Ji Yunshu explained: “Because if you use your hands to brush aside the clothing, it will inevitably leave varying degrees of wear on the bones. After all, the clothes the deceased wore in life weren’t made of silk, but ordinary hemp cloth. The texture of such clothing rubbing against the bones would cause significant impact and thus affect the accuracy of bone examination! But a knife is different. Using a knife to gently lift the clothing adhered to the white bones upward avoids the rubbing process, so naturally the bones won’t be worn down. Of course, this also requires very strong knife stability. Otherwise, the blade might accidentally scratch the bones.”

So that was it!

The old coroner understood.

He silently committed this to memory!

He had learned another method for future corpse examinations.

“Master Ji’s thinking is truly thorough.”

“This isn’t being thorough—it’s basic common sense!”

This…

The old coroner didn’t know how to respond.

Ji Yunshu held that knife and reached into the coffin.

She began carefully using the knife to lift away the clothing on Du Mubai’s skeleton that hadn’t completely rotted.

No one spoke.

They just watched silently like this.

Ji Yunshu was very skilled at this process, so it didn’t take much time.

A bare skeleton was perfectly presented before everyone’s eyes.

But because it had been buried underground for so long, the coffin base had cracked somewhat. Therefore, during heavy rains, some muddy water had seeped in, causing the skeleton to be covered with fine dirty soil.

This didn’t really affect anything.

She began examining the skeleton.

First the throat bone and cervical vertebrae area.

Judging from the degree of curvature, it was indeed caused by hanging.

Then, she discovered three identically-sized raised points on the back of one rib, arranged in a straight line. The three raised points were equidistant from each other, formed by impact with something shortly before death.

But this wasn’t a fatal injury!

It was impact damage!

She also discovered a severe sprain on the skeleton’s foot bones. As Fang Tong had said, in the days before Du Mubai’s death, he had indeed sprained his ankle!

And judging from the degree of distortion in the foot bones, the injury was very serious. He must have walked with a limp.

Apart from this, there were no other abnormalities on the skeleton!

Nor were there any wounds from any sharp instruments.

Ji Yunshu’s expression was very grave.

It seemed there was still something unresolved.

She turned and selected a different knife from her sandalwood box.

It was a flat blade.

Li Cheng asked: “Master Ji, what are you doing now?”

Holding the knife, she replied: “Scraping bone.”

As she spoke, she produced a clean white handkerchief from her sleeve.

Then she scraped a layer of bone powder from the skull, scapula, ribs, and femur of the skeleton.

Wrapping it in the handkerchief.

Others were puzzled by this action.

Why do this?

But no one spoke up.

Thinking she would surely explain later.

After completing all this, Ji Yunshu’s grave expression gradually relaxed somewhat.

From her appearance, it seemed she already had a general idea about this case.

Everyone waited quietly.

Waiting for her to say something!

But the old coroner was an impatient person and asked first: “Master Ji, how is it? Do you have results from the examination?”

She softly acknowledged with a “Mm.”

The air froze again.

After a brief moment, she looked at everyone’s puzzled yet curious gazes and slowly explained: “I examined Du Mubai’s throat bone, cervical vertebrae, and jaw, confirming he indeed died by hanging! I also found no signs of poisoning on his body. As I previously deduced, he was knocked unconscious by someone, then the murderer created the false appearance of suicide by hanging, deceiving everyone. Moreover, I can be certain of one thing—Du Mubai must have drunk or eaten something containing a sedative to have been knocked unconscious!”

Huh?

So certain?

Someone questioned: “What if he was knocked unconscious by someone hitting him?”

“Impossible! If he’d been knocked unconscious by a blow, there would definitely be traces left on the skull. But his skull and cervical vertebrae show no signs of being struck. Therefore, it’s impossible he was knocked unconscious by a blow. Plus, all his body joints are intact with no signs of struggle whatsoever. I believe he must have been knocked unconscious under completely unguarded circumstances.”

The old coroner said: “But I’ve heard that in the martial world, there’s a method where highly skilled martial artists can pierce someone’s acupoint with a silver needle from a hundred meters away, making them faint. So Master Ji’s claim that the deceased was knocked unconscious by drinking or eating something… really isn’t sufficient to determine!”

“That’s right, there are indeed people with such abilities in the martial world, but…” Ji Yunshu paused, then took out the handkerchief containing bone powder and continued: “This is bone powder I scraped from different locations on Du Mubai’s skeleton. I scraped very lightly, yet was able to scrape it off easily. For a skeleton that’s been dead for six years, this phenomenon simply shouldn’t occur! Because for a normally deceased person, the surface layer of bones after death wouldn’t be this soft! But there’s one situation where it can happen—if the deceased drank something containing datura, jimson weed, or belladonna before death!”

“What does this prove?”

“You can’t be unaware that these three substances are actually ingredients in knockout drugs, right? If you don’t believe it, you can ask anyone at an apothecary.”

“So…”

“So, if a person drank knockout drugs made from these three substances before death, after death the surface of all their bones would become very soft. Just a light scrape with a knife would remove that surface layer of bone powder. This is also why I’m so certain he must have eaten or drunk something containing knockout drugs.”

Oh!

Everyone understood.

It was truly the most enlightening lesson of their lives!

Before everyone could recover from such shock and admiration—

Ji Yunshu continued her analysis: “On the day Du Mubai died, he went out early in the morning to meet someone. That person was naturally someone he knew and was very familiar with, even trusted—trusted to the point of having no guard whatsoever, which is why he would drink or eat something containing knockout drugs.”

Who was that person?

As Li Cheng listened, a name inexplicably jumped into his mind.

Gong Shilin!

Could it be that Du Mubai truly went to see Gong Shilin that day?

But if that were really the case, why wouldn’t Gong Shilin speak up?

As he puzzled over this, Ji Yunshu said another sentence: “I think the murderer is probably that person he went to meet.”

After she said this!

An old official stood up and said helplessly: “But we’ve already investigated. After Du Mubai left the scholar’s quarters, no one saw him again. We don’t know where he went. This is like fishing for a needle in the ocean…”

“Not entirely. Actually, Du Mubai has already given me clues.”

Uh!

He gave you clues?

Why did those words sound so eerie?