Chapter 93 doesn't match.
The sun had already risen, casting a clear contrast of light and shadow over the courtyard.
A gust of wind blew, and paper money swirled and fluttered all over the courtyard, mingling with the cries of the Xu clan members, making the whole courtyard heavy and chaotic.
Pei Zhiwei stood at the back of the crowd, her gaze sweeping over the mess on the ground and landing on the mourning hall.
Wang Jingzong's body was hidden in Xu Fengyan's coffin. Lord Liu had previously said that he had seen Wang Jingzong yesterday evening, so the mourning hall is the most important part, and there might still be traces left there.
Seeing that everyone's attention was on the coffin, she went to the mourning hall alone.
The white cloth was still hanging in the hall. To make it easier to carry the coffin, the servants moved the offering table away this morning after Liu Jingchang nailed the seal on it.
Pei Zhiwei first walked around the mourning hall, circling back and forth between the original locations of the offering table, the pillars, and the coffin.
These past few days, the guards have been returning daily to report on the situation at the Xu residence to Xiao Yunzhan.
The situation at night would be reported together the next day, but Xiao Yunzhan had given an order that if anything unusual was encountered, it must be reported immediately, no matter what time it was.
They did not receive any unusual reports yesterday, indicating that the person hiding the body did not attract the attention of the secret guards.
How could they have done that? If they were carrying a person into the mourning hall, the guards couldn't have missed it. If they had put the body in a box and brought it in...
She stopped in front of the offering table, which was made of rosewood and had lotus and vine patterns carved in deep relief on the edges.
Pei Zhiwei bent down, her gaze moving upwards along the table leg.
Suddenly I noticed a dark mark in the gap of the pattern in the upper right corner; it was barely noticeable unless you looked closely.
She took out a clean white handkerchief from her brocade bag, pinched one corner of the handkerchief with her fingertips, and gently rubbed the seam.
There was some dried, hardened, dark red residue on the handkerchief. I brought it close to my nose, smelled it, and then rubbed it hard—it was blood.
She looked at the other corners of the table; everything else was clean, except for this one crevice where bloodstains were hidden.
It was obvious that someone had wiped the table but hadn't noticed the fine seams in the pattern, and the blood had seeped in and remained inside.
Pei Zhiwei's gaze moved upwards again, landing on the load-bearing pillars on both sides of the original location where the coffin had been placed.
The pillars in the mourning hall were made of Anang wood and painted with dark blue lacquer.
She looked down along the pillar and found several shallow marks less than half a person's height from the ground, as if they had been scraped by something hard.
The marks indicate that the path leads back to where the coffin was originally placed.
Pei Zhiwei took two steps back, mentally simulating the movement and trajectory of moving all the items while they remained in their original positions.
Based on the bloodstains on the offering table, Wang Jingzong may have been murdered in the mourning hall and then hidden in the coffin compartment.
She walked around the mourning hall twice more, looking at the windowsills and corners, but found nothing else unusual before turning to leave.
As soon as I entered the courtyard, I saw coroner Han packing up his autopsy kit. Wang Jingzong's body was covered with a white cloth and placed on a wooden board next to him.
Pei Zhiwei walked over and glanced at a tray next to her, which contained Wang Jingzong's personal accessories.
A black jade thumb ring, a sachet, and a jade belt were all neatly arranged.
"Coroner Han," she began, "are all of Wang Jingzong's accessories here?"
Without even looking up, Han the coroner pointed to the side of the tray: "There's also a pair of boots over there."
Pei Zhiwei looked in the direction he pointed and saw a pair of brocade boots in the same color scheme as Wang Jingzong's brocade robe, placed on a tray on the ground. The boots were embroidered with dark patterns and the toes were slightly upturned.
She walked over, squatted down, and picked up her right boot. On the outside of the boot shaft, near the ankle and calf, were several gilded lion ornaments.
One of the decorative pieces had a slightly scratched edge, while the other piece had a small patch of paint on its tip, the color of which was exactly the same as the paint on the pillars of the mourning hall.
She instantly knew the answer. She took out a handkerchief from her brocade bag and carefully wrapped the boots up.
"Lord Liu, Your Highness." Pei Zhiwei picked up the tray and walked over, just in time to see Liu Jingchang and Xiao Yunzhan talking in hushed tones.
Liu Jingchang had just finished speaking with a frown, saying, "I saw Wang Jingzong talking to someone in the front yard of the Xu residence yesterday evening," when he turned his head and saw the boots in her hand, and paused for a moment.
"Madam Pei, this is..."
“Wang Jingzong’s boots,” Pei Zhiwei placed the boots on the stone table beside her, pointed to the scratched ornaments, and then took out a handkerchief wrapped with lacquer chips and bloodstains.
"The weighing pillar in the mourning hall is painted the same color as this one."
Furthermore, dried bloodstains were found hidden in the crevices of the patterns on the corner of the offering table; these must have belonged to Wang Jingzong.
Liu Jingchang immediately realized: "You mean, Wang Jingzong was murdered in the mourning hall?"
Then someone hid him in a hidden compartment in the coffin?
“It’s very likely,” Pei Zhiwei nodded.
"It takes time to hide a corpse in the mezzanine, and you have to avoid people. Only people in the Xu family have the means to do this."
Furthermore, it's known that the coffin had multiple layers, making it impossible for ordinary outsiders to understand the structure of Xu Fengyan's coffin.
Liu Jingchang's face darkened: "So, the murderer is in the Xu residence? Someone from the Xu family?"
No sooner had he finished speaking than footsteps came from the courtyard gate, and Pei Lin walked in with two constables.
“Lord Liu, Your Highness,” he walked up and first glanced at the white cloth on the ground.
"I heard that Wang Jingzong's body was found in a hidden compartment in the coffin?"
Liu Jingchang quickly explained the situation, and added at the end: "Now it seems that the murderer should be a member of the Xu family who knew the location of the coffin's inner layer."
After all, the hidden compartment was so well concealed that not everyone could discover it.
Pei Lin nodded, and was about to speak when the coroner Han came over to report: "Lord Pei, Lord Liu, Your Highness, I have conducted a preliminary examination of Wang Jingzong's body."
"Speak," Pei Lin said steadily.
"The deceased had seven stab wounds, but only one was fatal. It was on the left side of the spine, piercing through the lungs at an angle."
The wound was four and eight-tenths inches deep, and the blade was nine-tenths of an inch wide.
No signs of resistance were found on his body.
The time of death was approximately around 3 AM, but a more precise examination is needed upon returning. Once the examination is complete, I will submit the autopsy report.
Pei Lin: "Alright, have them take the body back to the yamen now, and you can examine it immediately."
Han the coroner responded and gestured for the constables to carry the corpse and follow him.
Pei Lin turned to Pei Zhiwei, "Did you make any other discoveries?"
Pei Zhiwei quietly described the bloodstains and scratches on the pillars in the mourning hall.
She had barely finished speaking when she heard a maid's exclamation from the center of the courtyard: "Madam is awake!"
Everyone looked over and saw that Wang was being supported by two maids, panting heavily as if she were suffocating.
The maidservant was busy trying to help her catch her breath, but before she could even catch her breath, she suddenly shook off the maidservant's hand and stumbled as she ran this way.
However, her steps were too unsteady, and before she even got close, she tripped over her skirt and fell right in front of Xiao Yunzhan.
She seemed impervious to pain, her hands bracing against the ground, tears still streaming down her face as she looked up: "Your Highness... my brother... how did my brother die?"
The maids rushed over to help her, but Wang pushed them away and suddenly raised her voice: "My brother has only been in Yangdu for less than three days!"
Who could he possibly have a grudge against? You tell me!
She stared intently at Xiao Yunzhan, "My brother told me that you suspected him when you were at the official post station!"
"Was it you? Did you kill him?!"
Before Xiao Yunzhan could speak, a head maid in a light green maid's uniform knelt down with a thud, kowtowed to the ground, and cried out in panic, "Your Highness, please forgive me!"
Your Highness, please forgive me!
My wife is talking nonsense because she is too heartbroken after a series of misfortunes befell her relatives!
"Please, Your Highness, don't take it to heart; she didn't do it on purpose!"
The maid kowtowed quickly and sincerely, and her forehead turned red in no time.
Xiao Yunzhan: "Stop kowtowing. I'm asking you, when was the last time you saw Wang Jingzong yesterday?"
The maid stopped what she was doing, slowly raised her head, and saw that the red mark on her forehead had begun to bleed slightly.
She thought for a moment, her voice still a little tight: "Your Highness, last night, this lowly servant accompanied Madam to the mourning hall to keep vigil for the master."
The maternal uncle came over and persuaded the lady to go back and rest. It took him a while to convince her.
When the lowly maid helped the lady back to her room, it should have been... early in the morning, yes, early in the morning.
I haven't seen him since.
"Where is your wife?" Xiao Yunzhan asked again. "Has she gone out again after returning to her room?"
“No,” the maid quickly shook her head.
“This lowly servant has been with Madam the whole time. After Madam returned to her room, she sat on the edge of the bed in a daze and didn’t go out.”
Therefore, the lady, like the lowly maid, never saw her uncle again.
Xiao Yunzhan: "Alright, help your wife back to her room to rest first, and don't let her wander around again."
The maid responded and quickly got up. Together with two other maids, they half-supported and half-carried Wang Shi towards the inner courtyard.
Wang was still crying, calling out "brother" intermittently, her voice fading into the distance.
The number of people in the courtyard gradually decreased.
The constables were taking everyone who had been present, including all the servants of the Xu family, to a side courtyard for questioning, separating them by gender.
Xiao Yunzhan stood still, gently biting his lower lip, and whistled a sharp whistle.
As soon as the whistle blew, a dark figure jumped down from the courtyard wall and knelt on one knee. "Your Highness."
"How did Wang Jingzong die?" Xiao Yunzhan asked in a low voice, only Pei Zhiwei and Pei Lin beside him could hear him.
The guard replied somewhat awkwardly, "Your Highness, we were guarding outside the Xu residence last night, but we were too far away to hear what was happening inside."
I really don't know how he died.
Xiao Yunzhan didn't blame him, but asked again, "When was the last time you saw him?"
"It was not until the beginning of Yin hour, but not until the middle of Yin hour," the guard recalled.
"Then after a while, we saw Xu Wangshi come out of the mourning hall and return to the inner courtyard."
Not long after, Wang Jingzong also came out of the mourning hall and walked towards the guest rooms.
I haven't seen him come out since.
"He didn't return to the mourning hall?" Xiao Yunzhan pressed.
“No,” the guard said definitively. “We’ve been keeping an eye on the guest rooms and the mourning hall, and we haven’t seen him go there again.”
Are you sure?
"Confirmed, Your Highness."
We specifically checked when we changed shifts, and Wang Jingzong didn't leave the guest room after that.
Xiao Yunzhan didn't say anything more and turned to look at Pei Zhiwei.
The guard said that he went back to his room after leaving the mourning hall and never went back.
However, the bloodstains in the mourning hall, the scratches on the pillars, and the paint on the boots, compared with the results of the coroner's initial examination, all indicate that Wang Jingzong must have been to the mourning hall after the beginning of the Yin hour (3-5 AM).
That doesn't match.
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