You Said He Drowned?

Song Caitang didn’t remain surprised for long.

Who else would be allowed to enter this place at such a time and appear next to her?

Her brows relaxed and she smiled faintly, “Mr. Wu, are you the new coroner who is about to take over the one who just left?”

Wu Bo was a serious old man, “Miss Song is a very intelligent young lady indeed. That’s right, I am the new coroner.”

As he spoke, he moved to look at the body from a different angle, revealing the people who were standing behind him.

Governor Zhang and Governor Li were standing quite a distance away. Governor Li covered his nose and didn’t look like he wanted to come any nearer, while Governor Zhang helped to maintain order. Only Wen Yuansi and Zhao Zhi walked over.

Wen Yuansi nodded at Song Caitang, “Looks like both of you are acquainted, so you can take this case together.”

Song Caitang did not refuse this arrangement. She had been of great help in the previous case and her name was officially recorded. But because she was a woman, she could not become part of the team of coroners hired by the authorities. Besides, working with someone else to examine the body wasn’t anything outrageous.

Wu Bo was even more polite about it as he said, “Miss Song, your skills have impressed everyone in this line. Working with you is my honor, and I hope you won’t mind me.”

Song Caitang replied, “Mr. Wu, you’re being too kind. Please feel free to state your observations.”

“You too.”

Zhao Zhi looked around the pigsty, especially at the dry poop on the ground that hadn’t turned into poopy water. He looked at Wu Bo and frowned slightly, “You said he drowned?”

Wen Yuansi found this strange too, “There isn’t any water anywhere, the feeder is empty and I don’t think this thin layer of moisture on the ground is enough to drown anyone.”

“I don’t really understand what’s happening here either, but the signs of death are very similar to a drowning,” Wu Bo looked at Song Caitang, “What do you think?”

Song Caitang nodded, “I think he was drowned too.”

She squatted down and flipped the victim’s eyelid back to let Zhao Zhi and Wen Yuansi have a better look. “The whites of the victim’s eyes are red from blood and there are spots of blood under the clear layer. These are signs of asphyxiation.” She pointed to the neck and said, “The veins on his neck are all swollen, which is a common sign among drowning victims.”

“But those are not the main signs. The main reason why Mr. Wu and I have concluded that he died from drowning is this.”

Song Caitang pointed at the body’s nose and mouth, “You see these tiny, slightly pinkish bubbles that are about the same size?”

Zhao Zhi and Wen Yuansi leaned forward to take a closer look. Because the victim had been lying in a pigsty, his face was a little dirty and it was hard to see certain areas, these bubbles weren’t difficult to spot.

They nodded.

Song Caitang explained, “When liquid enters the nose during drowning, it irritates the mucus gland in the windpipe and causes it to produce a lot of mucus. Water, mucus and air will mix together to form a large amount of white foam. After the person is taken out of the water, foam is discharged from the terminal bronchioles and gather on the sides of the mouth and nose. They are very small, evenly sized and stable. Even when dried, they leave visible traces. When a body shows such signs, one can basically conclude that this person must have drowned to death.”

Wen Yuansi raised a question, “Then this faint pinkish color…”

“We rely on our lungs to breathe,” explained Song Caitang. “When they are irritated from the drowning, the tiny blood vessels in the lungs will suddenly expand, so some blood will end up seeping into these bubbles. So, the bubbles could be completely white, or they could be pinkish from the blood.”

Zhao Zhi remarked, “So, regardless of whether there’s water here or not, or whether the victim’s clothes are wet or not, he’s definitely drowned to death.”

Song Caitang nodded, “That’s right.”

But he raised a very good point. You had to have water to drown someone, and there wasn’t any here…

Wen Yuansi narrowed his eyes slightly, “The victim might have been moved here, so this isn’t the actual scene of the crime.”

As they spoke, Song Caitang discovered something else, “I think…I smell alcohol on him.”

“Alcohol?”

Most men drank, so they weren’t very sensitive to the smell of alcohol. Wu Bo did not mind the filth and knelt to smell the victim’s clothes. After a long time, he frowned and turned his head, “There does seem to be a little bit…”

Some people would feed pigs with distillers grain, but when they looked into the feeder, they found it to be very clean and there were no traces of distillers grain. Therefore, this smell was brought in from elsewhere. In other words, Lu Guangzong had touched alcohol.

Did he…drink it?

With who?

There weren’t enough clues to answer that question.

But there was no water here, so he couldn’t have gotten drunk, fallen into water and drowned from that. The body was moved here from elsewhere.

“The victim’s clothing is very crumpled, but it’s too dirty for me to tell if it’s because he had been wearing the same set for too long, or because he’s crushed it from lying here. But it looks like he hasn’t shaved in a long time.” Song Caitang paused and turned to look at Wu Bo, “How long does it take for facial hair to grow to this state?”

Wu Bo was a man who kept his beard well, so he was very familiar with the growth rate of facial hair. He took a close look and came to a conclusion, “Looking at it…I think he hasn’t taken care of it for at least half a month.”

The men of this era did not just decide to keep a beard and let it grow wild. They cared about how it looked, so they had to take care of it every few days or even every day.

They were particular about the length and shape, so one had to shave off any bits that were not growing properly. Lu Guangzong was an official, so since he was keeping one, he would be very particular about it. Not trimming it and letting it grow in such a messy manner was definitely not normal for him.

When she took another look, Song Caitang discovered more things, “Commissioner Lu’s complexion is very pale, his cheeks are sunken in and he looks a lot skinnier than the last I saw him. His fingers have a lot of cuts on them. Some have been around for some time and scabs have grown over them, but some are very new and were still bleeding. His shoes…are very badly worn out. It looks like he’s walked very, very far.”

She was just describing what she saw and didn’t make any conjectures, but everyone could make some guesses based on the description.

Lu Guangzong looked somewhat like he had been imprisoned before.

His pale skin, his thinness, the injuries inflicted on his hands at different times all supported this conjecture. As for his shoe soles, it meant that he must have escaped.

But who would have capture Lu Guangzong? How did he escape? Why did his body end up here?

Did his captor discover that he had escaped and decided to just kill him? Or did he run into trouble after escaping?

Or…was there someone else who knew that Lu Guangzong had gone missing, knew where he had gone and kept watch, then killed him when he escaped so that the captor would be found guilty instead?

All of them started thinking of various possible scenarios.

Wen Yuansi looked around and observed the crowd keenly, “Do you think the killer could be here and waiting to see how the authorities are going to react?” He was trying to see if anybody in the crowd looked suspicious.

Zhao Zhi also scanned their surroundings and said quietly, “This neighborhood is packed with houses, is often crowded, and filled with erratic narrow streets and alleys. To dump a body here without anybody noticing means that the murderer might be very familiar with this area.”

Song Caitang was still squatting next to the body and looking for more clues. “It seems like…the victim didn’t struggle.”

Wu Bo squatted down next to her, “Struggle?”

“When someone is drowning, they’d try to breathe and try to come up to surface, so they would definitely put up a fight, but he didn’t,” Song Caitang pointed at the victim’s hands. “Take a close look. None of the wounds are really fresh, are they?”

Wu Bo paused to look, then said quietly, “Could he have been drunk?”

“The smell of alcohol is very light, so even if the victim really couldn’t drink, there’s no way this tiny amount would get anybody drunk,” Song Caitang shook her head, “Besides, even if he were drunk, the body would react naturally. Unless…”

Wu Bo narrowed his eyes, “Unless he was completely unconscious.”

Song Caitang bent down to look at the victim’s nails to see if there were any signs of being poisoned, but the body was really too dirty for her to see anything clearly.

The body had to be washed first.

The two coroners did not speak anymore and silence filled the air.

“Is that all we can conclude from looking at the body here?” Wen Yuansi looked at Song Caitang, then at Wu Bo, “Anything else?”

Wu Bo shook his head, “After the body is washed clean, any superficial signs will become more obvious and we might find more injuries that we can’t see right now. But if you want more clues than that…I’m afraid that will be very difficult.”

It was hard to tell the color of the nails, so he couldn’t be sure if the victim had been poisoned. But he had already tried his best to wipe away the feces on the nail and looked very carefully. It was probably going to still look like this after the body was washed.

But if the victim wasn’t poisoned, then could he have inhaled something that made him faint? How could one check for that?

Wen Yuansi raised an eyebrow and looked only at Song Caitang this time, “What if we…cut the body open?”

“If we cut the body open, we’d definitely gain new clues,” Song Caitang was very sure of that. “Water will leave traces behind. Regardless of how the pacification commissioner was drowned, the liquid used will leave evidence behind. The victim’s windpipe, lungs and other internal organs will contain something that will give us a clue, like algae and so on.”

“Internal organs will have the most direct and obvious reaction to any poison. Even if you can’t see any reaction from the outside of the body, you’ll see it in the organs.”

All of these was evidence.

If they were lucky, they might find crucial evidence that could help them crack the case really quickly.

Wen Yuansi nodded slightly.

He understood this aspect very well. The Tianhua Temple case involved the deaths of a few people, but the few clues they got combined with the complicated relationship between the various parties involved had led them nowhere. But after Song Caitang examined the bodies and cut them open, all the difficult problems they had were solved almost instantly. Doing that had provided an actual direction for investigation.

After benefiting so greatly from this past experience, it was only natural for him to want to do it again.

“Then I’ll…” He was about to say that he would discuss this with the victim’s family when a very loud voice bellowed in his ears.

“I WILL NOT AGREE TO IT!”

A man came running so quickly toward them, he was practically flying.

That was the family that Wen Yuansi was looking for. The man was Lu Guangzong’s son, Lu Shen.

Lu Shen was Lu Guangzong’s youngest son. He looked just like his father, with the same thick brows and large eyes, and dressed neatly.

He was 23 years old, which wasn’t very young for this society, since he was old enough to have his own family. But he was a newbie in public service and needed to gain more experience as a low ranking official.

The young man was quite capable, hailed from a well-to-do family and had a very prominent father. Lu Shen exuded the energy and dominance that came with being young and spoke very straightforwardly.

“Don’t you know what sort of status my father had? How can you cut him open? Do you want everyone to laugh at the Lus? The bodies you found at Tianhua Temple were just hooligans with no parents and poor upbringing, so you could cut them open and nobody would care! Yun Nianyao was a woman, so she wasn’t the head of her family and did not have to answer to her ancestors. But my father! Who was he? He was an official in the capital for decades! He was free of scandals and respected by all! Several gates in our ancestral home have been built in honor of him! It’s bad enough that he’s died such a wrongful death, so how could you cut him up? How could you make his death even more tragic than it already is?!”

Lu Shen’s eyes were bloodshot and tears started pouring down his cheeks as he spoke. He used his sleeve to wipe his tears away fiercely, then glared at Wen Yuansi as he repeated what he said earlier, emphasizing every syllable, “I WILL NOT AGREE TO IT!”