The Corpses Are All Proof

The coffin home was built along a mountain, and the main road stopped there. At the end of the road was a gentle slope, and the lowest part of the slope was not far from the coffin home.

This area had no streets, no residents, and no shops, so it seemed a little deserted. At the same time, nobody who came by this way wanted to take a rest in an area with nothing, so most people didn’t know that the long, low-rise building within view was actually a coffin home.

But today was a little different.

A cold spell had hit them, the coldest it had been for decades. Even when it was winter, ice hardly formed on the ground. Yet now, the road was covered in a layer of sleet. Younger ones who were bold might think it was fun to ride their carriages down the gentle slope, but older ones didn’t dare to.

A tall four-wheeled horse carriage with ribbons hanging from the roof, tied into a special knot meant to bring fortune to the carriage’s passengers, and wooden doors came to a stop. The curtain over the door was lifted, and the door opened. A woman in her forties with a simple hairstyle and loose clothing alighted.

After alighting, she didn’t walk away. Instead, she reached into the carriage again and helped an older woman in her fifties out of the carriage.

The older woman had graying hair and looked a little ill, but her hair and clothes were neat. Her clothing was expensive, her back straight, and there was a resolute look in her eyes.

She looked at the road ahead, then patted the other woman’s hand with a smile. “It’s just a little sleet, and you’re already so scared? I think it isn’t too bad.”

“I’m not afraid of the sleet. Madam has walked down way worse roads than these, so this isn’t scary at all. I just think that it’s not good for you to stay in the carriage for so long without stretching your legs a little. I wanted you to expend a little energy and go for a little walk!”

The younger woman smiled brightly as she spoke and pointed at the coffin home. “There’s a little shelter over there, and the road there is flat too. Why don’t we take a little walk toward that shelter? I’ll tell the driver to wait for you over there, so once you’ve walked enough, we can hop back onto the carriage.”

The older woman understood that the loyal maid who had served her for decades had good intentions, so she smiled at her and said, “I’ll take a walk then?”

“Let’s go!” The younger woman supported the older one as they made their way toward their destination. As they walked, she told the older woman interesting stories and jokes to amuse her, until…

Clear voices could be heard from inside the coffin home.

Two women, one younger and one older, seemed to be arguing.

It wasn’t nice to eavesdrop, but they had already come this far, and they would have to climb the slope if they were to go back where they came from. So, the younger woman pretended not to have heard the voices and continued walking. But she didn’t speak anymore, and she started walking a little faster now.

The older woman smiled at her and didn’t scold her for it. The two ladies continued walking in silence.

The corpse on the table was fully exposed after Song Caitang had removed the cloth covering it.

The dead body’s gray, pasty face, greenish blue lips, odd expression, and nasty smell hit First Madam Wu all at once, making her feel dizzy.

“Everything can be settled civilly! Why are you dragging the dead into this?”

She thought that Song Caitang had run out of ideas and was going to destroy the corpse.

Song Caitang smiled. “I thought you wanted proof.”

“How could you call that proof?!”

“I see you don’t understand. Let me explain.”

“The deceased is a woman around 20 years of age. Her skin is smooth, her brows are full. There are callouses on her fingers and the top of her scalp. There are several needle holes on her arm and the back of her shoulder. The inside of her elbows and legs have bruises. Her tongue doesn’t reach her teeth, and it’s hardened. Upon inspection with my finger, there’s a foreign object in her throat, and it seems like a thin, long, needle-shaped object. Her lips are bluish green, her nails are dark blue…”

Song Caitang’s gaze didn’t flinch as she pointed out the various observations she had made, moving the body as needed. She looked at First Madam Wu and said, “First Madam Wu, you’re a knowledgeable woman. Could you tell me what sort of woman this was? She was young, her skin was smooth, her brows full, and basically, everything about her was in good condition, and she had seen good days. But she has callouses on the top of her head and on her fingers.”

Yinxing didn’t need her employer to answer. She touched her own fingers and thought about the callouses on her own head and knew immediately that this person must have been a maid like herself.

The callouses on the top of the head were left behind by carrying basins on their heads over many years as part of their training. The ones on the fingers were left behind from years of sewing.

“She trained hard, she followed the rules and worked hard, but didn’t always please her mistress. If the mistress were upset, those needles would end up being stabbed into her skin instead…” Song Caitang closed her eyes a little. “Getting pierced by needles wasn’t the worst. She had angered her mistress, the one who owned her life. No matter how hard she pleaded, she was held down and had to swallow this needle when told to do so. Even though this needle had poison on it, and she could die…”

“This woman was clearly a maid who was tortured to death by her mistress. But according to the records in the coffin home…”

Song Caitang walked over to look at the notes written at the foot of the table. “It says here that she was a beggar who was too hungry, so she stole food from a rich family’s home and ended up choking to death.”

She looked steely at First Madam Wu. “She choked to death. Gosh, you’re a creative one!”

First Madam Wu inhaled sharply.

This matter…was clearly top-secret information. Yet Song Caitang seemed to have witnessed it herself. She had recounted the true story in its entirety, including the part where the deceased was held down and forced to swallow a needle.

But Song Caitang didn’t stop there. She proceeded to pull off yet another cloth over a different body.

“This one’s also a woman. She has very similar physical features to the previous woman. She was around 14 or 15, an age when she should be full of energy and wonder. Yet, there are whip scars all over her back. The corners of her lips are badly scarred, the back of her throat is swollen from bleeding, and there is rotting between her teeth. She has countless dark bruises all over her body, of which the number of bruises between her breasts and thighs is the highest. Her lower body has recurring tear wounds, and there’s dried semen on her underwear…”

Song Caitang stared frostily at First Madam Wu. “You’re married, and you have been through many life experiences. Would you be able to tell me how these injuries came about?”

Of course, First Madam Wu knew how these injuries came about. But how could she possibly say it out loud?

She was so angry, she was shaking. “You…you’re a girl! And you’re not married! Don’t you have any shame?”

“I’m afraid someone is even more shameless than I am!”

Song Caitang narrowed her eyes. “This woman was forced to have sex, and not just once. Even though she was unwilling, even though she struggled, even though she vomited from how terrible she felt, she couldn’t change her fate, and she eventually died. Let me see…ah, you’re still as creative as ever. You said she froze to death, and she’s also a beggar.”

“What a pretty beggar! And she froze to death half naked on the streets?!”

First Madam Wu shuddered all over and took two steps back.

Impossible, she thought. Impossible! How did she know so much?

How could an unmarried young woman possibly know anything about such things?

“There’s this one too! And this one!”

Song Caitang pulled off two more sheets, one after another, to reveal the bodies of two young men.

“This young man has large hands and feet, callouses on the area between his thumb and index fingers. There’s grass in his hair, the smell of horses on his clothes. His lips are cracked, his ribs are almost visible from how skinny he is, and there’s water in his knees. This man was a coachman. He had to kneel for several days in a row in winter, which made him severely ill. He wasn’t given food, water, or warmth and died in this humiliating manner. You say here that…yes, this one was also a beggar who froze to death.”

“Oh, this one’s even worse. The injuries on his back, buttocks, and thighs are so many and so severe, so it’s obvious that he was hit with a board or paddle. He was hit so hard his bones broke, and he died from severe bleeding. But you state here that he slipped on a mountain and fell to his death?”

Song Caitang looked straight at First Madam Wu. “That’s really incredible, First Madam. Why don’t you find someone to go up the mountains and demonstrate how you could possibly slip and fall such that only the buttocks and thighs are shattered from the fall, but the rest of the body is perfectly fine? Not even a scratch from all that grass on the mountainside! I would really love to know how this could happen!”

First Madam Wu took several steps backward at once. Her eyes were filled with fear, and they even trembled slightly, as though Song Caitang were a ghost.

How could this be?

How could this be!!

If she got one or two stories right, it might have been because she heard it from someone. But she managed to nail every detail so accurately it was as though she had watched it actually happen. And how could that be possible?

Never mind the fact that these four cases didn’t even come from the same family. After such a thing happened, the families kept it well under wraps. They wouldn’t have let such news go around. Besides, Song Caitang had only recovered the night before. What could she do in such a short time? Bribe someone? Try to get the story out of someone? But who would trust her? Who would tell her such things?

Could this girl have really gone to see the king of Hades during her stay in the coffin home and heard what had happened from him?

“All of them are supposedly beggars with no home, no relatives, nowhere to go. When did Luanze have so many beggars?”

“These people did such evil things, but they thought that as long as they covered it up, secretly dealt with it, paid a few people off, then this matter will be kept a secret forever, and nobody would ever find out?”

Song Caitang scoffed and pointed her slim finger at several bodies. “First Madam Wu, you said that I made all of this up, and I have no proof. But as far as I can tell, all of them are proof!”

“Where a swallow was, there you will hear its cry. Where water once ran, you still see the stains left behind. Any evil deeds in the world, once committed, will definitely leave traces behind. Dead bodies can’t speak, but living humans can!”

“And I will speak for them!”

The brilliant sunlight came in through the window, illuminating the often cold and gloomy coffin home and half of Song Caitang’s face.

Half of her face was in the sunlight, and the other half was shrouded in shadows. Her skin glowed faintly, and her pretty eyes were clear, as though they could reflect all the evil in the world.

The place fell completely silent. Nobody dared to speak.

Song Caitang rolled her sleeves up, then bent over to straighten out the clothing on each of the dead bodies before calmly covering them with a cloth again.

Her actions weren’t especially gentle or even cautious, but everything she did was done with great respect and grace, as though she had done this thousands of times, as though this was a normal thing to do.

Even with so many bodies around her and people watching, Song Caitang wasn’t the slightest bit nervous. Her actions were relaxed and natural.

After she had done all that, she walked to the water basin and washed her hands thoroughly.

Finally, she walked back to where First Madam Wu was and rapped her knuckles against the table with a smile. “So, can we have a good talk about that arranged marriage between myself and your son now?”

First Madam Wu stared at the young woman in front of her and gulped.

This was a young woman who was so skinny she could hardly make out her bosom. But why did Song Caitang seem so tall and large that she no longer dared to really look her in the eye?