The skin around the needle marks was slightly red. Both dead men had thick armpit hair, making this impossible to spot without a close examination. Qin Yutong inserted a silver needle along each puncture, then placed the poison-stained needle in a porcelain bottle and sealed it for the time being.
Once this was done, Hu Xiaotian asked Zhu Yannian for a large sewing needle and stitched the dead man's belly closed. Stitching a corpse hardly required much finesse, but even with such unwieldy tools, Hu Xiaotian's exquisite suturing technique was plain to see.
Qin Yutong watched Hu Xiaotian's every move throughout.
Before they left, Hu Xiaotian instructed Zhu Yannian to take the bodies straight to the paupers' burial ground and bury them. He was not to mention to anyone that Hu Xiaotian had cut open a body for an autopsy.
Leaving the Mortuary, Hu Xiaotian looked up at the brilliant sunshine and stretched his arms vigorously. "Just as I expected. It was poison!"
"Since you know they were poisoned," Qin Yutong said, "why destroy the evidence, Lord Hu?"
Hu Xiaotian smiled. "Keeping the bodies serves no purpose. You call them evidence, but what if someone claims they were pricked only after death? How would you refute that? To me, the truth doesn't matter. The result does."
He brought Qin Yutong to his residence in Three Virtues Alley.
Liu Kuohai had already returned and was quite surprised to see Hu Xiaotian with Qin Yutong.
Hu Xiaotian asked Liu Kuohai to make tea, then took Qin Yutong into the study. He brought out his surgical instrument case, opened it, and handed it to her to examine.
At the dazzling array of instruments inside, ripples stirred even in Qin Yutong's beautiful eyes, usually as calm as still water. She examined them one by