Ruan Rong had charged into the courtyard to prove herself. At first, she walked briskly, but after passing those coffins, her steps gradually slowed. Her large eyes darted about anxiously, revealing the unease and fear in her heart.
If Li Jiuming had casually tried to dissuade her again at that moment, she might well have backed down.
But while Li Jiuming was excellent at handling cases, he could not read a little girl's thoughts at all.
He caught up from behind and, seeing that the morgue was just ahead, shook his head helplessly. "Fine. Since you insist on showing off, come in with me."
That left Ruan Rong with no way out. She could only grit her teeth and step over the threshold beside Li Jiuming.
The instant she had one foot inside and one outside, a foul stench rushed at her face. Though Ruan Rong promptly covered her mouth and nose, she could not block it completely. That nauseating odor wormed its way up her nostrils and seemed to dig claws into her stomach, as if it meant to tear out even last night's meal!
"Wh-what is that smell? It reeks!"
Ruan Rong fought down her nausea and complained through her hands. Someone behind her immediately chimed in, "You're right. That really is the stench of dead bodies. Though it should be an old smell left behind. If there were rotting corpses inside, the odor would be far worse."
The stench of corpses?
Far worse?!
Before Sun Shaozong had even finished speaking, Ruan Rong spun around and sprinted out of the courtyard. A fit of intermittent retching soon followed.
"That Rong girl!"
Li Jiuming sighed helplessly. When he looked back at Sun Shaozong, however, there was now a trace of scrutiny in his gaze. He had seen plenty of desperadoes who lived by the blade, but young men who could identify corpse stench at a glance and remain perfectly calm in its presence were exceedingly rare.
Without realizing it, he raised his estimation of Sun Shaozong by several degrees.
"Captain Sun, this way."
"Thank you, Detective Li."
Li Jiuming gestured him inside. Sun Shaozong casually thanked him and stepped into the morgue.
It was only around three in the afternoon, yet more than a dozen candles had been lit inside the morgue. Their holders stood at varying heights, faintly encircling a narrow bed covered by a white sheet.
To the left of that bed, a fat coroner and a thin coroner were silently cleaning their tools. When they saw Li Jiuming bringing someone in, they merely nodded slightly before ignoring them again.
Sun Shaozong knew that people who dealt with corpses regularly were often not the most sociable, so he did not take offense. He walked to the bed, pointed at the white sheet covering it, and politely asked, "Gentlemen, may I uncover it?"
The thin one glanced up at Li Jiuming. Seeing no sign that he intended to stop him, he revealed a faintly mocking smile and answered dryly, "Do as you please."
His triangular eyes were full of malicious delight.
Though the fat one said nothing, he too shot Sun Shaozong a sidelong look, clearly waiting for a show.
Faced with their sinister stares, Sun Shaozong remained utterly composed. Without another word, he stepped forward, grabbed the white sheet, and pulled it all the way off.
Whoosh~
With the sheet removed, a mangled, bloody corpse immediately appeared before Sun Shaozong. Its head and limbs were relatively intact, but its chest cavity had been completely cut open. Bright red flesh and stark white bones formed something like a gaping, bloodied maw poised to devour someone!
Inside that "mouth," the internal organs, intestines, esophagus, and other fragments were all wrinkled and spilling outward, dripping with yellowish-brown slime...
An ordinary person who suddenly saw such a horrifying sight would probably be scared half to death on the spot!
But Sun Shaozong had worked as a criminal investigator for more than ten years. What sort of corpse had he not seen?
Forget this kind of freshly disemboweled body—even corpses that had been dismembered, deep-fried, and pan-fried, he had seen more than a dozen of those!
Thus, he paid it no mind. He bent over and examined the corpse closely for a long while, then reached into the abdominal cavity and poked around before finally raising his head to comment, "He was likely stabbed with a sharp blade between the fourth and fifth ribs on the left side. The blade pierced the liver, causing massive blood loss and death. The blade angled downward when it entered, which is why it left a cut mark on the fifth rib."
The two coroners and Li Jiuming stared at one another in astonishment.
After a long pause, the fat coroner set down the tool in his hand and praised him with audible admiration. "An expert! Which yamen are you from, little brother? At such a young age, you already have this courage and experience..."
"Ahem, ahem!"
Li Jiuming had brought Sun Shaozong here privately. How could he dare let his true identity be exposed?
He interrupted the fat coroner's questioning with two dry coughs, then said seriously, "Since you know he's an expert, stop holding back. Tell this little brother your autopsy findings."
The fat coroner did not press the matter. Pointing at the corpse, he explained at length, "A total of three bodies were brought in. All of them were killed by Ambassador Niu's guards while resisting. After they were delivered, the street patrolmen took a look at them. None was a familiar face, so they should not be from Qinglin Prefecture."
Li Jiuming added, "Nor did they arrive in the last few days. The city gate guards had no impression of them, which shows they had been hiding in the city for some time. Someone may even have been responsible for receiving and caring for them. Otherwise, how could more than a dozen outsiders have stayed in the city for so long without anyone noticing?"
Once he had finished, the fat coroner continued, "Judging by the calluses on their limbs and the wear on their teeth, these men lived fairly comfortably. They rarely did manual labor, but spent their days wielding blades and weapons."
The thin coroner added, "But judging from the strange wounds on their bodies, they were probably not soldiers or constables. It is more likely that they came from among the roving swordsmen of the streets."
The fat coroner took over again, pointing at a narrow bed in the southwest corner. "The man lying over there originally had a tattoo on his back, but he recently destroyed it with brute force. Eight times out of ten, he was afraid that tattoo would expose his identity."
A tattoo?
Sun Shaozong's heart stirred at this. He hurriedly turned his gaze to Li Jiuming, but Li Jiuming merely shook his head slightly. "Roving swordsmen from the Six Southern Border Countries often have tattoos. If that tattoo were still intact, I might be able to trace it back to something. But now..."
Somewhat disappointed, Sun Shaozong turned back to the two coroners and asked, "Have you examined the food residue in their stomachs? Did you find any clues?"
"As expected of an expert!"
The fat coroner praised him again. Then he pulled out a tray from beneath the rack holding the tools. On the tray sat three small enamel bowls filled with some unknown sticky mush. Even from a distance, they gave off a nauseating sour stench.
"This is what we removed from their stomachs." The fat coroner pointed at the paste in the bowls. "Besides the usual meat and wheat-based foods, there seems to be some fruit—probably not fruit commonly sold on the market. As for exactly what kind of fruit it is, the two of us cannot determine."
Sun Shaozong immediately perked up and blurted out, "Could this be used as a clue to locate where the remaining assassins are hiding?"
"Well..."
The fat and thin coroners exchanged bitter smiles. In the end, Li Jiuming explained, "The southern border is known as a land of fruits and melons. And now, at the turn from late summer to early autumn, there are no fewer than a hundred kinds of fruit. If we compare them one by one, who knows how long it would take—and they would have to be eaten first, then vomited up, before they could be used for comparison. It truly is..."
After a pause, he added, "What is more, seasonal fruit does not keep well. By tonight, it may have spoiled completely."
That was certainly true.
Without scientific instruments, uncovering the origin of these fruit remnants would probably depend entirely on luck—but a modern criminal investigator's iron rule was that no clue, however insignificant, could be abandoned without pursuit!
So Sun Shaozong still requested, "In that case, could you give me some of these fruit remnants? Perhaps I'll get lucky and happen to find this fruit."
The stuff would not keep anyway. What use was there in saving more of it?
Thus, the two coroners agreed to Sun Shaozong's request without hesitation. They took a sheet of oil paper, carefully separated nearly half the fruit remnants, wrapped them up, and handed them to Sun Shaozong.
Sun Shaozong still refused to give up. He discussed the matter with the two coroners for quite some time, but gained nothing in the end. Finally, he had no choice but to take his leave in frustration.
Li Jiuming escorted him out of the morgue, then stopped and said in a grave voice, "I still have official business to attend to, so I will not see you farther—remember to tell Rong girl not to meddle in this case again!"
Sun Shaozong nodded in agreement and hurried out through the courtyard gate. There he found Ruan Rong standing against the wall, pale-faced, beside a large pool of vomit. She had probably contributed her breakfast as well.
Ruan Rong noticed Sun Shaozong too. Seeing his eyes lingering on that puddle of vomit, she felt embarrassed. She scraped at the dirt with her boot, trying to cover it up.
But at that moment, Sun Shaozong's eyes suddenly lit up. Excitedly, he pounced toward the puddle, squatted down, and began examining it closely—who would have thought that his casual remark earlier would truly let him strike it lucky!
Before you continue