Golden Time (JungYong)

“What’s the matter, Suhyuk?” asked members of Suhyuk’s unit. Yet, he just kept silent.

He just fixed his eyes on the neck of the cadaver. A string mark was clearly seen on the spot where the thyroid cartilage was located. For suicide by hanging, one has to tie his neck round something in an elevated place like the ceiling. And while one is hanging by the neck, the string goes up to the tip of the chin. It is because of the weight of a person.

‘Then, how come there was a string marked on the middle of the neck? How did he commit suicide?’

No matter how he thought about it, he could not figure out how the neck had a string mark.

He ruled out the ridiculous scenario where the deceased used his hand to tie his own neck. Suhyuk’s scalpel moved to the lungs.

“What are you doing?” the unit members asked, with wide eyes.

The assistant told them to take out the organs without any perforation.

Nonetheless, nobody could stop him. He already took the scalpel into the lungs.

The moment the sharp edge of the scalpel touched, liquid came out of the lungs.

Suhyuk’s eyes became colder. The lungs were full of water. As expected, one piece of the puzzle was put together.

His hand moved to the bronchus this time. He opened it up very carefully.

And what was seen in the bronchi was a bubble.

“Foam mass…”

It was this foam mass that is caused by a mixture of liquid and mucus derived from the mucous membrane inhaled during respiration.

Suhyuk scrutinized the entire body of the cadaver.

He could not find any red spots left on the body when a person was drowned.

If that’s the case, it was logical that only his face that could breathe was immersed in water.

His prediction turned into a conviction gradually.

Given that foam mass was formed on the organs, there was no need to check the airway.

“How can this make sense? How can a person who already died hang himself?”

It did not make sense at all.

If he had hanged himself, there should be spots of blood congestion on his body due to the stenosis of the vein, choking, and the increase in blood, but they were not found anywhere.

Just a simple check of the face was enough to confirm it: his eyeballs did not protrude.

The cadaver had been already been medically processed. A case of this kind was not common.

He wondered if the deceased wanted to inform others …

At that moment, the assistant approached Suhyuk, asking “What are you doing?”

Suhyuk made a puncture in the lungs and separated the bronchi.

The assistant narrowed his eyes suddenly.

“What did you do?…”

“I do not think it’s suicide.”

“What the heck? What nonsense are you talking about?” the assistant said in a threatening tone.

Suhyuk replied calmly, “The deceased can’t hang himself, can he?”

Obviously his drowning to death came first.

Then he pointed to the lungs and some other parts of the cadaver.

“So what?”

“I think he was drowned …”

The assistant seemed to make a big sigh and shouted, “Are you crazy? You’re out of your mind now. Crazy! I think I favored you too much now you’re acting like this…”

“What’s the matter?” someone said out of the blue. It was the professor.

As he frowned, the professor looked at the cadaver, some parts of which had already been touched where they were supposed not to have been, which offended him badly.

When the professor turned his gaze at him, Suhyuk said, “I think it is drowning or murder.”

He narrowed his eyes sharply.

“What a nonsense…”

However, the professor looking at the organs of the cadaver could not speak any more.

Because all the organs were pointing toward drowning.

“Even in this part too …”

At his words, the professor’s gaze moved toward the hands and feet of the cadaver.

That specific part had the same color as other body parts.

If a person dies by hanging his neck, the blood circulation stops and red blood cells are pulled down the body by gravitational forces. This is called blood sedimentation (gravity phenomenon). But in the hands and feet of the cadaver, such dead spots could not be found at all. Even if the cadaver has been treated medically, such spots stand out compared with other parts in detail.

The professor, wearing a hardened expression, looked toward the cadaver’s neck this time. And he mumbled, “Assistant!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Call the police.”

“What?”

“I think it’s a camouflaged strangulation.”

The assistant’s eyes opened loudly as if he could not believe it.

Moreover, each of the students could not speak, with their mouths shut.

The professor looked at Suhyuk silently. He was only a first-year student attending regular courses. He got into the school as a celebrity, and now presented his own opinion on the cause of the death as if he were a seasoned autopsy doctor.

“You… you came here to be a doctor,” said the professor.

Is it not true that a medical student goes to a medical school to become a doctor?

But the professor’s words had multiple meanings.

***

Walking on campus, Suhyuk was called somewhere.

The call dit not take long to go through.

“What’s the matter? How come you called me first? You wanted to listen to my voice, right?”

It was reporter Han Jihye.

“I’ve been absented for a while… I’m sorry.”

“If you feel sorry, let’s meet for dinner sometime!”

“Well, I’ve got one incident to tell you…”

“What is it?” She answered hurriedly.

“Well, I found some signs of homicide from a cadaver donated as suicide…”

“What? Why? Did you call the police? Did the reporters gather?”

“I’m not sure if the reporters would come or not. But the police are coming.”

“Are you still at the school?”

“No, I’m home now.”

“I’ll see you at the school then.” The phone hung up like that.

He smiled and shook his head.

In high school, when he was locked up in a detention center, she helped him out, and this was a chance for him to repay her for that.

Suhyuk immediately sent a message to her as if he forgot to say something.

The message to her was his request: never identify who found out the cause of the death.

He found it very uncomfortable to attract public attention.

In the meantime, the professor was talking with a reporter he knew.

Was it not a good opportunity to publicize the reputation of the school once again even though it’s already known as a prestigious university?

The first journalist who arrived at the medical school was Han Jihye.

—–

In an office of a high-rise building with large windows commanding a cool view, Kim Hyunwoo, in neat suit-dress, sat there.

At that moment, the office secretary’s voice came out from his key phone.

“Mr. President, team manager Mr. Lim says he’s done with the paperwork.”

“Please have him come in.”

A man in his early 50s, with a bald head, came in. He bowed his head and gave the paperwork to Kim Hyunwoo.

“Let me double check if you have made a mistake.”

Kim Hyunwoo, who laughed and joked at him, began to look through the papers.

Then he lifted his head and fixed his gaze at a big TV screen.

The anchor’s voice mentioning Daehan MS drew Kim’s attention because Suhyuk went there.

Staring at the TV blankly, Kim Hyunwoo’s expression was gradually smiling.

“Ha ha ha! This guy gets into trouble wherever he goes around.”

Suhyuk’s request for anonymity was missed just like that.

—–

Outside the hospital a girl, about six years old, burst into tears.

Her appearance, with an anxious eye and a runny nose, was typical of a lost child.

“Boohoo… Mom!”

“Are you lost?”

A man fluttering a white gown approached the little girl.

He knelt on one knee and matched his eye level with the child’s.

“What is your name?”

“Boohoo…I’m Kim Narae. Please find my mom.”

Nodding his head, the man took the child’s hand gently.

“Let’s go find your mom together.”

When they were moving to a broadcasting room in the building, a woman rushed toward them.

“Mom!”

“I told you not go around!”

It was dreadful even to think what would have happened to her if she had left the hospital completely and went out …

She scolded her daughter and said to the man, “Thank you sir.”

The man laughed pleasantly at the mother and daughter.

“Well, I did not do anything, I’m just a student, not a professor.”

Time flew like an arrow, and Suhyuk became a third-year student attending regular courses.

And today was the first day of his hospital practice.