Chapter 5 – A person, a lantern and a sandalwood box (1/2)

Chapter 5 – A person, a lantern and a sandalwood box

“A human corpse can lie, but bones never do.”

As the words fell, Ji Yunshu had already pried open the mouth. The surrounding charred skin cracked and fell to the ground, the noise faintly echoing in the silence.

“The hyoid bone1 is obstructed. If we continue upward, you can clearly see that the coronoid process2 is shattered. This would indicate that someone used an extremely heavy object to strike the lower jaw.” That was to say, once the victim’s head had been smashed to the side, the attacker had stabbed the victim’s nape.

“There is a vaguely circular mark on the nape made by the puncture of a sharp object. It caused the tips of the bone to fracture, leading to copious blood loss. Although it’s impossible to determine the time of death due to the burnt skin and flesh, I could approximate from the bone tissue within the remaining teeth. From these three loosened teeth, the estimated time of death should be yesterday. However, that fire started four hours ago. It’s clear that these five people were brought to this abandoned house after their deaths. If nothing else, there is also no sign of struggle while they burned.”

Jing Rong became curious after listening to her logical explanations.

Then, Ji Yunshu walked to the next corpse and examined it. She palpated the corpse’s hyoid bone.

“In a normal human, the regions above and below the hyoid bone are always softer compared to the hyoid bone in the middle. However, the hyoid bone on this corpse is identical to the first one. Both of their bones are soft whereas the above and below are hard. For such a situation to appear, there is only one possibility; they died from poisoning, which would explain why they didn’t struggle at all while being burned.

“Poisoned?”

Jing Rong lowered his eyes.

Ji Yunshu scrunched her forehead charmingly as she continued to analyze. “The skeletons of these five bodies are amazing. They must have been trained in martial arts, which means it would have been quite difficult to kill them. Both sides must have fought hard, which resulted in their bones receiving such damage. However, their opponents must have been on the losing side and decided to resort to poison. Since they used poison, it was certainly one that needed to be ingested, leading to the current abnormality with their throats. If we wanted to investigate further, it would be better to start from the food, perhaps… from where they had last stayed, like at an inn.”

“Do you see anything else?”

Ji Yunshu shook her head. She got up, taking off and throwing away her white gloves. Her hands rose to dust a corner of her outfit.

“Are you a coroner?” Jing Rong asked.

That man asked as many questions as there were stars in the sky!

“This humble self is only a painter. I merely have a bit of knowledge about bones, so I just examined them. A coroner would open the torso, examine the heart, liver, spleen, lungs, kidneys and brain. Their work is completely different. If Young Master still wants to investigate further, send these corpses to the coroner to examine them. If not, there’s no need to continue.”

She wasn’t in the habit of forcing others. Besides, investigating this homicide case or not, in the end, has nothing to do with her.

Jing Rong scanned Ji Yunshu with his eyes.

There was such a character hidden in this tiny Jinjiang city!

This scholar had said so much. If he persisted on cremating the corpses because of sentiment, it was inexcusable.

Furthermore, these men were his subordinates, and they died from poison. Right now, he also wanted to quickly discover the truth hidden behind this case.

Could it be… that this is related to the capital?