My name is Mo Yun, and I am a forensic doctor.
Having worked in this field for three years, the dissection table is the battlefield I am most familiar with.
Here, life often unfolds in a cold manner—as the solidified livor mortis on a stiff body, as silent cells under a microscope, as dark brown lesions in pathological sections.
The air is perpetually filled with the pungent smell of formaldehyde, and the cold is so intense that you forget what temperature even feels like.
It wasn't until Qin Qianluo entered my life that those lifeless textures, like a cotton quilt thoroughly warmed by the sun, gradually began to exude warmth.
She is my lover, and we are both women.
This love kept me tossing and turning in bed countless nights.
I fear the pointing and whispering glances from my neighbors in the community, and the hesitant probing during family gatherings.
What I fear even more is that this feeling, which is not understood by some people, will become an obstacle on our respective career paths.
Fortunately, her family's understanding was like the warm spring sun. When her mother first met Qianluo, she simply held her hand and asked, "Be careful when you go on missions."
She turned around and quietly slipped me a stack of hand warmers, saying, "She's always out and about, remember to let her carry these."
The leader's respect is like a gentle breeze; whenever work is assigned, they never deliberately avoid it because of our relationship.
Instead, they often say, "You two, one catching criminals on the front lines and the other solving cases in the rear, are the team's 'double insurance'."
Of course, it's also because we are all outstanding in our respective positions—she has been with the company for two years and has participated in cracking more than a dozen major drug-related cases, and the star on her epaulettes shines brightly.
I have handled over two hundred autopsies, and not a single report has been wrong. The truth revealed by the scalpel has always been the key to a definitive case.
This confidence to stand shoulder to shoulder allows our relationship to unfold openly in the sunlight, without having to hide in the corner of the closet or under the streetlights at night.
Qianluo's recent missions have been more mysterious than usual. She spent three days straight at the team, returning always looking exhausted, but with an astonishingly bright light in her eyes.
On the morning before I left, she hugged me in the entryway. The smell of gunpowder on her windbreaker hadn't dissipated yet, mixed with the dust and a faint scent of mint.
She just lowered her head and nuzzled my ear, her voice hoarse: "A-Yun, wait for me to come back."
I didn't ask any more questions, not because I wasn't curious whether the drug dealers' hideout was in an abandoned factory on the outskirts of the city or a cave deep in the mountains.
She was also worried that a bullet might graze her shoulder blade; she still had a scar on her left shoulder from last year's mission.
But the confidentiality agreement lying on the corner of her desk, with its black Song typeface, looked like an invisible barbed wire fence.
It reminded me not to cross the line—her battlefield has its rules, and my waiting should also have my restraint.
I did consider advising her to switch to a more stable job. Last winter, she suffered frostbite on her knees while on a mission, and the pain kept her tossing and turning at night.
As I watched her huddled figure, my heart ached as if it were being pricked by needles.
I checked the recruitment information for police academy instructors and also inquired about the logistics dispatch process.
But every time I get to the point of speaking, I see the light in her eyes when she pulls out her merit certificate, and I see the corners of her mouth unconsciously turn up when she demonstrates how to use handcuffs to new recruits.
Those words were quietly swallowed back down.
She loved that perseverance amidst danger, as persistent as a moth drawn to a flame.
Just as I am obsessed with the truth revealed by the scalpel, even if it means facing a rotting body and a hideous wound.
We are all people who live for what we believe in, and our faith has long been engraved in our bones. No one can persuade anyone else, and no one can replace anyone else.
I had thought that once the mission's end signal rang out on the walkie-talkie, I would see her push open the door, laugh, toss her dusty coat onto the sofa, and call out to me, "A-Yun."
Then he snatched the autopsy report from my hand, frowned and complained, "It's more complicated than our operation plan. Are your forensic brains made of precision instruments?"
I even bought her favorite roasted chestnuts in advance, packed them in an insulated bag, just so she could taste them while they were still warm and sweet when she came back.
Little did they know that these four simple words, "Wait for me to come back," would become their final farewell.
That was the first time I had disobeyed my superior's orders since I joined the police force.
When the walkie-talkie crackled with the message, "Exposeed, gunfight breaks out at drug den, forensic support needed,"...
The scalpel in my hand clattered into the tray—the location of that hideout was the place Qianluo had circled on the map yesterday.
Ignoring my colleague's attempts to calm me down, I grabbed my investigation kit and ran downstairs, joining the rest of the group as they rushed into that corner shrouded in crime.
Dust floated and sank in the beam of light, and the air was filled with the acrid smell of burning drugs, the sulfurous smell of gunpowder, and the pungent smell of blood.
My heart was pounding as if it would shatter my ribs. My gaze swept past the jumbled containers, scattered standard weapons, and overturned drug-making equipment, and I immediately saw her lying in a pool of blood.
Blood and gore, unrecognizable.
The navy blue windbreaker that I had washed and ironed myself had its pattern on the left chest covered by torn fabric, and dark red bloodstains had soaked through the fabric and solidified into hard scabs.
Even the corners of his clothes were stained with black gunpowder residue.
She still held the gleaming handcuffs in her hand, her knuckles white from the force, and half a piece of the drug dealer's clothing still hanging on the buckle.
It was as if it never let go of its prey until the very last moment.
What breaks my heart the most is her right hand; there are new abrasions on the web of her hand, marks left from every time she fires a gun.
This time, however, her gun fell half a meter away from her hand, the barrel still hot.
It felt like the sky had collapsed at that moment; thick, dark clouds surged in from all directions, making it hard for me to breathe.
My heart felt like it was being gripped tightly by an invisible hand, the pain was so intense it made my fingertips tremble uncontrollably.
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