Skull Restoration

Skull restoration was a method used in modern investigations to help crack cases and the techniques were very well-researched already. Song Caitang had studied this professionally and tried it several times. While she wasn’t an expert on it, she was definitely no stranger to it.

The first thing she had to do was to restore the actual skull bone. She had to follow the shape of the structure, make measurements and create a replica with silicone or plaster.

This part wasn’t too hard. The victim’s skull was cracked, but there were no major wounds to it so it was fairly complete. She just had to measure each part very carefully and she would get accurate data. She didn’t have silicone on hand but she could make plaster.

Her professional knowledge as well as the assistance of people in the ceramics business made this process very simple.

The problem was making some sort of modeling clay.

The actual type of clay she needed didn’t exist in this era. Song Caitang was no chemist, so she didn’t know how to create this substance from what she could get her hands on. It was the craftsmen that Qi Yan found who were eventually of great help to her.

These craftsmen had an intelligence and knowledge beyond her imagination. Perhaps they didn’t know anything about chemical formulas or chemical reactions, but after working with these natural materials for a long time, they could use the color and texture to determine how much water they needed to add in order to get a particular consistency, hardness or to make it last longer.

They didn’t know what Song Caitang wanted this clay for, but as long as she was able to state her requirements very specifically, they would be able to find the sand she needed to create what she wanted.

In the end, she didn’t get actual modeling clay, but she got a decent substitute.

The last part was a matter of measuring the skull’s features like the forehead, the distance between the brows, the nose bridge, the philtrum, the distance between the lips and the chin, where the corners of the eyes were, the angle of the jawline, the cheekbones, the curvature of the bones…

Every measurement had to be made as accurately as possible. The differences in measurements of each person’s face was not great, so even a tiny mistake could result in a huge difference in the result. Song Caitang measured each section very carefully and even made a simple vernier caliper for herself.

Once she had her plaster skull, her clay and data, she followed the thickness of the face in each area and the placement of features to paste the clay onto the plaster accordingly. She added or removed clay after taking into consideration the victim’s age and sex as well.

She had to be extra careful with the parts that weren’t flat, like the brow bone, the eye sockets, the jaw and the teeth. If she felt like it didn’t look right, she would stop to carefully check against her data and measure the original skull again if necessary.

This process was like trying to create a composite sketch.

But she didn’t have the assistance of modern computers, so this process took an extremely long time. Just making the measurements and ensuring she had the right angles already took her two days and an entire night of no rest…

While she was busy with this, the rest were also very busy with the investigation.

Zhao Zhi, Wen Yuansi and Qi Yan started investigating the clues left behind from five years ago. Since they were still unsure who the skeleton was and this victim might have been moving in secret, so his whereabouts might be difficult to trace, they focused solely on Fourth Missy Gan’s movements.

Fourth Missy Gan had secretly left Luanze to come to Qingxian. But she was very pretty and was alone with a child, so she would have attracted attention everywhere she went and it would be impossible to keep a low profile. Also, the Count of Peace, Zeng Deyong, and his wife, Madam Wei, were in Qingxian too. Madam Wei might have tried to do something to Fourth Missy Gan.

And regardless of where one went, everyone loved to hear stories of wives and concubines of rich men fighting. Even if it was just a small fight, as long as something happened, someone would remember it.

They were quickly proved right.

Some homeless people ended up telling them enough to write a full play. The three of them had to extract the parts that sounded the most realistic, but the main point was that Madam Wei had indeed tried to deal with Fourth Missy Gan back then.

She had wanted to kill Fourth Missy Gan and had even hired someone to do that. If not for Qiu Wenkang’s help, Fourth Missy Gan would have never made it out of Qingxian alive.

But because Madam Wei was in a foreign place and as the wife of an official, she couldn’t afford to hire some top assassin, so the hired killer probably wasn’t good enough to even kill the man buried in Fourth Missy Gan’s yard. This mystery man was probably nowhere in Madam Wei’s plan.

Fourth Missy Gan must have been terrified then. After burying the body, she didn’t dare to do anything else. She used her wits to find a way to secretly get out of Qingxian, so Madam Wei did not have a chance to strike again.

But there were two important questions here. Did Madam Wei know about the man buried in the yard? And what were Zeng Deyong and Sang Zheng doing at this point in time?

Zhao Zhi and Wen Yuansi were very bothered by this part.

Madam Wei had been serious about killing Fourth Missy Gan. Did she really give up just because Fourth Missy Gan managed to escape fast enough?

“There’s one more problem,” Wen Yuansi raised an eyebrow slightly. “The yard where the body was discovered.”

If the man wasn’t killed by Fourth Missy Gan, then how did it end up in her yard?

Qi Yan scratched his head out of frustration. “No idea! We’ve asked around all day but nobody ever saw her bury a body!”

Zhao Zhi suddenly remembered what Qiu Wenkang told him. “Qiu Wenkang said that there wasn’t much blood on the ground.”

But according to Song Caitang’s autopsy results, the victim died from a major injury to the heart, so he died from excessive bleeding.

If there wasn’t a lot of blood in the yard, did that mean the man was already dead by the time he appeared in the yard?

Wen Yuansi and Zhao Zhi said it at the same time, “The body was moved!”

“But why would anybody throw the body into Fourth Missy Gan’s yard?” Qi Yan was still stumped. “If Fourth Missy Gan didn’t know the victim, what good would that do? They just wanted to scare some poor, timid, woman?!”

Wen Yuansi shook his head. “That can’t be it.”

There were better and easier ways to frighten a helpless woman.

And if that wasn’t the aim, then…

Zhao Zhi narrowed his eyes. “Someone was trying to frame her.”

Many murderers would try to frame someone else to get away with their crime. The body found in the yard probably fell into this category.

But Qi Yan was still puzzled. “Of all the people, why Fourth Missy Gan?”

As far as he could see, Fourth Missy Gan was not the luckiest woman in the world and had to use some wit and cunning just to survive. But surely she wouldn’t have done something to deserve being framed in such a manner, right?

“If it’s not supposed to be her, then it would be someone else.”

Wen Yuansi thought of something else as he turned to look at Zhao Zhi. “The night before, Qiu Wenkang sent Fourth Missy Gan back here. And because he was very busy, Qiu Wenkang nearly decided to stay here too.”

That was what Qiu Wenkang said.

Zhao Zhi knew what he was driving at and narrowed his eyes. “You’re right.”

“Who? Qiu Wenkang?” Qi Yan scratched his head. “So the moving of this dead body to frame someone was targeted at Qiu Wenkang?”

Zhao Zhi explained, “The houses are all guesthouses. It was very late that day, so Qiu Wenkang was also very tired after a whole day of work and thought of booking one of the houses to stay the night. But something happened, so he stopped his subordinate from booking a place and they left in a hurry after that.”

This happened so quickly and so urgently, Qiu Wenkang didn’t have the time to sleep or the time to go elsewhere. It was daybreak by the time he was done. He was worried about Fourth Missy Gan, so he decided to come back and take a look. To his horror, he found her burying a corpse.

The more Zhao Zhi thought about it, the more it made sense to him.

Qiu Wenkang was the head administrator to the crown prince and was a very careful man, so he had kept this matter to himself all these years. Besides understanding that he was in a precarious position and so he should not get himself involved in anything unnecessarily, he kept having a sense that someone would try to harm him.

When he first listened to Qiu Wenkang’s statement, Zhao Zhi did not quite understand. But thinking about it now, Qiu Wenkang’s intuition had probably been right.

Someone wanted to frame Qiu Wenkang for a murder and arranged everything according to Qiu Wenkang’s movement. But Qiu Wenkang suddenly had to attend to something in secret, so he left quickly and the setup failed in the end.

As for why someone would want to frame Qiu Wenkang…

The man buried in the yard had gone through extreme danger before dying. His identity was unknown and there was something mysterious about him. This case was definitely more than met the eye.

Qiu Wenkang was the head administrator to the crown prince, so he represented the authority and power of the crown prince.

This matter might have to do with the palace.

Since it might be connected to politics, the three immediately fell silent again.

But… this case did not only involve Qiu Wenkang. There was Zeng Deyong and Sang Zheng too.

“So… the count is not actually just a man who goes about having fun all day long, and Sang Zheng is not actually just a man of mixed heritage from a pitiful background who dares not say anything, who doesn’t have a temper and just does what he’s told?”

These statements were rather severe ones. Not only did they go against what everyone knew of these two men, but it would also affect the direction of the investigation. Qi Yan uttered these words with great caution.

Zhao Zhi nodded slightly.

It had come to a point where they could not ignore this truth anymore.

“One more problem,” Wen Yuansi raised his head to meet with Zhao Zhi’s narrowed eyes. “The yard.”

Both men immediately started walking back to the yard again.

Qi Yan was the only one who didn’t understand and ran after them. “What about the yard?!”

Zhao Zhi said, “Qiu Wenkang is a man.”

“I mean, that’s obvious…” But so what? Why were they in such a hurry?

Wen Yuansi dropped another hint. “Fourth Missy Gan was a woman.”

Qi Yan was speechless. Anybody with eyes would know that.

But he still didn’t get it, so Zhao Zhi snapped, “Men and women who aren’t related or married to one another should not be alone with each other!”

Bam! Qi Yan walked into a pillar.

“I get it now! Even though Qiu Wenkang saved Fourth Missy Gan and wanted to stay at this guesthouse, he wouldn’t have ended up in the same room as her!”

He was suddenly enlightened and leaped up nearly a meter high. “Even if someone wanted to frame Qiu Wenkang for a murder, that person would have thrown the body into a completely different yard, not Fourth Missy Gan’s!”

But the body appeared in Fourth Missy Gan’s yard, so there was a disconnect here.

This was a proper guesthouse with good bookkeeping rules, so every guest was recorded properly. Qiu Wenkang didn’t end up staying here back then, but…

Thankfully, the record books from five years ago were still around and kept in a storeroom. It was just going to take a while to find the right records.

The three men searched the records inside the storeroom and finally found what they were looking for.

They were very lucky. Qiu Wenkang didn’t end up staying there, but he had paid a deposit. He left too quickly, so the innkeeper wasn’t able to refund him and it was all recorded down.

The guesthouse he was allocated was right next to Fourth Missy Gan’s.

But even though he didn’t stay the night, someone else ended up taking it.

The innkeeper’s explanation was that he couldn’t turn away a customer if he could help it. Qiu Wenkang had paid a deposit but had also confirmed that he didn’t need the guesthouse for the night. That particular guesthouse was a nice one and very pricey too. Since someone else wanted to book it, there was no reason why the innkeeper would turn that person away.

Zhao Zhi didn’t pay much attention to what he was saying and just stared at the name on the records.

Lu Wu.

That name and that handwriting was simply too familiar to him. He recognized it immediately. It was Lu Yuxue.

That was the fake name she used every time she left the capital.

So, the person who stayed next to Fourth Missy Gan that night was not Qiu Wenkang, but Lu Yuxue.

Was it just a coincidence?

Zhao Zhi shook his head. That would be way too much of a coincidence.

Regardless of why Lu Yuxue had appeared here, someone had arranged to dump a body in this courtyard to frame Qiu Wenkang. How did the body end up in Fourth Missy Gan’s yard instead?

Would Lu Yuxue know anything?

After putting all the details of the case together, Zhao Zhi stood up with a start. “I need to go back to the capital now.”

Immediately after he said that, he took a quick leap and flew out of sight.

“Sure, leave the rest to…” Before he could say the word “us”, Qi Yan realized that his Brother Zhi had disappeared and couldn’t possibly hear him anymore.

He turned back to look at Wen Yuansi. “So… what do we do now?”

“What else can we do?” Wen Yuansi smiled. “We’ll carry on investigating.

Zhao Zhi obviously gleaned some lead from the records, which was why he had left in a hurry. That also meant the two of them could start investigating something else now.

“Let’s go and find out what Zeng Deyong was doing in Qingxian five years ago. And that Sang Zheng too. Can it really be that nobody else saw him at all?”

Wen Yuansi folded his hands behind his back and walked out of the storeroom in a leisurely manner.

For some reason, he simply refused to believe that.