But then—

Ji Yunshu poured cold water on it. “Whether this wine bottle is related to the case is still unknown. Maybe it’s just a bottle.”

Just a bottle!

His showing off backfired, as if he’d been slapped across the face.

Tang Si, sitting in the distance still rubbing her knees, burst out laughing and didn’t forget to add sarcastically, “Serves you right! Clearly not your scene, yet you just had to try to establish a presence.”

Muruo was so angry!

Speechless.

Crazy girl, sooner or later you’ll die by my hand.

Ji Yunshu said, “Right now, the most important thing is this disorderly set of skeletal remains.” She instructed Lang Bo, “Brother Lang, please find some people to carefully pick up these white bones with cloth. Don’t deliberately remove the dust and weeds on top—just move them all together and place them on a large table.”

“Yes!”

“Also take this wine bottle along. Who knows, it might be useful.”

“Yes!”

Lang Bo acknowledged and had people very carefully pick up that pile of white bones and move them to the back courtyard of the academy.

The students in the academy didn’t dare stay here any longer and followed one after another to the back courtyard.

Ji Yunshu hadn’t left yet. She looked at the well, examining it for a long time.

This was a century-old well!

The well’s edge stood tall, made from polished stone. Around the edge, a circle of antique patterns was carved, like delicately carved vine branches. On that circle of the well opening, there were also eight protruding circular objects of equal distance embedded on top.

Eight protruding circular objects—one of them was darker in color!

Apart from this, she didn’t find anything else strange about this well.

She searched around the area once more. Nothing unusual.

Jingrong paced over and looked around following her gaze.

He asked, “Did you discover something?”

She shook her head, muttering under her breath, “A few trees, a well, a pile of weeds.”

He didn’t understand what she meant!

Jingrong didn’t interrupt her thoughts. With a wave of his hand, a guard came over. He ordered, “Secretly guard this place. Before the matter comes to light, don’t let anyone approach.”

“Yes!”

Mm-hmm!

Ji Yunshu heard this and was quite satisfied.

This kid—if he stayed with her for another half year, he could probably graduate as well.

After staying here for a while and not discovering anything else, she went with Jingrong to the back courtyard.

At the back courtyard!

People from the academy had gathered.

They were all refined scholars without the strength to truss a chicken. Probably none of them had seen a dead person in their entire lives, let alone a set of white bones that appeared innocently in the academy well. Naturally, it caused panic and cold sweat to break out.

Each one stared at the white bones laid out on the table with eyes full of both fear and curiosity.

When Ji Yunshu came over, she already had a pair of white gloves in her hands. She casually put them on and silently walked to the side of those white bones, about to reach out and start working on them…

“What are you going to do?” someone spoke up.

Ji Yunshu blandly spat out two words from her mouth.

“Examine the corpse!”

Examine the corpse?

“What corpse are you examining? Someone has already been sent to notify the authorities. The yamen will bring a coroner. You said the bones are fragile and wouldn’t let us move them casually, but now you’re moving them yourself. What if you damage the evidence?”

“Exactly!”

Someone wanted to step forward to stop her.

Jingrong moved as swift as the wind, blocking their way. “If you want to quickly clarify the truth of the matter, you’d all better behave yourselves. Right now, besides her, no one else can touch those skeletal remains.”

“We don’t even want to touch them. It’s just that if something goes wrong with these skeletal remains and affects the yamen’s investigation…”

He was interrupted!

“I’ll say this one more time. If you want to find out the truth, all of you stay in line. What this young master lacks most is patience.”

Jingrong’s eyes clearly reflected a fierce and oppressive sharp light.

It made people involuntarily feel timid!

Those few people swallowed and didn’t dare talk back.

Master Yu, supported by someone, slightly hunched forward and raised his hand to slap one of them hard on the forehead. “Are you trying to rebel? Do you think I’m dead? Why don’t I just give you the academy—how about that?”

“Teacher…”

“You little brats, all of you get out of the way. Don’t be eyesores getting in the way here, delaying Master Ji’s work.”

As the saying goes, one day a teacher, forever a father.

Those few people could only say, “Yes, students will obey the teacher.”

They said no more and silently withdrew!

Seeing that Master Yu’s health wasn’t good, Jingrong had someone bring a pear blossom chair from inside the room for him to sit and rest.

Meanwhile, Ji Yunshu had already started working on those skeletal remains, carefully piecing together those scattered bone fragments bit by bit. Sometimes placing two ribs symmetrically, sometimes carefully arranging a small section of finger bone, sometimes…

As if playing with toys, arranging them this way and that.

But it made the onlookers feel extremely creeped out!

After about the time it takes to burn an incense stick, the originally scattered white bones had each returned to their proper places.

A complete set of skeletal remains was neatly arranged on the long table.

Everyone was dumbfounded. Even if they tried to arrange them according to the skeletal diagrams in books, they might not be able to arrange them as precisely as Ji Yunshu had.

Could this person be an orthopedic physician?

But with those thin arms and legs, it didn’t seem like it!

Ji Yunshu said, “The deceased was six feet tall. Based on the pelvis and throat bone, this was a male approximately eighteen or nineteen years old. Time of death was about a year ago. The color of these skeletal remains is bluish-gray, clearly caused by the complete loss of organic matter from the bones. However, when a human corpse is soaked in water, due to lack of oxygen and limited dissolved oxygen, the rate of corpse decay is relatively the slowest. Plus, several large trees were planted next to that well on the back mountain, the terrain is shady, so the rate of decay would be even slower. There are also no decomposition agents in the water. Even if the flesh truly completely rotted away, the organic matter inside the skeletal remains couldn’t possibly be lost this quickly within just one year.”

Her brow furrowed slightly.

What are decomposition agents?

What is organic matter?

Those so-called technical terms—no one could understand them at all.

Master Yu asked, “What does the master mean?”

Ji Yunshu explained methodically, “For a corpse soaked in water for one year, there’s only one possibility for all the organic matter inside the bones to be completely lost—that is, the deceased was injured before death, the skin and flesh bled, and then was thrown into the well. The wound became infected, the blood was damaged and coagulated, no longer in a flowing state. Therefore, even though it was in water and the surroundings were very shady, the rate of corpse decay would still be faster than in the south during July or August. This is also why the organic matter in the skeletal remains was completely lost within one year, causing the bones to present a bluish-gray color.”

“The deceased was injured?”

“That’s right!”

“How can you tell?”

Very simple!

She said, “The academy should have camphor wood juice and white vinegar, right? Please fetch some, and also bring some white paper.”

Soon someone brought these three items.

Back then, with that yin-yang corpse discovered at Guangqu Courtyard, Ji Yunshu used the same method to verify that the deceased had been injured before death. Now, she followed the same pattern!