What's wrong with that? Hong Xiaoduo didn't care at all. Even if they looked, they wouldn't be able to figure it out. They would still see her as a monk in deep meditation.
Hong Xiaoduo wasn't angry at all at the skeptical looks on their faces. This was ancient times, and she was a woman, so young. It was only normal for people not to believe her!
“Of course,” Hong Xiaoduo readily agreed.
The deceased's body was placed in the most secluded room in the Ministry of Justice, and a nauseating stench could be smelled even before entering.
"Here, plug your nostrils." Hong Xiaoduo said as she took out six small cotton balls and distributed them to Murong Jing and Ding Zhiyuan beside her.
This is something I just grabbed while looking at the case file and checking information in my spatial storage. It was on the cabinet; it's a medical cotton ball, and I even put a little bit of medicated oil on it.
In the past, when I had a stuffy nose from a cold, I saw a home remedy on my phone: dip a cotton swab in a small amount of medicated oil and put it into my nostrils to relieve the congestion.
Therefore, she was certain that a small amount of medicated oil in her nostrils would not cause any discomfort, which was the best way she could think of to deal with the smell of a corpse.
There were masks on the lockers in the room, but she couldn't take them out, while the little cotton ball could. She didn't know what the problem was. Could it be because the masks were too conspicuous?
Murong Jing and Ding Zhiyuan took the small cotton balls she gave them and immediately stuffed them into their nostrils, just like she had done. It really worked; the stench of the corpse was completely gone.
Yu Anzhong, the Right Censor of the Censorate, Geng, the Minister of Justice, and the Left and Right Vice Ministers, after seeing Hong Xiaoduo and the other two's actions, immediately returned to normal. They looked at her again, only to find that she did not seem to have prepared the stuff for their nostrils.
Then, Minister Geng's gaze fell on the coroner who was walking at the very back, and the coroner hurriedly handed him an open small jar.
The jar contained incense ash, which was familiar to Minister Geng and the others. They dipped their fingers in it and smeared it on their philtrum.
They had served as officials for many years and had handled countless cases of death. Although the autopsy was performed by a coroner who examined each part of the body and reported the results, while the clerk recorded the findings on the autopsy record sheet, the presiding judge also needed to supervise and participate on-site to ensure the impartiality of the autopsy process and the credibility of the results.
So, when I told Hong Xiaoduo that they had to be present for her participation in the autopsy, it wasn't to deliberately make things difficult for her. The reason I said that was because of her so-called secret technique; since it's a secret technique, she definitely wouldn't want others to see it.
The coroner cautiously stepped forward and opened the morgue door, but the even stronger stench made Minister Geng and his companions frown.
Hong Xiaoduo was about to follow the coroner inside when she turned her head and whispered to Murong Jing, "Why don't you just stay inside?"
"It's alright," Mu Rongjing replied softly, but the corners of his mouth unconsciously turned up slightly.
As a result, the coroner and his apprentice carried the body out and placed it in an open space.
The better lighting outside is definitely better than testing inside the house.
"Sir, shall we do it again?" The coroner was a middle-aged man nearing fifty, with a slightly hunched back, who leaned down to ask Minister Geng.
Minister Geng said to him, "This time, listen to her. Do whatever she says you should do."
Upon hearing this, the coroner looked at Hong Xiaoduo, waiting for her to speak.
Hong Xiaoduo looked at the corpse whose cover had been lifted, gritted her teeth, and told herself to stay calm, not to be afraid, and not to vomit.
She wasn't cowardly or afraid of the dead, but rather afraid of those who died without an ice coffin and began to rot.
In modern times, she isn't afraid of the passing of her elders, because she was already an adult when they passed away. She says, what's there to be afraid of about elders? Only sadness, because you'll never see them again.
There are people in the same neighborhood who have died from illness or accidents, and she still dares to walk around outside even after dark. When people ask her if she's not afraid, she says, "What's there to be afraid of? It's not like I killed them."
After arriving in this dynasty, she had killed quite a few bandits and pirates. She went from feeling psychologically uncomfortable at first to having no psychological burden at all now.
Now she couldn't help but complain about why she had been tricked into this situation by Old Man Luo and his group. They said she was a perfect match, but why didn't they choose someone with a forensic background?
Seeing that Minister Geng and the others had stopped and showed no intention of moving forward, Hong Xiaoduo had no choice but to bite the bullet and follow the coroner to the corpse.
Hong Xiaoduo leaned down slightly and the first thing she looked at was the deceased's hand, the right hand. The autopsy report in the case file stated that there were skin flakes and bloodstains under the fingernails of this hand.
Since there was no DNA testing in ancient times, they only recorded what was inside the fingernails, but never collected the contents of the fingernails.
"Could you please remove what's under her fingernail?" Hong Xiaoduo asked the coroner.
The coroner didn't know her identity and was curious, but since examining corpses was considered a hard and lowly job, he had no right to ask who she was.
This was the first time he had ever heard someone address him with such a respectful form of address as "you" (您), and the young woman's gaze showed no trace of disdain or contempt.
“Alright.” The coroner responded, taking a small bamboo stick and scraping the contents of the deceased’s fingernails into a small dish.
After he finished, he looked at Hong Xiaoduo again.
Hong Xiaoduo would say whatever came to mind, and the coroner would do as she said.
The coroner had examined female corpses many times, but examining a female corpse in front of a young woman was not his concern; rather, he was worried that the young woman would be embarrassed, but it turned out that she wasn't.
This young woman actually asked him to help her carefully search the female corpse for any hairs that didn't belong to her.
The coroner seemed to understand; it was about looking for loose hair on the corpse. But he was still puzzled as to how this could determine whether the hair belonged to the deceased.
Her method of performing autopsies is really different from my own!
Ignoring the fatal wounds and the lividity of the corpse...
While the coroner searched carefully, Hong Xiaoduo's eyes were also searching. The two of them found a total of five detached hairs, as well as a few short, curly hairs near her private parts.
"My lords, the inspection here is almost complete. Please give the order to send people to retrieve hair and nails from the list of everyone who was in the Peony Garden of the Music Hall on that day, including Dong Yuefan's."
The hair strands must include the roots, otherwise it won't be effective.
Alternatively, it would be even better to have them all come to the Ministry of Justice and collect the data in person.
"Also, it's best to keep this a secret from them for now, to avoid them feeling guilty and trying to fool us by touching other people's hair or nails," Hong Xiaoduo said, looking at the adults who had been watching them.
"Brilliant! If the items found on the victim match any of the other people's, then we can determine who the murderer is." Having witnessed the secret technique of bloodline identification, Ding Zhiyuan realized this and clapped his hands excitedly.
Minister Geng and his entourage all looked at the somewhat distraught Ding Zhiyuan with expressions that were hard to describe. They thought, "So easily they could identify the murderer? Are you kidding me…?"
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