The Mystery of the Inner Demon

Chapter 183 Pulmonary Edema

Qi Fei held a flashlight close to the wooden fence of the bionic wetland boardwalk. When the beam of light swept across the wet wooden board, it suddenly stopped - several fresh scratches lay across the moss, with gray-brown debris on the edges.

He squatted down, picked up the crumbs with tweezers and sniffed them. It was the red soil commonly found on the outer ring road of the zoo.

"There are traces of climbing here." He shouted to the back, and Wu Shanqiu immediately ran over with the evidence box.
On the cement floor, the fresh bird droppings that solidified last night looked like a layer of half-dried plaster, with several complete shoe prints embedded in the depressions of varying depths.

Qi Fei squatted at Chen Hao's feet and gently turned over the sole of the deceased's shoe with his rubber-gloved hand: "The deceased was wearing a size 42 sneaker, which matches these shoe prints."

As soon as he finished speaking, he suddenly heard a vibrating sound in his ears, coming from Chen Hao's jacket.

Qi Fei reached out and saw Chen Hao's cell phone ringing. The caller was from an unfamiliar number.

After the call was connected, before Qi Fei could say anything, the other party spoke anxiously: "Hello, Manager Chen, this is Xiao Wu from Nancheng Investment. Our division is going on a business trip tomorrow. Please help us book three tickets to Beihai at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning."

"Hello, Detective Nancheng."

"What? Oh, sorry, I dialed the wrong number!"

"This is Chen Hao's phone. He passed away last night. Are you his client?"

There was silence on the other end of the phone for a moment, and after a few seconds, the person stammered, "I just want to ask him to book a plane ticket. Sorry to bother you, sorry to bother you!" She said this repeatedly and quickly hung up the phone.

This was just the beginning. Chen Hao's phone kept vibrating, and almost all of them were people looking to him to book plane tickets.

"Chen Hao's phone is quite busy." Wu Shanqiu said.

"Chen Hao is busy enough." Qi Fei corrected.

In the humid and hot Aviary, a cool breeze blew across his face. He looked up and saw a fist-sized hole in the glass dome. The wind was leaking in from there, and a black feather was vaguely visible on the edge. It seemed that Xiao Hei was most likely flown out from that place.

"Brother Fei, I have some bad news." Wu Shanqiu walked over. "This aviary originally had infrared surveillance, but when we contacted the park to retrieve the footage, we discovered that last night's footage had been set to loop playback."

"In other words, there's nothing to see." Qi Fei said helplessly, "But it's not entirely bad news. It means Chen Hao's death was not an accident."
-
In the police station office, Wu Shanqiu was tapped on the back of her head with a notebook.

"Oh!" She looked up and saw Qi Fei standing next to her, muttering, "Brother Fei, what are you doing?"

"Instead of investigating the case properly, you're watching videos during working hours?" Qi Fei said pretending to be unhappy.

Wu Shanqiu said confidently: "I'm looking through Xiao Hei's previous videos to see if there are any clues."

"Did you find anything?"

"Well, there are so many pavilions in the zoo. I did some research and found that the Bird Pavilion is the most difficult to break into. To prevent the birds from flying around, this place is like a dragnet."

"But Chen Hao sneaked into this Bird House and died inside." Qi Fei said, touching the stubble on his chin.

"Right? That's a bit unreasonable, isn't it? I don't think this place was chosen randomly. I was looking through the comments under Xiao Hei's Douyin account, and I thought we could investigate those who showed unusual interests." "Any findings?"

"Oh, what did I find? A bunch of people were squatting in the comment section, waiting for Xiao Hei to call them idiots. There was really nothing else suspicious." Wu Shanqiu said helplessly.

"Haha, okay, put your phone aside for now. Xiao Tao is ready. Let's go to the autopsy room first." Qi Fei said with a smile.

As April approaches, the temperature in Nancheng is rising rapidly.

In sunny places, you can wear short sleeves.

However, the autopsy room was still as cold and gloomy as ever.

Even after years of working in this field, Qi Fei was still not used to the smell of corpses here.

Yes, corpses have a special smell. Qi Fei has never known how to describe it. It is that contradictory smell that carries emotional warmth but is also lifeless.

"Still no one comes to claim the deceased?" Qi Fei asked, wearing a mask, looking at Chen Hao who was lying naked on the dissection table.

Wu Shanqiu said, "Chen Hao is a bachelor from the northwest. We're trying to contact his family. He has no relatives in Nancheng. We contacted the ticketing company, but they said they were busy. He should be on his way by now."

Chen Hao's dark skin had lost its color, like a piece of sandpaper stuck on his face.

Xiao Tao moved the shadowless lamp, examining each part of Chen Hao's body one by one. "The deceased suffered complex mechanical injuries. Multiple abrasions and contusions on the body surface, a star-shaped laceration on the right temporal region, abrasions on the dorsal surface of the metacarpophalangeal joints, and patchy hemorrhages in the thenar and hypothenar muscles of the palms."

Qi Fei also saw the many bruises on Chen Hao's body: "These parts are not the common places to get injured from blocking or beating."

"Well, judging from the condition of his palms, these injuries are more likely caused by him falling from a height," Xiao Tao said.

Wu Shanqiu compared the on-site investigation records and said, "That's right. New friction marks have been found on the rockery in the Bird Pavilion. It seems that this Chen Hao tried to climb up there."

Xiao Tao, his scalpel ready, steadily cut open Chen Hao's chest. A swollen, purple-red lung lobe appeared before them. He gently pressed the moist tissue with his fingertips, but the indented mark didn't spring back. He picked up a piece of lung tissue with tweezers and held it up to the light. The dense hemorrhages formed strange, branching patterns in the grayish-white interstitial tissue.

"The cause of death was suffocation due to acute pulmonary edema." Xiao Tao said decisively.

"Pulmonary edema? Can you tell what causes it?" Qi Fei asked.

"There are many possible causes, such as underlying cardiovascular disease, drowning, and poisoning. So far, the autopsy has revealed no other medical issues besides a severe gastric ulcer. Regarding drowning, no mud or drowning-related reactions were found in the deceased's nasal cavity or respiratory tract. As for poisoning, we'll have to wait for the toxicology report."

As she was speaking, Wu Shanqiu's phone rang: "Have the people from Chen Hao's company arrived?"

After a while, a short and strong middle-aged man in a suit and leather shoes walked in.

As soon as he entered the door, his phone rang: "Hello, sorry, I don't have any tickets available today. Please contact other people in our company." It seems that he is a busy man like Chen Hao.

He hung up the phone, looked at Qi Fei and the others, and swallowed nervously: "Chen Hao, where is he..."