The Heavenly Prison of Kuaiji Commandery was dark and damp. As soon as Su Fei entered,
the stench of mold mixed with blood hit him in the face.
Su Fei entered the cell holding Li Qinghe and saw his corpse lying face down on the cold floor, dark red blood crusted at the corners of his mouth.
The coroner was crouching beside the body. When he saw Su Fei enter, he hurriedly rose.
"My lord, roughly two-thirds of Commandery Governor Li's tongue was severed. He died of excessive blood loss, sometime around midnight last night. No other external injuries from a struggle were found on his body."
Su Fei crouched down and carefully pried Li Qinghe's mouth open.
He activated the God-tier Insight Technique.
Inside was a bloody mess. Although the edges bore irregular tooth marks, they were more even than a normal wound from biting off one's tongue, as though something had helped cut it rather than teeth alone biting through it.
He then went to Chen Dayou's cell next door. The marks on the two were almost identical.
Chen Dayou lay curled in a corner, blood trailing from his mouth. The marks on his severed tongue were exactly like Li Qinghe's, except that a few scraps of cloth were caught between his fingers, and his palms bore shallow marks left by clawing at the ground. It looked as though he had struggled briefly before his death, only to be forcibly restrained.
"Killing yourself by biting off your tongue isn't that easy."
Su Fei stood, his gaze sweeping across the empty cell.
"When someone bites their own tongue, the intense pain makes them instinctively pull back. Most only bite through a small portion. At worst, they lose consciousness and suffocate. It's very difficult to bite straight through two-thirds of