Chapter 85: She didn't resemble a woman at all.
Li Jin's use of the word "skinny" carried a mocking tone, which stung Jin Shu's ears.
She grimaced, rolled up her sleeves, stood on the platform, and looked around.
"Bring that long ladder from the backyard," the theater manager said, frowning and waving his hand at the actors who hadn't yet removed their makeup. "The longest one!"
The stage, from the center to the top, was about two and a half meters high. Jin Shu looked up and looked again, then held onto the ladder with both hands and stepped up.
"Don't worry, I'll be down here protecting you." Li Jin smiled. "If you fall and get hurt, wouldn't I lose five hundred taels for nothing?"
Halfway up the ladder, she turned around and glared at her leader below, who was standing with his arms crossed, saying, "Even at a time like this, Your Highness is still thinking about money?"
Having said that, he let out a long breath through his nose and, while climbing up, said, "Speaking of money, I'm not sleepy anymore. Last month's salary was shortchanged by two nights' wages. If Your Highness is concerned about the money, you might as well settle it first!"
She leaned down, and Li Jin looked up at her back in surprise, muttering, "...Who on earth is eyeing the money?"
The ladder that climbed upwards passed through the dark hole and leaned against the beam inside.
Jin Shu's steps were steady, but as she climbed up, she happened to notice a few long strands of hair caught on the cracked wooden fork of the ladder, and a few dark red bloodstains a short distance behind the hair.
She stood there in confusion for a long time, glancing at it several times, before continuing to climb upwards.
Inside the cave entrance was a gray, dusty place. Jin Shu held her breath and peered inside.
You won't be surprised if you don't look, because once you do, you'll be shocked.
Fortunately, with years of experience as a forensic pathologist, Jin Shu only felt a chill run down her spine when faced with such a horrifying scene. Then, calmly and silently, she went down the ladder again.
She stepped onto the ground, patted the dust off her hands, turned to look at Li Jin's puzzled expression, and pointed to the top of the partition: "There's one more."
Everyone was taken aback.
Her calm and composed demeanor made the group of grown men seem rather cowardly.
Li Jin quickly lifted the hem of her clothes and climbed the ladder again.
When he came down, his face was extremely ugly. He glanced at Jin Shu with one eyebrow raised and the other lowered, as if he wanted to say something but couldn't.
He didn't know whether to praise her for her exceptional professionalism or to say that she didn't act like a woman.
In that scene, in that situation, how did she manage to stand there so calmly and without batting an eye?
The bodies inside the partitions were not easy to remove. The stage was built in the very center of the site, and its roof was not connected to any of the four sides.
Zhou Zheng climbed over the second-floor railing, lifted the decorative tiles on the stage roof, stepped on the beams, and carefully crouched down to enter the half-meter-high mezzanine.
He looked around and spotted a strange wooden board that glowed on all four sides.
Stepping onto the beams atop the stage, Zhou Zheng crouched down, walked to the wooden plank, and pressed it down.
What I saw in front of me was actually a hinged door that could be opened from both sides.
"That was during the major renovation last year. I was thinking that if the trend changes in the future, we would have to remove the panels to change the design, so I specially left this door so that the craftsmen could easily move the inlaid panels out in the future."
"Transport it out?" Li Jin asked, taking off his outer robe and stuffing it into Jin Shu's arms. "Didn't the shopkeeper's boards fit in too tightly?"
"Exactly," the shopkeeper replied, "The inlay is too tight and difficult to remove!"
Before he could finish speaking, Li Jin lifted his robe, stepped onto the railing, and glanced at the position of the roof beams.
Under Jin Shu's astonished gaze, he followed Zhou Zheng's path without hesitation and lightly stepped onto the roof of the stage.
After all this, Jin Shu's heart was in her throat, and the theater manager next to her clutched his chest, his face turning pale with fright.
The railing on the second floor is about three meters high from the stone slabs on the first floor; falling from there would be terrible!
If something were to happen to the dignified Prince Jing in his garden, there's a high chance he'd lose his head!
After catching his breath, the shopkeeper stammered and pointed to the hinged door: "That...that embedded board is quite long. If we try to take it out from this direction, it will hit the wall before it's completely out."
Cold sweat poured down his forehead: "That's why we made an opening from that side."
Li Jin stood there, glancing to the side. From the opening to the corridor, the distance was about two meters.
After a moment's thought, he bent down and slid smoothly into the mezzanine through the hole Zhou Zheng had made.
The second body couldn't be moved and remained lying on the partition in the mezzanine.
Li Jin stood cautiously on the beam, head bowed, looking at his狰狞 (zhengning - ferocious/hideous) face, with traces of foam still at his mouth. She guessed that the cause of death was the same as that of the young lady from the Liu family below: arsenic poisoning.
He cautiously gazed at the dark expanse before him, standing on the roof beam with a furrowed brow, and instructed Zhou Zheng: "Open the hinges."
The light filtering through the hinges fell directly on the male corpse and extended to his back, to the rectangular opening.
With this glimmer of light, Li Jin glanced at the ceiling and stared in surprise at a jarring beam.
In his eyes, he saw obvious scratches on the crossbeam above his head. Li Jin held out his hand and compared it; the worn edges were slightly wider than his thumb.
It looked like the marks of a rope wrapped around it.
The strange things aren't limited to this.
The male corpse lying in front of me had a board under him, which was made of a different material than the roof covering and looked rather out of place.
The hair and bloodstains on the ladder, the beam with rope marks, and the board beneath the corpse, all aligned with three points in a straight line by the light.
Li Jin stood up, perched on the beam, and let out a cold laugh.
So that's how it works.
Emerging from the mezzanine, he dusted off his hands and glanced at Jin Shu: "It's not easy to get it out, but judging from its appearance, it's the same arsenic poisoning."
After he finished speaking, he looked at the shopkeeper and smiled slightly: "Shopkeeper, I have to remove this partition for you now. You don't have any objections, do you?"
The shopkeeper nodded repeatedly, expressing his sincere gratitude.
There's a corpse lying on top of there; it would be a big problem if we didn't dismantle it and take it down!
"Also, I'd like to trouble you, manager, to call everyone from your theater over." He suddenly opened his fan. "I have some questions I'd like to ask."
The shopkeeper hurriedly responded, cupped his hands, turned around, and ran outside.
Watching his retreating figure, Li Jin tilted his upper body slightly and asked with a half-smile, "What kind of case do you think it is?"
Jin Shu raised an eyebrow and gave a dry laugh: "A crime of passion."
The two concise and to-the-point words surprised Li Jin: "Why not a revenge killing?"
But Jin Shu remained calm and unhurried: "If it were a revenge killing, it wouldn't be so easy to solve with just some rat poison. You're kidding, that wouldn't be satisfying at all!"
Li Jin pursed her lips, unable to find a reason to refute her.
"If it would make you feel better, what would you do?" He laughed, waving the fan in his hand as he walked downstairs.
Jin Shu followed behind him, pondered for a moment, then brandished a knife with her hand and gritted her teeth: "I will avoid all fatal spots and give him a good few stabs."
Li Jin paused on the stairs in front of him.
He turned around, facing the light, and looked at Jin Shu's face. He spoke softly and deliberately, "The most poisonous heart is that of a woman."
After saying that, she slammed her fan shut and added with a smile, "You're even more ruthless than a woman."
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