National Forensic Doctor
Chapter 769 - 712 Practical

Chapter 769: Chapter 712 Practical

The anatomy room, clad in silver-white ceramic tiles, was packed with forensic doctors in white coats.

The seasoned forensic doctors, like Zeng Lianrong, sat on an autopsy bed nearby, while the younger ones, like Zhan Kan, either stooped in front or stretched their necks from behind on a footstool.

The steaming iron pot was still emitting smoke, filling the room with a strange scent amid the foul odor.

The forensic doctors in white coats were also steaming hot, breathing heavily.

Jiang Yuan took out a stark white skull, started turning it around to photograph and measure it.

With many colleagues present, Jiang Yuan introduced while taking pictures, "The preliminary work of skull restoration is very tedious, starting with recording some landmarks and checking for any significant traces. This is almost the same as what we normally do, typically surgical scars, teeth, residual attachments, scars, and so on..."

"If the victim’s information could be found through other means, there would naturally be no need for skull restoration, which after all takes a lot of time."

"After the photography is complete... actually, CT scanning is also feasible, just like skull repair in hospitals, but we don’t have such luxurious equipment, so photography will suffice. Next, we label the skull."

As Jiang Yuan spoke and worked, the forensic doctors beside him listened, some taking notes, all quite serious.

When it comes to learning the Skull Restoration Skill, most forensic doctors may not necessarily have such an inclination—of course, deep down, everyone certainly looks forward to mastering it.

Especially the younger doctors, who harbored some hope that perhaps they harbored this hidden talent. After all, they had never had the chance to encounter the Skull Restoration Skill before.

But for most doctors, they would just watch, broaden their knowledge, and incidentally become better informed about related information.

In Beijing, with incredible techniques and experts aplenty, not everyone necessarily had to follow and learn.

However, broadening one’s horizons was essential, knowing at least what to do and whom to ask for help when necessary.

Jiang Yuan also thought this was good.

Forensic doctors actually need to work together. The content of forensic science is so complex that normal humans could not possibly learn it all, so mastering the knowledge one can and knowing how to cooperate with colleagues is the most practical operating mode.

Everyone aims to bring criminals to justice, and if the forensic doctors in Beijing could understand more about the Skull Restoration Skill, it would be a good choice for future collaboration.

The skill was at LV5 now, making the process not as difficult as it used to be at LV4 or even the earlier LV3 stages.

"I’m going to label the skull now,"

said Jiang Yuan as he produced a small box and opened it, revealing all-white cylindrical stickers inside. One end of each sticker bore a number, and the other end had a peel-off adhesive.

"The numbers here indicate what we believe to be the thickness of the victim’s soft facial tissues. For example, this victim, I’ve marked the upper end of the upper lip with 5 millimeters, and the lower end with 6. Then, the upper end of the lower lip is 7, and the lower end is 8,"

Jiang Yuan explained, gently pressing the stickers numbered 5678 onto the skull.

"Why these numbers? How do we determine them? That’s a bit more complicated and the first step in the test of our Skull Restoration Skill," Jiang Yuan paused, then continued, "The simplest method is to look it up in books, which have data on the thickness of facial tissues."

"However, for greater accuracy, we first need to make anthropological judgments on the skull. For instance, determining her race and gender is foundational. For example, black people naturally have thicker lips. If it’s an Asian, there are also differences among the various ethnic groups."

"Additionally, given the vast geographical area and complex history, the facial tissue thickness varies between different regions or ethnic groups. For instance, the traits of Ancient North China People are protuberant thick lips, single eyelids, high flatness, and wheatish skin. Ancient North China People were mainly distributed in the current North China and Northeast."

"Ancient South China People also have protruding thick lips, previously chiefly inhabiting the area from the lower reaches of the Yangtze River to Lingnan..."

"The thickness of the upper and lower lips of Ancient South China People are consistent. Manchus have a slightly thicker lower lip, but overall thinner lips, Han People are medium, and Zhuang People are on the thicker side..."

Jiang Yuan said casually, then stopped and added, "Of course, the challenges faced by forensic anthropology in different countries are similar today, as we all deal with a mix of races or ethnicities, making it easy to run into areas lacking in research."

"Then the first step is to determine the race and ethnicity based on the skull," Zeng Lianrong, an expert in forensic anthropology, said with a heavy tone.

The other forensic doctors nodded with furrowed brows.

Even this first step was beyond the scope for an ordinary forensic doctor.

Using skeletons to determine ethnicity and race is already a high-level challenge in forensic anthropology. If you switch to simply using the skull, the difficulty triples.

As we all know, the pelvic bone is a favorite among forensic anthropologists. Most with a basic understanding can determine gender based on the pelvis.

Next, estimating height from long bones is considered an easy task.

Therefore, the combination of pelvis—gender and long bones—height is the extent of a forensic doctor’s cover in anthropology.

Of course, this presupposes only two genders.

In practice, there are still doctors who, due to damaged pelvises or insufficient skill, can’t determine gender even with the pelvis in hand.

Clearly, human diversity is not only reflected in our bones.

Furthermore, using the skull to make such assessments is challenging; without flesh, many struggle to make accurate judgments.

Because this isn’t something you can simply learn from reading a few books. The forensic doctor who does the appraisal, has to sign the authentication report. They must use unequivocal language to inform the detectives of their judgment.

If this were an exam, a 90% accuracy rate would be far from enough, and even a 95% accuracy rate would only invite ridicule.

When hundreds of officers have worked tirelessly for three days and nights, walking dozens of kilometers to carry out investigations, and it turns out the forensic doctor has mistaken even the gender of the body, no one would offer a smile of understanding or politeness just because it was a 5% margin of error.

Jiang Yuan quickly filled the surface of the skull with small white cylindrical posts, then took more photographs.

This time, he was even more meticulous and slower.

Sitting on the autopsy table nearby, Zeng Lianrong suddenly felt a bit dispirited and said, "Generally, it takes several days to mark the facial thickness, right? I’ve seen people take two to three weeks."

"Hmm... that might be the case if the judgment is not accurate, plus the time for checking books and data," Jiang Yuan put down the camera and nodded.

He also came from LV3, where doing a Skull Restoration Skill for the first time could rush him for an entire month.

But now he’s at LV5, and to be frank, he could entirely write a book called "Practical Skull Restoration Art" or something, and it could be used as a textbook with no problem.

Moreover, one of the advantages of the skill itself is that it doesn’t require researching the data.

However, it did cause a certain psychological impact on Zeng Lianrong, who earnestly relied on his genius brain and hard work as a forensic doctor.

"Then you just mentioned ethnicity, how do you determine her ethnicity?" Zeng Lianrong asked a challenging question.

Jiang Yuan repositioned the white skull to display its characteristic features and said, "My judgment is that there are genetic elements of Ancient Qiang, Miao Yao, and Su Shen Hui Mo mixed in. Actually, we could also extract DNA for reference. However, in terms of skull restoration, this kind of genetic ancestry tracing isn’t very accurate; the expressions are inconsistent. You have to cross-check for it to make sense."

"That’s a very high requirement," Zeng Lianrong said, with his eyelids twitching, upon hearing Jiang Yuan’s answer.

"Mmm," Jiang Yuan acknowledged, "it tends toward complexity."

His Skull Restoration Skill had also just been upgraded to LV5, so he was particularly aware of the increased complexity.

Although he was also doing skull restoration, he did not consider it as in-depth before. Not to mention distinguishing ethnicities through comparison.

Zeng Lianrong sighed and shook his head helplessly.

Jiang Yuan could only bow his head and continue working.

After completing the photography, the data had to be imported into the computer to start creating two-dimensional and three-dimensional images.

In earlier years, all of these were done manually, taking more time and costing more. The requirements for forensic doctors were mainly in the areas of sculpture and aesthetics.

Now, these steps are mostly replaced by computers, but the threshold has not been lowered as a result; it has only added the need for computer operation skills.

By this stage, Jiang Yuan was still adept at the work, while Zeng Lianrong could hardly understand it anymore.

Other forensic doctors had all entered a phase that they could not comprehend. Perhaps when Jiang Yuan placed the small white cylindrical markers, everyone felt at ease. But once that step was completed, the work instantly became alien to them.

Some forensic doctors quietly left, and new forensic doctors joined to observe, but overall, more were leaving than staying.

Everyone had work to do, and for most, the experience had already been enlightening enough.

Jiang Yuan didn’t bother explaining anymore at this point.

Without a foundation in Skull Restoration Skill at least at LV2, it’s likely difficult to understand.

Jiang Yuan then immersed himself in the work.

After a while, Jiang Yuan looked up, only to see a face quickly darting away.

"Forensic doctor Zhan," Jiang Yuan looked around and noticed that the once buzzing autopsy room was now so quiet that only Zhan Kan remained.

"I just wanted to see the software you were using, I didn’t mean to sneak a peek," Zhan Kan quickly explained in a low voice.

Jiang Yuan smiled and asked casually, "Interested?"

"A bit, but I’m just average with computers. I was thinking, perhaps hand-drawn sketches might make it easier to understand."

"Of course. Can you sketch?" Jiang Yuan was surprised.

"I learned a little in school. I also studied sculpture for two years," Zhan Kan laughed and disclosed his background, "I’m from Beijing. I originally intended to take the art path, but somehow I ended up studying forensic medicine by a twist of fate."

Zhan Kan looked at Jiang Yuan with bright eyes. He had learned about the Skull Restoration Skill before, but what he knew was greatly different from what Jiang Yuan demonstrated.

In comparison, Jiang Yuan’s method was clearly more appealing to him.