Chapter 179 The skill you saw, sir, was not my intention.
Before Yunfei's eyes, Jin Shu vividly recalled the victim being beaten, sitting on the ground with her head tilted to the side.
Li Jin used a fan as a "murder weapon," which landed precisely on her carotid artery.
He cupped Jin Shu's cheek with his other hand, gazing at her fair skin peeking through her high-necked dress. He paused for a moment, then quickly let go and flicked the fan away.
With one hand clutching the hem of his shirt, he swayed back and forth, while the other hand waved a fan rapidly. He frowned and looked to the other side, complaining, "This murderer's movements are so exaggerated; he must have amazing stamina."
Yunfei stroked his chin with his fingers, still trying to figure out the killer's mindset at the time.
He said with absolute certainty, "The murderer is injured."
Jin Shu stood up, dusted off the dust on her body, and focused all her attention on solving the case, not noticing Li Jinhong's cheeks that reached her ears.
She nodded, took a few steps forward, and stood in front of the table: "When the scene was reconstructed to this point, the victim and the murderer were wrestling, with various tools at hand."
She pointed to the ground: "For example, broken pieces of porcelain, round stools..."
"If I were the victim, facing a killer who was stronger and more physically capable than me, I would definitely try to use any tool, no matter what it was."
She knelt down and found several large, clearly bloodstained pieces among the broken porcelain shards on the floor: "These should be all."
Jin Shu reached out to pick it up, but Li Jin grabbed her wrist and said calmly, "It's sharp, I'll do it."
That appearance caused Yunfei's thoughts to momentarily stall.
After watching Li Jin examine the bloodstained edge of the porcelain shard for a long time, Yun Fei picked up where he left off, raising his hand and coughing awkwardly: "As for the murder weapon you mentioned, sir..."
He walked to the washbasin stand next to him and looked at the broken and collapsed wreckage on the ground: "This should be it."
“During the struggle between the murderer and the victim, the two lost their balance and knocked over the washbasin stand.” He tried to piece the broken pieces of wood back together. “The wooden strips of the stand broke, and the murderer took advantage of the situation to pick up one of the sections.”
Yunfei said, "It's pretty much the section that should have been here originally."
Before him, in the middle of the frame he had pieced together, there was a piece that had been abruptly cut off, with a break about the length of a forearm.
The three men looked around; there wasn't a single extra piece of wood left in the room.
“The murderer took it with him,” he said. “The bloodstains on the hitching post outside are very likely from when the murderer’s hand was pierced by the other end of the stick during the crime.”
Li Jin pondered Yun Fei's words, looking at the restored scene before him, and observing the ropes and burlap on the ground.
The case's fragmented details, like shards of broken porcelain, seemed to be pieced back together by a ray of light.
Like a vase that has fallen to the ground, time seems to flow backward, and the scattered fragments suddenly gather together. From bottom to top, against its broken fate, it retreats back onto the dresser, as bright and new as ever.
"I understand," Li Jin said calmly.
He took a deep breath, his gaze sweeping over the three utterly astonished faces, a faint smile playing on his lips as he fanned himself with a fan.
"The perpetrator was an acquaintance, and he didn't carry a weapon. His original intention was probably very different from the current outcome," he said softly. "This is a crime of passion."
After saying that, Li Jin walked out of the house, leaving behind three bewildered people.
The sky, which was originally a clear blue, has now turned slightly gloomy.
Unlike in the height of summer, these dark clouds seemed to be layered, draping the sky in a gray veil.
Unexpectedly, Li Jin did not go directly back to the yamen to interrogate the old man's family. Instead, he had the head constable of Shengzhou lead him to Madam Hua's courtyard.
Jin Shu followed behind, her brows furrowed, guessing the identities of three murderers in a row: "Madam Hua's lover? Doctor Hua's son? Could it be that old man?"
Li Jin glanced at Jin Shu out of the corner of her eye, smiling broadly: "Isn't there any other possibility?"
This question left Jin Shu completely bewildered, and now she was even more confused.
"Are there other possibilities?"
In Jin Shu's eyes, this case could be plausible even if it was committed by a notorious thief, let alone an acquaintance.
Seeing that she was racking her brains, Li Jin kindly gave her a hint: "Think about the motive." He said, "It couldn't be a crime of passion without a reason, could it?"
Well, Jin Shu was completely dumbfounded. She waved her hand and said with a somewhat unwilling smile, "I, Jin Shu, admit defeat in this case."
She genuinely couldn't figure it out.
The reason why crimes of passion are called crimes of passion is because the motive for the murder is likely a trivial matter that leads the killer to act on impulse and commit the killing.
There are too many possibilities for such a spur-of-the-moment decision; it's not much different from "for no reason."
If you really want to guess, you can just hold the laws of the Great Wei Dynasty and guess them one by one, and you could keep guessing until nightfall.
Seeing the obvious "I'm not reconciled" written all over her face, Li Jin chuckled and said, "We need to look at this case from a broader perspective."
"Solving a case cannot be limited to what happened at the time; we must look back and trace the victim's movements to understand the whole picture."
His gentle tone surprised Zhou Zheng and Yun Fei, who were following behind them.
Stepping back and looking at the bigger picture, Jin Shu certainly knows this.
The more he learned, the more he realized that it wasn't that his own brainpower was insufficient, but rather that the Prince Jing beside him was far beyond what was expected of him.
She clicked her tongue and complained, "God is so unfair."
Li Jin paused for a moment while fanning himself, then looked up at her, waiting for her to continue.
"Not only did he possess exceptional combat skills, he also gained extraordinary wisdom." She shook her head and sighed, "The differences between people are truly enormous."
"I envy you, sir," Li Jin said softly. "Not being in the royal family means not having to live in constant fear, not worrying about whether you'll live to see tomorrow. Isn't it good to be ordinary and happy?"
These words were truly something Jin Shu couldn't refute.
If you want to wear the crown, you must bear its weight.
As the third prince of the Great Wei Dynasty, Li Jin's life trajectory over the past 25 years has been an interpretation of these eight words.
“If I weren’t a prince, I wouldn’t be guarding the frontier, and I wouldn’t have these life-saving skills.” He laughed. “If I weren’t a prince, I wouldn’t be an obstacle for others to fight for power, and I wouldn’t have lost my blood relatives.”
He glanced at Jin Shu's face: "The skills you see are not what I intended. Who doesn't want to lie comfortably at home? Who doesn't want to be waited on hand and foot?"
"From the moment I was born, I was destined to be forever separated from peace and tranquility."
"If I do not have the ability to fight on the battlefield, not only will I die, but also the 100,000 soldiers behind me, and the millions of citizens of Wei."
“If I didn’t have a sharp mind…” He turned around, glanced at Yun Fei and Zhou Zheng, and his gaze fell on Jin Shu’s face.
“Then all my brothers will be buried with me.”
He smiled faintly, a gentle and soft smile that reflected Jin Shu's sentimental face.
Under his gaze, she reached out and, as if possessed, straightened Li Jin's collar.
Then, in a flash, Jin Shu suddenly realized that she had done something big, and she froze.
In that instant, not only did Li Jin's eyes widen slightly, but Zhou Zheng and Yun Fei were also so shocked by the scene before them that they almost forgot to breathe.
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