Chapter Eighty-Eight: The Same Fate

Ding Wu drew his blade with a sharp clang and barred the way before the soldiers. At once, several of them moved their hands to the hilts at their waists.

A cold, malicious glint flashed through He Ruiguang’s eyes. “What do you mean by this, Lord Ji?”

“Ding Wu, put the blade away,” Ji Changge said flatly.

“Yes, my lord.”

“When a murder has occurred, the body should, by rights, be handed over to the Temple of Justice for disposition. Your Highness, am I mistaken?” Ji Changge said, looking at Prince Xuan.

“Ah...” Prince Xuan glanced at He Ruiguang and cleared his throat twice. “By law, yes, that is how it should be. Still, Lord He is the deceased’s father. It is only natural that he would be grief-stricken and anxious for his daughter.”

Ji Changge shot Prince Xuan a look. Where had that imposing air from the Temple of Justice just now gone? What an equivocal answer.

“Wen of the Seventh Misses pays her respects to Lord He,” Wen Jing said, stepping forward and making a bow.

He Ruiguang and Prince Xuan both looked at her then, only now noticing that among the crowd of men, there was in fact a young lady.

“Is your father the former Vice Minister of Justice, Wen Qiran?” He Ruiguang asked.

“He is.”

“A tiger father begets no mouse of a daughter.”

“Lord He, is Miss Yunxiu covered in wounds? Is her body severed? Is there a horizontal knife wound across her chest?” Wen Jing asked suddenly.

Ji Changge looked at her in surprise, unable to fathom how she had reached such a conclusion. She, like him, had not seen the body. Surely she had not divined it from thin air.

What surprised Ji Changge even more was that after a long moment, He Ruiguang asked, “How did Seventh Miss Wen know this?”

He Ruiguang had rushed over the moment he received the news and ordered the scene sealed off. In truth, only the few people who had first discovered the corpse had seen He Yunxiu’s body. How, then, had this Seventh Miss Wen known?

“Lord He, may I have a word with you in private?” Wen Jing asked.

He Ruiguang nodded, and the two of them walked off to a distance.

Ji Changge and Prince Xuan exchanged a glance, then both looked away.

A moment later, Wen Jing and He Ruiguang returned.

“Lord Ji, I entrust my daughter’s case to you,” He Ruiguang said, looking at Ji Changge.

Prince Xuan’s eyes nearly fell from his head in astonishment. His uncle had always been so stubborn that ten oxen could not drag him back once he had made up his mind, and his temper was notoriously foul. Though Prince Xuan himself feared nothing under heaven, he had always been wary of this uncle. How had a few words from this Seventh Miss Wen been enough to make him change his mind?

Prince Xuan could not help but study the woman with her cool, detached expression once more. What on earth had she said?

“Please rest assured, Lord He. The Temple of Justice will surely return justice to Miss Yunxiu,” Ji Changge said.

“Take Xiu’er to the Temple of Justice,” He Ruiguang said to the soldiers.

...

“Lord He, may I ask how He Yunxiu disappeared?” Ji Changge asked.

“Three days ago, after lunch, Xiu’er left home with her maid, He Xiang, to buy some things. She never came back. I thought she had been abducted for ransom. We waited and waited, but no blackmail note ever came. So I sent everyone out to search the city for her. Sadly, the killer still beat us to it.” He Ruiguang’s voice was hoarse, and the exhaustion on his face surged forth all at once.

“And He Xiang?”

He Ruiguang shook his head. “She was not found either.”

“Has Lord He offended anyone lately?” Ji Changge continued.

He Ruiguang gave a bitter smile. “In my life, I have offended countless people. How would I know who it was?”

“The autopsy may begin,” Wen Jing said to Ji Changge.

He Ruiguang’s gaze shifted.

“Lord He may wait here,” Ji Changge said. No one would wish to see the mangled death of their own daughter.

“No, I am fine.” He Ruiguang waved a hand. As soon as he tried to rise, dizziness swept over him, and he sank back into the chair.

“Uncle, let me go in for you,” Prince Xuan said.

He Ruiguang nodded. He had not slept properly for three days and nights, and then came the devastating blow of opening the sack just now. Even a man of iron would have been crushed by now.

Inside the morgue, Zhongsun Yan had taken leave to recover from an illness and had not reported for duty at the Temple of Justice for more than ten days.

Wen Jing put on her gloves and prepared to examine the body.

Prince Xuan looked at the young woman before him in astonishment. Like most ordinary people, he had never imagined that there could be a female coroner.

“You are the one examining Yunxiu?” he asked.

Wen Jing smiled faintly. “Would Your Highness rather do it yourself?”

Prince Xuan’s face stiffened. “Brazen!”

Wen Jing paid him no mind. She took the severed pieces from the sack and laid them one by one on the floor, then arranged them into a complete human form. The body was intact; nothing seemed to be missing.

Prince Xuan’s face paled slightly. Looking at the corpse in pieces on the ground, he could not help but take two steps back, as though he had never imagined the scene would be like this.

The entire body looked remarkably clean. There was no blood; it seemed the killer had washed the corpse.

Wen Jing looked at He Yunxiu’s face. Though life had fled, it was plain that she had been a beauty in life.

“There are no livor mortis stains on the body, because all the blood has already drained out,” Wen Jing said.

She touched the corpse’s body temperature and checked the stiffness of rigor mortis. Ancient times had no thermometer, so there was no precise way to measure the body’s temperature; one could only make a rough estimate of the time of death.

“The time of death should be between last night’s first and second watch. The fatal wound is this cut to the neck. The head and body were completely separated. After the blood had drained away, the killer cut off the victim’s limbs and placed them in the sack,” Wen Jing said.

“Then the killer threw the sack into the street,” Ji Changge said.

“Your Highness, are you all right?” Wen Jing asked, looking at Prince Xuan, who was as pale as paper.

“Of course I am all right. Go on,” Prince Xuan said through clenched teeth, though his eyes were already averted.

“There are wounds around the mouth and nose, and there is also a knife wound on the chest, but it is shallow, not fatal,” Wen Jing continued.

When she examined He Yunxiu’s lower body, she found that it, too, had been stitched up, just as she had predicted.

She gently cut open the thread with scissors. The black thread did not appear especially unusual, merely an ordinary cotton thread. Wen Jing set it aside.

“The victim was not violated, but her lower body was sewn shut with black thread.”

As soon as she said this, Ji Changge’s expression sharpened. “This is just like that case two years ago...”

Ignoring him, Wen Jing continued her examination. “There are restraint injuries on the hands and feet. That means the deceased had her mouth and nose stuffed shut with something, and her hands and feet were bound. Before death, she should have been held captive.”

“Those two days must have been unbearable for her,” Ji Changge said.

“If I ever catch him, I will slice his flesh from him piece by piece and let him taste the torment of dying in agony,” Prince Xuan said through gritted teeth.

Wen Jing removed her gloves, and the three of them walked out together.