National Forensic Doctor

Early morning.

The birds chirped noisily, boasting about the abundance of bugs they’ve caught, about their good health, about their strong reproductive abilities, over and over again, without any respite.

Jiang Yuan, awakened by the birdsong, lay in bed, feeling a bit too lazy to get up.

In Beijing, the environment surprisingly embraced nature. The park next to the residential complex had forests and bodies of water, and was home to a constant presence of flying birds. Looking out of the bedroom window, greenery predominated. Even those who paid no attention to urban construction could sense the funds burning through...

In the kitchen, chefs sent from Ningtai busily prepared breakfast.

Freshly ground soy milk, tofu and tofu pudding all appeared to be bought from outside, while the deep-fried dough sticks were made on the spot using Type 95 soybean oil, frying them until they were crispy, a pure northern taste. If it were Southern style dough sticks, the inside would be slightly soft and chewy, more suited to dipping in soy sauce and eating with soup.

Beyond that, the gourd-like twisted dough sticks from the Zhongyuan region had their own unique flair, especially when paired with spicy soup. They constituted a breakfast so satisfying that it was the equivalent of consuming most of the delicacies of a whole province.

Mu Zhiyang, Liu Jinghui, and others also emerged from their bedrooms one after another.

The houses Jiang Fuzhen had bought earlier were all calculated based on the living area of rural people. Sometimes, in order not to be ridiculed by Beijingers as country bumpkins, he would deliberately buy a larger place, vanity being an unavoidable trait among those whose homes had been demolished.

As a result, the house Jiang Yuan currently lived in was somewhat unsuitable for living alone. If it was just one person, the wind whistling through the living room at night could be quite loud.