Chapter 124 A technique that only he can use
That night, Bai Yu dressed the two skeletons in brand new burial clothes, repaired the graves, burned some paper money, and set out offerings of fruit.
Meanwhile, Jin Shu conducted a thorough examination of Wang Bin's body overnight in the coroner's office in Tangxia Village.
The focus of the examination was on the long, one-inch-deep sharp weapon wound under Wang Bin's left armpit.
The wound had turned black. Jin Shu gently pressed it, looking at the changes in the wound, and frowned slightly.
Li Jin stood at the door, holding the long tourniquet in one hand and the small square of cloth in the other.
He straightened the tourniquet with both hands, looked at the bloodstains on it, and fell into deep thought.
How did the poison enter the victim's body when the perpetrator was not at the scene?
What is the purpose of the wax marks on this small square of cloth?
Besides that, there is another point of doubt.
The murderer was not present when the three victims died. In fact, when Wang Bin was poisoned, he collapsed alone in front of the stone archway of Xiangji Temple.
How did you do that?
Li Jin carefully examined the thick, long tourniquet in her hand, inch by inch.
Suddenly, his fingertips felt a greasy sensation as he rubbed the tourniquet. He turned around, and by the light of the lamp in the coroner's room, he asked in surprise, "Wax?"
Jin Shu looked up, glanced at him, then her gaze fell on the corpse before her: "Some doctors, to keep the hemostatic agents in place for longer, will use these wax-sealed pills mixed in..."
She paused, then suddenly looked up, glancing at the tourniquet in Li Jin's hand.
After a long pause, she gave a dry laugh: "I see."
This method is something only someone with a medical background could come up with.
Under the moonlight, Jin Shu tidied up the coroner's room, covered the victim with a burlap sack, closed the door, sat down next to Li Jin, who had been waiting on the steps for a long time, picked up a small twig, and wrote two words on the ground: wax pellet.
“Use pure beeswax, heat it until it melts, let it sit for a while until a film forms on the edges, then pour in the prepared medicinal powder and make pills while it’s still hot,” she said. “This is how we make pills for common sprains and bruises, as well as tetanus pills.”
She picked up the thick tourniquet from Li Jin's hand, wrapped it around her arm a few times, and pointed to the wax marks where they overlapped, saying, "But there is another method commonly used by doctors, which is to coat the pill with a thick layer of wax after it has been made into a pill, called wax skin."
"The advantage is that it is easy to store, but the disadvantage is that it melts very easily when heated. If too much is put in a bottle, it will all turn into liquid when exposed to the summer sun."
The night is deep, the moon is nowhere to be seen, but the Milky Way shines brightly.
Outside the coroner's office, two people sat side by side on the stone steps, about a foot apart.
In the quiet night, the occasional chirping of insects could be heard. Li Jin listened, crossed his arms, and nodded.
He said, "You must be tired."
This abrupt and contradictory conversation startled Jin Shu. After hesitating for a while, she shook her head in a daze and said, "It's my duty, I'm not tired."
But then she saw Li Jin raise his eyebrows and look at her with a half-smile: "You want to charge me for something that's just my duty?"
Jin Shu said seriously, "One thing at a time. Surely Your Highness won't turn around and deny it?"
Her expression of being wronged made Li Jin chuckle.
"I'm tired."
Gazing at the dazzling Milky Way, memories of the past Zhongfu Festival pierced Li Jin's heart like a thorn.
“Ever since my mother entered the Cold Palace, I have resisted the Mid-Summer Festival for many years,” he said softly, a gentle smile on his face.
"Back when we weren't stationed at the border, my eldest brother would handle everything on the day of the Midsummer Festival. While my father paid his respects, I would stand aside and wait for the ceremony to end so I could go to the inner palace to see my mother."
"Although it's not as festive as the Mid-Autumn Festival, being able to see her and chat with her feels like the true meaning of the Mid-Autumn Festival." Li Jin reached out and carefully folded the important tourniquet.
"Although he is now in charge of things on his own, things have changed, and Zhongfu is no longer the Zhongfu of the past."
He smiled, stood up, and walked towards the courtyard gate, waving his hand without turning back: "There will be another interrogation tomorrow, sir, please get some rest."
That figure, in Jin Shu's eyes, was as lonely as ever.
At this moment, under the starlight, Jin Shu looked surprised.
She clicked her tongue, not understanding why the usually unyielding Prince Jing had softened so much today.
Looking up at the sky, she chuckled and shook her head.
Perhaps it was because the case was solved that the tension eased considerably, and the pressure lessened.
Once the method of how the poison entered the body is deciphered, the culprit becomes immediately clear.
Apart from Wang Guixiang's husband, who bandaged the wounds of the three people, no one else would have had the opportunity to do this.
The next day, as dawn broke, in the county government's courtroom, Wang Guixiang's husband, Su Sheng, was found bound hand and foot by Bai Yu, lying on the ground in front of the hall.
Meanwhile, Dr. Zheng, who had just returned from a house call in a neighboring village, stood there trembling, leaning on a black cane, his whole body shaking.
“When we arrested him, he even tried to harm himself,” Bai Yu said. “To avoid any complications, we brought him back tied up.”
Bai Yu placed the medicine box that Su Sheng was carrying aside and opened it in front of everyone.
Besides writing brushes, ink, paper, and inkstones, and a few pharmacology books, there were also three or five bottles and jars of various sizes, containing many pills sealed with wax.
At the very bottom of the medicine box, in addition to the common breathable tourniquet, they also found a thick, airtight tourniquet that had been removed from the victim Wang Bin, along with several small square pieces of cloth.
Li Jin held it in his hand and compared it for a moment: "It's him."
It is it, and it is him.
He squatted down, looking at Su Sheng lying on the ground, his face showing utter despair, his lips tightly pressed together, not uttering a word: "Su Sheng, since I have brought you back to the yamen, it is because I am absolutely certain of my success."
He smiled slightly: "Are you going to confess yourself, or do you want me to help you remember?"
As he spoke, Li Jin poured a pill with a wax coating from a bottle in his medicine box and shook it in front of him.
"Don't even think about taking any chances."
He stood up, put the pill back into the bottle, looked at the words "Golden Wound Medicine" on it, and then his gaze fell on Doctor Chen's face: "Were these wax pills made at your clinic?"
The doctor, who was in his fifties, looked at the porcelain bottle in Li Jin's hand and nodded: "Within a radius of ten miles, only my clinic can make these wax pills."
"Su Sheng must have had access to the materials used to make wax pellets, right?"
Doctor Chen raised his hand and stammered, "This... he's the only proper apprentice in my clinic, and he's the only one who has truly mastered my skills and knows how to make this."
Upon hearing this, Li Jin turned to the side and glanced at Su Sheng.
"Then I will speak frankly: three years ago, was the medical record of Wang Guixiang's parents written by Doctor Chen himself? Did he see the corpse before writing it?"
A moment of silence fell over the courtroom.
Dr. Chen was old and this was his first time in court. Blood rushed to his head, and he looked aggrieved, pointing at Su Sheng beside him: "This...this matter...this..."
But Su Sheng, who had his lips tightly pressed together, lay on the ground and calmly spoke: "Don't make things difficult for your master."
He said, "I, Su Sheng, take full responsibility for my actions. I killed the people, and I wrote the protective book."
His direct confession surprised Li Jin somewhat. He looked down at him lying on the ground and asked coldly, "Why did you commit such a heinous act?"
Su Sheng chuckled lightly and said flippantly, "I want to kill you, that's all."
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