On the second autopsy stand lay the headless corpse discovered at Liuyue Tower. This time, Lin Sui’an finally got a clear look at the body in its entirety.

The body’s surface was wrapped in disheveled clothing, and beneath the garments lay a chaotic mess of wounds — varying in depth, some merely grazing the skin, others cutting deep enough to expose bone. It was exactly like—

Lin Sui’an: The punishment of death by a thousand cuts?

Hua Yitang unfolded the autopsy examination form and read it carefully with furrowed brows, while the coroner explained in a low voice — his tone considerably more respectful than when he had spoken to Lin Sui’an earlier. “The flesh at the blade marks is clean and even, and the flesh around the wounds is dry and pale. All of these knife injuries were inflicted post-mortem.”

“Has the victim’s identity been confirmed?” Lin Sui’an asked.

“Bai Shun’s parents and Yan He’s father have both come in, but the body is severely damaged, and the two men were very similar in build and appearance. Neither family has been able to confirm the identity. Bai Shun’s mother recognized the clothing on the body as what Bai Shun was wearing when he left home. As for the bruising on Yan He’s chest that you mentioned, Lin Niangzi—” Ling Zhiyan pulled back the corpse’s clothing— “the front and back of the torso have been cut to pieces and can no longer be examined.”

“What about scars or birthmarks?” Hua Yitang asked.

Ling Zhiyan shook his head. “None can be verified.”

“I compared the body against Yan He’s head,” the coroner Wang Zhou said, “but unfortunately a section of the neck is missing — it doesn’t match up.”

There’s no DNA testing in this era. Lin Sui’an sighed inwardly. What was worse, this corpse didn’t even have a head, leaving her golden ability with nothing to work with.

“And the cause of death?” Hua Yitang asked.

The coroner said, “I beg your pardon — my skills are insufficient. I cannot determine the cause of death.”

Hua Yitang pressed his folded fan against his chin and circled the autopsy stand twice. “And the third body?”

The third body was Jiang Hongwen, twenty-five years of age, the second son of the Jiang Family. This corpse was comparatively more intact. The surface bore no cuts from a bladed weapon, but the head, arms, and legs had all been severed and arranged on the stand in their original positions. The manner of death made Lin Sui’an think of another cruel punishment: death by five horses pulling the body apart.

“Jiang Hongwen’s cause of death was suffocation — his mouth and nose were covered by clothing. The severed shoulders and legs show clean wounds with no blood pooling, indicating the dismemberment occurred after death. Time of death was approximately between the first and third watch. The cuts on this body are identical to the previous two — clean and precise,” the coroner said.

Lin Sui’an crouched down and carefully examined the soles of Jiang Hongwen’s feet. Finding nothing of note, she let out a sigh and looked up — only to find Hua Yitang wrapping a silk handkerchief around his hand to examine Jiang Hongwen’s fingers and inspect the nails.

“The nails were trimmed after death. They’re very clean,” Ling Zhiyan said. “This killer is quite clever.”

Hua Yitang moved to the front of the autopsy stand, parted the corpse’s hair, and frowned in silence — clearly he hadn’t found anything either.

“Give me a handkerchief,” Lin Sui’an said.

“Hmm?” Hua Yitang replied.

“I want to look at his eyes.”

The moment she said this, the coroner’s expression toward Lin Sui’an grew even stranger. Even Ling Zhiyan showed a flicker of surprise — it was, after all, rare for anyone to deliberately stare into a corpse’s eyes.

Only Hua Yitang showed no hesitation whatsoever and immediately helped Lin Sui’an pry open the corpse’s eyelids.

The instant her gaze met the corpse’s eyeball, Lin Sui’an saw another pair of eyes — the sockets filled with bloodshot vessels and tears. A piercing scream scraped across her mind; the scene shifted, and a mouth appeared, full of blood-stained teeth — small teeth, with two missing from where the canines should have been…

“Lin Sui’an!” An urgent voice tore through the vision before her. Lin Sui’an shuddered and saw Hua Yitang’s worried face. His hand hovered barely half an inch from her shoulder before he thought better of it and withdrew.

“You — what’s wrong?” Hua Yitang asked.

Lin Sui’an shook her head. “Nothing.”

This is bad. Yan He’s and Jiang Hongwen’s memories were too fragmented — she couldn’t piece together even a single complete image. And moreover — these memory fragments gave her a deeply unsettling feeling.

Hua Yitang stared at Lin Sui’an, his heart pounding wildly. The moment Lin Sui’an had looked into the corpse’s eyes, her pupils had abruptly lost all light, as if her soul had been forcibly torn away, leaving behind nothing but an empty shell. That feeling left him feeling rather uneasy.

“The wound edges on the severed sections are nearly identical,” Ling Zhiyan said. “It should be the same bladed weapon. It’s very likely all three cases are the work of the same killer.”

“We still can’t say with certainty that these are three separate cases,” Lin Sui’an said. “The second body could be Bai Shun, or it could be Yan He.”

“Judging by the clothing on the body, Bai Shun seems more likely,” Ling Zhiyan said.

“Normally, a single killer would use the same method of killing, and similar methods of disposing of bodies. So why has this killer’s approach to handling the bodies differed so greatly?” Hua Yitang tapped his palm with his fan. “And why employ such brutal methods?”

Mutilating a body generally comes down to a few reasons: making disposal easier, concealing evidence on the body, obscuring the victim’s identity, the killer venting emotions, and so on. Looking at the state of these bodies, Lin Sui’an’s instinct said the venting of emotions was the more likely explanation.

“A grudge killing?” Ling Zhiyan suggested. “Or a crime of passion?”

“The only one who could have had a romantic entanglement with all of them would be the courtesans at Mei Wu’s establishment,” Hua Yitang said, “but as I recall, they were all arrested and thrown into the prefecture jail the day before yesterday. Well, it seems the Prefect Zhou did have foresight after all — he single-handedly proved the innocence of those women.”

Ling Zhiyan gave a dry cough and redirected the topic. “A grudge killing seems most likely.”

Hua Yitang agreed: “Their greatest enemy would be me.”

Lin Sui’an: “…”

Ling Zhiyan sighed. “Might I ask Hua the Fourth to help me sort out the social connections these victims had in Yangdu City? It would be best to write it all down.”

“I can certainly do that,” Hua Yitang said, “though I suspect it’ll be a wasted effort.”

“How so?” Ling Zhiyan asked.

“You have good reason to suspect these wealthy young masters, but whether it’s our group or Feng Yuyi’s crowd, we’re all worthless wastrels — good for eating, drinking, cursing, and brawling, but when it comes to anything serious, every last one of us is a coward. To kill and dismember someone with such brutality, you’d need to borrow a hundred times the guts none of us have.”

Lin Sui’an looked at Hua Yitang with an indescribable expression, thinking: this guy is genuinely something — when he goes in, he even insults himself.

“…The Fourth need not be so self-deprecating,” Ling Zhiyan said.

“I call it self-awareness,” Hua Yitang replied.

Lin Sui’an pressed her hand to her forehead. “Let’s just go look at the place where Jiang Hongwen’s body was found.”

The first person to discover Jiang Hongwen’s head was the night watchman — a thin, slight man well past sixty, though remarkably sharp in his speech. He was responsible for the patrol and timekeeping duties across the twelve wards south of the East River and east of the Government Canal; in short, he was an auxiliary member of Yangdu’s city patrol guard.

“At the third quarter of the Zi hour — I remember it clear as day. I had just beaten the watch drum when I saw a human head right there!” The old watchman pointed to the center of the street. “The moon that night, I tell you — bright enough to give you a fright, white as anything it lit up the ground, and the head was white as anything too. Scared me half to death!”

The entire Qingge Ward had been sealed off by the constables as tightly as an iron barrel. All residents and shops had closed their doors and windows and were not permitted to go out, while street vendors were nowhere to be seen. The crime scene had been well preserved this time around, with the placement of the head carefully marked off. Aside from the marked area, there was almost no blood — this was clearly not the primary crime scene.

The streets of this era were made of sand and gravel, worn uneven by years of foot traffic. This was one of Qingge Ward’s main thoroughfares, so the road was dense with the overlapping tracks of cart wheels. Lin Sui’an crouched and examined it for a long while but could make out nothing of significance, and eventually gave up.

Hua Yitang stood in the middle of the street, fanning himself and gazing around with his head tilted back. The morning breeze stirred his petal-like robes, and his handsome face caught the glow of the dawn light like a painting — the only flaw being the deep furrow in his brow.

“What else did you see or hear at the time?” Lin Sui’an asked the watchman.

“Ah, in the dead of the night like that, not even a ghost in sight — I didn’t see a thing,” the watchman replied.

Ling Zhiyan had just arrived at the scene when Ming Shu and Ming Feng came to report. He listened to them murmur for quite some time before walking over with a furrowed brow. “According to Jiang Hongwen’s family, he ate lunch yesterday, then claimed he was unwell and retired to his room to rest. He dismissed all the servants attending on him and forbade anyone to disturb him. It wasn’t until last night, when the constables came to request someone identify the body, that the Jiang Family discovered he was gone.”

“Was he abducted, or did he leave on his own?” Lin Sui’an asked.

“Everything inside the room was normal. No signs of a struggle,” Ling Zhiyan said.

“Did anyone see him leave?”

Ling Zhiyan shook his head.

“Is his usual carriage still there?” Hua Yitang asked.

“The carriage and the driver are both there. The driver had no idea when Jiang Hongwen left,” Ling Zhiyan said.

Lin Sui’an and Hua Yitang exchanged a glance.

Another one who snuck out on his own.

“Jiang Hongwen lived in Qingchun Ward, his head turned up in Qingge Ward, and his body was found in—” Hua Yitang said, “Let’s go look at Ling Third Ward.”

The situation in Ling Third Ward mirrored Qingge Ward exactly, except that the body had been found on the inter-ward road between Ling Third Ward and Fang Third Ward. Looking around in every direction, all one could see were rammed-earth ward walls. The one who discovered the body was not a night watchman but a squad of city patrol soldiers. Apparently, after the case was discovered in Qingge Ward at the third quarter of the Zi hour, an emergency was called to seal the gates of the twelve wards in the northeastern city district, and additional city patrol guards were deployed to patrol. The body was found during those patrols.

Lin Sui’an held Qian Jing and tilted her head, studying the marked outline of the body on the ground. The torso lay in the center, with both arms and both legs spread outward like rays — it was clearly the shape of the character for “big.”

Hua Yitang paced among the several marked body points. “The killer was quite precise about it — both arms and both legs are each exactly seven paces from the torso, and the torso is placed precisely in the center of the road, not half a step off.”

“Could it be some sort of compulsion?” Lin Sui’an muttered.

“What sort of compulsion?” Hua Yitang asked.

“I mean — is there some particular significance or message in the way the killer arranged the body like this?”

“What I’m more curious about is how the killer transported the body here,” Hua Yitang said, tapping his chin with his fan. “The head is easy enough — put it in a basket or a box, and in the quiet of the night with few passersby, it’s fairly inconspicuous. But the body would have required a transport vehicle. I’m fairly certain it was a carriage.” He leaned toward Lin Sui’an. “What do you think?”

His eyes were bright and sparkling as he looked at her, making her roll her eyes.

Did he think she couldn’t tell what he was getting at? He was obviously suspicious of her connection to the flatbread vendor and to the Ten Purity Sect.

“Inspector Ling, have you found that flatbread vendor I mentioned earlier?” Lin Sui’an asked.

“Why?” Ling Zhiyan replied.

“That person can identify cart wheel tracks — they could help us find clues.”

“I went to Heavy Smoke Ward,” Ming Shu said. “Not a single food stall in sight.”

Lin Sui’an: “…”

“Oh my, how strange — there used to be at least twenty or so food stalls there,” Hua Yitang said, tapping his fan.

“According to the nearby residents,” Ming Shu said, “those food stall vendors vanished all of a sudden, and no one knows their exact origins.”

Lin Sui’an’s temple throbbed: You crafty beanpole! You set me up, didn’t you?!

“Are you officials looking for someone who can read tracks on the ground?” the captain of the city patrol squad stepped forward and asked.

Ling Zhiyan was momentarily surprised. “You know the flatbread vendor?”

“Why go so far afield when the answer’s right here? We’ve got a lad in our squad — never mind cart tracks, he can identify hoofprints, pig trotters, dog paws, cat paws, human footprints, even chicken claw marks!” the captain said.

“There’s truly such a remarkable person?” Hua Yitang exclaimed.

“Where is he?” Ling Zhiyan asked.

The patrol captain nudged the soldier beside him. “Where’s young Ruo been these past few days? Haven’t seen him around.”

“Word is he’s taken sick leave at home,” the other replied.

Ling Zhiyan gestured meaningfully. Ming Feng exchanged a few words with one of the city patrol soldiers, and the two left quickly.

“Although Yangdu City has no night curfew, it still maintains the practice of nighttime patrols,” Ling Zhiyan continued. “Has the city patrol guard noticed anything unusual?”

The patrol captain said hastily, “In reply to Inspector Ling — the patrol interval for this street is one quarter of an hour. However, last night, when a violent crime broke out in the northeastern city district, the patrol soldiers were all reassigned to help seal the ward gates, and this area was left unattended for a time.”

Ling Zhiyan frowned in silence.

“When exactly were the gates of the twelve northeastern city wards sealed last night?” Hua Yitang asked.

“Around the first quarter of the Chou hour,” Ling Zhiyan replied.

“And when were the city patrol soldiers deployed for continuous patrols?”

“Around the third quarter of the Chou hour.”

Hua Yitang turned to the patrol soldiers. “After the gates were sealed, when did you next patrol through this area?”

The patrol captain thought for a moment. “The main patrol forces were stationed in the eastern city. There were far fewer of us here. We didn’t reach this area until roughly past the first mark of the second Chou quarter.”

“So,” Hua Yitang said, “between the first quarter of the Chou hour and the first mark of the Chou second quarter, the attention of both the city patrol and the constables was focused on the twelve wards in the northeastern city. Ling Third Ward was a patrol blind spot.”

Not just a patrol blind spot — a witness blind spot as well. Lin Sui’an thought. A violent crime in the northeastern city district would have put the entire area on edge, with all residents bolting their doors and hiding indoors. Even if they heard anything, they wouldn’t dare go out to look. At that moment, a killer driving a carriage here to dump a body would have encountered as good as no one at all.

Ling Zhiyan’s brow furrowed even tighter. He instructed Ming Shu, “Go ask around among the residents in every direction — did anyone see anything unusual on the street between the first quarter of the Chou hour and the first mark of the Chou second quarter?”

Ming Shu acknowledged the order and withdrew.

“Sealing off crime scenes, closing ward gates, deploying city patrol soldiers — every order and arrangement takes time,” Hua Yitang said. “For the killer to evade all the constables and city patrol guards, and to time it this precisely — either he is brilliantly clever like myself, or—”

“The killer knew when and where the patrol blind spots would be,” Lin Sui’an finished.

“The day before yesterday, Yan He died. Yesterday, a body that looks like Bai Shun was found,” Hua Yitang said. “If you were Jiang Hongwen, would you slip out alone in the middle of the night at a time like this, avoiding everyone?”

Of course not — that would be walking into your own death for no reason.

Unless—

“Unless the person who invited him out was someone he trusted completely and unconditionally, and he was absolutely certain he would be safe by that person’s side,” Ling Zhiyan said.

“Then the question becomes—” Hua Yitang snapped his fan shut with a crack, crouched down, and beckoned for Lin Sui’an and Ling Zhiyan to crouch as well. The three of them huddled together with their heads close. “Who fits all of those conditions?”

“All officials, clerks, and constables within the prefecture yamen,” Ling Zhiyan said.

“Could there be an accomplice inside the yamen?” Lin Sui’an said.

“Do you know what the worst-case scenario is?” Hua Yitang lowered his voice. “The killer is Yangzhou Prefect Zhou Changping himself.”

Lin Sui’an: “…”

Brother, your imagination is a bit much.

Ling Zhiyan was silent for a moment. “It’s not impossible.”

Lin Sui’an: What?

“I once heard a rumor,” Ling Zhiyan also lowered his voice. “The reason the constables were able to get to Liuyue Tower so quickly to arrest the two of you is because Prefect Zhou received a tip-off, saying that the killer was about to destroy evidence at Liuyue Tower.” He paused. “But aside from Prefect Zhou, no second person has seen the specific contents of that tip.”

The three fell silent, staring at each other, each seized by the same chill.

Who, other than the killer themselves, would know where the body was hidden?

“Inspector Ling, the person you were looking for has arrived,” came a shout from behind them, startling all three so badly they jolted to their feet. Ling Zhiyan straightened his robe, and Hua Yitang hastily tidied his appearance.

Lin Sui’an had none of their aristocratic concern for dignity. Her gaze swept over the young man standing beside Ming Feng, and she narrowed her eyes.

The young man held both fists raised high above his head — obscuring his face and expression — and was bowing deeply. He was quite thin, with long arms and long legs, and at first glance looked just like a tall beanpole.

“Your humble servant Jin Ruo, assigned to the city patrol guard. What are your instructions, my lords?”

Though he deliberately kept his voice low, Lin Sui’an recognized him instantly and couldn’t help letting out a cold laugh.

You little brat! Heaven’s road you won’t walk, hell’s gate has no door yet you barged right in!

Let’s see where you run this time!

Side Skit

Jin Ruo: It’s over. My cover’s about to be blown.