Chapter 3: Su Wan, Trace Examiner

The crackle of electricity on the iron door cut off with a sharp snap. The morgue plunged back into dead silence, broken only by the low, droning hum of the cooling units echoing through the vast concrete space. The sound felt like the breathing of some massive beast in deep sleep, each rhythm pounding against Chen Jiujin’s eardrums.

The palm of his right hand, hanging loose at his side, was burning hot. The Cinnabar Seal seared his skin like a branding iron, blistering it red until a thin trail of fresh blood seeped from between his fingers. A droplet slid through the gap, splashing onto the cold stainless-steel counter with a tiny, distinct pitter-patter that echoed absurdly loudly in the empty room.

Peering through the slats of the blinds, he watched the dark figure retreat slowly, vanishing into the shadows at the far end of the corridor. The footsteps were light, like a cat walking on fresh snow, yet each step landed squarely on Chen Jiujin’s frayed nerves.

Gritting his teeth, Chen Jiujin forced down the violent, churning sensations inside him. It was a fierce rejection emanating from the residual consciousness of the dead—like a thousand icy hands dragging at his soul, trying to pull him under.

Su Wan pushed the door open, flanked by two criminal investigators. The gust of wind rolling in carried the stench of strong disinfectant, instantly cutting through the room’s stale, rotting scent. The cold draft ruffled the white cloths hanging on the walls. She wore a dark blue uniform, her ponytail tied back with military precision, and she swung a high-powered flashlight that sliced through the gloom, the beam landing directly on the ancient blade in Chen Jiujin’s hands.

Fine dust motes swirled in the light, like fragments of time suspended in stillness. She didn’t say hello. No small talk. She just gave the blood-stained floor and scattered skeletal models a cold, sweeping glance, her brow knitted so tight it was nearly squeezed shut.

Her gaze lingered on Chen Jiujin’s face for a moment before snapping to the body on the table, her eyes flashing with the critical disdain of a professional forensic examiner.

Su Wan stared at the Cleaver, still dripping blood, her voice hard as iron. "Chen Jiujin, this is a Trace Evidence Examination site, not your butchery. Who gave you the nerve to mutilate the corpse with a non-standard tool like that?"

Chen Jiujin slowly raised his eyelids, his eyes calm, devoid of a single ripple. He looked straight into Su Wan’s eyes through the swirling dust; all he saw there was cold logic, none of the warmth he used to know.

He rested the Cleaver gently on the steel counter. The metal screeched, dragging a sharp, vibrating tone through the dead silence to answer her accusation. "Technician Su, if I hadn’t cut first, those cold little machines of yours probably wouldn’t have been able to dig up the truth of what this victim endured before they died."

Su Wan let out a harsh snort, turning to bark orders at the two cops to tape off the perimeter, her movements brisk and efficient. She spoke with unabashed contempt. "Stop feeding me chicken soup. The wound on the victim’s neck is a sharp-instrument injury, angled downward. It fits the profile of pre-mortem suicide. No matter how sharp your intuition is, it doesn’t replace DNA data or pathological tissue slides. Put the knife down. Don’t touch it."

Her voice bounced off the walls, carrying an authority that brooked no argument.

Chen Jiujin didn’t back down. Instead, he took a step forward. The vicious, butcher’s aura around him condensed, adding a layer of bloody pressure to the air. The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees; even the hum of the cooling units sounded shaky.

He pointed to a hairline scratch on the victim’s neck, his voice low and absolute, as if he were speaking from the other side of death. "Suicide? You’re naive. Look here. Deep in the trapezius muscle, there’s a horizontal tear that defies human anatomy. It’s a defensive avulsion caused by a heavy, blunt impact. No sharp instrument could have made this."

Su Wan narrowed her eyes and stepped closer to the body, lightly touching the mark with a finger encased in a latex glove. Her fingers were slender and long, a world apart from Chen Jiujin’s rough palms. She turned to look at him, her gaze sharpening as she assessed the threat level of an uncontrollable variable. "Based on touch?

Your subjective guesswork holds zero weight in a courtroom. Unless you can explain why my X-rays show intact bones while you claim there was a blunt-force injury."

Chen Jiujin didn’t waste words. He grabbed Su Wan’s cold fingers, forcing her hand against the muscle tear, guiding her fingertips to feel the abnormal tension in the deep tissue. Their hands touched, the skin on the back of their hands transmitting two entirely different temperatures.

Su Wan tried to yank her hand back on instinct, but an irresistible force pinned her in place. For a split second, she clearly felt a counter-force that defied logic, a backlash of Obsession from the dead. It felt like an invisible, icy ghost hand reaching through her fingertip into the corpse, clawing at the last shred of her sanity.

She yanked her hand back violently, her face draining of all color, a cold sweat beading on her forehead. Her hands shook as she pressed the switch on the portable scanner. The data that jumped out on the screen shattered every scrap of her rationality. "Impossible..."

She muttered to herself, her thumb frantically swiping the screen, a hint of panic threading through her voice. "The muscle fibers are torn at a forty-five-degree angle. That’s a textbook blunt-force trauma, not a stabbing. The data... is the data lying?" Her breathing turned ragged, her chest heaving as she tried to steady herself with deep breaths.

Chen Jiujin watched her panic, a cold arc forming at the corner of his mouth. It was the smirk of a hunter watching its prey fall into a trap. "Data doesn’t lie. Lying is what people do when they try to tamper with it. The detail you overlooked is a false trail the killer left on purpose, to steer your investigation toward suicide."

Su Wan took a deep breath, forcing the tremor out of her system and reclaiming the composure of a Trace Evidence examiner. She looked up at Chen Jiujin. The contempt was gone from her eyes, replaced by the wary, excited focus of a predator who had found interesting prey. "Interesting."

She snapped the device shut, her voice steady but heavier than before. "Given your off-the-books status, I can’t officially hire you as a consultant. But out of necessity for this case, I’m demanding you assist us as a temporary aide. No excuses."

Before Chen Jiujin could respond, footsteps echoed at the doorway again. The pace was deliberately slow, carrying a laid-back pressure that was suffocating in its own way. The Man in the Gray Coat walked in uninvited, a sleek black briefcase in hand, wearing a standard business smile that radiated an icy chill.

His leather shoes slapped softly against the wet floor. "Captain Su, Mr. Gu specifically instructed us to note that this case involves corporate privacy. He suggests filing it as an accidental fall. No need for a massive uproar." He gave a slight bow, his smile not reaching his eyes.

Su Wan didn’t even look at him. She just coldly pressed the play button on her tablet. A surveillance clip lit up the big screen, showing a close-up of one of Gu Changgeng’s underlings stealthily wiping blood from the scene ten minutes after the incident. Static flickered across the image, capturing the evidence in real time.

"Since Gu Changgeng cares so much about this case, I care about why his hands are so clean." Su Wan raised an eyebrow. Her voice wasn’t loud, but every word was laced with blood, whipping against The Man in the Gray Coat’s face. "This clip was synced to the City Bureau’s internal network just now. I think your internal memo excuse isn’t going to hold water anymore."

The Man in the Gray Coat’s smile froze. His pupils shrank. He tried to step back, but the killing intent radiating from Chen Jiujin nailed his feet to the floor. The aura felt like solid black fog coiling around his ankles, sending a chill up his spine that turned him into an ice cube; cold sweat slid down his back, soaking his shirt.

He didn’t dare stay a second longer. Grabbing his briefcase, he fled in a panic, vanishing at the end of the corridor, leaving behind a trail of frantic, chaotic scuffing that startled a few rats nesting in the ceiling.

Su Wan powered down her equipment and turned to face Chen Jiujin, dropping her bureaucratic facade to speak in hushed confidence. The morgue felt even more profound now, the lights flickering in and out, stretching and shrinking their shadows. "There are people above us holding this back. Gu Changgeng’s family network is too tangled for conventional methods to reach the core.

You need your special perception to uncover the truths that have been scrubbed away. My job is to turn those into ironclad evidence the law will recognize. This is the only way to break through." She kept her voice low, as if afraid some invisible ears were listening.

The Cinnabar Seal on Chen Jiujin’s palm pulsed, the heat seeping through his clothes into his bones, a dull ache. He paused, his gaze dropping to Su Wan’s tightly pressed lips, and laid down the rules in a grave tone. "Fine. But remember: everything is subject to the Obsession of the dead. In the face of justice in the Yin Market, no living force can interfere.

If you dare to bend the law for favoritism, I’ll put that debt on the books of the Yin Market."

Before Su Wan could nod, the iron door of the morgue suddenly clacked from the outside. The lock bolt slammed into its slot with a crisp click, the metallic resonance echoing in the sealed space, locking them both inside this cold box. The surveillance monitor flickered twice before dissolving into static, the noise on the screen jumping like fragments of shattered memory.

In the darkness, a refined voice, laced with frigid ice, slowly emerged. Every word hammered into their eardrums like a nail, distorted by the static of the speaker system.

Gu Changgeng’s voice echoed through the amplifier, dripping with horrifying politeness, as if he were admiring an interesting piece of art. "Mr. Chen Jiujin, Captain Su. Since the door is locked, why don’t we have a chat? Tell me, exactly where is this 'Yin Market' you two were just discussing?"