Betrayed the Dead, Harmed the Living

Betrayed the Dead, Harmed the Living

Now, at that time, Deadmouth was only just past forty. He was already renowned throughout the yamen, at the very height of his powers.

In the revolving lantern of his memories, he had forgotten most things from those fifteen years ago. Only that rainy night remained crystal clear.

That night, rain poured down in torrents, each drop as large as a bean. The summer night was hot and damp, and his wife had cooked him a fragrant bowl of fried sauce noodles.

But Deadmouth had only just sprinkled on the chopped scallions, before he could even pick up his chopsticks, when an official summons called him back to the morgue.

Holding an umbrella against the rain, he returned to the morgue and found twelve corpses laid out neatly before him.

And a dog.

Whether human or dog, all had been beaten beyond recognition, as though bludgeoned to death with random clubs. Blood and flesh were a mangled mess; the scene was utterly inhuman.

Even Deadmouth, who had seen more corpses than he could count, could not help furrowing his brow.

—Weishui was not large, and there were not many murder cases. There might only be a few in an entire year.

Deadmouth had never seen anything like this either—twelve people dead all at once, lined up so neatly.

Yet though the corpses were numerous and the sight shocking, examining them was not difficult.

—They had all been beaten alive to death by something like a wolf-toothed club. There were no signs of resistance on the bodies, which showed that the killer possessed extraordinary martial prowess.

In just over two hours, Deadmouth examined all twelve corpses and the dog thoroughly.

Just as he finished writing his conclusions and prepared to submit them,

the door opened in the darkness.

Two black-clad, masked men entered, pressing gleaming butcher knives against Deadmouth's throat and ordering him to alter the autopsy record.

But what status did Deadmouth hold back then?

The yamen's foremost coroner, his name resounding like thunder, upright and unyielding!

Who did they think they were threatening?

If his head fell off, it would be no more than a bowl-sized scar!

Did they think he was afraid of them?

He closed his eyes and told them to kill him if they wished, but he would never alter the autopsy record.

Yet the two masked men did not grow angry upon hearing this. They actually let him return home.

But before he even reached home, Deadmouth found his wife at the door, drenched by the rain and weeping as she said that their three-year-old child had vanished in the brief moment she had stepped outside to relieve herself.

It was as though he had been struck by lightning!

For some reason, the first people Deadmouth thought of were those two masked men.

When he returned inside, the two masked men were already waiting in the house.

Deadmouth sent his wife away.

One of the masked men said that if Deadmouth would not alter the autopsy record, that was fine. Tomorrow, the five members of Deadmouth's family would be lying in the morgue.

This coroner whose name shook the yamen had never imagined that they would be so vicious as to threaten him with his wife, children, and family.

For a moment, he was caught between a rock and a hard place.

On one side were his old master's stern teachings and his professional integrity; on the other were the lives of his entire family, young and old.

Deadmouth sank into extreme anguish and torment.

In the end, his body hunched over and his eyes dimmed. Like a walking corpse, he returned through the rain to the morgue.

Following the two masked men's instructions, he ultimately altered the autopsy record.

—Originally, Deadmouth had determined that the twelve corpses had all been beaten alive to death by weapons like wolf-toothed clubs. But under the masked men's threats, he changed it to death by "mace-type weapons."

Everything else remained untouched.

After he altered the autopsy record, the two masked men did not trouble him again, and his child returned home at noon.

It was as though nothing had happened.

The only thing that remained ringing in his ears was the masked men's threat—if Deadmouth dared reveal what had happened that day, his entire family would be finished.

Afterward, Deadmouth sat on the threshold of the morgue for an entire day without saying a word.

Only at dusk, when he stood up, his body was a little more hunched, as though his spine had been pulled out.

He had lied about an autopsy.

But even then, he had not realized that the true nightmare was only beginning.

Generally speaking, when criminals sought connections to alter an autopsy record, it was usually to clear someone of guilt.

Deadmouth had encountered it several times before. For example, they might want a corpse that had been strangled to death recorded as having died by hanging itself.

If it was suicide, naturally there was no murderer.

Of course, Deadmouth had sternly refused all such people.

Because doing so would betray the dead.

The dead could not speak, so coroners became their mouths. If they spouted nonsense, the truth of the dead would never see the light of day.

But what Deadmouth had never expected was that this time, the two masked men had not made him alter the autopsy record to clear someone of guilt.

Rather... to condemn someone.

And only after this did Deadmouth, who had devoted himself solely to examining corpses and never concerned himself with other yamen matters, learn something.

—In all of Weishui, only two people wielded a pair of Mandarin-Duck Bronze Maces.

They were Yu Tiesheng, the chief constable of the constabulary, known as the Iron-Faced Divine Constable, and his wife Madam Yu, who was also a constable.

The next day, the yamen held a secret hearing.

Seated in the hall were the chief of the Aura-Observing Bureau, the county magistrate, and the registrar.

Below stood two rows of officers, surrounding the twelve corpses of the family massacre and Yu Tiesheng and Madam Yu.

Evidence was presented piece by piece, witnesses took the stand one after another, vividly painting the picture of a rain-soaked night massacre!

In the end, the constable couple was convicted of murder and the grave crime of annihilating an entire household. They were thrown into prison, to be executed on a chosen day, with their descendants implicated as well!

The moment the hearing ended, Deadmouth was dumbstruck.

He had never imagined that the autopsy record he had altered under duress would become the key evidence convicting those two constables he so admired.

By changing that autopsy record, he had not only betrayed the twelve brutally mangled corpses—he had harmed the living as well!

At that moment, Deadmouth's face turned pale, and he could not stop trembling. His heart was tortured beyond measure. But when he thought of his wife, children, and family at home, he truly lacked the courage to recant in court.

The final outcome was that the constable couple had their heads cut off, while their descendants were reduced to criminal households.

The sight Deadmouth could never forget for the rest of his life was Constable Yu calmly looking at every one of them in the courtroom, without uttering a single word.

That look became a nightmare that followed him for more than a decade.

Whenever he recalled it, he felt as though he were sitting on pins and needles, his whole body pierced with pain!

From then on, Deadmouth quit his work as a coroner. Half-mad, he drowned his sorrows in drink every day and became a laughingstock.

Eventually, he left his home and never returned, drifting through the streets and surviving by begging.

Over these years, Deadmouth had lived in immense pain.

Countless times, he had wanted to go to the graves of the constable couple and kowtow in confession, but every time, he lacked even the slightest courage.

At last, during a Tiger-Head Grand Feast fifteen years later, he accidentally caught sight of a youth at the neighboring table who bore a striking resemblance to Constable Yu.

At once, the two figures overlapped in Deadmouth's eyes, making him feel as though he had returned to that courtroom once more.

His mind drifted into a haze.

Even the delicious tiger feast tasted like ash in his mouth.

Finally, in a moment of inattention, he swallowed a huge piece of tiger tendon. It lodged in his throat, and he died on the spot.

And until his death, he never fulfilled his final wish—to go before the constable couple's graves and kowtow in confession!

He died with his eyes wide open!

The revolving lantern ended.

Yu Chen said nothing.

He sat blankly on a stool beneath the wall in the earthen house, remaining there for an entire day.

Only when night fell did he finally come back to himself.

Having seen the revolving lantern to this point, how could he still fail to understand?

The constable couple who had been framed in Deadmouth's memories were none other than his own father and mother.

And the descendant implicated as a criminal household was himself.

At that moment, Yu Chen's chest felt so blocked that he could barely breathe.