Chapter 39 Is this the kind of agility you're talking about?
After being pointed at by Li Jin, he calmed down a bit and looked at the twenty-five-year-old Prince Jing, Li Jin, in front of him.
This third prince of the Great Wei Dynasty is known as one of the emperor's least favored sons.
Originally, Lin Yongde's impression of him was that of a spoiled brat who "occupies a position without doing anything" and shirks his responsibilities in a key position.
But this brief half-hour of contact has somewhat overturned Lin Yongde's perception of him.
This Prince Jing possesses the bearing of a dragon and phoenix, a countenance as bright as the sun and the moon, and a mature and composed demeanor in every gesture. Whether speaking or acting, his thinking is clear, and he avoids unnecessary words or actions.
In addition, his gentle tone and suggestive words just now had indeed taken this lowly Vice Minister of Works quite by surprise.
After the major incident six years ago, the royal family of Great Wei either pretended to be stupid like the Pingyang Prince's family, or were arrogant like Crown Prince Li Jing. But Li Jin, dressed in a light gold outer robe, was truly focused on solving the case, which surprised him greatly.
If all the previous comments about him being a "spoiled brat" and a "leisurely prince" were intentional, then... Lin Yongde was quite moved.
At such a young age, he is already so unfathomable, and his future is immeasurable.
"Lord Lin?" Seeing that he remained silent, Li Jin frowned and called out.
Lin Yongde quickly cupped his hands in greeting: "After some consideration, I have learned that the Ministry of Works always orders mercury a year in advance from the cinnabar mines in Badu. The finished products are transported via official roads, sealed tightly, and take three months to reach the capital."
He paused, then said, "But the cinnabar mines do not sell this product to the common people. In order to avoid causing a disturbance, even the fact that mercury is produced is only known to the imperial court. Apart from the cinnabar mines, I really do not know where else one can obtain large quantities of mercury."
Upon hearing this, Li Jin nodded and said, "Thank you, Lord Lin. I will trouble you to cooperate with the Six Doors to send Miss Lin's body to the coroner's office."
Lin Yongde paused for a moment, then choked out a "Yes."
In April, the sky over Beijing was overcast. In the morning, you could see some sunshine, but now the clouds covered the sun, and it looked like a storm was about to break.
Lin Yongde's mansion was not large, with four courtyards clustered together, located on the edge of Yongningfang in the capital, only two major intersections away from the eastern market.
Last night, Lin Ruxue, the illegitimate daughter of the Lin family, was found in an artificial irrigation ditch in a corner of the East Market.
While Lin Yongde was transferring the girl's body to the coroner's office, Li Jin led Jin Shu on foot to the east-west canal.
Walking from the bright gate of the Lin family's residence, it takes more than half an hour.
But Lin Ruxue was a young lady from a wealthy family, and she always traveled by carriage when going out and returning home. It was indeed puzzling that she and her maid had collapsed in this position.
"Sir, when you were at the Lin residence just now, were there any reservations about the results of your investigation?" Li Jin asked.
Jin Shu nodded and said directly, "Besides the injury on the back of her head and mercury poisoning, Miss Lin smells of alcohol, and her mouth and nose show signs of drowning, with mud clinging to them..."
Li Jin lowered her eyes, nodded, and said nothing.
These are things that are indeed not easy to say in front of Lam Wing-tak.
Regardless, Lin Ruxue, the illegitimate daughter of the Lin family, is still an unmarried young woman. To drink until late at night in the East Market, just two streets away, after curfew in Chang'an, would be a disgrace to her reputation without concrete evidence.
But precisely because of this, the case did indeed gain some direction.
A young lady from a prominent family, lingering outside after curfew, is not someone anyone can keep from leaving.
“In this situation, only someone you know could keep her until late at night,” Jin Shu said, glancing up at the second-floor counters of the shops along the canal.
"What are you looking for, sir?" Li Jin asked, somewhat surprised, looking at her.
“I’m looking for places…” she hesitated for a moment, “I mean, places where someone might throw a huge rock or heavy object from a height and get injured.”
After all, given the condition of the back of his head, it cannot be ruled out that it was an accident caused by an object thrown from a high-rise building.
Li Jin thought there was some truth to it, so he nodded and called out, "Zhou Zheng."
Then, without saying a word, the man dressed in black robes and carrying a sword climbed onto the roof in the blink of an eye, using the windowsill and door frame as he ran along the edge of the wall from behind the shop, leaving Jin Shu dumbfounded.
After looking at the building on the left for a long time, I accelerated through the air and jumped onto the roof of another building, where I looked at it carefully for a long time.
Jin Shu was stunned. At this height and under these climbing conditions, Zhou Zheng was walking on flat ground as if it were nothing.
"Lord Zhou was born in the Year of the Monkey, wasn't he?"
Jin Shu blurted out a surprised exclamation.
"How did you know?" Li Jin asked in surprise. "Mr. Jin's corpse-talking technique can also reveal such details?"
So you really are a monkey?
She opened and closed her mouth, glancing at Li Jin beside her who was genuinely asking questions, and pursed her lips: "...I just admired Lord Zhou's agility."
Li Jin frowned, his voice tinged with disdain: "Agile? He can't outrun me."
"Good heavens!" Jin Shu pointed to the roof and asked in surprise, "You mean this kind of agility?"
"What else?" Li Jin glanced at her. "If we walk on the ground, wouldn't everyone be able to reach it?"
Jin Shu took a deep breath, her mind blank from shock, only able to nod repeatedly, unable to utter a single syllable.
A moment later, Zhou Zheng stood on the edge of the roof, cupped his hands, and shouted down, "That's impossible."
Li Jin looked him up and down: "Are the tiles even? Are any missing?"
Zhou Zheng turned around and looked at them, then said with certainty, "Neat and tidy, not a single one is missing."
Thus, the possibility of a high-altitude accident, or someone throwing a boulder from the roof, has been largely ruled out.
This man-made canal was dug a hundred years ago by the emperor of the Great Wei Dynasty to solve the problem of flooding in Chang'an City.
The canal runs east-west, dividing the entire city of Chang'an into upper and lower halves. It connects to the Longshou West Canal on the right, and is about three feet wide and two feet deep.
Lin Ruxue was discovered in a secluded, open-air channel laid along the wall of the neighborhood.
Jin Shu squatted down and examined the ground carefully. Because the ground of the entire city of Chang'an was paved with bluestone slabs or gravel, all that remained of the bloodshed that occurred last night were large, low-lying bloodstains.
The blood spots were relatively concentrated, but varied in size. She held up her hand to compare them, and they looked exactly like a case she had handled before.
“These bloodstains need to be examined by Lord Yun.” Pointing to the scattered bloodstains on the ground, Jin Shu said, “They vary in size, and the difference in diameter between the largest and smallest is more than double, which is unusual.”
Li Jin tapped his palm with his fan, took a few steps forward, looked at Jin Shu and said, "Yunfei has already looked at it, and his opinion is that the landing points are different."
"But because there are too few traces here, Yunfei is unable to reconstruct the scene."
Hearing him say that, Jin Shu's expression dimmed slightly.
But Li Jin didn't take it seriously. He bent down and scooped her up from the ground, saying, "Solving cases takes time and meticulous work; you can't rush it."
He smiled and said, "Come on, have a couple of drinks with me."
Jin Shu was taken aback: "Huh?"
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