Yan Qin turned to look at him, her gaze meeting his — eyes as deep and dark as the sea.

Shi Ting seemed to be recalling something from long, long ago. His voice was calm and steady. “You are very beautiful — the kind that strikes one with admiration. When I first saw you on the Yan Family Bridge, what I remembered was your beauty.”

Yan Qin’s eyes curved into a smile. “So Director Shi only remembered my face that day. If I hadn’t been good-looking, wouldn’t Director Shi have had no memory of me at all?”

Facing her teasing, Shi Ting gave a slight smile. “Beautiful things leave a deep impression at first glance, but given enough time, even beauty grows stale. What truly imprinted you in my memory was the way you stood before the autopsy table with an autopsy knife in hand. You may not have known it then — I was standing quietly beside you, eyes fixed on you all along. I had never seen a woman capable of radiating such breathtaking magnetism.”

Yan Qin laughed. “No wonder the first time I helped E’Yuan with an autopsy, I kept feeling someone’s eyes on me. So it was you.”

Shi Ting gave a soft smile. “Get to work.”

Yan Qin also laughed. “Was that just now a confession?”

Shi Ting moved around to help her tie the straps of her autopsy garment. “Please work diligently, Forensic Physician Yan.”

“So Director Shi gets embarrassed too.”

Shi Ting paid her no more attention and went to retrieve the tray.

Yan Qin let go of her teasing, and walked with long strides toward the distant autopsy table.

She lifted the white cloth from the table, revealing Yin Minghui’s face — pale, tinged with iron grey. Yin Minghui had been a beautiful woman, but even the most beautiful face loses all appeal once it becomes a corpse. They grow cold, frightening.

Yan Qin gazed at her quietly for a moment, then bowed toward the body.

There had never been any great enmity between her and Yin Minghui. Seeing a living person die so suddenly and become a lifeless body, Yan Qin was not without feeling.

Yan Qin picked up the autopsy knife in her hand, while Shi Ting stood to the side to record.

She first re-examined the external condition of the body — just as she had observed at the lakeside. No obvious open injuries were visible on Yin Minghui’s body.

“No external injuries.” Yan Qin’s voice, filtered through a thin mask, came out somewhat low. “I will now open her skull.”

“I’ll do it.” Shi Ting took the saw.

This era had no powered cranial saws — the process was still manual.

Yan Qin vividly remembered her first time using such a saw on a corpse. The high temperature produced by the repeated friction between the saw and the skull caused the bone fragments to emit a smell that turned the stomach. Even multiple layers of mask could not hold it at bay.

After a single craniotomy, sweat would have soaked through the clothing from the inside out.

Later, with powered cranial saws, everything became simpler. Advancing technology also left criminals who hoped to escape the law with nowhere to hide.

“Are you sure?” Yan Qin looked at him. “You’ve never done this before.”

This kind of task, whenever E’Yuan was present, fell to him. When E’Yuan was absent, it was Yan Qin who did it.

“I learned from E’Yuan.” Shi Ting knew this was not as simple as merely sawing open a skull. This was a body, not wood.

But seeing how hard Yan Qin worked at this task, he had spent some time learning from E’Yuan. Now, even without E’Yuan, he could manage.

Yan Qin naturally trusted him. A person like him, in whatever he set out to do, was utterly serious. She even felt he would do it better than she would.

Yan Qin confidently entrusted Shi Ting with the craniotomy while she began dissecting the chest cavity.

“Bilateral pulmonary edema with waterlogging.” Yan Qin frowned. “Aqueous pulmonary edema is one of the hallmark signs of drowning.”

Shi Ting, who had been working with the saw, looked up. “Yin Minghui drowned?”

According to Yan Qin’s assessment, large numbers of dead flies had surrounded Yin Minghui’s body. Those flies had died because they had fed on the toxic blood seeping from her orifices — which meant Yin Minghui had shown signs of poisoning before her death.

“She wasn’t killed by the poison?”

Yan Qin shook her head. “Until the autopsy is complete, no conclusion can be drawn. Continue.”

Shi Ting acknowledged and continued his work.

Yin Minghui’s scalp bore no injuries; her skull produced no sensation of crepitus when felt by hand. It could be judged that she had no significant cranial injuries. But forensic medicine called for thoroughness in all things — even when one was certain a particular area would show nothing, one still had to carefully examine it before it could be confirmed. Sometimes the true cause of death lay precisely in the place one considered least likely.

Yan Qin separated out the gastric contents. As she filtered them through a small sieve, she said, “Based on the gastric contents, the time of death was four to five hours after the last meal. Qian Lan said that Yin Minghui had dinner at her courtyard. The dinner time was half past five — the standard mealtime for the Shi Mansion. Yin Minghui had eaten meat and vegetables for her evening meal.”

Yan Qin sorted and set aside the separated food matter. “Additionally, she had consumed cow’s milk.”

“The Shi Family’s milk supply is delivered before eight o’clock in the evening,” Shi Ting said. “Yin Minghui drank the milk after dinner, before bed. So could the poison she ingested have been put in the milk?”

“I’ll have Gu Zhen run these samples for analysis. He should be able to tell us the answer.”

By the time Yan Qin returned from delivering the samples for testing, Shi Ting had completed the craniotomy — precisely as Yan Qin had imagined. He had done it extremely well, a genuinely professional standard.

Yan Qin thoroughly examined Yin Minghui’s skull. No subgaleal hematoma, no cranial fractures. The cause of death was not in the head.

“If Yin Minghui had dinner at half past five, then her time of death would have been around half past nine to half past ten in the evening.” Yan Qin dissected through the layers of the neck skin — again, no subcutaneous bleeding, no injuries. “The hyoid bone shows no fracture, which substantially rules out death by external force such as strangulation or hanging.”

Yan Qin dissected the trachea and bronchi. Within the trachea and bronchi, traces of silt could be seen.

“The deceased inhaled a small amount of silt upon entering the water.”

Shi Ting leaned in to examine closely. “That also indicates she was alive when she entered the water?”

“Both the pulmonary aqueous edema and the silt in the trachea confirm that the deceased was alive when she entered the water — because she was still breathing at the time. Only through breathing could the silt be drawn into the trachea.” Yan Qin then picked up both of the deceased’s hands. “Underneath the fingernails of both hands is a large amount of silt — from the deceased struggling and grasping in the water.”

“Can it then be confirmed that Yin Minghui died by drowning?”

Yan Qin nodded. “That conclusion can be drawn.”

“If Yin Minghui drowned, it cannot be confirmed that she died by homicide. After all, in such shallow water, even if someone pushed her in, she could have climbed out. If she jumped in to take her own life, the signs of poisoning still need to be explained. Did Yin Minghui have such a determined will to die that she took poison first and then jumped into the lake — afraid she might not die otherwise?”

“I have a hypothesis. Now it all depends on Gu Zhen’s analysis results.”

By the time Yan Qin had finished suturing the body, the results from Gu Zhen’s side were also ready.

“Director, Sister-in-law.” Gu Zhen’s round, plump figure squeezed through the door. “The results are in. The deceased’s gastric contents contained a large quantity of organophosphate compounds.”

Organophosphate is a principal component of pesticides. Common pesticides such as dichlorvos and dimethoate contain organophosphates.

“The deceased first drank pesticide and then went to drown herself — how strong a will to die is that?” Gu Zhen blinked his wide eyes. “Was there something she couldn’t get past?”

According to Qian Lan, Yin Minghui had shown nothing unusual during dinner that evening. And although Yin Minghui had suffered a setback in her pursuit of Shi Ting, when Yan Qin had seen her after the incident, there had been no trace of despondency or low spirits. On the contrary, she had been chatting and laughing with her maid — appearing entirely unaffected.

Yan Qin felt that Yin Minghui must have been the kind of person who was optimistic, who could let things go. She had lived under others’ roofs at the Qian Family for so many years and still managed to lead a comfortable life — which was proof enough that her heart was large enough to set aside anything.

For a person who could be said to have virtually no grudges in her heart — what could have happened to make her seek death with such resolve?

“There’s another possibility.” Yan Qin washed her hands and walked over. “Organophosphate poisoning can cause the victim to lose consciousness, even to go into shock. If after the victim lost consciousness or went into shock, the killer threw the victim into the lake to create the appearance of a drowning — at that point, the victim would still be alive, and would thus produce all of these phenomena.”

Yan Qin took out paper and pen and wrote as she spoke. “The time to death by drowning in fresh water is four to five minutes. In seawater it is longer — eight to twelve minutes. Of course, this time also varies depending on each individual’s physical constitution.”

Gu Zhen pushed up his glasses. “For example, myself and the Director — if I fell into water, I’d estimate four minutes. The Director’s constitution should allow him to hold out for about ten minutes.”

Yan Qin smiled. “Yin Minghui was only an ordinary woman, so her time to drowning should be around four to five minutes. As for organophosphate — the time from ingestion to onset of symptoms is generally one to five hours. So during the period when Yin Minghui was poisoned, she did not die immediately. Instead, she died by drowning after entering the water. This point holds true whether the perpetrator was the deceased herself or a killer. Although it cannot be ruled in as homicide, the evidence for suicide is equally insufficient.”

“The person who would know Yin Minghui’s movements most clearly would be the maid at her side — Xue Tao,” Shi Ting said. “I’ve already sent Bai Jin to bring Xue Tao in for questioning. Her mistress went missing for an entire night, yet she made no sound or stir — that isn’t normal.”

“If this truly has something to do with Xue Tao, she has probably already left the Shi Mansion.”

Before the words had finished, Bai Jin came rushing in. Seeing Shi Ting, he caught his breath. “Seventh Brother, that Xue Tao has fled.”