vncnus Chapter 280 A Head Grown for Decapitation
Chapter 280 A Head Grown for Decapitation
"Yes, I have already reported the situation here to my superiors. Thanks to Miss Zhulan being here as well, the higher-ups have tentatively approved my current approach."
The bright yellow light contrasted with the night outside the window, dispelling some of the eerie atmosphere brought by the bloody case.
In the middle of the main hall of the Forest Mansion, Officer Jenny from the Alliance's special department faced the round table, giving orders as she explained the current situation, her hand still resting on the head on the chair, its authenticity unknown.
"However, my superiors' patience isn't limitless. Rumor has it that a severed head, suspected to belong to a member of Team Galactic, was found in the mansion where Akatsuki used to live. Whether this is true or not, it's far too sensitive. They demand that we produce convincing investigative results by midnight tonight. Otherwise, regardless of the head's authenticity, a group of fully armed police officers from Baidai City will definitely arrive early tomorrow morning and cordon off this Forest Mansion."
It was past 7 p.m., and the minute hand of the clock had completed a semicircle. Midnight was less than five hours away.
A question quietly surfaced in the minds of everyone, including Officer Jenny—could the matter really be resolved smoothly in such a short time?
"Ha, what a bolt from the blue."
Amidst the silent crowd, the owner of Meidan Pavilion shook his feet with utter impatience, the hard toes of his shoes tapping the ground at a leisurely pace, making a noisy thumping sound.
"Such a boring thing happened at this rare gathering."
"That's life. Bad things always outnumber good things, and both like to surprise you."
Mr. Hayden, sitting next to Meidan, looked much more composed. He supported his cane, which was resting on his knee, with his right elbow, and while speaking, he elegantly raised his left hand to attract everyone's attention.
Then, he turned to Officer Jenny, his gaze deep, as if he were cautiously assessing his opponent's bottom line, much like when speaking at a board meeting.
"However, considering our position here, regardless of whether Ms. Officer Jenny or your team finds any results in the end, Ah Ying and I plan to leave before nightfall. After all, I came here only to meet with an old friend and do not want to be dragged into a controversy that could damage the company's reputation."
Faced with the two elderly people, one tough and one soft, and their respective uncooperative attitudes, Officer Jenny did not confront their offensive head-on. Instead, she smiled.
"It seems that you two, like me, figured out the authenticity of this dead man's head a long time ago. You didn't even participate in the autopsy. You truly are experts in the field of biology and big bosses of medical companies. It took me quite a while to confirm this myself."
"I've studied biology my whole life, I'm not going to be fooled by a cyborg head," Professor Mei Dan said coldly, without denying it.
"An android?!" Zina, the maid standing behind the owner, was taken aback.
"Of course, do you really think a grown man would die in this mansion?"
The old man let out a loud, scoffing laugh—
"Only naive young girls who have never seen the world would be fooled by such a childish trick, right? Hair, skin, muscles, teeth, lips, nose tip, blood—any film company has a makeup team that can recreate these things almost perfectly, not to mention the puppeteers and model makers who make a living by creating such props. In this day and age, a lifelike android head is nothing more than a slightly expensive toy. I really don't understand how simply faking some foul-smelling blood on the neck could cause such a commotion among everyone here."
“But that head, it really looks... just like the real thing,” Winnie muttered.
“The eyes,” Medan said firmly. “The eyes are the most honest thing—of course, I don’t believe in any mystical things like the sparkle in the eyes; I’m referring to their biological structure.”
The old man pointed two fingers at his own harsh eyes—
"Within these two spheres, each only a little over twenty millimeters in length, width, and diameter, lies a highly intelligent, high-definition camera. Dense connective tissue forms its shape, flexible tendons allow it to rotate freely, blood flowing through delicate vessels provides it with energy, and a gel-like vitreous body cleverly guides the light, projecting the world before our eyes onto the network woven by the optic nerve in an orderly manner... No mechanical structure can replicate such an intricate structure, and even if a similar shape could be created, its function could not be reproduced—let alone simulate the morphological changes of the human eye after death."
"I see!"
Officer Jenny raised her eyebrows, stopped pressing down on the head, and, with a sudden realization, happily agreed—
"As the saying goes, the eyes are the windows to the soul, so it is indeed appropriate to use them to distinguish between truth and falsehood. This reminds me of the forensic knowledge that relatives talked about at the gathering - after death, the pupil of a human eye will dilate and become fixed. After a period of time, the transparent cornea, which has no blood supply, will become cloudy and turn white due to edema and necrosis. But on this human head, we cannot see such traces."
Only artificial flowers can bloom forever, and only mannequins can have eyes that are always bright.
"So, what was inside the eye sockets of that head was just a pair of glass beads," Mei Dan concluded.
Everyone focused their attention once again on the head in Officer Jenny's hand. They could see that the pair of frozen, ferocious eyes were still staring in astonishment at the void.
The reason these eyes give off a ferocious impression is because the wide-open eyeballs are surrounded by blood vessels that involuntarily evoke fear—a feature that a dead head, deprived of its blood supply, would never exhibit. Not to mention the two pupils in the center of the eyes, which show absolutely no signs of dilation.
“And Mr. Hayden? How did you figure out that the head was a fake?” Miss Officer Jenny turned to Hayden again. “Did you also guess by observing the changes in the eyes after death?”
"Unlike Meidan, I had long ago forgotten all my biological knowledge from my university professors."
The big boss in the pharmaceutical industry shrugged, shook his head self-deprecatingly, and slowly said, without denying that he had seen through the shady dealings long ago.
"In fact, I noticed something unusual when Miss Officer Jenny brought the head into the house."
"That's the first thing you see when you see a head!" Officer Jenny complained helplessly.
Neither Hayden nor Medan went up to the roof, so they didn't see the "corpse" scene in the attic. Therefore, when Officer Jenny brought the head into the second floor, that was their first encounter with the head.
“While Miss Officer Jenny was still investigating the scene in the attic, Miss Winnie and the others had already come downstairs and naturally told us what they had seen inside. With that mental preparation, we weren’t too shocked and slow to react when we saw that thing,” Hayden explained.
"So what kind of anomaly did you discover?"
"The first odd thing I noticed was that you seemed to be struggling a bit when you were carrying the head. As a police officer conducting an autopsy, you should theoretically be supporting the face with both hands when moving the head, and moving it downstairs without damaging the body as much as possible. However, when you picked up the head, you carried it by supporting the chin with both hands—even though this made your gloves bloody."
"One wrong move and we've leaked the secret," Officer Jenny sighed.
"The next discovery further confirmed my suspicions—after the autopsy, when you placed this thing on the chair through a towel, it made a heavy thud. These two things combined indicate that the weight of this head far exceeded what you, Officer Jenny, had anticipated, so much so that you had to use a more convenient and forceful method when moving it."
Hayden raised his cane, pointing it at the head—
"A head that was cut off at the chin, without even the back of the neck, and with severe blood loss, could not possibly have such a heavy weight. The only explanation is that there is something wrong with its material. Beneath the lifelike face, what is wrapped is not flesh and bone, but a much denser steel and copper wire."
"Well, it's not quite steel bars or copper wires, but that's roughly how it is."
Seeing that everyone present was a shrewd and capable person, and unable to make a name for herself with the autopsy results, the policewoman was somewhat disappointed. However, having come this far, she had no choice but to bite the bullet and continue—
"After noticing that the head was not the right weight, I examined the cross-section of the neck and confirmed that the bones supporting the head were not made of calcium like those in a normal human body, but rather of stainless steel that mimics the structure of a skeleton. The remaining blood and muscles looked similar, but they were just superficial. Their pathways and veins were completely different from those in a normal human body. Therefore, I concluded that this was not a real human head, but a very well-made dummy head."
Since the head wasn't real, there was no decapitation involved. The body beneath the severed section might not have even been manufactured at all.
"Then why is it in this mansion?" Zhu Lan Champion, who had been silent until now, finally spoke up, still holding the ancient book she had brought out of the mansion owner's room.
“Considering the situation of this Forest Mansion, the reason shouldn’t be hard to guess…” Officer Jenny said thoughtfully, feeling as if she had grasped a bit of inspiration.
But at that moment, two voices speaking in unison interrupted the policewoman's thoughts—
"That goes without saying!"
Meidan and Hayden, these old classmates, spoke at the same time, their tones even perfectly synchronized—
"Of course, it's because those fanatical theists chased me all the way here."
"Naturally, it's because some organizations and companies that are hostile to my company want to smear me."