Identifying The Bones

Song Caitang looked at Qi Yan and felt that there was something odd about him.

He did not behave like a whimsical dandy, nor did he have the same threatening expression he had when he glowered at Pang Qian earlier. Qi Yan looked a little sensitive, a little vulnerable, and a little… sad, for some reason.

All of this led Song Caitang to one possible conclusion: Qi Yan went through something like this before.

Perhaps someone he knew met with misfortune.

Examining a body required a lot of knowledge in various fields, so it was hard to explain everything in just a few words. But when she saw the slight gleam in Qi Yan’s eyes, she tried to explain everything as simply as possible.

She then used the bones before her as an example, “Let’s look at this set of bones. Based on his age, the changes in his bones and how worn out they are, we can guess what he used to work as. This man must have used his hands a lot and his fingers had to be agile. To have his bones wear out like this means that he must have worked very hard and held strict standards for himself. If someone else had forced him to work hard, they wouldn’t wear out like this. This was someone who would push himself even when no one was looking and practiced a lot.”

“So, if we want to know who he was, we have to think back 10 to 13 years ago, and think of a man between 20 and 24 years of age with a job that required mostly his hands. He was very good at that job, or perhaps he wasn’t, but he worked very hard at it and was praised for it. If we move our investigation in this direction, we should find something.”

“Oh, and over here too.”

Song Caitang paused and pointed to the middle of the medial side of the lower arm, “Do you see the scar here? The bone here is thick and it’s a different density from the bone around it, so it stands out.”

Qi Yan pushed Zhao Zhi aside and bent over to take a closer look, “I see it very clearly!”

“These are signs that the bones are healing after a fracture.”

Song Caitang explained, “A common saying is that fractures and sprains require 100 days to heal, but actually, it takes longer for bones to regrow. After a bone is fractured, it needs a year or two to grow back to what it used to look like. This scar here means that the person fractured this one within a year of passing away. When he died, the part around the bone had healed and he could go back to work, but on the inside, his bones had not fully healed.”

Zhao Zhi narrowed his eyes, “A man in his early twenties who was a hardworking craftsman… that would leave a good impression on people very easily. If he had suddenly fractured his arm and couldn’t work for at least three months, someone would have noticed.”

“That’s right.” Song Caitang nodded, her brows exuding great intelligence. “You should get some results if you search for someone like this.”

Qi Yan was very curious about the bones and asked a lot of questions. Song Caitang did not find him annoying and answered all his questions. She even picked up the bones from time to time to explain things to him.

Time slowly ticked by.

Qi Yan’s gaze burned brighter and brighter as he stared at Song Caitang and he became more and more excited. He finally asked about the cause of death, “So, how did this person die?”

“That’s not something we can discuss here.”

Zhao Zhi suddenly cut in as he moved to stand in front of Song Caitang. He stared at Qi Yan with a raised brow and said, “You can be involved in Lu Guangzong’s case, but not this one.”

Qi Yan blinked in surprise. “But… why not?”

Zhao Zhi smiled faintly, “You’re an eyewitness and a related person in that case. But not for this one. I’m sorry, but you’re not part of the investigations team and letting you see the bones is already considered a huge favor. I can’t possibly tell you everything just like that. What if you accidentally tell someone else?”

“How could I do that? You know very well that I—”

“I don’t know anything,” Zhao Zhi cut him off and waved him away, “Goodbye, Mr. Qi!”

With that, he picked Qi Yan up by the collar behind his neck and threw him out of the room. He slammed the door shut, dusted his hands off, then turned and looked at Song Caitang as though nothing had happened, “Please carry on.”

Song Caitang was speechless.

Qi Yan stood outside for a long time, but failed to convince Zhao Zhi to let him back in. He had no choice but to go and see if his cousin was feeling any better.

Ling Qianqian had merely been frightened by the sight of the bones and blacked out as a result, but her health was in good condition and she was fine after taking a short nap. She felt really bad after waking up and felt that she had thoroughly embarrassed herself.

Unlike most other young ladies who would cover their faces as they cried and ran away when they felt embarrassed, she felt that she had to do something since she had embarrassed herself in front of her Zhao-gege. She couldn’t just let things be and let him have a bad impression of her!

And so, Ling Qianqian dragged Qi Yan along to look for Zhao Zhi.

By this time, Song Caitang had finished telling Zhao Zhi and Wen Yuansi her findings and they had left the corpse examination room.

Ling Qianqian was glad that she didn’t have to see the bones anymore, so she came running over and reached for Zhao Zhi’s arm, “Zhao-gege!”

Of course, Zhao Zhi wasn’t going to let her touch him and moved aside in time.

Ling Qianqian bit her lip and took a deep breath as she clenched her fists slightly to show that she wasn’t really bothered. She put on a big smile and said to Zhao Zhi, “My aunt from the Gao family is throwing a party for me in a week’s time, so you have to come!”

Zhao Zhi glanced at Qi Yan, who was walking toward Song Caitang, and replied rather indifferently, “I’m not free.”

Ling Qianqian seemed used to his attitude and didn’t get angry. She went into cutesy mode and whined, “What do you mean by you’re not free? It won’t take a lot of your time, so why don’t you drop by? Please? Pretty, pretty, pleaaaaaasse…“

Meanwhile, Qi Yan stood in Song Caitang’s way, causing her to stop in her footsteps and raise an eyebrow, “You still want to ask about the bones? I’m sorry but policy states that we can’t talk about the case to people outside of the investigation team, so I can’t tell you anything more than what we talked about earlier. But we’re going to find out who this man was and his identity will eventually be announced, so you will find out who he was, just a little later.”

Qi Yan scratched his head, “Oh, that’s fine, that’s fine. I just thought that you were pretty awesome and wanted to be friends.”

That was something that Song Caitang could decide for herself. Her smile was bright as she replied, “Sure.”

Ling Qianqian’s attempts to invite Zhao Zhi to the party weren’t working out, so she followed his gaze and frowned when she realized he was looking at Song Caitang.

She stopped clinging onto him and ran over to Song Caitang instead, smiling brightly as she said, “Song-jiejie, since fate has brought us together… My aunt is throwing a party for me in a week’s time, so it’d be great if I could meet some nice ladies in Luanze and make friends. You must come for the party!”

The Gaos had told everyone about this party a long time ago and the upper class circles of Luanze had been looking forward to it. It was very, very difficult to get an invitation to the party, yet Ling Qianqian was actually personally inviting her to attend.

This was a chance that everyone wanted, but Song Caitang didn’t actually care for it. She really hated having to attend social gatherings like these.

But sometimes, if a person is kind enough to invite you and you turn it down… it would seem unfriendly, or worse, you could even start a feud.

Song Caitang didn’t want to fall out with a young lady over something like that, so she smiled and agreed, “Thank you for inviting me! If I can, I’ll definitely be there.”

“That’s a deal then! I’ll get someone to send you an invitation later!”

She didn’t hang around after that and dragged Qi Yan away, “Cousin, let’s go! I want to get some new jewelry!”

Qi Yan had no choice but to wave at Song Caitang and leave with his cousin.

As the horse carriage left the courthouse, Ling Qianqian held up the curtain and stared toward the high wall of the courthouse for a long time.

“Cousin, that Miss Song… is she really nice?”

Qi Yan nodded vigorously, “She’s really special! I’ve never come across such a clever, pretty and talented woman before!”

Ling Qianqian narrowed her eyes as she spoke in a very low and quiet voice, “Every man would like her, I suppose…“

Qi Yan replied, “That’s not necessarily true. I think a timid guy would be scared of her.”

“That’s true…“ murmured Ling Qianqian, “But how could Zhao-gege possibly be timid?”

Luanze was a place that wasn’t really very big, but not too small either. Song Caitang had provided several rather specific pieces of information, and both Governor Zhang and Wen Yuansi had done a good job of keeping records of the families that lived here. Their records checking and the rounds they made went very well. They got results just three days later!

This efficiency really shocked everybody.

Never mind how Luanze was a small place – even if a body turned up in a place as important as the capital city of Bianliang, confirming the identity of a skeleton would have taken a really long time. But this case had taken less than ten days from the day they discovered the bones to the day they found out whose bones they were!

Also…

The identity of this person was very surprising.

It turned out to be the son whom Niu Baoshan had lost eleven years ago, Niu Xingzu!¹

When Niu Xingzu had gone missing, Niu Baoshan had done everything he could to search for his son but to no avail. He was still in shock when he was brought to see the skeleton.

He didn’t dare to see if that was really his son.

In his heart, he was still hoping that his son was alive. No news was good news, after all. Perhaps his son was still alive, just that he had run away from home, or he had hit his head and forgot who he was and would return after his memories came back… wasn’t that the storyline of those plays everyone watched?

Besides the hope he had, the other problem was… this was just a pile of bones. A pile of bones with no blood and flesh, no skin and no face. How was he supposed to know if this was his son or not?

He couldn’t possibly tell!

But every piece of information that Song Caitang had gleaned from the bones matched Niu Xingzu.

Niu Xingzu was a woodworker and had found a teacher to learn from at the age of seven or eight. But he was unlucky and his teacher passed away young. So, he had a good foundation but did not manage to learn a lot of techniques. Without a teacher to guide him, he dared not take on any jobs. But no teacher would take him in because many of them were superstitious.

As a result, he started to explore different techniques and try new things day and night without ceasing.

The boy was very filial and was good to his father. He knew that Niu Baoshan had a hard time bringing him up, so now that he was old enough to work, he wanted to earn enough for both of them so that he wouldn’t be a burden to his father.

Back then, Niu Baoshan’s temper wasn’t so foul and he wasn’t an alcoholic. He did drink, but did not drink too much, so the father and son lived together very harmoniously.

Niu Xingzu had fractured his arm because of his father too. At that time, Niu Baoshan caught a bad cold and took a long time to get well. He kept coughing and coughing and refused to get better. It took Niu Xingzu great effort to get his hands on a secret medicinal recipe and he went up the mountain himself to pick herbs. On the mountain, he fell and fractured his arm.

Because he had fractured his arm, he couldn’t take any new jobs for a long time, and he had to compensate the customers who had to get their orders late. But he had gotten hurt from being a filial son, and he was usually a hardworking and fast worker, so everyone remembered him well.

Until today, many people still remembered how Niu Xingzu had one arm hanging in a sling in front of his chest, yet he continued to brew medicine for his father.

On top of all that, Song Caitang had made other conjectures based on her observations of the bones. For example, she could see where he had fallen as a child and where the bones didn’t grow back well; which teeth were different from most others; how one leg was slightly longer than the other. That was something that was hard to tell by sight, and only the person would notice when he ran quickly.

All of this matched Niu Xingzu exactly.

Niu Baoshan did not look drunk or glower at others. His hands trembled as he touched the leg bone on the examination table, then suddenly burst into tears.

“My son… my son!”

He wailed miserably and his eyes were bloodshot as he punched the table and pulled the bones toward him to hug them tightly, as though he wanted to push the entire skeleton into his own body.

But the bones were in separate pieces and he couldn’t hug them all at once. His sweeping movement caused the smaller ones to roll away, with some falling hard onto the floor and they nearly turned to dust.

It looked more like he was trying to destroy the bones.

Niu Baoshan didn’t know what to do as he hugged the bones he could and looked pleadingly at Song Caitang. He was practically begging her with his eyes as he said, “Miss Song, I… I beg you… please…“

A middle aged man with graying hair, hugging his son’s bones with a helpless look on his face…

Song Caitang’s heart went out to him.

“It’s alright, I’ll arrange them back in order for you. If you don’t mind, I’ll look for a special needle to sew the bones back together so that you can bury him in one piece.”

Niu Baoshan fell to his knees with a thud, then kowtowed three times, hitting his head hard against the floor each time. After he kowtowed the third time, he seemed too overwhelmed by grief and didn’t get up for a long time. His voice was also choked and pained, “I, Niu Baoshan… on behalf of my son, thank you for your kindness in putting the bones together!”

Song Caitang quickly excused herself but did not try to pull him to his feet.

She could see that he needed an outlet to release his sadness.

She sighed as she walked out and closed the door behind her so that the father and son could spend time alone with one another.

She had thought that after Niu Baoshan went through the initial period of grieving, he would calm down. But she was wrong.

At a time when nobody was watching or expected anything to happen, Niu Baoshan did two things.

The first thing he did was to pour feces on the main gate of the Lu family residence. He had specially pulled an entire cart of it there and had chosen a really good time to do it. He had poured a lot, so it was really smelly and really in their face. It didn’t take long for all of Luanze to find out!

The second thing he did was to stand in front of Fourth Missy Gan’s door, throw rotten eggs at her house while using the filthiest language he could muster to curse the mother and son duo for an entire day!