Chapter 32 Arabian Nights
"The deceased inside the house was about fifty years old. His face was purplish and swollen, with petechiae on his face and under his eyelids. He was drooling from his mouth and nose, and there were non-intersecting constriction marks on his neck. He was incontinent and had fractures of the superior angle of the thyroid cartilage plate and the cricoid cartilage. The signs of asphyxiation were obvious."
As she said this, her gaze remained fixed on Li Jin's face.
"It meets the characteristics of death by mechanical asphyxiation and is a suicide by hanging."
Fang Qing was stunned by Jin Shu's series of highly professional words, her mouth agape in surprise.
I didn't understand anything else, but I heard the word "suicide" clearly, reassured me, and felt exceptionally comfortable.
Upon hearing this, he immediately beamed with joy and sighed repeatedly, "Oh dear... oh dear..."
That uncontrollable smugness, and the utterly ridiculous state of his appearance, were reflected in Jin Shu's eyes.
Li Jin, on the other hand, showed no surprise at the result and nodded calmly.
Manager Cao's death was indeed within his expectations.
Seeing that Li Jin had nothing to say, Fang Qing felt relieved. With a smile, she took two steps forward and peeked inside.
You won't be surprised if you don't look, because once you do, you'll be shocked.
Manager Cao's clothes were all torn, and he lay there with his upper body exposed: "This..."
He pursed his lips before finishing his sentence, looking at Prince Jing whose face clearly said, "Please keep your opinions to yourself," and his Adam's apple bobbed: "Your Highness's coroner is indeed extraordinary, extraordinary..."
That's certainly unusual.
Li Jin hadn't expected that in order to cover for Zhou Zheng and create the illusion that it would indeed take some time, this woman would be so bold as to strip him completely naked.
It was too violent, but he couldn't say anything about it.
"Your Highness," Fang Qing said, feigning distress as he rubbed his hands together, "Manager Cao has committed suicide out of fear of punishment. What are we going to do now?"
Li Jin remained silent, glancing at his sullen face.
"What I mean is..." He paused, then solemnly cupped his hands in a respectful gesture, "Manager Cao has been working for me for four or five years now, and no one expected that he could actually commit such a big crime. As his employer, I am willing to offer some compensation to the victim's family to comfort their souls in heaven."
His acting skills are superb, and he is utterly despicable.
Glancing at Fang Qing, who was putting on an act, Li Jin gritted his teeth, patted him on the shoulder, and said with a smile, "The only way to comfort the families and console the souls of the deceased is to bring the real culprit to justice and let justice shine as it should. There is only one way."
As he spoke, he looked at Fang Qing's somewhat embarrassed face and said, "With such a big incident in Mr. Fang's courtyard, it is inconvenient for me to disturb you." After saying that, he strode out on his own, waving his hand as he went, and said without turning his head, "Although he committed suicide, this case is not over yet. I have important matters to attend to, so I will not chat with Mr. Fang any longer."
Li Jin's words were gentle yet venomous. Watching their departing figures, one after the other, Fang Qing's fawning smile was gradually replaced by a cold and vicious glare.
Prince Jing, Li Jin, who was known as a spoiled brat, now seems unfathomable.
I wonder if my trick of deceiving everyone has actually succeeded in deceiving them.
Fang Qing put his hands in his sleeves, turned around and looked at Manager Cao lying on the ground inside the room, and said coldly to the maid who was cowering to the side, "Prepare the ink."
Now, he has to prepare for both possibilities and leave himself an alternative.
That evening, Li Jin called Jin Shu to his room, lit a candle, and gave her the four letters and two account books that Zhou Zheng had brought back.
In the quiet courtyard, only the chirping of insects could be heard. Jin Shu looked up at the empty surroundings, quite surprised.
Zhou Zheng was nowhere to be seen.
“He went to check out the Fang residence.” Li Jin didn’t even look up, expressionlessly flipping through the account book in his hand. “Let’s keep Fang Qing company for a while.”
Since he's going to play dirty tricks, Li Jin will definitely play along to the end.
Looking at the flickering candlelight, Jin Shu observed his composed demeanor and remarked, "Your Highness, do you have an extra eye on your head? How come you always know what I want to ask?"
Li Jin slowly raised his eyes, raised his eyebrows, looked at her, gave a cold laugh, and did not respond to her words.
It would be difficult for him to say "You're too easy to understand" to a woman dressed as a man.
The moon was bright and the stars were few, and a gentle night breeze was blowing. In the small courtyard, Jin Shu and Li Jin sat facing each other in the outer hall, while Jin Rong slept on Li Jin's bed in the inner room, emitting even snores.
"Your brother doesn't look like you at all," Li Jin said casually, flipping through the account book in his hand.
His seemingly random remark startled Jin Shu, who paused for a moment while opening the letter, before laughing and saying, "I look more like my father, and he looks like my mother."
"Does your father understand corpse language too?"
The candlelight flickered slightly. Without thinking, Jin Shu blurted out almost subconsciously, "How could a scholar like him understand this?"
What was said without malice may have been taken to heart by the listener.
Li Jin looked up: "Then how did you learn these skills?"
How could that be? Jin Shu was stunned for a moment, then realized she had let something slip. Glancing at Li Jin's probing look, she pursed her lips and started making things up on the spot: "I've been interested in these things since I was little, and I secretly learned them."
If she were to pin a crime on her at this moment, she would be insulting the intelligence of royalty.
But Prince Jing, Li Jin, was no pushover. He looked at Jin Shu's face with a half-smile: "Learn secretly? Where to learn, how to learn? Tell me, I want to learn too."
He felt that not charging her with insulting the imperial family according to the laws of the Great Wei Dynasty was proof of his magnanimity.
Before her eyes, Jin Shu was practically using all her brain cells, spouting nonsense with a straight face: "I just read books about strange and unusual things... Oh, and, there's also an uncle who runs a clinic among my dad's friends, which I used to go to a lot when I was little..."
“Keep making things up.” Li Jin laughed, put down the accounts in his hand, crossed his arms, and waited for her to continue her nonsense.
He wanted to see what new tricks this Mr. Jin could come up with.
Jin Shu was embarrassed by Li Jin's sabotage. Looking at his smiling face, her lips went dry and her voice gradually faded.
Tai, the person in front of me has a frighteningly meticulous logical thinking. This kind of trick might work on Liu Cheng'an, but it won't work on him.
He scratched his head, deciding to just tell the truth. Given his intelligence, and since he didn't believe in ghosts or gods anyway, he probably wouldn't believe in such a fantastical tale of reincarnation.
Since there's no other reasonable explanation, we might as well walk a tightrope and perhaps find a glimmer of hope.
"To be honest, even Your Highness might not believe me." She took a deep breath. "I don't know why I know these things. Do you believe me?"
Seeing that Li Jin remained silent but her smile did not diminish, Jin Shu clicked her tongue and said, "Really, I've known this since I was a child. I can tell what it looks like just by looking at it. It's as if those things were already in my head when I first came into this world."
She looked at Li Jin, her heart pounding with anxiety.
These words were even more outrageous than the previous book of strange tales, but they also allowed Jin Shu to see another side of Li Jin.
“I believe you.” He nodded with a smile, leaving Jin Shu speechless. “I’d rather believe the latter than your fabricated story, which is full of holes.”
I prefer to believe that Heaven did not abandon the late Crown Prince Li Mu, and did not intend for his injustice to be nailed to the pillar of shame and buried forever.
I'd rather believe that Jin Shu's existence was meant to restore everything to its original state, and to be a ray of hope for clearing the name of the wronged.
He was just too late. If only he had found her sooner, if only he had found her six years ago…
Li Jin lowered her eyes, and the smile on her face faded slightly.
There are no "ifs".
After that, the night was extremely quiet, and the night watchman's voice rang out twice.
Jin Shu opened the envelope, took out the letter inside, and read only two lines by candlelight. She paused for a moment, then hurriedly exclaimed, "Your Highness, look at this!"
The letter begins with the very first sentence: I've been wronged!
Li Jin put down the accounts in his hand, expressionless, and quickly opened the remaining three letters on the table.
These letters, put together, spanned dozens of pages and completely described Fang Qing's crimes of bribing officials, opening underground brothels, employing thugs, and ordering Granny Liu to act as a nanny, thus oppressing respectable women.
It specifically mentions Miss Lian from Xiaolin Village.
He claimed that he had taken advantage of Miss Lian, killed her husband with a hammer, and threatened Liu Apo's son's life to force her to stop Miss Lian from reporting the incident to the authorities.
When he learned that Miss Lian was going to complain to the Six Doors, he threatened Cao's wife and daughters with their lives, forcing him to kill Miss Lian. Then he forced Cao to take the blame for all the crimes and die in his place.
The conditions and circumstances were appalling.
Li Jin and Jin Shu were stunned for a long time.
Just then, a night breeze swept by, like a pair of hands gently turning the pages of the account books in front of Li Jin.
The page with Lin Yang's name written on it appeared before Li Jin as if by divine intervention.
Yang An, the magistrate of Linyang County, and Fang Qing, who seemed to be worlds apart and completely unrelated, were linked together by this account book.
Thus, Li Jin had an idea to suppress Fang Qing.
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