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Chapter 570 Soot from the Bottom of the Pot

Before long, the things Zhu Yu wanted were brought back by the talisman. Looking at the amount of soot from the bottom of the pot wrapped in paper, Zhu Yu couldn't help but think that the bottoms of the pots in the nearby houses had probably been scraped until they were shiny.

"Second Master, is this enough?" Fu Lu asked uncertainly. "I originally wanted to go to a few more households to get you more, but some families feel unlucky as soon as they see the mortuary staff and won't even let us in the door. If we wanted more, we would have to go to even farther places, and we were afraid you would be anxious waiting..."

Zhu Yu glanced at the soot in his hand and waved to the talismans, "That's enough. You don't need to go anymore. Just rest outside and wait."

After saying that, she took the soot from the bottom of the pot inside and quickly came out to get water and a cloth.

The door was closed again.

A long time passed, so long that Fu Lu became restless, fearing something might happen to the lady inside, and kept looking at Lu Qing.

At first, Fu Wen was more composed than the talisman, but later he also became a little unsure. He leaned closer to Lu Qing and whispered, "Master..."

Lu Qing knew what he wanted to ask, raised her hand to signal him not to continue, and looked at the sun in the sky above: "Second Master has been busy inside for quite some time. Go and make some hot soup to prepare. When he comes out in a while, he can drink some to warm himself up."

Upon hearing this, Fu Wen immediately responded, hurriedly went back to the carriage to retrieve his veil, and then left in a hurry.

When he rushed back from outside carrying a clay pot of hot soup, he found that Zhu Yu had not yet come out. Just as he was wondering whether he should ask the master again, the door to the mortuary creaked open and Zhu Yu walked out.

She looked exhausted and didn't bother to go far after coming out. She plopped down on the stone steps in front of the door and waved to Fu Lu, signaling him to bring out the water bucket from the house and close the back door.

After all, the cool air inside can't be allowed to dissipate, otherwise the corpses will rot and stink, which would be truly awful.

Fu Lu quickly did as instructed. When he came out carrying a bucket of black water, Fu Wen had already burned Atractylodes lancea, Angelica dahurica, and Ligusticum chuanxiong in the courtyard to help Zhu Yu remove the bad luck from the autopsy. Zhu Yu had also wiped his hands and face with the strong liquor that Lu Qing had instructed the two brothers to bring from Yunyin Pavilion in advance, and was now sitting there drinking hot soup.

There was one thing Lu Qing seemed to be overthinking: what Zhu Yu needed most after coming out wasn't warmth; on the contrary, she was almost covered in sweat. However, the hot soup still came in handy, and she drank it to replenish her strength.

The old constable had been waiting in the courtyard the whole time. It wouldn't be accurate to say he was particularly concerned about the cause of death of the He family's daughter. The main thing was that it was quite intriguing to wonder what a "young man" could possibly discover by examining a corpse that even the experienced coroner in the county office, who had decades of experience, couldn't figure out.

"This water... why is this water so black?" The old constable looked at the bucket in Fu Lu's hand and was startled to see that the water inside was pitch black. "Could it be that the woman has been poisoned by some terrible poison?"

"Don't worry, it's just soot from the bottom of a pot." Zhu Yu waved his hand at him, then turned to Lu Qing and said, "Originally, I couldn't find any signs of injury on that woman, but after applying the soot, upon closer inspection, I discovered that her body was covered with very fine tiny wounds, as if someone had pierced her all over with needles. Those holes were so fine that they were not visible on the surface, but they became very obvious after the soot was evenly applied. I suspect that she will die from exhaustion due to both blood and qi deficiency, and the root cause lies in those densely packed little 'needle holes'."

Do you remember the spiders I encountered before?

Upon hearing this, Lu Qing immediately understood and nodded knowingly.

"Why are you so tired?" he asked. If there weren't other people around, he would have liked to help Zhu Yu tidy his hair and wipe his sweat.

"The autopsy itself isn't tiring, but afterwards I have to wipe the filthy soot off the body," Zhu Yu sighed. "Respect for the dead is paramount. Doing things to find the truth is sometimes unavoidable, but in the end, we still have to restore the deceased to a dignified state."

People used to say that something is 'deadly heavy', and a dead person really is heavier than a big rock!
She looked so thin and frail, but turning her over was like moving a mountain. I was exhausted just from smearing soot from the bottom of the pot, and then it was exhausting again when I was washing and wiping her down.

At this point, Zhu Yu seemed to suddenly remember something, and turned to the old constable who looked at him with curiosity, saying, "Go tell your magistrate here that no matter what their identities were, those two hunters did not die from being gouged out by wild beasts in the wilderness."

"Huh?!" The old policeman, who had been listening intently to hear about the death of the He family's daughter, was stunned when he suddenly heard this from Zhu Yu. "Then how could those two, whose bodies were chewed up and mangled... have died?"

"Their faces were smashed by heavy objects before being gnawed on. You can tell from the fractured skulls that they were killed by a hammer about this size." Zhu Yu gestured to the old constable to indicate the size. "The wounds from the wild animals were inflicted after death, so it's likely that they were dumped on the mountain and then gnawed on by wild dogs."

Furthermore, although those two people were dressed as hunters, their hands were clean and without any calluses. They probably hadn't done any rough work, let alone drawn a bow and shot arrows. It's possible that they were killed, dressed as hunters, and left in the wild to deceive others.

One of them had a clearly defined arch, the other a collapsed arch; one had smooth toenails, the other rough and uneven. They were probably a generation apart in age. Tell your magistrate to investigate if there are any families where a father and son have both gone missing. Perhaps you'll find something.”

Upon hearing this, the old constable was dumbfounded. He hurriedly tried to write it down, but fearing he might forget it later, he rushed to the county office after Zhu Yu finished speaking, wanting to report everything she had told him to the county magistrate.

After the old policeman left, there were no outsiders left. Lu Qing took out a handkerchief and wiped the sweat from Zhu Yu's forehead: "Examining a corpse is already hard enough, why bother with other things?"

"After wiping the soot off the bottom of the pot and checking it, I was too exhausted, so I sat down to rest for a while. Since I was just sitting there anyway, I took the opportunity to check on the other two corpses."

"Looking at it now, it's fortunate we helped them take a look. Otherwise, if we had searched for the two hunters who had been gouged out by wild beasts, we probably wouldn't have been able to find the owners by the time their bodies had rotted away." Zhu Yu sighed helplessly and shook his head.