to build up that much tartar?”

Curious, Xiao Liang leaned in to look. The section hidden beneath the gums was milky yellow, while the exposed portion was light brown.

“This guy smoked, right? The coloring on the tartar isn’t even.”

Before Zhou Hai could answer, Fengzi nodded beside him.

“Smoking, heavy drinking, irregular eating habits, poor hygiene… I don’t think these are habits a doctor would have. Even if they don’t brush after every meal, they’d at least brush morning and night. And if they had tartar, they’d get regular cleanings.”

Just then, Xu Biao’s phone rang.

Everyone instinctively glanced at the wall clock. It was already close to midnight.

Seeing the caller ID, Xu Biao’s tiny eyes widened.

“It’s Sister Zeng!”

He answered immediately.

“Sister Zeng, are the results out?”

Unlike her usual habit of complaining first, Sister Zeng spoke directly this time.

“Bring Zhou Hai and come upstairs to take a look.”

Then she hung up.

Xu Biao stared at the phone in surprise before turning toward Zhou Hai.

“Sister Zeng said to bring you upstairs.”

Zhou Hai quickly stripped off his isolation gown, cap, and gloves. As he walked, he called out behind him to Xiao Liang: “Xiao Liang, finish up and suture the body. Fengzi, Xu Biao, come upstairs with me.”

The three hurried toward the third floor. By the time they arrived, Xu Biao was already panting. The laboratory door stood open, and Sister Zeng was waiting there.

Seeing the grave expressions on their faces, she actually seemed relieved instead.

“Come in. Let’s talk inside.”

The three followed her into the small laboratory. The moment Zhou Hai saw the comparison charts on the computer screen, he strode over immediately. Several of the displayed data points clearly differed.

The discovery made Zhou Hai’s eyes light up.

He spun around instantly and grabbed Sister Zeng by the shoulders, staring straight into her eyes.

“Sister Zeng, the sample Xiao Liang just brought up from this victim—‘Yang Duxiu’—is different from the earlier sample we submitted from ‘Yang Duxiu,’ right?”

Sister Zeng nodded.

“I thought I’d made a mistake, so I called you up immediately to double-check. Looks like you already found other evidence. But these two people do share similarities. Look—even though these comparison points are different, look here!”

She scrolled the chart upward. Sure enough, several values matched perfectly.

For a moment, Zhou Hai was stunned.

They were this similar?

Seeing his expression, Sister Zeng immediately understood.

“Interesting, isn’t it? They’re not the same person, but their DNA is extremely similar. Still, there are completely different gene segments here.

So we can conclude that this victim and the first Yang Duxiu you brought me are close relatives—probably uncle and nephew, or cousins.”

Xu Biao looked back and forth between the screen and Sister Zeng. Faced with such ironclad evidence, he gradually accepted reality.

“Couldn’t they be brothers? They look pretty close in age.”

Both Sister Zeng and Zhou Hai shook their heads.

“Brothers would have a higher DNA similarity.”

Xu Biao looked utterly incredulous.

“This is way too dramatic. So this guy gets revenge on society, manipulates people into killing those he hates, frames his enemies…And then he finds a stand-in corpse—his own nephew or cousin—and turns him into a ghost that looks just like himself? This isn’t just psychological illness. He’s a damn monster.”

Zhou Hai narrowed his eyes and quickly pulled out his phone to make a call.

“Captain Huang, there’s been a major turn in the case. The dead man is not Yang Duxiu!”