COUGH, COUGH, COUGH, COUGH.
George Carter lay on the ground with bloodshot eyes, coughing exhaustively like a broken bellows.
For a moment there, he almost thought he was going to die from asphyxiation and brain hypoxia.
He could even imagine his own cold corpse, lying on the equally cold autopsy table in the Frankfurt Police Station's forensic lab, his eyes already void of color, staring at the ceiling, waiting for those familiar colleagues to perform the autopsy.
Thankfully, that didn't happen. The crazed, seemingly superhuman elderly woman didn't snap his neck. Instead, she spared him... for now.
"Little bro, why's your face so red?"
Li Ang gripped the coroner's collar, pulling him up, and asked with feigned warmth, "Are you cosplaying 'Po', the smallest and reddest character from the Teletubbies?"
"No, I'm not!"
George Carter, who stood at six feet tall, was hoisted into the air by Li Ang and shook his head in utter horror. "Whatever you want, I'll cooperate!"
"That's the spirit of cooperation."
Li Ang chuckled, shoved the coroner onto the sofa, and casually took the steel hollow baseball bat from his hand, twisting it effortlessly into a pretzel shape with his hands like hydraulic clamps.
This was simply not something a human could do.
The coroner's eyes nearly popped out of his head. He looked at Li Ang, stammering in disbelief, "You... you're one of them too?"
He paused, taking a better look at Li Ang, who was currently disguised as the elderly Catherine Raphael. His soul nearly leaped out in fright. "I recognize you, you're the one from a few days ago..."
All of a sudden, as if he realized something, he quickly shut his mouth.
"You know me?"
Li Ang raised an eyebrow, smiling. "Judging by your expression, the cause of Eileen's death involves a big secret, one that makes you willing to give up even your own life rather than speak of it.
But..."
He picked up the twisted baseball bat off the floor, pointed at the ceiling, and grinned without making a sound.
Despair surged in George Carter's heart. He knew what Li Ang was hinting at—his family was still upstairs. If he refused to speak... the consequences were unimaginable.
In a pleading tone, the coroner begged, "If I tell, they won't spare me..."
"If you don't tell, I won't spare you either."
Li Ang said with a smile, "If you speak, maybe there will no longer be a concept of 'them' from now on."
"...Alright."
George Carter slumped on the couch as though all the strength had been drained from his body and spoke wearily, "The woman in the photo, her name is Eileen Raphael.
A week ago, she was found outside a dilapidated, abandoned factory, with several empty compound reagent tubes on her arm.
The Frankfurt Official took on the case and tasked me with performing the autopsy to produce the autopsy report."
Eileen Raphael... Had she been dead for a week?
Li Ang's features showed neither sadness nor joy, but a nameless irritation welled up inside him.
"Continue," he urged coldly.
"Alright."
George Carter took a deep breath and said, "I originally thought this was just a common case of an overdose on injected compounds—quite common in a big city like Frankfurt.
But during the autopsy, I found that Eileen Raphael had died from internal hemorrhaging before the injection of the reagent."
"Internal hemorrhaging?"
"Yes."
George Carter said with some difficulty, "As a forensic pathologist, I am more inclined to believe she died from massive hemorrhage of the carotid artery—there were two round, hole-like wounds on her neck, and the blood flowed out from there.
Besides that, she... had injuries, a lot of injuries, all sorts, fresh wounds from abuse."
For an experienced forensic pathologist, so accustomed to life and death, to describe the scene with such vague phrasing, Li Ang could imagine how horrifying it must have been.
As for the two round, hole-like wounds on her neck, could it be the Blood Clan? After all, the mission's name was "Bloody Dawn."
Li Ang waved his hand. "Continue."
"PHEW..." George Carter licked his dry lips. "After I submitted the autopsy report and chatted with some colleagues,
I learned that before this, the abandoned factory had hosted a pop-up nightclub event called Rex Party.
Eileen Raphael and her friends had gone to that event, and the next day she was found dead outside the factory, and her best friend vanished without a trace.
I thought this was some gang-related incident—some immigrant gangs from Mexico never seem to know where the line is. But to my surprise, a mere ten minutes after I submitted the report, I was invited to my superior's office for a talk."
"A talk?" Li Ang sneered. "Let me guess, there was a problem with the autopsy report?"
"Exactly." George Carter nodded, a wry smile on his face. "My superior subtly told me there was an issue with the report. He said I had overlooked the extent of the compound's harm to Eileen Raphael, and that this was her primary cause of death.
Generally speaking, such a scenario is rare in Frankfurt's coroner's office—at least in the over ten years I have worked here, I've never seen such a subtle request from a superior."
Li Ang narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing the other's expression, and casually asked, "And then?"
The coroner bit his chapped lips and said, "At first, I tried to argue on principle, and we had a huge fight. He got so furious that he told me to get out.
I went back to my office and heard a commotion all over the station..."
He glanced at Li Ang with hesitation and said, "... you tried to break in, wanting to see your daughter."
Li Ang raised an eyebrow and said casually, "Let me guess, my wish didn't come true."
"Yes."
George Carter said with a bitter smile, "Using the excuse of disrupting order, the security personnel threw you out. On my way back to the office, he directly warned me that this was no joke; there were secrets behind Eileen Raphael's body that I absolutely could not handle."
"You caved?"
"... Yes, I caved."
George Carter said with great difficulty, "My friends at the station told me that those who organized the Rex Party events are a group of... the real high society, the children of the wealthy at the very top of the city's food chain.
With just a finger and a phone call, they could make me disappear from the face of the earth."
He paused, then added somberly, "I altered the autopsy records to indicate a natural death, and my superior commended me, and everything was peaceful,
except for... these past few days when you kept trying to storm the offices of the Frankfurt Official and the forensic department..."
After speaking, George Carter surreptitiously glanced at Li Ang's impassive face and said with difficulty, "According to the procedure, a body with a finalized case of natural death is immediately returned to the bereaved family,
but just yesterday, Eileen Raphael's body... disappeared from the morgue in the office."