Chapter 339 The Punishment of Disembowelment

As soon as Gui Liu finished speaking, Wang Youxiang rushed over in an instant and grabbed the coffin tightly.

Because of the excessive force, the veins in both hands bulged out.

A slight stench of decay mixed with the smell of burning wafted from the coffin, hitting people directly in the face.

The elderly man, who was over fifty, trembled violently several times, his voice urgent and trembling.

"What anomaly did you discover, sir?"

Gui Liu's messy hair peeked out from the coffin, his ashen face showing a solemn expression.

However, he did not answer Wang Youxiang's question, but instead uttered two words expressionlessly.

"tweezers."

Wang Youxiang was taken aback.

Shen Cong stepped forward, opened the medicine box on the ground, took out a pair of tweezers with a cow horn wrapped in copper, and handed them over.

Gui Liu took the tweezers and squatted down again.

After about the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, he stood up again, holding the tweezers in his hand, and grinned, saying, "Finally got it done."

Under the flickering lamplight, a clump of slightly white fluff was caught in the tweezers.

Shen Cong frowned, looked at it, and asked, "What is this?"

Gui Liu said, "Sheep gut, to be precise, should be burnt sheep gut."

As he spoke, he gently twirled the lint with his fingers. The lint was about half a finger long. When he unfolded it, it revealed an extremely thin piece of catgut!

Shen Cong frowned, staring at the sheep gut thread in Gui Liu's hand, his expression puzzled.

"How could the Imperial Concubine have catgut on her body?"

Gui Liu shrugged.

"It's naturally used for stitching up wounds."

Wang Youxiang's expression changed, and he blurted out, "That's absolutely impossible. The Imperial Concubine has never suffered any external injuries in all the years she's been in the palace."

Even during the Rebellion of the Five Princes, she never suffered any wounds requiring stitches, so how could she have catgut sutures on her body?

Gui Liu shook his head.

“Look here.”

The tweezers in his hand pried open the charred abdominal cavity of the person inside the coffin. The lamplight flickered, revealing a horrifyingly blackened interior.

"Although the inner wall of your abdominal cavity is almost charred black, the deep muscle texture underneath is very smooth."

If it were burned by flames, and if a person had even the slightest bit of life left, their muscles, bones, and flesh would surely be curled up and twisted, a hundred times more grotesque, never so smooth!

Wang Youxiang and Shen Cong gasped almost simultaneously.

Wang Youxiang's body trembled even more violently, and he had to lean halfway on the coffin to keep himself from falling.

"You mean...you mean my daughter...she..."

The shocking guess rolled on his lips, but he couldn't bring himself to say it.

Gui Liu nodded.

“That’s right, such a wound shape can only mean one thing: she was already dead before the fire started, and…”

Wang Youxiang's pupils contracted violently, and he could no longer support himself, collapsing to the ground.

"And what?"

Gui Liu restored the body of Consort Wang and jumped out of the coffin.

Cai said, "Moreover, there were indeed no infant bones in her abdominal cavity, plus the found catgut and obvious incisions in her abdominal cavity."

It can be concluded that she underwent a cesarean section before her death, and the baby in her womb should have been removed prematurely.

The room was deathly silent.

The air was so thick it was almost suffocating!

After a long silence, Shen Cong asked Gui Liu, "Are you sure?"

Gui Liu curled his lip and scoffed.

"What? If you don't believe me, why did you call me here? What a joke! Even though I rarely do autopsies, when I do, I never make a mistake!"

This person was alive and well during the execution by disembowelment; the so-called fire was merely a fig leaf to cover her cold corpse!

Wang Youxiang, holding the coffin with both hands, stood up shakily, tears streaming down his face.

"Disembowelment! My daughter, I never knew you suffered such torment!"

How much pain you must have felt, child, with the knife cutting your stomach!

"It's all my fault. I didn't rush to the palace to save you immediately. It's all my fault!"

Wang Youxiang lay on the coffin, weeping uncontrollably.

After a moment, he remembered something, suddenly turned around, and strode out.

What are you going to do?

Shen Cong grabbed him!

Wang Youxiang's eyes flashed with intense anger, and he almost squeezed out a few words through clenched teeth.

"I'm going to find His Majesty and get to the bottom of this! Besides him, who else would dare to order my daughter to have her child cut open?"

I'm going to ask him what my daughter did to offend him that she has to suffer like this.

How could he... how could he do that!

Wang Youxiang was extremely angry, and his whole body trembled more and more violently.

Shen Cong held him tightly.

"Don't even mention that you can't get into the palace in the middle of the night. Even if you could get in, what are you going to say?"

Why don't you just say you had someone perform an autopsy on the Imperial Concubine? And then question the Emperor? Aren't you afraid he'll wipe out the entire Wang family in a fit of rage?

Moreover, the exact details still need to be carefully investigated.

Wang Youxiang stiffened, and his struggling strength gradually diminished.

But the anger and hatred swirling in his heart made it impossible for him to calm down.

Unable to contain himself, he glared at Shen Cong and said, "He's your elder brother! Of course you're siding with him!"

Shen Cong pursed his lips tightly, took a deep breath, and a bitter look appeared in his eyes.

"If that's the case, why would I tell you about the SOS note? And why am I here examining the body with you right now?"

"I......"

Wang Youxiang's lips trembled, and after a moment, he slumped to the ground in despair.

He clenched his fists and pounded them against the ground in frustration. The hard bluestone slab quickly drew blood from his fists, but he seemed oblivious to it.

"Back then...we were blind back then! Why did we use the entire Wang family's resources to support such a tyrannical and incompetent ruler!"

Why? When he was the crown prince, he wasn't like this at all! Why did he become like this?

Shen Cong sat beside him, watching the blood flow from the back of his hand, dripping onto the bluestone slab.

A bitter smile involuntarily crept onto his lips.

"I also want to know why things turned out this way. He was once my elder brother, who treated me like a father and a brother."

Wang Youxiang was immersed in grief and naturally could not answer this question.

Shen Cong did not expect Wang Youxiang to answer the question. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and stood up.

He then pulled Wang Youxiang up from the ground and said, "Youxiang, have you ever thought about this question?"

Wang Youxiang looked bewildered. "What?"

"Since the Imperial Concubine was surgically removed, what happened to the child in her womb? Where was the removed child taken?"

Wang Youxiang subconsciously looked at Guiliu.

Gui Liu raised her hand, "Don't look at me, how would I know? I only know that the child in the Consort's womb is almost due."

Even if he is removed prematurely, he can still survive, unless he has a pre-existing condition.

Shen Cong's brows furrowed slightly.

"But I haven't heard of any newborn babies in the palace recently!"

He was absolutely certain of this.

From the night the imperial concubine's palace caught fire until the day her remains were moved to Xiangguo Temple, he has lived in the palace.

If there were even one more newborn baby in the palace, it would never escape his notice.

unless......

Shen Cong suddenly looked up as if he had just thought of something.