When Magistrate Qian Mingyue was invited over by the Jin family, Liu Ruyu had also woken up and was weeping loudly in the main hall, lamenting her tragic lot as a woman who had lost her son only a few days prior, only to have her husband die right after.
Left as the sole widow of such a wealthy and prominent household, Liu Ruyu felt as though her heart were breaking.
Fortunately, this newly appointed magistrate was not a complete fool. After listening to Li Lianhua explain the ins and outs of the situation, while he did not entirely clear Bai Buyu of the suspicion of poisoning Jin Fulu, he at least did not pin Jin Dagen's death on Bai and Li, who had not yet arrived at Jin Family Fortress at the time of the incident.
Because she had saved Liu Ruyu, Bai Buyu was temporarily spared from being detained. At that moment, everyone was gathered in the main hall of the Jin Family Fortress, where two corpses lay in the center.
One was Jin Fulu, who had been dead for days, and the other was Jin Dagen, who had died just last night. Li Lianhua paced around the corpses twice, then twice more, seemingly searching for something. Finally, he let out a perplexed "ah," returned to his seat, and leisurely drank his tea.
"You've been pacing back and forth like that—did you figure something out?" Bai Buyu watched Li Lianhua circling the bodies as if looking for something, completely at a loss for what he was up to.
"Jin Dagen is dead," Li Lianhua replied with a vague, absent-minded look in his eyes.
What kind of answer was that? Bai Buyu stared blankly. Anyone with eyes could see that Jin Dagen was dead; his corpse was right there in front of them, after all.
"Yet Madam Jin is completely fine—well, not entirely fine. So was the killer's initial goal to murder only Jin Dagen, or to kill Madam Jin along with him? Or could it be that the killer's target from the very beginning was simply Jin Fulu?"
Li Lianhua muttered under his breath. Others couldn't hear him, but Bai Buyu caught every word clearly.
Yet hearing it was no different from hearing nothing at all; the more she listened, the more confused she became.
"My lord, both the Fortress Master and the Young Master have blood coming from their noses and mouths, and their lips and tongues are black and purple. From what I can see, both of these men died of poison."
After examining the corpses of Jin Dagen and Jin Fulu, the coroner from the yamen had someone retrieve the food Jin Dagen had eaten yesterday for inspection. A maidservant went to the back kitchen and returned to report that the leftover food from the master's meal yesterday had already been dumped into the swill bucket and fed to the pigs in the backyard.
A guard had specifically gone to check on those pigs, and every single one of them was full and basking in the sun, showing no signs of poisoning whatsoever.
The old coroner scratched his head, unsure of how to proceed, so he wrote out a lengthy document detailing various conjectures about how Jin Dagen might have been poisoned and presented it to Qian Mingyue in the seat of honor.
As for Qian Mingyue, he had not been in office long when such a major incident occurred in Baixia Town, and he dared not take it lightly. Hearing that something had happened at Jin Family Fortress, he had hurried over as fast as he could.
Only, by this point, he really could no longer bear to sit there. Jin Fulu had been dead for days, and the stench was far from pleasant. Seeing that the coroner had finished the examinations, Qian Mingyue immediately waved his hand to have the two corpses carried out of the hall first.
"Wait."
Li Lianhua stood up, gave Qian Mingyue a rough salute, and then turned to the coroner to voice his doubts: "Allow me to ask a bold question. Did you just say that both father and son of the Jin family died of poison?"
The coroner looked Li Lianhua up and down, failing to understand his intent, and replied in a deep voice: "That's right. The Fortress Master and the Young Master both have black and purple lips and tongues, and bleeding from the seven orifices. These are clearly the signs of perishing from a lethal poison."
"Black and purple lips and tongues, and bleeding from the seven orifices are indeed signs of poisoning. But from Li's perspective, the Fortress Master and the Young Master both have ashen complexions, protruding eyes, and hands curled like chicken claws. It looks much more like they died of sheer terror."
"Died of terror?" Bai Buyu asked, uncomprehending. "You mean the father and son were scared to death?"
"Precisely."
"Nonsense! These two clearly died of poisoning. What kind of blessed geomancy does our Baixia Town have, and what kind of prestigious household are the Jins, that two people in succession would be scared to death?"
Finished hearing Li Lianhua's words, the coroner rudely started yelling and cursing: "Utterly ridiculous! You claim the father and son were scared to death—scared by what? Could it be that this Jin Family Fortress is haunted by ferocious ghosts?"
"You..." Bai Buyu wanted to stand up and tear into him with abuses, but she saw Li Lianhua cup his fists, shrink back with a terrified expression on his face, and say in all seriousness: "Ferocious ghosts? Where would ghosts come from? I certainly didn't say there were ghosts. You don't know how much I've feared ghosts all my life."
"This..."
Qian Mingyue wanted to question Li Lianhua, but hesitated, unsure how to address him. Fortunately, Li Lianhua tactfully announced his own name:
"Magistrate Qian, I am Li Lianpeng."
"Ah, Brother Lianpeng, this official sees that your insights are quite unique, and you seem to have experience in examining corpses. May I ask where you studied your craft?"
"I wouldn't dare claim such a thing. I had no master and am entirely self-taught," Li Lianhua said, waving his hands repeatedly with a humble air.
"Oh." Upon hearing that Li Lianhua was self-taught, Qian Mingyue sat back down dejectedly, assuming he was merely there to cause trouble.
"However, I do have an older brother," Li Lianhua changed the subject, "who is considered somewhat famous. His name is Li Lianhua." Li Lianhua smiled gently. In this tiny mountain town, the name Li Lianhua that he casually dropped would likely be known by very few.
Who would have thought that upon hearing the three words "Li Lianhua," Qian Mingyue's eyes would suddenly light up?
Discarding any disgust for the foul odor emanating from the two corpses of the Jin father and son, he strode directly over, grabbed Li Lianhua's hand, and stared at him with burning intensity: "Really? Brother Lianpeng? Could your esteemed older brother be the miraculous physician of the Lotus Tower, Li Lianhua?"
Li Lianhua gave a dry chuckle. How could he possibly know that Qian Mingyue had recently been transferred from the Capital and held a deep fascination for eccentric and wondrous figures in the rivers and lakes?
Over the past two years, the exploits of Lotus Tower's master Li Lianhua—who assisted the pugilistic criminal court Baichuan Academy in solving one bizarre case after another—had even been compiled and copied into records by Qian Mingyue, who would pull them out to read from time to time.
When he came to serve as magistrate in Baixia County, he had even fantasized about whether he might encounter one or two such bizarre cases in his own jurisdiction. Never had he expected to run into the Jin Family Fortress—and Li Lianpeng, the older brother of the divine doctor Li Lianhua.
"Magistrate Qian, I..." Li Lianhua was torn between laughter and tears; this accidental success had turned out better than he ever expected.
Standing to the side, Bai Buyu crossed her arms and watched the scene unfold, thinking to herself that Li Lianhua must possess some unknown talent, otherwise how could every tall tale he spun actually manage to convince someone?