National Forensic Doctor

Tang Feng shuddered as he listened to Jiang Yuan’s answer, as if he had just finished an exam and was checking his answers, only to hear the top student next door coldly spit out two words: "Wrong."

"What do you feel?" Tang Feng knew it was unnecessary, but he couldn’t help asking.

"The degree of leather-like transformation of the corpse’s skin is somewhat abnormal." Jiang Yuan looked down at the body with a critical eye, touched the surface of the body with his finger, especially after examining the scrotum, he shook his head and said, "Let’s open it up and take a look."

Leathery transformation is a term specific to forensic science, referring to part of the corpse’s skin that has turned leather-like in appearance. The area most prone to this transformation is the "scrotum," because the skin there is thin, prone to dehydration, and can easily turn black and purple, similar to the leather of a handbag.

But leather-like transformation requires time and conditions.

It doesn’t happen just because one wants it to, nor can it be easily avoided. A typical example is a fair and attractive boy, who remains delicate and tender in the south, but if he recklessly runs into the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the harsh ultraviolet rays and windy weather can roughen and darken his skin in just a few days, which is similar to the process of leather-like transformation.

A corpse that has been frozen can also partially exhibit leather-like transformation, which makes it easier to reveal imprints. Some older forensic doctors, whose judgment might not be very accurate, would freeze the body to see if there are any marks and what kind of marks they are.

This body was the same; many small marks on the skin, such as on the knees, the bends of the legs, and the arms, were all revealed. Upon close examination by Jiang Yuan, they were mostly falls and abrasions.