Victoria Central Hospital.

  One of the oldest hospitals in all of Inverweg, its storied history is matched by its top-tier medical standards. Expanded numerous times over the years, it is now one of the few buildings in Old Dunling spanning two districts. To ensure its medical operations, the Mechanical Institute even built a dedicated power pipeline exclusively for it.

  The Su Yalan Hall, Old Dunling’s highest security force, lies just beyond the hospital’s grounds. In times of need, mounted police can arrive here with loaded rifles in under ten minutes upon receiving orders.

  Due to its massive scale, Victoria Central Hospital has taken on many additional functions in recent years, including cooperation with Su Yalan Hall.

  Bodies from criminal cases are routinely sent here for autopsies, and the sailor Vohl’s corpse was hardly deemed worthy of attention. With no one to claim it and no significance attached, protocol dictated his body should be transferred to the Royal College of Medicine for students to practice dissections. Yet at someone’s insistent demand, this otherwise worthless corpse underwent a rare autopsy.

  The police officer eyed the young girl pacing the corridor, irritation plain on his face.

  If not for her stubborn insistence on the autopsy, he would be enjoying a rare moment of rest at his desk. In Old Dunling, Lower City residents are not considered citizens in the eyes of officers like him; they only prioritize cases involving those from the Outer City or higher.

  But this young girl was different. This was her first case, and she was determined to uncover something.

  A wholehearted passion, brimming with drive.

  There was a time when the officer had been like that too, but now he was a man worn down by the grind of life. Perhaps seeing a reflection of his former self in her, he tolerated her—sure that her enthusiasm would fade in a few days, and all he needed was patience.

  “Has the report come out yet?”

  The girl finally accosted a nurse, anxiety in her voice.

  “You know the procedure, Officer. The report needs the director’s review and signature. He’s likely busy at the moment—please wait a bit longer,” the nurse said with an awkward smile. Since the body’s arrival at dawn, this young officer had been asking every hour. It was annoying—did she think autopsies were as quick as butchering a pig? Even butchering a pig required time to drain the blood; what could they possibly find in such a short span?

  “Oh, all right.”

  The excitement on her youthful face dimmed, but a violent explosion soon reignited her interest.

  The blast originated from the street, its powerful shockwave shattering the outer windows. The crowd panicked, screaming as gray mist filled every corner.

  “Eve!”

  The officer shouted her name, drawing his truncheon.

  “Is it a terrorist attack, Officer Price?”

  As a newly minted detective, Eve eagerly drew her service pistol.

  “Most likely just an old underground steam pipe exploding and blowing the manhole cover… Put your gun away. We’re here to maintain order.”

  Gazing at this energetic rookie, Price felt a headache coming on. He cursed his luck—why had he been the one to draw the short straw and mentor her?

  Scorching steam billowed through the street, and after the initial panic, the crowd began to settle. Old Dunling is vast, not just in surface area but in its underground infrastructure. Beneath people’s feet lies the world’s most complex network of pipelines, a sprawling web that has grown chaotically beneath the city.

  Maintaining such a massive system is notoriously difficult, and accidents from aging pipes occur frequently—hardly a cause for surprise anymore.

  The irritated officer and the young detective stepped outside the hospital, the mist obscuring their vision. It seemed someone had slipped past her through the haze, and Eve turned blankly to stare at the gray water vapor beside her.

  “Eve, hurry up!” Price called out.

  Eve continued to gaze at the mist for a few seconds, then, as if making a decision, she turned and followed the faint sense of unease in her heart, moving away from the direction Price had gone.

  In Old Dunling, even a simple explosive can spark a riot.

  This was a lesson Burton had learned from years of living here. Amidst the city’s steam pipelines, any explosion kicks up dense clouds of water vapor, which just so happen to aid Burton’s stealth.

  Such incidents draw the guards’ attention, leaving him time to obtain the report before they finish dealing with the pipeline issue.

  He sauntered into the hospital lobby with casual confidence, showing no sign of being a thief.

  He had successfully distracted the guards and slipped into the hospital… by walking in broad daylight.

  Now, the problem: where was the important report?

  A white-clad figure entered his line of sight, and Burton quickly formulated a plan.

  He composed himself, forcing a few tears into his gray-blue eyes, and approached a nurse with a mournful expression.

  “My nephew was killed in the Lower City today. The guards told me to come this afternoon for the autopsy report—where can I get it?”

  His gaze was sincere and sorrowful, as if he truly had a nephew. The nurse first expressed sympathy for his loss, explaining that such reports were typically handled by Su Yalan Hall officers. But perhaps moved by Burton’s genuine-seeming grief, she made an exception and told him the director’s office, though she noted he couldn’t obtain the report itself, he might learn the specific cause of death.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Minutes later, the middle-aged, balding director sat stiffly in his chair, an ornate Winchester rifle pressed to his shiny forehead. Though he wanted to scream at this uninvited visitor, the cold metal on his skull forced him to stay calm.

  “Here’s the autopsy report you wanted. Is that all?”

  He handed the documents to Burton, cold sweat dripping from his smooth forehead.

  “Is there a copy?”

  Flipping through the pages, Burton asked without lifting his head.

  “No, there isn’t!”

  Sensing how important this was to the intruder, the director hurried to respond.

  “Is that so… Can you have another copy made?”

  A strange request.

  “Having the forensics team write the report again shouldn’t be a problem, right? Then submit that copy to Su Yalan Hall, and don’t mention today’s events to anyone. Can you manage that?”

  Though Vohl was a negligible foreigner whose death no one cared about, a missing or suspiciously altered autopsy report could draw Su Yalan Hall’s attention, which would undoubtedly cause Burton trouble.

  Burton’s gaze was icy, like that of a cold-blooded killer.

  “Director Buscalo, you live at 147 Hammersmith Street in the Outer City…”

  Scanning the envelopes on the director’s desk, Burton’s mind raced. On the other side of the desk, Buscalo felt a deepening sense of dread.

  “You’re not wearing a ring… I assume your wife divorced you? She took your son?”

  Like a master of deduction, Burton’s gaze swept every detail, making Buscalo feel utterly exposed.

  His heart pounded wildly; these unseen insights were far more terrifying than the shotgun pressed to his head.

  “She left you with a daughter. You dote on her. She likes candy… correct?”

  Burton delivered the final blow with pride.

  At this, Buscalo’s psychological defenses crumbled completely. He couldn’t fathom how this man knew so much about his life. His hands trembled uncontrollably—he might have resisted under normal circumstances, but when his daughter was involved, he broke down.

  Burton left Buscalo’s office with his prize, confident the middle-aged man would prove a devoted father.

  Spotting the nurse who had directed him earlier on the corridor, he smiled warmly.

  “Thank you so much, Nurse. Director Buscalo has promised to conduct a thorough re-examination of my nephew’s body—the killer won’t go unpunished.”

  He approached her, slipping a few silver coins into her hand discreetly.

  “Extra thanks for giving me his address, dear Nurse. The director is very much looking forward to the ‘gift’ I mentioned.”

  Under the nurse’s smiling gaze, Burton strode away.

  There had been no astonishing deductions here—simply meticulous premeditation.

  Burton was a second-rate detective, a violent man with no moral qualms, yet in a sense, he was a genius: a con artist who could manipulate any available tool with talent.

  Perhaps he lacked superhuman deductive skills, but in the art of improvised crime, he was a virtuoso.

  The line between a genius detective and a genius criminal is a thin one—maybe it’s called “principle,” or “conscience,” but Burton clearly had no such qualms, oscillating freely between the two.

  Pushing open the iron door, the temperature dropped noticeably.

  This was the morgue, a chill-inducing place that few had reason to visit, allowing Burton to enter easily.

  He carried the report in his arms, but Vohl’s eerie state before death nagged at him, like a demon from a dream he couldn’t forget.

  “Which one is it?”

  Checking the nameplates against the autopsy report’s number, Burton searched the metal cabinets.

  Gripping the handle, he pulled out a frost-covered iron drawer, dragging it to the floor. Squatting beside it, he examined the man he had killed just days prior.

  The body had several new incisions from the autopsy. Burton pried one open, revealing the internal organs beneath.

  On his way here, he had skimmed the report: according to the forensics team, Vohl’s bones and internal organs showed abnormalities, but he hadn’t read the details closely.

  What he saw was a twisted and nauseating sight. The organs were completely tangled together, dark red clots like pectin binding them. The intestines were shrunken, noticeably shorter than a normal person’s, as if part of them had been surgically removed, yet there were no signs of surgery.

  The body had far less fat than a normal person. Fat is meant for energy storage and insulation, but this Viking’s body fat was astonishingly low.

  This shouldn’t be possible.

  Vikings lived in freezing climates; someone with Vohl’s physique would have frozen to death, not survived until now.

  There were calculi in his body, mostly distributed on the skin’s surface and around the joints. These were incredibly hard, like clusters of crystals fused with tissue, forming a sort of armor—this was what had protected Vohl, explaining why Burton’s first shotgun blast hadn’t killed him outright.

  Burton’s brows furrowed, recalling something unpleasant.

  He grabbed a nearby chair, sat down, and took out his cigarette case. After a moment of thought, he lit a cigarette. As the flame flickered to life, the morgue lights began to dim one by one, until only the glowing tip of his cigarette remained in the darkness.