"I remember you were the one who kept records for Xiao Qiu, right? Your name is Zhang Bing, isn't it?" Gu Xin asked after getting into the car.
"Your Highness, this is Zhang Bing." Zhang Bing replied happily, not expecting Gu Xin to still remember him.
He came to the capital with Zheng Qiu and only started working for Zheng Qiu last year, preparing to learn how to be a coroner. He was not yet familiar with the official language of the capital, but he tried his best to speak slowly so that people could understand him.
Gu Xin glanced down at her dress. Oh dear, she forgot to change into men's clothes. She couldn't force people to call her "Young Master" while wearing a dress, so Gu Xin had no choice but to let Zhang Bing call her "Third Miss".
It wasn't that she disliked being called Princess Xinxin; it was just that there were always a lot of troublesome formalities involved when others called her "Princess," which she found inconvenient and disliked.
“Yes, Third Miss.” Zhang Bing readily complied and then explained the situation to Gu Xin. “Third Miss, the body was discovered around noon today in the well of the Song family’s courtyard in Xima Alley in the west of the city. All the houses in this alley belong to the Song family. The owners live in the innermost house, which is inhabited by a widowed mother and her son. Young Master Song is a scholar preparing for the imperial examinations this year. The mother and son make a living by collecting rent. The family that found the body had just signed the lease yesterday. Today, while cleaning the courtyard, they smelled an unusual odor coming from the well, which was abandoned and dry. The tenants were a family of three, also a widowed mother and her son, but this family had a daughter-in-law. Their surname is Liang, and this Young Master Liang is also a scholar preparing for the imperial examinations this September. He came to the capital to live earlier than planned. Young Master Liang went down into the well and found the body, and then reported it to the authorities. That’s all I know for now.”
"Has the body been moved up yet?" Gu Xin asked.
"Young Master Liang came to report the case, but he didn't move the body up. He lowered himself down into the well from a tree in the yard with a rope, saying he couldn't get the person up. Based on his description of the body's appearance, Young Master Zheng deduced that the deceased had been dead for at least four days." Zhang Bing then added, as if remembering something, "Young Master Zheng said that although it's springtime and the weather is warming up, the well is still quite cold, so it must have been more than four days."
“Zhang Bing, you’ve been following Xiao Qiu for a year now, so do you know how to determine the time of death?” Gu Xin asked curiously.
She only recently became interested in this, so she genuinely didn't know about it. Gu Ren's story focuses on the detective, not the coroner, so it doesn't mention the coroner's autopsy much, only some information the coroner obtained, which the detective then combined with the case details to make a judgment.
“I know the basics, but I don’t know the complex ones. For example, in the case of natural death or simple murder, I can judge by the degree of rigor mortis and lividity. But if the murderer used something like ice or fire, I don’t know how to judge. However, Young Master Zheng taught me how to judge the approximate age from the skeleton,” Zhang Bing said.
"Oh, you can even tell someone's age? I thought you could only tell them their gender!" Gu Xin exclaimed in surprise.
"I only found out after I started following Young Master Zheng," Zhang Bing said.
"Xiao Qiu knows so much, she looks only about my age!" Gu Xin exclaimed.
“Third Miss, Young Master Zheng is more than two years older than you!” Zhang Bing said. Many people knew Gu Xin’s age and birth date.
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