Hearing footsteps, the police inspector turned around and gave a proper salute. “Director.”

Zheng Yun strode forward in two steps, muttered “what are you dawdling about,” and had already raised his foot to kick the door open.

As the door flew wide, a wave of blood mixed with the smell of alcohol hit them head-on. Zheng Yun instinctively drew his sidearm from his holster and raised it cautiously in front of him.

It was a typical two-bedroom, one-living-room floor plan. To the left upon entering was the living room; to the right were the kitchen and dining area.

The dining area had a wine rack holding several bottles, and adjacent to it was a wooden dining table. On the table sat two slabs of braised beef, a roasted chicken stripped down to the bone, a few remaining chunks of pig’s head meat, and two empty wine bottles lying on their sides at the table’s edge.

The unit had no private bathroom, only two bedrooms — one to the south, one to the north.

The southern bedroom door stood open. From the entryway, a solid wood headboard was visible, and draped over its edge was a hand, its skin deathly pale.

A large pool of blood stained the cement floor a lurid crimson. The hand appeared to have been drained entirely.

“Call E’Yuan and Miss Yan over.” Shi Ting’s long brows drew slightly together. “With this much blood loss, there’s no way the person is still alive.”

Shi Ting put on shoe covers and walked straight to the bedroom.

Lying across the head of the bed was Qiao Guang, dressed in a cotton shirt and a pair of grey trousers. He wore no slippers — his two black socks had slipped down to the soles of his feet, and there was blood on those soles.

Shi Ting stepped forward and checked Qiao Guang’s pulse, confirming that he had been dead for some time.

Shi Ting and Zheng Yun then examined every room — especially the dining table, the used wine glasses, and even the rubbish bin, leaving nothing unchecked.

By the time Yan Qing and E’Yuan arrived, the evidence collection was nearly complete. Qiao Guang’s body still lay at the head of the bed, so drained of blood that he looked almost like a paper cutout.

As Yan Qing drew near, she caught a pungent smell of alcohol. She had never been fond of the smell of spirits, so she took out a face mask and put it on neatly.

Qiao Guang’s left wrist hung over the side of the bed. The wound on his wrist cut straight through to the artery. Tracing downward, the massive pool of blood on the floor had already congealed.

His right hand gripped a knife — the kind of small fruit knife commonly found in any home. A trace of blood still clung to the blade.

“Qiao Guang killed himself?” E’Yuan exclaimed in shock.

“A forensic examiner must never jump to conclusions.” Yan Qing shook her head. “It looks like suicide, but that doesn’t mean it is.”

She picked up Qiao Guang’s wrist to examine it, her eyes narrowing slightly as she did.

The wound on Qiao Guang’s wrist was deep — one edge sharp, one blunt, consistent with a fruit knife. The blood vessels at the severed end were cut cleanly, the wound reaching down to the bone.

Without question, this was the cause of death: massive blood loss from the simultaneous rupture of both an artery and a vein.

“Find anything?” Shi Ting walked over.

“Look at this wound — isn’t it unusually clean?” Yan Qing said.

“Shouldn’t it be?” E’Yuan voiced his confusion. “If the blade is sharp enough, the wound would naturally be clean. And the weapon is right there in his own hand — it’s not as if someone else grabbed his hand and cut his wrist for him, is it?”

Yan Qing smiled and turned to Bai Jin, who had just arrived. “Team Leader Bai, let me ask you something.”

Bai Jin scratched the tip of his nose, looking bewildered. “Go ahead, Miss Yan.”

“If you wanted to slit your wrist to kill yourself, where would you cut?”

Bai Jin raised his wrist and looked at it, pointing to the clearly visible vessels beneath the skin. “Wouldn’t you just cut this blood vessel here?”

“What you’re looking at are only the veins. Veins have a strong ability to stop bleeding on their own — even if severed, they won’t cause fatal blood loss. To die from slitting one’s wrist, you must cut the artery. Arteries run very deep; it’s nearly impossible to reach one without cutting through half the wrist.”

Bai Jin stared at his own wrist with a look of astonishment. “There’s this much to it just for slitting a wrist?”

“Exactly. Most ordinary people don’t know this. So why would Qiao Guang — a comprador with no medical knowledge to speak of — strike so precisely and locate his own artery with such accuracy?”

—