How truly strange!
Li Enxian's appearance in Jia Yucun's sedan chair that morning had already been startling enough. Who would have thought that only half a day later, he would be lying in the Dali Temple morgue?
What surprised Sun Shaozong even more was that the man had actually frozen to death!
The last time Sun Shaozong had seen him had been around the Wu Hour.
Though this winter was considerably colder than usual, Sun Shaozong refused to believe that someone lively and healthy could freeze to death in the middle of the day.
By then, Chou Yunfei and Qin Kejian had followed him inside. Seeing Sun Shaozong frowning as he examined the corpse on the slab, they guessed that he probably knew the deceased.
Unable to contain his curiosity, Chou Yunfei asked, "My lord, who exactly is this man?"
Sun Shaozong glanced back at him. Seeing the inquisitive look on his face, he did not seem to be asking a question he already knew the answer to.
So he asked instead, "How was this body discovered?"
Chou Yunfei hurriedly explained, "The Ministry of Welfare received him as a vagrant corpse this morning. When Old Xu performed the routine autopsy this afternoon, he found several valuable items on him. One even bore the inscription 'supervised manufacture by the Joseon Royal Workshop.'"
"Old Xu also determined that this man had likely lived a life of comfort before his death. In other words, those ragged clothes were probably a disguise."
"After Prefect Jia heard about it, he suspected that the man was an important member of the Joseon Delegation. Knowing that you had dealt with them before, he ordered this subordinate to bring the body here for you to identify."
So Jia Yucun had indeed sent the body over!
But what was