Chapter 93: The Third Uncle's Defense

The Lu family looked at each other in silence. Mrs. Gao finally woke up and, ignoring Linlang's attempts to comfort her, threw herself on her daughter's body and burst into tears.

Yin Chuan, Du Yunzhang, and the others couldn't bear to interrupt her, so they waited until she stopped crying before softly saying, "Madam, please accept my condolences. Grief will not help any further. Our most urgent task is to find the young lady's murderer."

Gao wiped her tears, stood up tremblingly, and said fiercely: "Mr. Liu, who is the murderer? Tell me, I will fight him to the death!"

Lu Changhua pulled his wife aside and said, "Don't worry. Mr. Liu has his own plans. The murderer is among those present."

Gao snorted coldly, "Alright, in that case, no one in this room today is allowed to leave! Until the murderer is found!"

Her words caused a strong reaction from her great-uncle Lu Tai. He kept screaming "Ah...ah..." and hitting the ground hard with the crutch in his hand.

"Sister-in-law, my father wants to go back to his room to rest. Isn't it impolite for you to say that?" Lu Enting said coldly.

"No! No one is allowed to leave today, not even my uncle!" Mrs. Gao, contrary to her usual behavior, growled in response.

"Brother Changhua," Lu Enting turned to Lu Changhua, "Is there any sister-in-law who speaks to her elders like this?"

Lu Changhua was torn. He had long harbored resentment towards his uncle and Lu Enting, but he couldn't tear them apart for the sake of their elders. His last daughter had died before his eyes today, and despite the grief, he still had to remain rational.

"Enting, you saw it happen again today in front of everyone. I'm sure you and your uncle hope to find the murderer as soon as possible. If you leave like this, it won't be good for your uncle's reputation in the family, right?"

At this time, Lu Tai was so angry that his veins were popping out. He kept shouting "Ah...ah..." to express his dissatisfaction, and his crutch made a "bang bang" sound on the ground.

"You two... you two..." Yin Chuan appeared between the two of them at the perfect time. "The Third Miss's misfortune is indeed difficult for the Lu family elders and the head of the family to accept. Although I said the murderer is in this room, not everyone is a suspect. Let me say a few words first."

Everyone present looked at Yin Chuan. Lu Changhua patted his wife to calm her down, then said to Yin Chuan, "Since Mr. Liu has made up his mind, please state it clearly."

"Okay, then I'll reconstruct the entire process from the moment the Third Miss sat in this seat until she was poisoned and killed. Everyone here, please help me recall if there are any deviations from what I said."

"What's the point of doing this? Just tell us the murderer directly!" Mrs. Gao said harshly.

"I'm sorry, because I don't have direct evidence yet, so I can't confirm the true murderer. But at least after my reasoning, I can narrow down the suspects, so everyone can be less panicked."

"Well, we're all ears." Lu Changhua's voice was very subdued.

Yin Chuan was silent for a moment, then slowly walked to Lu Shuiling's seat and held the back of the chair with both hands.

"This is the third young lady's seat. Everyone can see it clearly. She hasn't stood up since she sat here, and only stood up when she felt poisoned. And there is no other possible thing that could have poisoned her except this cup of sour plum soup." As he spoke, Yin Chuan looked down at the cup of sour plum soup with only half of it left on the table in front of Lu Shuiling. In it, besides the floating ice cubes that had more than half melted, there were dried sour plums that had been soaked into a mushy paste.

Baohan came over and sniffed the rim of the cup, then said with certainty, "Yes, this is indeed the smell of fire snake venom, and it's very strong."

"That's not right!" Linlang was puzzled. "Since the poison tastes so strong, didn't the Third Miss notice it when she drank it?"

"That's not surprising," Yin Chuan immediately explained her doubt. "The method of making her unaware of the presence of the toxin is very simple. At least I can think of two right now. One is to freeze the toxin in ice. After it melts, the toxin will gradually dissolve into the sour plum soup, emitting the smell later. The other is to mix the toxin into dried black plums. If the person drinking it presses the dried black plums hard with a spoon like Doctor Bao just did, the toxin will be squeezed out more easily. But the ice on top will prevent the odor from evaporating, so when the third lady drinks it, she won't be able to detect the presence of the toxin."

"Let me correct you," Bao Han interrupted Yin Chuan, "The second scenario you mentioned is unlikely."

"Oh? Why?"

"I've been practicing medicine for many years, and I'm very familiar with the properties of fire snake venom. If I were to prepare an antidote for this toxin, I'd definitely include one ingredient: black plum. While black plum can't directly detoxify, it can somewhat inhibit the spread of the toxin. So, seeing how quickly the Third Miss developed the poison just now, I'm sure the poison isn't directly hidden in the dried black plums. And even if the soup contained black plums, the low concentration of water alone would have little effect on the rapid spread of the toxin."

Baohan's words made Yin Chuan fall into deep thought. "You mean, the murderer should also know that dried plums have an inhibitory effect on toxins, so... he can only choose to tamper with the ice?"

"I think so."

"Even so, we still can't narrow down the suspects?" Du Yunzhang was a little anxious.

"Narrowing the suspects is actually quite simple," Yin Chuan said. "It's just a matter of who might have had access to this cup of sour plum soup. Based on this premise, we can narrow the scope to four people. The first is the eldest brother-in-law Hai Yifan, who put ice cubes in each cup. The second is Lu Enting, who poured the sour plum soup. The other two are the second brother-in-law Gu Yan and the third brother-in-law Yu Jintang, who are closest to her on both sides. Besides Hai Yifan, who put the ice cubes in front of her, the other three could also have secretly mixed the poisoned ice cubes into the Third Miss's cup."

The four people's expressions suddenly changed when they heard this.

"Ah!" Linlang couldn't help but exclaim in surprise, "How come three of these four people were at the scene where the second young lady was murdered?"

Indeed, except for Jin Gui, the other three were parties involved in the reverse closed room murder case in the training room in the middle of the night.

"Yes! So I can't be the murderer!" shouted the third son-in-law Yu Jintang.

"Just this reason?" Yin Chuan glanced at him.

"No, I can give you at least three reasons!" Yu Jintang was full of confidence. "First, I'm Shui Ling's husband and have no motive to harm her. Second, the Second Young Lady and Shui Ling both died from the same snake venom. If I was Shui Ling's murderer, how could I have killed the Second Young Lady? Third, and many people here saw me, I also drank the sour plum soup from Shui Ling's cup. Maybe the toxin hadn't spread yet, so I'm fine. If I was the one who poisoned her, why would I risk poisoning myself by drinking it unnecessarily?"

Yin Chuan smiled slightly. "Third uncle is indeed a well-educated teacher at a girls' middle school. His words make perfect sense. But I have to pour cold water on you. I'm afraid none of the three reasons you gave are tenable!"