Black Lotus Concubine's Case-solving Notes

Princess Nancheng explained the whole story. Shi Xun nodded and said from behind, "Coroner Xu, please exhume the body."

The man named Xu, who was the coroner, was wearing a gray linen shirt and dragging his crippled leg as he walked over with one foot deep and one foot shallow. His face was wrapped in a white scarf, so his features could not be seen clearly. Next to him was a little boy, about seven or eight years old, wearing a light blue cloth shirt.

There was a lot of chatter in the crowd.

"Is this Xu Zuo, the world's number one coroner? Wasn't it rumored that he went back to his hometown, Shicheng, to recuperate? How come he's here?"

"Don't you know? There have been many strange cases in the capital recently. This coroner Xu is not only highly skilled, but also cares about the country. He returned to the capital immediately after learning about it. Now he is a guest of honor in the Dali Temple. The little boy is his grandson, who is learning skills from his grandfather!"

……

Coroner Xu ordered his men to untie the body and place it on the ground, then he squatted down and searched Kufan's body for a while. Before he could say anything, another person appeared beside him.

"Are you addicted to pretending to be a cripple? And you brought a little grandson with you?" Feng Jia said in a voice that only the two of them could hear. She moved her eyes from the corpse to the man's face, blinked, and said slyly, "Brother Yunyu?"

Li Yunyu seemed to have been prepared for her to recognize him, and said in her usual indifferent voice: "Life is hard, I'm sorry to have embarrassed you, Miss Nine."

Feng Jia didn't argue with him and asked directly: "What do you think?"

Li Yunyu said without looking away, "Based on the shape and depth of the corpse spots on his body, we can conclude that this person died between two and three hours ago. The deceased's clothes were torn and there were scars on his back. He might have been dragged after death. A piece of flesh was scraped off the femur of his right thigh. The cut was smooth, so it was cut off after death. The murder weapon was a dagger or a sword, but we can't tell for now."

"Dragged away?" Xie Haoxuan grasped the key words, "What Coroner Xu meant is that this is not the first crime scene?"

“It’s highly possible.”

"Someone come! Search the entire hospital! If you find anything unusual, seal it off immediately!" Xie Haoxuan gave the order.

Li Yunyu continued, "There are obvious marks of strangulation on the deceased's neck. If he had been hanged, the downward traction would have caused his head to point upwards, but this body did not have those marks, so he must have been hung up after death, and he was hung up for less than an hour."

Xie Haoxuan interrupted again: "Does that mean that as long as we find someone who has been here within an hour and a half, the murderer must be among them!"

Li Yunyu coughed, his voice as old as an old man: "You can say that."

Xie Haoxuan added: "Interrogate everyone in the temple and tell them where they went and what they did in the past hour and a half. If there are any suspicious people, take them all away!"

Nancheng County Lady's eyes moved to the side: "Where is the abbot at this time?"

Abbot Jingwu put his hands together and said, "I was studying Buddhism in the courtyard at that time."

"Is there any witness?"

Jing Wu smiled and said, "I have more than a hundred disciples, all of whom can testify for me."

"Your disciples naturally listen to you. Whatever you say is the truth and it cannot be used as evidence!" Tan from the fourth room of the Prime Minister's Mansion muttered.

Jingwu still had a compassionate smile on his face, but he was silent.

Feng Jia asked: "Where is the fatal wound?"

"There are no other obvious injuries on the body. We still can't tell the cause of death. We may find out after the autopsy, boy!" Li Yunyu called out to the eight-year-old boy, who immediately handed over the wooden box in his hand.

Li Yunyu opened it, and inside were neatly arranged many knives, hammers, drills, etc. He picked a knife with a thin blade and was about to cut Kufan's chest when Feng Jia suddenly said, "Wait."

Kufan ​​had his shirt stripped off, and a black totem was clearly printed on his shoulder.

Feng Jia's eyes sank heavily.

"What's wrong?" Li Yunyu frowned.

Feng Jia's lips turned pale, but she shook her head: "It's nothing, you can continue."

Li Yunyu no longer paid any attention to him and focused only on the short knife in his hand. The blade was pointed directly downwards, and golden grease mixed with drops of huge blood rolled down the blade. Everyone turned aside with pale faces, unable to endure the heart-and-liver ripping that was about to happen.

Only Feng Jia was still standing there, looking normal.

Time seemed to have gone back to that day in Stone City when he first saw her.

But at that time, she was an abandoned daughter of the Prime Minister's Mansion. She had a thin face, wore coarse linen clothes, and her only decoration was a peach wood hairpin. But now, in just a few months, she had fought against her legitimate mother, killed her legitimate sister, and transformed herself into a legitimate girl in the mansion. The gorgeous stone-blue long skirt and the golden hairpin on her head could not overshadow her beautiful face.

She is no longer the fragile woman like a willow in the wind, but more like a snow lotus bud about to bloom, showing its brilliance.

After a while, Li Yunyu stood up and said, "The fatal wound is in the skull. The wound is an inclined round hole that penetrates the bone for more than an inch. The murder weapon should be something like an awl. Judging from the temperature of the deceased's organs, the time of death is more accurate at three hours. There are bruises on the body, so he must have fought with someone before he died."

Li Yunyu and Song Huai said the same thing.

Feng Jia looked at the oblong hole on Kufan's head and asked, "If a wound of this shape was to be caused, in what position did the murderer stab him?"

Li Yunyu took out a small awl from the box, held it, and made a stabbing motion: "The murderer should have held the weapon like this and stabbed it in."

"Impossible!" Xie Haoxuan said immediately.

Nancheng County Princess said: "Why not?"

Xie Haoxuan said, "With this posture, and the wound being stabbed almost vertically, there must be a height difference between the murderer and the victim. The victim is eight feet tall, so the murderer must be about twelve feet tall to accomplish this action. It is almost impossible for such a giant to be here. There is only one other possibility."

Just as Xie Haoxuan was about to speak, Xie Shubai spoke faster than him: "That is, the Buddhist was kneeling on the ground at the time, and the murderer was standing in front of him, very close to him. But how could the victim keep such a distance from the murderer? Unless..."

"Unless what?" Princess Nancheng asked anxiously.

"Unless the two know each other, and not only do they know each other, the victim is also a devout believer of the murderer." At this point, Xie Shubai's eyes began to become strange when she looked at the abbot.

Devout believers, their relationship is...

Everyone's eyes also fell on Jingwu.

Jingwu didn't know what he was thinking, and he was staring at the red elm tree in a daze.

"There is another possibility."

"There is another possibility!"

Feng Jia and Li Yunyu spoke almost at the same time. Xie Haoxuan glanced at Li Yunyu and then turned his gaze to Feng Jia: "What other possibilities are there?"

Li Yunyu gestured for her to speak, and Feng Jia said, "Another possibility is that the murderer is hiding in a high place, such as on a roof or a tree, and stabbed the victim straight in when he passed by, which can also create a height difference."

That is to say, the murderer is not necessarily the abbot. Anyone who can fly to a tree or a roof could have committed the crime.

The situation that had suddenly become clear fell into a deadlock again.

Princess Nancheng looked at Shi Xun who was silent beside her and said, "Master Shi, what do you think?"

Shi Xun glanced at the abbot and the monks standing behind him like puppets. He seemed to want to say something, but in the end he just shook his head and said, "I don't have any ideas at the moment."

"What about Fourth Miss Xie?"

An idea came to Xie Shubai's mind, but that idea was too shocking. She glanced at her mother, Mrs. Meng, and then at Shi Xun who remained silent. Finally, she held back and said, "Like Lord Shi, I have no idea yet."

Princess Nancheng sighed, "Well, it's getting late, and we can't see any results now, let's all go to bed early." After a pause, she said, "Master Shi, come with me."

Shi Xun walked up to the side of Nancheng County Lord. When most of the crowd had dispersed, Nancheng County Lord's face darkened and he whispered, "Master Shi, you can tell me now. Did you find anything?"

"My lord, you are wise. I dare not hide anything," Shi Xun said. "I did not find anything from the dead monk, but the abbot is indeed a little strange. He seems to be related to a file I saw in the Dali Temple before."

"What dossier?"

Shi Xun frowned and shook his head: "I have not yet come to a conclusion, so I dare not speculate rashly. I will go down the mountain to the case library to look through the files and then report to the princess!"

Princess Nancheng agreed immediately. Shi Xun bowed and was about to go down the mountain. Halfway down the mountain, she heard a beautiful female voice behind her.

"Master Shi, please stay!"

Shi Xun turned around and looked over, only to see a young girl in a dark blue long skirt, holding up the hem of her skirt, walking towards her under the moonlight. The girl was about thirteen or fourteen years old, with eyebrows as dark as distant ink and a face as white as jade. The golden hairpins in her buns trembled slowly as she walked, and the bright moonlight was reflected in her black and white almond eyes.

Shi Xun called out, "Ninth Miss?"