Chapter 3: Opening the Three Cavities

Funeral home.

The hearse dropped off the corpse and ran away in a puff of smoke, leaving a heavy corpse lying on the handcart.

"To be a forensic doctor, you have to start by moving corpses." Wu Jun stood with his hands behind his back, unable to hide the smile on his face. "Your build is really suitable for moving corpses."

His classmates in big cities had achieved "corpse-moving freedom" twenty years ago, but Ningtai County was a place that couldn't keep people. Newly recruited forensic doctors came and left, left and came. All year round, he couldn't even get a few chances to experience the life of someone moving corpses. The worst luck was when there were no corpses when the new forensic doctor was there, and only after they left did corpses come in.

Jiang Yuan pushed the cart and asked curiously, "Does the county bureau not have an autopsy room? The kind that looks white when the lights are on..."

"Like the kind in TV dramas?" Wu Jun shook his head. "Wealthy cities can afford them, but small counties like ours shouldn't even think about it. For our autopsies, it's not just the autopsy room; we need equipment like ice coffins to store the corpses. If you're a bit particular, these ventilation systems and bathrooms all need maintenance and management. It's better to rent the funeral home's, and the county bureau spends another hundred thousand or several hundred thousand to fix up the autopsy room, and that's it."

"Won't it be inconvenient for evidence collection and such?"

"Usually, it's just drawing some blood and getting some stomach contents. In a county this size, how far can it be? It's more important to have good parking." Wu Jun smiled and said, "Anyway, corpses aren't picky."

Jiang Yuan looked down at his seventeenth uncle and thought to himself, when his seventeenth uncle came to the house during the New Year, he seemed a bit picky. Of course, he probably had no interest in playing temper now.

"When you come over in the future, remember to keep a pack of cigarettes in your pocket, and occasionally buy some pastries and such to build relationships. If you get along well with the people at the funeral home, things will be easier to do." Wu Jun walked beside him, pressed the elevator button, and taught Jiang Yuan in a low voice, "The funeral home is also a workplace."

Jiang Yuan smiled and said, "Okay."

The Ningtai County Funeral Home had set up the autopsy room in the basement.

Fortunately, there was an elevator, which was convenient, but the red fire alarm lights flickering in the gloomy corridor were a bit creepy.

The room itself was well-lit, with large tiles on the floor and small tiles on the walls. In the center was a stainless steel autopsy table, and on the left side of the entrance was a washbasin and a long row of stainless steel cabinets. If you didn't look closely, you'd think it was a kitchen renovation in an ordinary home.

At this time, Wu Jun stepped forward to help, pushed the handcart to the autopsy table, stepped on it to raise the surface of the handcart to be level with the autopsy table, and then slowly tipped the corpse onto the autopsy table, saying, "Go see if the family members have arrived. If they have, call them over, and we'll perform the autopsy."

Jiang Yuan responded, his eyes fixed on his seventeenth uncle.

His seventeenth uncle, who used to be plump and strong, was now lying on his back on the stainless steel table, his belly bulging high, white and bright. Under the lights, one could even see the fine hairs standing up, which made Jiang Yuan feel a bit creepy for a moment, and even more so, an uncomfortable panic.

"The phone is by the door." Wu Jun reminded Jiang Yuan faintly, without saying much more.

Jiang Yuan averted his eyes, walked to the door, picked up the landline, and dialed out.

In China, a corpse autopsy requires notifying close relatives to be present and sign. In actual practice, those who come are often non-blood relatives such as brothers-in-law, uncles, or sons-in-law. Occasionally, direct relatives come, which usually requires preparing an extra trash can.

Before long, someone was led in, looking around blankly and fearfully.

"Uncle." Jiang Yuan recognized the person; he was his seventeenth uncle's brother-in-law, his nineteenth aunt's husband. The two should have met when they worshipped at the ancestral hall two years ago.

"Jiang Yuan!" When the uncle saw Jiang Yuan, he was exceptionally kind, looking at Jiang Yuan with eyes full of emotion, past the corpse of his brother-in-law: "Your seventeenth uncle left in such a hurry. It's fortunate that you are a coroner; make him look nice..."

"We're starting." Wu Jun interrupted their chat, handed Jiang Yuan a full-body surgical gown to wear over his clothes, pulled off the white sheet covering the corpse, and asked, "Confirm, is this Jiang Jiancheng himself?"

The uncle gagged before saying, "It should be."

"Sign here. Write down your ID number too." Wu Jun watched the family member sign, put away the documents, and then looked at Jiang Yuan, asking, "Not everyone dares to perform an autopsy on someone they know. It's normal if you don't want to do it."

"I can do it." Before coming in, Jiang Yuan had already done some psychological preparation. Now, his heart was a mixture of various emotions, but he didn't want to simply retreat.

Wu Jun confirmed again and nodded, saying, "You go first."

He also wanted to see Jiang Yuan's ability. If Jiang Yuan couldn't do it or made a mistake, he could teach him a lesson. Wu Jun had educated all the new forensic doctors who came before in this way.

Jiang Yuan's expression was serious, slightly nervous and hesitant.

Jiang Yuan didn't have much experience with autopsies himself, but in the few practices at school, his performance had been praised by professors and called "extremely talented."

If it weren't his seventeenth uncle's corpse today, he might have been calmer.

"First, check the surface of the corpse." Jiang Yuan took a deep breath of turbid air, his frown flashed and disappeared, and then he immersed himself, placing a notebook to the side, looking at the corpse while saying, "Deceased Jiang Jianfeng, 50 years old, male, height 169, weight 188... There is a crescent-shaped birthmark on the left buttock, about 5 centimeters long..."

"Then record the general state. The rectal body temperature is..." Jiang Yuan buried his head in his work, recording the condition of the scalp, the baldness, until the pupils, conjunctiva, nasal cavity, teeth...

Most of the surface examination of the corpse had been completed at the scene. Jiang Yuan just followed the steps to read the previous parts, and for parts like the conjunctiva and teeth, he checked them carefully again.

This approach made Wu Jun quite satisfied, and he nodded, saying, "Well done... Have you performed an autopsy before?"

Jiang Yuan said, "I've done a few cases at school."

"That's not bad. In many schools now, students can only do one case."

"I participated in a few autopsies when I was working on a project with a professor."

"Oh, have you opened the three cavities?" The three cavities Wu Jun mentioned were the cranial cavity, thoracic cavity, and abdominal cavity. They contain the human body's important internal organs, blood vessels, and nerves, and are an important way for forensic pathology to judge the cause of death.

Jiang Yuan responded "Yes" and said, "I've opened them twice."

"Then you open them." Wu Jun handed the scalpel to Jiang Yuan and reminded him, "You might know this, but I'll remind you anyway: be careful when cutting, don't cut your own hand. The temperature in the autopsy room is too low, and the blade is sharp. When you first cut yourself, you won't even feel it. The standard for judgment is whether there is fresh blood flowing out. Corpses don't bleed, so the only thing that can bleed is you..."

Jiang Yuan nodded, looked at the corpse in front of him, adjusted his posture, picked up the scalpel, lowered the blade, pressed it against the neck, and drew a straight line all the way to the top of the pubic symphysis...

His seventeenth uncle's body was thick, requiring a deep cut, and the fat turned out was both yellow and white.

The extra-long I-shaped incision was extra long and large, far more cruel than what one sees in film and television works. This is also a surgical method commonly used by domestic forensic doctors, which is slightly different from the Y-shaped incision in the United States.

Immediately after, Jiang Yuan began to separate the muscle tissue of the chest, and then followed the boundary line of the cartilage connecting the ribs and the sternum.

The autopsy had just begun when the nervous uncle took a deep breath, his face changed, and he turned around and started vomiting.