Case One The Double Homicide in the Flower Bed
Zhong Li examined the rest of the two corpses, confirming there were no more iron locks. She then placed the key before her eyes and observed it closely for a moment, when her gaze inadvertently fell upon something lodged in the key's groove.
She quickly moved towards the sunlight by the window frame to examine it more closely, then used a slender, small hook to carefully extract the item.
It turned out to be fragments of tea leaves.
Could it be that the body's mouth had accidentally stuck to the key?
Upon realizing this, Zhong Li immediately pried open the corpse's lips.
Blood mixed with mud. After a long search, she finally found a slightly larger tea leaf fragment lodged between the teeth.
After she washed the tea leaves clean with water, saw the patterns on them clearly, and smelled a faint, inexplicable fragrance, her expression froze. This was... Arabian tea?
Zhong Li initially thought the case in Jinzhou was a simple revenge killing. However, after discovering the Arabian tea, she no longer delayed, taking out the dissection knife Lu Wu Xie had given her from her case and began examining the bodies' interiors.
When she arrived, it was midday in Jinzhou, and the weather was not yet cold. After she finished with the two corpses and completed the autopsy reports, she looked up to find that it was already dark outside.
At this moment, the only companion she had was a solitary oil lamp burning in the corner.
She covered the corpses with white cloths, blew on the semi-dry Xuan paper, tidied up her medicine box, casually took out a peony-flower cloak that Lu Wu Xie had given her from her bundle, and picked up the oil lamp, preparing to leave.
Perhaps the oil lamp had been burning for too long and she had forgotten to refill it. Just as she took a few steps, the wick flickered a few times, a gust of wind blew, and the surroundings plunged into darkness.
The suddenness of it caught Zhong Li off guard. Her eyes could not adapt immediately, and she could only stand still, waiting for her vision to gradually recover.
The winter in Jinzhou was considered warm, but it was still a bit cold at night. Moreover, the house was drafty. Without her sight, her other senses became exceptionally keen. She stared with her watery eyes, trying to see her surroundings clearly, but the more she tried, the more suffocated she felt, especially with the pervasive smell of decay mixed with earth permeating the air. It involuntarily reminded her of the suffocating experience of being shut in a coffin when she first transmigrated.
Zhong Li knew exactly where she was, and she also knew that everything in her mind was just an imagination. Yet, the more it was so, the more her fear became evident, like window paper with a hole in it, constantly buffeted by the wind.
In just a moment, she even felt her breathing becoming difficult.
Her body instinctively crouched down, her hands tightly wrapping around her clothes. Although the scent of ambergris from Lu Wu Xie was long gone, leaving only the scent of soapwort from frequent washing, it still brought her a great deal of comfort.
Just as she thought it would be a long time before she could adapt to the darkness, she heard the sound of footsteps outside, mixed with the successive pleading voices of men.
"My Lord, my Lord, this subordinate truly did not know that Zhong Sijian was your person. Had I known, how could I have been so negligent?"
"My Lord, my Lord, you cannot enter here. The houses within this courtyard are about to be rebuilt. If you were to enter and they were to collapse, and something were to happen to you, this subordinate could not bear the responsibility..."
"My Lord, my Lord...."
Ren, the Prefect, followed behind Lu Wu Xie, chattering incessantly. Finally, when he spoke of the threat posed by the houses in the courtyard, Lu Wu Xie stopped, his gaze holding an unreadable strangeness as he looked at Ren, the Prefect.
Ren, the Prefect, thought his Lordship had taken his words to heart. He smiled obsequiously under the candlelight and said, "I heard you arrived in Jinzhou early this morning. This subordinate had not yet had the chance to pay his respects, and yet you have come personally. It is truly the fault of this subordinate for his discourtesy. Tomorrow, this subordinate..."
"You said Li'er is inside?"
Lu Wu Xie was too impatient to listen to Ren Zhong's deliberate evasiveness. He caught the implication in his words and asked directly.
Ren Zhong gave an embarrassed smile, nodded, and then looked at the house engulfed by darkness, saying, "She went in at noon. It's already dark inside now, so perhaps Zhong Sijian has already left."
"Or..."
His eyes darted, saying, "Perhaps she found the corpses difficult to examine and was scared away, who knows."
Lu Wu Xie's expression was already grim. Hearing what the prefect of Jinzhou said, his face immediately darkened like the bottom of a pot. He knew that even if all the coroners in the world fled, Li'er would never.
"Ren Zhong!" he said with great seriousness, his gaze like a knife piercing the Prefect of Jinzhou, "If anything happens to the person inside, you can forget about your official cap."
With that, Lu Wu Xie lifted the hem of his robe and hurried towards the house within the courtyard.
Ren Zhong, having been warned, shivered, almost collapsing to his knees.
Normally, he might not have been too worried about Lu Wu Xie's words. However, it was the end of the year. The Judicial Inspection Office reviewed cases from all regions, and furthermore, the double homicide case had just occurred and remained unsolved. If Lu Wu Xie wanted to apprehend someone, any one of these things could ruin his half-lifetime of hard-earned official position.
He glanced at the small bailiffs following behind him, stamped his foot in anger, and said, "What are you standing around for? Protect His Lordship!"
With that, he also held up the hem of his official robe and chased after him.
Zhong Li slowly adapted to the darkness. With the moonlight filtering through the cracks in the window, she stood up, brushed the dust off her cloak, tossed the useless oil lamp aside, and prepared to open the door to see who was making noise outside.
As her hand reached the door bolt, before she could exert force to pull the door open, hurried footsteps sounded from outside. Her brows furrowed. She knew that by this hour, the government office should be deserted. She casually drew the dissection knife from her waist, preparing to defend herself.
As the door was pushed open, the moonlight illuminated the interior. Zhong Li looked at the anxious person standing outside the door. Before she could say anything, she felt her arm being pulled, and she was embraced.
"So you were here. You made me search so hard."
Lu Wu Xie's voice sounded from above her head.
Zhong Li was somewhat flustered by his sudden action. Moreover, she had just recovered from her fear, and could only stand there holding the dissection knife, gazing at the round moon in the sky, remaining silent.
When Ren, the Prefect, who had followed closely behind Lu Wu Xie, appeared in her line of sight, Zhong Li suddenly came to her senses. She retracted the dissection knife in her hand and hastily pushed Lu Wu Xie aside, saying, "How did Your Lordship find me here?"
Worried about his master, Lin Jin, who had followed them in, saw the actions of the two people opposite him and did not step forward.
Ren, the Prefect, was old and farsighted. Without getting closer, he couldn't tell what the two people opposite him were doing.
Seeing that Lu Wu Xie was unharmed and had found Zhong Li, he quickly stepped forward, smiling obsequiously, and said, "My Lord, as we said, Zhong Sijian is blessed with good fortune. Look, isn't she perfectly fine?"
Lu Wu Xie's mood was already extremely poor from Zhong Li's pushing him aside. With another clueless meddler, his face darkened further, and he shot Ren Zhong a fierce glare.