Chapter 90 It wasn't me who killed them, it was them who wanted to kill me.
"The deceased, Liu Mingze, was 26 years old. An autopsy revealed conjunctival congestion, edema and erosion of the nasal and oral mucosa, vomit remaining in the throat resembling rice water, blood streaks in the intestines, blackened liver and kidneys. The ultimate cause of death was liver and kidney failure and respiratory paralysis."
As she spoke, she covered his contorted, pained face with a burlap sack.
"The other deceased was basically the same as described above. Based on the circumstances of the two bodies, we can conclude that both of them died from acute arsenic poisoning, and the amount of poisoning was quite large."
Jin Shu covered the other corpse with a burlap sack, stood between them, and took a deep breath.
“Even with such a large amount of arsenic poisoning, their death is not a short period of pain, but a relatively long process,” she said. “Ordinary people think that arsenic poisoning is just a few minutes of pain that will pass, but that’s not the case. It takes a certain amount of time for them to remain conscious for a considerable period of time. The more pain they suffer before death, the more unsightly they will be after death.”
After speaking, he paused for a moment and then said, "I thought it would be something like alcohol, but I didn't expect it to be orange juice."
Jin Shu looked at Li Jin's face: "That sour taste masks the sulfurous irritation of arsenic, making it difficult to detect."
Hearing her words, Li Jin frowned.
Seeing that he didn't ask any questions, Jin Shu continued, "Also, Miss Liu has a superficial abrasion on the back of her left shoulder. The wound is light in color and not everted, indicating it was formed after her death. The preliminary assessment is that it matches the appearance of the scratch on the ladder. However, we will have to wait for Lord Yun Feiyun to examine it in person to confirm the details."
The quiet inside the coroner's room contrasted sharply with the howling wind outside.
The small lamp that Jin Shu used to heat her knife was gently blown out after she put the knife away and closed the box.
After an unknown amount of time, Li Jin rested his chin on his hand and muttered to himself, "Oranges..."
This was indeed an unexpected answer, but also a fairly reasonable explanation.
The only fruit that ripens in late spring and early summer is the summer orange. It has a sweet and sour taste, but because it is produced in Jiangnan Road, or even further to Lingnan Road, it is never cheap to be found in Chang'an.
Does Mr. Ren, who writes play scripts, have the financial means to buy so many summer oranges and press them into juice?
"Your Highness said it's expensive, how expensive is it?"
Once the wind had died down a bit, Jin Shu closed the door to the coroner's office and followed Li Jin toward the main hall.
"With Mr. Jin's current monthly salary, he can buy about ten of them."
"So expensive?!"
“The scriptwriters in the opera troupe earn less than a third of your monthly salary, and on top of that, she has to use some of that money to subsidize Liu Mingze so that the manager can keep him.” Li Jin stepped over the threshold of the main hall, paused, and asked, “Where did she get the money to buy enough oranges?”
Shen Wen, who had been waiting for almost an hour, sat on a chair to the side and grinned: "Who are you talking about? Miss Liu? She spent a fortune and bought half a cart of oranges!"
Li Jin paused, "What?"
Shen Wen, puzzled, looked at their surprised expressions and said, "The Liu family's cousin, the one who died, Liu Enya. On the morning of the incident, she bought half a cart of summer oranges. The Liu family's maid said that the whole courtyard had been holding onto the oranges all morning before they got that full pot."
The case has now entered a strange dead end.
As dusk approached, thunder rumbled for two hours, filling the courtyard with dust, but not a single drop of rain fell.
Li Jin stood in the room, staring at the letter in her hand, reading it over and over again.
The investigation into Miss Liu was written in dense detail, covering several pages, including where she bought the oranges, how much silver she spent, and who she traded with.
The investigation also clearly revealed who squeezed the juice, how long they squeezed it, and where the remaining orange pulp went.
So far, all the clues we've gathered have cleverly evaded Mr. Ren.
Not only does it fail to prove that she is the murderer, it also continuously corroborates that she has nothing to do with the matter.
Which step went wrong? Was my reasoning flawed from the start? Or did I overlook some crucial point?
The wind grew weaker and weaker, and the originally cloudy sky slowly parted to reveal the moon.
The bright moon hung high in the sky, and insects chirped incessantly. Jin Shu sat alone on the steps outside the house.
Inside the room was Li Jin, her brow furrowed, repeatedly pondering the matter.
Outside, Jin Shu gazed at the bright moon, carefully recalling the events bit by bit.
Just as Zhou Zheng was rapidly returning along the roof ridge and landing,
Jin Shu stood up abruptly and turned to walk towards Li Jin.
Yes, those two, one focused on the method of transporting the body, and the other focused on how the victim died, but they both overlooked the most crucial point.
"container."
Li Jin, with his back to Jin Shu, said calmly.
This immediately dampened the excited expression on Jin Shu's face, who was walking happily behind him as if she had discovered a new continent.
To be fair, Li Jin doesn't actually have eyes in the back of his head, but for some reason, it's as if he does.
Li Jin turned around, looked at Jin Shu's slightly dissatisfied expression, and laughed: "I overlooked the container."
As soon as he finished speaking, Zhou Zheng stepped into the room, carrying two celadon pots in his arms: "Found them."
After speaking, he met Li Jin's surprised gaze.
“I think once you figure out how they were poisoned, you should look for these.” Zhou Zheng placed them on the table. “Both of them were found in Mr. Ren’s house. One of them has the Liu family’s red seal on the bottom.”
Li Jin pursed her lips, raised her hand and coughed lightly to cover up her embarrassment: "Well done."
Jin Shu picked up one of them, and as soon as she opened the lid, she smelled an abnormal sour odor. She quickly closed it and turned the whole pot upside down.
The bottom of the pot was clean and empty.
The other celadon teapot, marked "Custom-made for the Liu Family," still had a faint orange scent after being washed when the lid was opened.
"So that's how it is..." Li Jin chuckled softly, "It was a case of switching the prince with a cat, and I almost fell for it."
The teapot before me is like a needle, stringing together fragmented clues along a logical trajectory from one end of time.
The relationship between Liu Enya and Liu Mingze, the oranges Liu Enya bought, and the two similar-looking celadon teapots...
Now, only the fish themselves remain, biting the bait that Li Jin has laid down.
The next day, when Li Jin sat down on the chair under the stage again, Mr. Ren was bound hand and foot by the shadow who had been lying in wait all night and pressed down in front of him.
Before Li Jin could speak, Ren Jing looked at her and chuckled softly, "Have you ever been betrayed by the person you trusted most?"
She spoke so casually, yet it was like a knife piercing Li Jin's soul.
His smile, which had been on his face, vanished halfway in the blink of an eye.
"Have you ever been betrayed by the person you trusted most, the person you loved most?" Ren Jing laughed heartily. "I almost died at the hands of the person I loved most."
She said, "I didn't kill them; they tried to kill me, but they failed."
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