Chapter 404 - 258 Opium
After they shifted their position, they could see everything inside the tent. Ran Yan wore a mask and kept her head lowered; their expressions were largely obscured, but even from a distance, they could sense her practiced movements. The two armored military officers were immensely curious; what kind of severed limbs and remnants hadn’t they seen on the battlefield? Unable to restrain themselves further, and with a shared desire to look, they exchanged a glance and walked over together.
Ran Yan had just opened up the abdomen, her first target being the stomach. With luck, the stomach contents would tell her where the deceased had been in the two hours before their death.
The recent cold weather meant that if there were contents in the stomach, they wouldn’t rot. In the autopsy of a thousand-year-old female corpse, Lady Xin Chui, 138 half-formed but full melon seeds that still looked quite fresh were found in her stomach. And considering the degree of decay of this corpse, things seemed relatively optimistic.
The stomach was entirely separated from the body and placed on a bamboo board that had been prepared beforehand.
As soon as the two military officers arrived, they were greeted by this scene and were so surprised they stood with their mouths agape. To kill a person was easy, but to remove an organ so completely without causing any other damage to the body seemed utterly inconceivable!
"You cut it open," Ran Yan said to Liu Qingsong. She looked at the plump stomach, feeling certain it would yield some clues.
Liu Qingsong nodded, chose an appropriate knife, and gently sliced open the stomach.
His hand was quite fast, but in an instant, a foul stench permeated the air. Even Liu Qingsong, with his mask on, nearly retched from the smell.
Sang Chen had already turned pale, nearly losing consciousness, while even the normally stoic Xiao Song couldn’t help but frown. Only Ran Yan continued, as if no one else was there, to methodically separate each of the body’s organs. This was to keep the corpse clean, for if the stomach full of contents had been cut open directly inside the abdominal cavity, it would have spilled everywhere, easily contaminating other parts and greatly complicating further observation.