Chapter 11: How will we eat if we stop selling?
Linyang City is located north of Dingzhou, in a vast fertile plain known as the granary of Jiangnan. Although it is not as commercially prosperous as Dingzhou, it has frequent exchanges with Dingzhou due to its proximity.
Inside the government office, Jin Shuren could smell the stench even before she stepped inside. She frowned slightly as she looked at the medical record which stated: "Time of death approximately eight days ago."
Let alone the 8th, even the 18th might not have such a strong smell.
"There's nothing to see here. After the examination, it'll be taken to the mortuary. Now that you've come, you've brought it back again. It's such a hassle." Coroner Lin Yang pinched his nose, frowned, and looked at the thin man in front of him with disdain.
Could it be that the prince has a taste for effeminate women? He even brings such a young master along when he goes out.
Jin Shu didn't have time to examine him. Looking at the medical record in her hand, besides the date of death, all that was written was "death by suffocation".
Very concise.
"Hey, how did you get into the Six Doors? How's the monthly salary? Is the work easy?"
Lin Yang, the coroner standing to the side, nudged her with his elbow, which annoyed Jin Shu. She slammed the protective book shut and, seeing his nonchalant attitude, didn't bother to say another word to him.
She fastened her handcuffs, put on gloves, and went straight into the house. She took out the flat little box from the antique shelf, opened it, and was stunned.
In this box, the knives and saws that should have been there were reduced to just a handful.
"Where are the things?" She looked up in surprise at Lin Yang, the coroner, who was pinching his nose by the door.
Then the seven-foot-tall man waved his hand, dispelling the smell in the room, and said disdainfully, "We don't need anything else, and it's just sitting there anyway, so we'll sell it all."
"Sold it?!" Jin Shu looked at him in surprise. "You sold your livelihood?!"
"That's right, it's our livelihood. How can we eat if we don't sell it?"
Their eyes met, and Jin Shu was speechless at his innocent and naive appearance. In all her years as a coroner, this was the first time she had ever met someone like him.
In this light, the eight days that the book of protection made up doesn't seem so abrupt anymore.
Jin Shu pursed her lips, took a deep breath, put on the handkerchief, picked up a small sharp knife, and looked at the remaining marks on it. A surge of blood rushed to the top of her head.
She looked around and saw not even a clean piece of linen, let alone an oil lamp that could be lit.
She simply lifted the hem of her dress and wiped the blade of the knife in her hand clean with two quick wipes.
This sight was extremely surprising to Lin Yang, the coroner, as if he had seen a madman, causing him to take two steps back.
Jin Shu didn't take it to heart, lowered her head, and focused all her thoughts on the deceased before her.
Time seemed to vanish the moment she bent down, all her focus concentrated on the knife. As she moved the knife deeper into her hand, Jin Shu's gaze became increasingly bright and piercing.
Li Jin, who had appeared behind her without her noticing, looked at her serious expression and frowned.
After a while, seeing her get up without saying a word, Li Jin took half a step forward, glanced at the person lying on the bed, and asked with a faint smile, "How is it?"
Jin Shu shook her head: "The tools are incomplete, so we can only get a rough idea."
Are the tools incomplete?
Li Jin paused for a moment, turned around and glanced at the toolbox behind her. Seeing only two small knives scattered on it, he looked up and his gaze fell intently on Yang An, the magistrate of Linyang County.
Judging from his bewildered expression, he knew without asking that Magistrate Lin Yang was completely clueless.
"How much of a general idea is this, sir?" Li Jin raised his hand, took the bandage from Zhou Zheng's hand, skillfully tied it up on his wide sleeves, and picked up the only remaining small knife beside him, playing with it.
“The deceased was around 40 years old, about six and a half feet tall, with ligature marks on his neck and a tattoo on his right arm that read ‘love and hatred,’ but…” She paused, walked to the bedside, and turned the deceased’s head slightly, “but the area on the back of his head that was covered in blood and flesh, I judged by touch that there should be an injury, but I didn’t have enough tools to confirm it.”
At this point, she turned her head and glanced at Lin Yang, the coroner, who was in the middle of the courtyard, chatting with others while holding his medical record as if nothing had happened: "The bones in the deceased's left leg also seem to have problems, but we can't verify it further... so... we can only give a rough guess."
"Speak." Li Jin followed her gaze, his eyes narrowed slightly, and tossed the small knife in his hand up and down.
The way that swiftly and decisively the knife was wielded made Yang An, who was standing at the door, weigh his options carefully.
Everyone knows that Prince Jing, Li Jin, is a war god on the battlefield. He once led two deputy generals, riding horses across the Gobi Desert, fighting his way in and out right under the enemy's nose. He is truly a prodigy.
Since he relinquished his military power and took control of the Six Doors, he has become a guardian deity in the eyes of the people.
Such a large Buddha statue suddenly crashed down on Lin Yang, catching Yang An off guard.
Originally, his letter accusing Liu Cheng'an of refusing to lend Mr. Jin was merely an excuse to delay the case because he couldn't solve it.
He never dreamed that Prince Jing, Li Jin, would actually rescue Mr. Jin from Liu Cheng'an's Dingzhou Prefecture and personally deliver him.
In fact, Li Jin was well aware of his little schemes; he had already read all the information about Yang An on the way here.
Lin Yang, the magistrate in his thirties, was a seasoned veteran in officialdom. He had thoroughly learned the shrewdness of those officials during his years in office. However, his case-handling skills were far inferior to those of Liu Cheng'an.
Despite his inability to solve the case, he kept submitting report after report accusing Liu Cheng'an, simply trying to pin the blame for his inability to solve the case on Liu Cheng'an's stinginess.
See, it's not that I don't want to solve the case, it's that he won't lend me any people, so I can't solve it.
Jin Shu had no interest in these official matters; all her attention was focused on the corpse in front of her.
“There are two possibilities. First, the head injury was caused after death, meaning the victim was first strangled with a rope, and then the murderer finished the job by stabbing the victim’s head.” As she spoke, she gestured with her hands to illustrate the method of the crime. “The second possibility is that the murderer first seriously injured the victim, then strangled the victim, and then buried the victim.”
After she finished speaking, she shrugged and said, "My tools are limited, so this is all I can speculate on."
Inside the house, Li Jin nodded, then turned to the side, and the knife in his hand flew out from beside Yang An's ear with a whoosh, drawing a dazzling light in the air and piercing straight through the protective book in Lin Yang's hand in the courtyard. With a "clang," it stuck into the red pillar on the other side.
He smiled and looked at Yang An and coroner Lin Yang, who had turned pale with fright. He took two steps forward and said, "Lord Yang, you have embezzled from your post and filled in the vacancies. Your coroner skills are truly admirable."
After saying that, he turned to look at the shocked Jin Shu and untied the bandages on his hands: "Shall we go?"
"Huh? Where to?"
"Buy a knife."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
