Xiao Ze and his team quickly sealed off the scene at Tianlong Bay. Even though it was chaotic, they required everyone leaving the area to provide their identity information and fingerprints. The staff at Tianlong Bay cooperated actively with the criminal police investigation, and the process was relatively orderly.

In the monitoring room, the staff copied all surveillance footage from 6 PM to 8 PM to help the police identify any suspicious individuals. The deceased’s body was hurriedly placed in a body bag by the arriving criminal police and transported back to the police station for further autopsy and evidence collection.

Gu Yuan accompanied the vehicle transporting the body back to the station, while the rest stayed at Tianlong Bay to continue investigating clues.

“The deceased weighs 100kg!” Several criminal police officers struggled to weigh the body before placing it on the autopsy table. Liu from the trace inspection team followed Gu Yuan, taking photos, while the others waited outside the autopsy room.

The body lay on the autopsy table, with sparse hair mixed with a bit of waterweed and silt. Other parts of the body also had residual silt, and the body was still wet, occasionally dripping water. The skin on the palms and soles was shriveled, soaked white and swollen, with the epidermis easily peeling off.

Fully equipped, Gu Yuan stood by the body, assembling a scalpel blade. The silver light flashed across his rubber gloves.

“Click.” The sound of the blade snapping into place was crisp and pleasant. He placed the assembled blade on the tray and began assembling another scalpel.

The body on the autopsy table weighed a full two hundred pounds. Cutting through the thick layers of fat required more than one knife; dissecting a fat corpse is always a physically demanding task. 

The deceased wore only a pair of swim trunks, which Gu Yuan noticed were from a luxury brand, priced between one thousand to three thousand yuan.

There was a small amount of silt under the deceased’s fingernails, which was crucial for comparison with the silt from Tianlong Bay to determine if the drowning location matched. If the deceased was conscious before death, the fingernails might also contain the perpetrator’s DNA.

Gu Yuan carefully clipped the nails and collected oral and nasal secretions. To show respect for the deceased, he bowed deeply before the autopsy and tried to make the incisions neat and smooth, so the sutures would look better afterward.

Holding the scalpel in his right hand, Gu Yuan stood by the body like an emotionless tool. His black eyes, the only part visible, emitted a gloomy aura. His left hand positioned on the midline below the jawbone, with the index finger and thumb spread apart to fix the skin on both sides. He used the scalpel to make a forceful incision along the midline. The neck fat wasn’t too thick, making it easier to cut through.

The incision continued downward, bypassing the navel and stopping above the pubic symphysis. As the cut was made, yellow fat emerged from the skin, and because the fat was so thick, no red muscle was visible.

“Damn!” Liu from the trace inspection team couldn’t help but exclaim.

Gu Yuan spread the yellow fat apart with his left index finger and thumb, continuing to cut deeper. The scalpel sank into the yellow fat, but Gu Yuan still didn’t feel like he had penetrated the fat layer, especially around the abdomen, where it seemed bottomless.

After a while, Gu Yuan felt the blade dulling and switched to another pre-prepared scalpel from the tray.

“That’s why you should lose weight. Otherwise, even in death, it takes forever to dissect you. How embarrassing!” Liu from the trace inspection team remarked, pressing the camera shutter.

Gu Yuan frowned slightly, “Stop talking and take your photos.” He disliked people talking during autopsies as it distracted him and sometimes interrupted his thought process. Liu, feeling a bit awkward, closed his mouth and remained silent.

When the second blade dulled, Gu Yuan finally separated the subcutaneous fat. While cutting the rectus abdominis and fascia, he had to switch to a new blade. Opening the abdominal cavity revealed a large amount of gas in the small intestine, as expected.

The sigmoid colon above the rectum felt hard, blocked by a large amount of fecal stones: “The deceased likely suffered from severe constipation, not having a bowel movement for at least three days.” Liu made a disgusted face, while Gu Yuan’s eyes showed no emotional fluctuation.

Obesity, lack of exercise, prolonged sitting, irregular diet, lack of dietary fiber, and mental factors led to the deceased’s intestinal dysfunction, microbial imbalance, and severe gas accumulation. This suggested the deceased might have had an irregular work schedule, high stress, and often sat in an office, consuming rich foods.

Cutting open the stomach released a strong smell of alcohol, with the stomach contents mixed with minced meat, indicating the deceased had just eaten dinner before death. Gu Yuan extracted some gastric fluid for testing.

Starting from the exposed ribs, Gu Yuan skillfully cut the costal cartilage between the ribs and sternum, then used small pliers to sever the joint between the sternum and clavicle, lifting the sternum to expose the lungs on both sides and the heart tightly nestled in the center.

If the deceased drowned in a wet manner, the struggle and cries for help would have caused a large amount of seawater to enter the respiratory tract, flow into the lungs, settle in the alveoli, and affect gas exchange. Carbon dioxide retention and hypoxia would occur rapidly, leading to death. In dry drowning (laryngospasm, cardiac arrest, etc.), the water in the lungs is relatively less.

Gu Yuan needed to free the entire lung, weigh and analyze it, to determine the type of drowning. The results showed the deceased died from dry drowning, necessitating a detailed heart dissection to check for pre-existing heart conditions.

During the heart dissection, abnormalities were indeed found. The deceased had a heart condition and had undergone coronary artery bypass surgery. After entering the water, the deceased’s heart stopped for some reason, causing only a small amount of water to enter the lungs.

Next was the brain dissection. When the electric saw cut open the skull, the smell of bone dust in the air was strong, evoking vivid imaginations. After the autopsy, Gu Yuan meticulously recorded the autopsy report and sent the findings to the criminal police investigating at Tianlong Bay.

[Deceased male, around 40 years old, height 170cm, weight 100kg, wearing ** luxury brand swim trunks, history of coronary artery bypass surgery, time of death between 7 PM and 8 PM, had dinner before death. Since the deceased died from dry drowning, it’s uncertain if he could swim.]

After finishing his work, Gu Yuan went home, took a shower, and as he stepped out of the bathroom, his phone screen lit up with two unread messages, one from Xiao Ze and the other from Mo Lin.

Xiao Ze: [The deceased’s identity has been confirmed. His wife is staying at the Tianlong Bay Hotel behind Tianlong Bay.]

Mo Lin: [Should I come to your place?] Attached was a photo of a bandaged right hand.

Gu Yuan’s hair was still dripping, and his knuckles turned white from gripping the phone. He didn’t like people coming to his home, but if it was Mo Lin, it seemed acceptable. Just as he had this thought, Gu Yuan frowned.

His social anxiety had always been severe, but why didn’t it flare up when interacting with Mo Lin? Not only did it not flare up, but it seemed to improve because of him… He recalled Dr. Zhou’s words: it’s okay to have some contact…

Gu Yuan thought for a moment and replied to Mo Lin: [Come.]

Mo Lin: [Send me your address.]

So Gu Yuan sent his address to Mo Lin.

Ten minutes later, the doorbell rang. Gu Yuan had just finished blow-drying his hair, wearing a black silk pajama set, ready for bed. He opened the door, and Mo Lin, standing opposite, was momentarily stunned.

Gu Yuan’s pajamas were simple, styled like a regular shirt, with the first button undone, revealing a white collarbone hidden beneath the fabric. The matching black pants looked snug, subtly outlining the leg muscles, suggesting the material was breathable and soft.

The pajamas resembled a black shirt, and Mo Lin happened to have a thing for shirts, so he found it very nice! Gu Yuan’s skin was really pale, and the pajamas made him look even whiter, with his blood-red lips creating a striking impact!

Mo Lin felt a sense of being captivated, his long eyes narrowing slightly, with an expression Gu Yuan couldn’t understand. It seemed he was indeed suited for formal attire, and even in a police uniform, he gave off a “uniform” vibe.

After opening the door, Gu Yuan walked inside, squatting down to retrieve a medical kit from the cabinet under the TV. Mo Lin closed the door and stood at the entrance, realizing there was only one pair of slippers in Gu Yuan’s home.

The entire living room was minimalistic, with just a sofa, a coffee table, and a TV mounted on the wall, almost devoid of any extra items. The only decoration was a glass of water.

Gu Yuan unscrewed the iodine bottle, pulling out a cotton swab, and glanced back at him, “Come here.” Mo Lin noticed the tiredness on his face, even his voice was soft, indicating that the two-hundred-pound corpse had exhausted him.

He took off his shoes, his black high-end socks stepping onto the cold floor, and walked over to Gu Yuan, noticing the other man’s eyelids drooping as if he was about to fall asleep. Cute! That was Mo Lin’s first reaction.

He reached out to touch Gu Yuan’s head, and as soon as he felt the soft hair, Gu Yuan’s body instinctively recoiled, but he just looked up at him without saying anything. Mo Lin’s hand continued forward, and this time Gu Yuan didn’t pull back, only slightly furrowing his brows, but his words were sharp enough.

“Do you want to die?” Mo Lin quickly ruffled his hair and withdrew his hand, feeling his palm become somewhat hot.

“I just wanted to see if your hair was dry,” Mo Lin explained, “You should dry your hair before sleeping.”

“Nagging.”

Mo Lin: “It’s the first time someone called me nagging. Maybe I should reflect on myself, am I spending too much thought on you?”

Gu Yuan ignored him, tearing off the bandage on his palm, finding the wound not healing as expected, but rather redder. Normally, without infection, it should start healing quickly.

“Did your wound get wet?”

Mo Lin looked at his palm, “Maybe it was sweat.”

“How could you sweat so much?”

“Is that not allowed?”

Mo Lin thought: You’re allowed to secrete dopamine, but I’m not allowed to have sweaty palms?

Author’s Note: Ah, I’ve been working hard, not sure if you all enjoy reading the autopsy process~