Even Shen Du was startled, taking a few steps back. “This… this is the missing head of Li Kaixiang.”
“Correct. Inside are all the missing parts from the corpses,” Zhu Yan gave him an approving look.
Seeing Shen Du’s reaction mirroring her shock from yesterday, she felt satisfied. Who said women were inferior to men? When it came to being frightened, they were all the same.
Shen Du quickly regained his composure. He stuffed a piece of meat jerky into his mouth to calm his nerves. After finishing it, he asked, “Is this honey used to prevent the flesh from rotting? Why does honey have such a remarkable effect?”
Zhu Yan knew about this. She had encountered it while working on cases with her master, Chen Wen. Out of curiosity, she had asked about it.
Chen Wen had naturally explained everything to her without holding back. He had read about it in detail in the “Miscellaneous Records of the Western Regions” and had encountered it before, so he remembered it well.
It was said that Chen Wen had come across something similar when investigating a case years ago. However, what was preserved in honey then wasn’t body parts, but rather young boys and girls, prepared for sacrificial rituals.
After that case, not only was it recorded in the “Miscellaneous Records of the Western Regions,” but Chen Wen also delved into historical documents. He discovered that this method had been used in the Celestial Empire for a very long time.
Not only Hua Tuo, but even Sun Simiao, who was called “Hua Tuo incarnate,” used this method. It could be traced back to the time of the Yellow Emperor. Honey could preserve things for a very long time without spoiling.
In previous dynasties, people would often unearth honey that had been preserved for many years. Candied fruits preserved in honey also lasted for a long time without spoiling, so merchants saw a business opportunity in this.
They used honey to make preserved fruits and meat jerky. Because these were sweet, delicious, and long-lasting, they became very popular among young ladies of noble families.
So, the Fire Moth Party had likely referred to such methods, hence using precious honey to preserve body parts.
After explaining all this in detail to Shen Du, Zhu Yan continued, “Simply put, this method essentially turns the corpse into a human-shaped hard candy. It’s said that in the Western Regions, the Persians like to dig out these human-shaped hard candies from stone coffins after hundreds of years to treat illnesses. Legend has it that it can cure bone diseases, but the truth of this remains to be verified.”
After all, these were just rumors, and rumors often spread like wildfire. When false information is repeated often enough, people subconsciously start to believe it.
Shen Du couldn’t help but look at the pouch of meat jerky in his hand, the piece in his mouth now tasteless.
He was certain Zhu Yan had done this on purpose.
Zhu Yan covered her mouth to suppress a laugh. She glanced at him, snatched the pouch away, and popped a piece of jerky into her mouth, chewing with satisfaction.
“…”
“What’s the big deal? I’ve dissected rotting corpses crawling with maggots and still managed to eat several bowls of rice afterward.”
However, no one starts that strong. She remembered the first time she encountered a dissection, she had vomited until even stomach acid came up.
Seeing Shen Du’s frowning, disgusted expression, Zhu Yan’s mischievous side emerged. She took out a piece of dark red, sweet-smelling jerky, winked playfully, and moved close to Shen Du, raising her face and holding the jerky up for him to see:
“I haven’t told you yet, let me tell you…”
Shen Du lowered his head, his nose brushing against the jerky, causing it to quiver. The scent that entered his nostrils was a sweet meat fragrance. His eyes took in the woman’s slender, pale fingers and her bright smile that could dispel the gloom of Yingzhou City.
His heart stirred, and he opened his mouth to bite the jerky:
“What?” he asked, his words slightly muffled.
Zhu Yan stared at her empty hand, momentarily stunned. She rubbed her delicate nose, her face flushed with heat, and hurriedly spoke to cover her embarrassment:
“I was afraid if I told you, you wouldn’t be able to eat it.”
“Hmm?” Shen Du chewed silently, looking at her.
Zhu Yan rubbed her face with her hands, took a deep breath to compose herself, and said:
“After I was taken hostage by Wang Buzui and brought to Guangchun Hall, I saw that although those women were frightened and their clothes were dirty, they didn’t look haggard at all. Except for Du Xiaowan, the others all had rosy complexions and seemed naive, completely unaware of what they were about to face.”
Shen Du frowned, instinctively feeling that what Zhu Yan was about to say was probably related to this jerky. However, didn’t this woman know that in his many years as a member of the Grand Secretariat, he had seen more dead people than living ones?
Let her continue, as long as it made her happy.
Zhu Yan secretly observed Shen Du, seeing him calmly chewing the jerky, his cold eyes merely glancing at her. She swallowed hard, feeling a bit guilty:
“I found it strange and asked them about their situation. They told me that the Half-Face Ghosts had been treating them well with food and drink, feeding them preserved fruits and meat jerky. Not only did these have a Buddhist incense scent, but the jerky was also made from the discarded body parts of those people the Half-Face Ghosts had killed.”
In other words, after killing people, the Half-Face Ghosts would process the corpses in this way, turning them into jerky and dried meat to feed to the people they captured later.
Shen Du’s elegant eyebrows furrowed into a knot, clearly shocked by the information Zhu Yan had revealed. His lips stopped chewing, caught between wanting to spit it out and not. He raised his hand to his chest.
Zhu Yan instinctively stepped back, but before she could react, she saw Shen Du take out the pouch and throw it into her arms, chiding:
“Just for eating a few pieces of your jerky, you use these words to shut me up.”
“Keep it for now, you can return it to me later.”
Return? Return?
So this guy was doing it on purpose?
Zhu Yan felt frustrated. If Shen Du could throw a criminal’s head into her bridal sedan on their wedding day, how could he be someone who would lose his appetite over a few words from her?
“I won’t return it. I’ll keep it to eat.”
As if in defiance, Zhu Yan ate a few more pieces of jerky, then put the rest away.
“This was bought with silver. We can’t waste it. If it gets contaminated with other things during the autopsy later, it would be a shame.”
“Miser.”
Zhu Yan retorted, “I’m just an eighth-rank coroner. How much salary do you think I get? You don’t understand.”
Shen Du tapped her head. “You’re also Madam Shen.”
Zhu Yan’s face reddened slightly. She brushed his hand away without responding.
The two had come here on official business, so Shen Du didn’t dwell on it. Seeing that the other jars were still sealed, he helped remove all the lids.
Zhu Yan took out the autopsy tools from her cloth bag, put on protective gear, and pulled out a thick silver needle. She poked at the hardened body parts in the jar: “The consistency isn’t uniform. It seems they were placed in the jars at different times.”
Then she used other tools to examine the other parts, muttering to herself as she took out some parts and held them up to the light.
“Look, from the hair, bones, skin, and the color of the cut surfaces, some of these are from a very long time ago.”
“Can you determine approximately how long?”
Zhu Yan lowered her head, examining them carefully, moving the body parts around as casually as if she were turning over dried beans.
Jing Lin frowned, looking at Zhu Yan, then at Shen Du, and raised his hand to his stomach, feeling a bit uncomfortable.
“This oldest one, the dissection knife can’t even cut through it. The skin has fused with the bone and muscle,” Zhu Yan squeezed it with her hand. The protective gear was coated with honey, and when she squeezed, it still formed strings. It had to be said that honey truly had incredible vitality.
“Usually, a corpse left in the open would be covered in livor mortis after three or four days, and after seven days, it would be unrecognizably rotten, with a bloated abdomen and carrying corpse poison. But there’s another type of corpse that’s the opposite – it doesn’t decay for a long time, and even looks lifelike, making it difficult to determine its age. However, while corpses can’t talk, we can make them speak.”
Jing Lin asked curiously, “How can corpses speak?”
After asking, he realized he had spoken out of turn and quietly retreated to the side.