Here we go again!
The Japanese police were being openly mocked again!
You were still a criminal suspect. Was it really okay for you to be this arrogant?
Every officer present wore a stiff expression. Even the usually composed Inspector Megure had the corners of his mouth twitching.
But Lin Xinyi had no intention whatsoever of sparing his Japanese colleagues' feelings:
"Do you think you're writing a detective novel?"
"If even the most basic crime scene investigation has to rely on detectives, then the police are as unnecessary as the extra pair of chopsticks that comes with takeout!"
"Especially you, Officer Komatsu!"
Lin Xinyi focused his criticism on Officer Komatsu, the acting coroner:
"Your abilities are completely unworthy of your profession."
"I seriously doubt how you even graduated from medical school!"
It was not that Lin Xinyi was meddling in other people's business.
As a former forensic pathologist, he could not tolerate such a fraud among his peers.
A president could pretend to understand what he did not understand, but a forensic pathologist could not.
Forensic pathology was no ordinary profession. If its practitioners were half-baked Mr. Nanguos, then the voices of the dead would never reach the living, the truth would remain forever buried, and justice would never be served.
Seeing Officer Komatsu's incompetence, Lin Xinyi felt an indescribable frustration welling up inside him:
Did everything have to wait for detectives to do it?
You were the police! You were the forensic examiner!
Of course, in truth—
Lin Xinyi was simply taking things too seriously.
If he had known what kind of world he had transmigrated into, he would have understood:
In this world of detectives, the police had always been weakened to an absurd degree.
Otherwise, if the police truly possessed the investigative capabilities and technical methods of the real world—even if they merely installed a few more surveillance cameras on the streets—they could solve ninety-nine percent of cases themselves. What room would that leave for famous detectives to shine?
And besides that, there was another practical reason for Officer Komatsu's incompetence:
"I never went to medical school."
Officer Komatsu scratched his head sheepishly.
"Come to think of it, I only count as a part-time coroner."
"Because the Autopsy Department in our Forensics Division has always been understaffed—"
"—we can only transfer personnel from the Crime Scene Investigation Department to handle some basic autopsy work part-time."
"Huh?" Lin Xinyi was stunned. "You can do this kind of work part-time?"
In truth, he was simply ignorant of the situation.
Forensic pathologists were scarce talents in every country, and even more so in Japan.
After all, becoming a forensic pathologist required the same six years of medical school education as becoming an ordinary doctor.
And Japanese doctors had always ranked at the top among all professions in terms of income, with an average annual salary of as much as 12.32 million yen. Skilled and experienced doctors could easily earn twenty or thirty million yen a year.
Yet forensic pathologists, who had likewise spent six hard years in medical school, earned on average less than half as much as doctors.
Moreover, compared with doctors, who had stable paths for advancement, forensic pathologists had an especially difficult time getting promoted—there were already so few of them. If you promoted them all into officials sitting in offices, who would serve as the "screws" responsible for frontline autopsies?
The gap between the two was obvious to the naked eye.
Not to mention that Japanese medical school tuition was extremely expensive. At a private medical school, six years of study could cost tens of millions of yen.
Why would anyone give up being a doctor to become a forensic pathologist when they might not even earn back their tuition after years of work?
Low pay, exhausting work, difficult promotion prospects, and dealing with corpses every day—smart medical students would never choose forensic pathology as a career.
"There are only 150 forensic pathologists in all of Japan who hold Medical Licenses."
"Expecting a forensic pathologist to attend every crime scene is simply unrealistic."
Officer Komatsu sighed helplessly.
"So the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department has always had part-time coroners like me complete the most basic investigative work, such as making preliminary determinations of the cause and time of death, collecting evidence samples, and examining the scene."
"Only when we find unresolved doubts in a case do we commission the National Research Institute of Police Science, or a cooperating university forensic pathology lab, to conduct a more thorough autopsy."
"I understand."
Lin Xinyi quickly calmed down.
Indeed, forensic pathology was an obscure and difficult profession everywhere.
Although the situation had been much better in his previous life than it was in Japan, the entire public security system had only a little over eleven thousand forensic pathologists on staff, and they were responsible for all criminal cases in a nation of 1.4 billion people.
As one of them, he had naturally been rushed off his feet every day.
That was precisely why Lin Xinyi had decided to take the opportunity of "living again" to switch to a relatively easier profession and experience an ordinary life of peace and calm.
"Since that's the case—"
After clearly recognizing the Japanese police's severe lack of autopsy capability, Lin Xinyi thought for a moment before finally saying in a deep voice:
"How about I conduct the preliminary autopsy for you?"
"You? How could that possibly work?"
Officer Komatsu's eyes widened in shock.
You were still the criminal suspect in this case. How could they casually let you touch the body?
That was right, this kid was still a criminal suspect.
How had he somehow taken the initiative without anyone noticing? First they had stood there like grandsons and taken his scolding, and then they had obediently listened to his instructions.
It was not just Officer Komatsu. Even the onlookers around them sensed that something was off.
Lin Xinyi seemed to possess a special kind of presence, one that made people trust him without realizing it.
That quality was difficult to describe.
But Ran instinctively put it into words: "Mr. Lin Xinyi feels a lot like Shinichi when he's deducing something."
This was, in fact, the focus and confidence famous detectives displayed while pursuing the truth.
No confusion, no uncertainty—the detective's eyes could always lead everyone toward the truth.
And forensic pathologists were the same.
With that particular charm about him, Lin Xinyi said calmly:
"I won't mess around."
"If I tampered with the body right under the noses of the police and that famous detective, wouldn't I be courting death?"
"But..." Officer Komatsu hesitantly looked toward Inspector Megure for guidance.
"Brother Kudo?" Yet Inspector Megure instead turned his questioning gaze toward Kudo Shinichi, who had remained deep in thought beside them.
Suppressing the urge to complain that the Japanese police needed a high school student to direct their investigations, Lin Xinyi also looked toward this Heisei Holmes.
Obviously, Kudo Shinichi's word carried the most weight now.
But Kudo Shinichi did not answer directly. He merely asked with curiosity, confusion, and a hint of unwillingness:
"Is there still a need for an autopsy?"
"Mr. Lin Xinyi, didn't you already discover the decisive evidence before I did?"
Instinctively, he put heavy emphasis on the words "before I did."
Clearly, this long-unfamiliar experience of falling behind in deduction had sparked Kudo Shinichi's intense interest in Lin Xinyi.
Lin Xinyi naturally ignored the competitive gaze of this young man.
"What decisive evidence is there?"
"You must understand that the greatest taboo in forensic work is jumping to conclusions. Even if you have a preliminary judgment about a case, you must never relax your examination of the body because of it."
"Because the evidence discovered next may very well overturn your previous hypothesis. This concerns the dignity of the deceased and the execution of justice. We absolutely cannot let down our guard."
"For example, in this case—"
Lin Xinyi paused slightly and pointed at the scattered body parts on the plastic sheet.
"Anyone would immediately assume this was a vicious homicide and believe that there had to be a murderer who killed and dismembered the victim, right?"
"But in fact, if you examine the body carefully, it is not difficult to discover—"
"Huh?"
The onlookers interrupted Lin Xinyi with a chorus of incredulous gasps.
From the sound of it, could this possibly not have been murder?
This was a Dismemberment Case. The victim had been cut into so many pieces that they could not even recover the entire body.
The victim had ended up like this. If it was not murder, what else could it be?
Those doubts were written plainly across their faces and visible in their eyes.
But Lin Xinyi completely ignored those hostile looks.
Pointing at the chunks scattered across the ground, he declared in a ringing voice:
"That's right. Based on my preliminary observations—"
"This was a suicide dismemberment case!"
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