Chapter 1 Coughing

"Cough cough cough cough."

George Carter lay on the ground, his eyes bloodshot, coughing hoarsely like a broken bellows.

For a moment, he almost thought he was going to die from brain hypoxia caused by suffocation.

He could even imagine his cold corpse lying on the equally cold dissection table in the Frankfurt Police Department's forensic laboratory, his colorless eyes staring at the ceiling, waiting for his familiar colleagues to come and perform the autopsy.

Fortunately, none of this happened. The crazy, extraordinarily strong elderly woman in front of him didn't directly snap his neck,

but spared him for the time being.

"Little brother, why is your face so red?"

Li Ang grabbed the forensic doctor by the collar and lifted him up, asking with concern, "Are you the smallest, reddest 'Po' from the Teletubbies?"

"No, I'm not!"

George Carter, who was one meter tall, was lifted into the air by Li Ang. He shook his head in horror and said, "I'll cooperate with anything you want!"

"That's the attitude of cooperation."

Li Ang chuckled, stuffed the forensic doctor into the sofa, and casually snatched the steel hollow baseball bat from his hand, using his hands like hydraulic pliers to easily twist it into a spiral.

This was simply not something a human could do.

The forensic doctor's eyes almost popped out. He looked at Li Ang in disbelief and stammered, "Are you... are you one of them too?"

He paused, carefully examining Li Ang's current appearance as Catherine Raphael's elderly woman, and almost lost his soul in fright. "I recognize you, you're the one from a few days ago..."

Suddenly, he seemed to realize something and quickly shut his mouth.

"You recognize me?"

Li Ang raised an eyebrow and smiled. "Judging by your expression, Aileen's cause of death involves a big secret, so much so that you'd rather give up your own life than say it.

But..."

He picked up the twisted baseball bat that had fallen on the ground, pointed it at the ceiling, and grinned silently.

A wave of despair washed over George Carter. He understood what Li Ang was referring to—his family was still upstairs, and the consequences of refusing to speak would be unimaginable.

The forensic doctor pleaded desperately, "If I say it, they won't let me go..."

"If you don't say it, I won't let you go either."

Li Ang said with a smile, "If you do say it, maybe there won't be a 'they' anymore."

"Okay."

George Carter slumped onto the sofa as if all the strength had been drained from his body, and said slowly, "The woman in the photo is called Aileen Raphael.

A week ago, she was found collapsed outside an abandoned, dilapidated factory, with several empty compound vials left on her arm.

The Frankfurt authorities accepted the case and asked me to perform an autopsy on her and provide a post-mortem report."

Aileen Raphael had been dead for a week?

Li Ang's expression remained unchanged, but an inexplicable sense of unease welled up in his heart.

"Continue."

He urged coldly.

"Okay."

George Carter took a deep breath and said, "I initially thought it was just a common case of compound overdose—quite common in a big city like Frankfurt.

But during the autopsy, I discovered that Aileen Raphael had already died from internal bleeding before injecting the reagent."

"Internal bleeding?"

"Yes."

George Carter said with some difficulty, "As a forensic doctor, I'm more inclined to believe that she died from massive bleeding in the carotid artery—there were two round puncture wounds on her neck artery, and the blood flowed out from there.

Besides that, she had injuries all over her body, many injuries, all kinds of fresh wounds."

To make an experienced, death-hardened old forensic doctor use such vague language to describe it, Li Ang could imagine how horrifying the scene must have been.

Two round puncture wounds on the neck, were they vampires? The mission name was "Hei Deng Xia Huo".

Li Ang waved his hand. "Continue."

"Hoo," George Carter licked his dry lips. "After submitting the autopsy report, I chatted with some colleagues,

and learned that the abandoned factory had previously hosted a mobile nightclub party called y.

Aileen Raphael went to that mobile nightclub with friends, and the next day she was found dead outside the factory, while her best friend disappeared without a trace, vanishing from the face of the earth.

I thought it was something the gangs were doing again—some Mexican immigrant gangs never know where the bottom line is.

Unexpectedly, a few hours after submitting the report, I was invited by my superior to his office for a meeting."

"A meeting?" Li Ang sneered. "Let me guess, there was a problem with the autopsy report?"

"That's right." George Carter nodded with a wry smile. "My superior told me very tactfully that there was a problem with the report, that I had overlooked the extent of the compound's damage to Aileen Raphael, and that this was her main cause of death.

Generally speaking, this rarely happens in Frankfurt's forensic office—at least not in the dozen or so years I've worked here. I've never seen a superior make such a tactful request."

Li Ang narrowed his eyes, scrutinized the other's expression, and asked casually, "And then?"

The forensic doctor bit the chapped skin on his lips and said, "I initially tried to argue and had a big fight with him. In the end, he told me to get out in a fit of anger.

I walked back to my own office and heard a commotion in the station..."

He glanced at Li Ang and said hesitantly, "You tried to break in, wanting to see your daughter."

Li Ang raised an eyebrow and said casually, "Let me guess, my wish wasn't fulfilled."

"That's right."

George Carter said with a wry smile, "My superior used disturbing the peace as an excuse to have security remove you. On the way back to the office, he directly warned me that this matter was no joke, that the secret behind Aileen Raphael's body was something I absolutely couldn't bear."

"You chickened out?"

"Yes, I gave in."

George Carter said with extreme difficulty, "My friends in the station told me that the people who hosted the y mobile nightclub party were a group of wealthy children who were truly at the top of the food chain in this city.

They could even make me disappear with just a phone call from their big brother."

He paused and said quietly, "I modified the autopsy record to make it a natural death. My superior praised me, and everything was peaceful,

except for the fact that you've been trying to storm the authorities and the forensic office all these days..."

After saying that, George Carter glanced almost imperceptibly at Li Ang's impassive face and said with difficulty, "According to regulations, bodies that have died of natural causes and have been filed are immediately returned to the family of the deceased,

but just yesterday, Aileen Raphael's body disappeared from the office's freezer."