Chapter 12 - 1#
Holding Court (Part 2)#
The County Magistrate Sun’s hasty defection today was largely due to the fabricated confession from Le Wuya.
Right up until the court session began, he still didn’t know whether his choice of allegiance was right or wrong.
But when Le Wuya’s resolute voice rang out with the words “perform an autopsy,” the blood in Sun’s veins ran cold.
If the magistrate truly had the skill to examine a corpse… why hadn’t he said so before?
For the past half year, had he been biding his time, lurking in the shadows, secretly observing, and playing all of them for fools?
Ignoring Sun’s storm of inner turmoil, Le Wuya ordered, “Clerk Zhang Yuanzheng of the Penal Affairs Office, bring the case file on Chang Xiaohu.”
Clerk Zhang nervously glanced at Magistrate Sun, but received no reaction. He had no choice but to go fetch the files, his heart full of trepidation.
Le Wuya approached Chang Xiaohu’s side.
After half a year, Chang Xiaohu’s body had decomposed; his head had separated from his neck, bones exposed starkly, with tufts of ragged hair still clinging to his scalp. At a glance, it was gruesome beyond words.
Le Wuya bent down close, his expression unchanged, his gaze falling on the skull, palms, and leg bones.
After examining each bone meticulously, Le Wuya issued two orders: “Light five lamps in the hall, and boil some water.”
The yamen runners filed in with lamps.
The hall grew brighter under the added light.
The tardy Clerk Zhang finally returned, clutching Chang Xiaohu’s case file.
Le Wuya: “Read it.”
Clerk Zhang cast glance after glance at Magistrate Sun, but all his anxious gestures were wasted on a blind man.
Magistrate Sun, eyes fixed on his nose and nose on his heart, remained silent.
Clerk Zhang felt a chill settle deep in his heart.
That very morning, he had flattered and fawned over Magistrate Sun, who seemed to enjoy it immensely.
What in the world had happened in the span of a single day?
Gritting his teeth, he obeyed the order and read aloud: “The deceased, Chang Xiaohu… there was water and foam overflowing from his mouth and nose. The abdomen was distended with water. The skin was broken and bleeding, found to be caused by branches and stones. Death was determined to be due to accidental drowning.”
Le Wuya: “That’s all?”
Clerk Zhang: “Yes…”
Le Wuya gave a cold laugh.
A fine coroner indeed.
With a single perfunctory sentence, he had sealed the fate of a person’s life and death.
He turned to Auntie Su, who was still prostrated on the ground: “Su, since you refuse to leave the court, I have something to ask you. When you buried him, did you move Chang Xiaohu’s body?”
Auntie Su lifted her head, expression wooden: “I was the one who wiped Xiao Hu’s body.”
She had personally washed the filth from the corpse and dressed him in clean clothes, never letting anyone else do it.
“And who buried him?”
Auntie Su answered slowly: “A few neighbors from the village—Blacksmith Jiang and Carpenter Yu, who live next door…”
“Was there any bumping or knocking during transport?”
Auntie Su thought for a moment, then shook her head.
Having lost her son and with a bit of money on hand, she had hired Carpenter Yu to bring a ready-made coffin and collect her son’s body from the yamen.
Knowing she was all alone and pitiable, those two families carefully helped lift the body into the coffin and then carried it to the Chang family burial ground to inter it.
The wives of Jiang and Yu were also afraid she might take her own life, so they accompanied her all the way, offering comfort.
Five people, ten eyes—they had all seen Chang Xiaohu buried safely.
Le Wuya nodded: “Summon these four people to the court.”
As luck would have it, Blacksmith Jiang had witnessed Auntie Su running to the yamen to file a complaint. Worried something might happen, he had sent his wife, Li, to keep an eye on things.
She had been standing at the edge of the crowd, anxiously craning her neck to see inside, and was now called into the court.
She knelt nervously behind Auntie Su, kowtowed once, and dared not say another word.
The runners had gone to fetch the other three.
Le Wuya pointed to the gap between Chang Xiaohu’s half-closed teeth: “What is between his teeth?”
Auntie Su replied in a small voice: “A pearl and a jade tablet.”
Le Wuya had seen clearly during his examination.
These were tongue-pressing objects—gifts from the living to the dead, meant to bestow good wishes for a better afterlife.
Thinking back to the burial, Auntie Su’s tears fell in streams.
She remembered stuffing the pearl and jade tablet into his mouth while murmuring over and over.
Son, in your next life, don’t be born into a noble family. Look carefully and choose a well-off household. Don’t come back to your mother.
Le Wuya: “Where were they purchased?”
She answered blankly: “The jewelry shop on the south end… called Jin Ji…”
“Is there a purchase record?”
Seeing Auntie Su’s listlessness, Li plucked up her courage to answer: “Yes, yes, there is. Jin Ji keeps a record for every piece of jewelry they sell. I… I went with her. The shop definitely still has the record.”
Le Wuya gave an “mm” of acknowledgment. He rose, clasped his hands behind his back, and as he passed the secretary’s desk, he said flatly, “Record it.”
The secretary hurriedly picked up his brush.
Le Wuya: “According to custom, one tongue-pressing object is sufficient. Why did you put two things in?”
Auntie Su was momentarily at a loss for how to answer.
At the time, she had been even more disoriented than now, and she had also forgotten why she had put two items into her son’s mouth.
Le Wuya did not rush to prompt an answer. Instead, he took a pair of thin gloves from the coroner Shang’s blood-stained tool kit. Under the bright lamplight, he lifted the half-rotted skull, examining it closely against the light.
Li gasped sharply and grabbed Auntie Su’s right arm, afraid that her motherly instinct would cause her to rush forward and offend the magistrate.
If that happened, even implicating her wouldn’t be a joke!
But Auntie Su did not lunge forward to stop him.
She could tell that the magistrate was not toying with her son’s remains but was genuinely inspecting something.
Outside, the crowd reacted with a mix of frightened retreat and curious craning of necks to get a better look. For a moment, a slight commotion stirred before the yamen.
Just as a runner was about to shout for order, Le Wuya said, “Summon the three people at the very front.”
Jiang He, who had been squeezed to the front: “…”
Brought into the court, he did not act constrained. He gave the bones a glance and quickly made a decision.
Under the hall’s full illumination, he looked at this Magistrate Wenren.
Against the light, he vaguely noticed that “Wenren Yue’s” pupils appeared unusual.
But before he could look more closely, the magistrate seemed to sense it and turned his gaze toward him.
He lowered his eyes calmly, thinking: If the young general were to reincarnate, he would probably still be a child now, playing with a rattle, not playing with bones here.
As he was distracted, a loud voice shouted directly: “Hey, there’s a crack in this bone—light is shining through it!”
Those bold enough to push to the front were naturally unafraid to look and comment. Another person immediately added: “There’s a small dent at the back of his skull! Looks like… looks like… a blow from something!”
“Even commoners can see what the coroner Shang failed to recognize or clarify.” Le Wuya’s tone dripped with sarcasm. “Coroner Shang, your skills are sorely lacking.”
Coroner Shang defended himself: “It was a torrential rainstorm at the time. Chang Xiaohu slipped and fell into the water, hitting his head on a rock in the river—there’s nothing unreasonable about that!”
But Le Wuya was quick to retort: “Then why did Coroner Shang neglect to record it?”
“A skull fracture is already a fatal injury. The case file notes that the skin and flesh of Chang Xiaohu were damaged by branches and stones, yet you couldn’t spare a single detail to record this fatal wound…”
Le Wuya shook his sleeve, and the commanding presence of his past life as a powerful minister naturally emerged: “From this, it is still unknown whether Chang Xiaohu was drowned or died from a severe impact. How dare you, with a single stroke of your brush, declare him drowned?”
Coroner Shang clenched his teeth, refusing to admit fault.
If he were proven to have neglected his duties, his official position would certainly be revoked.
He had been a coroner in Jincheng for fifteen years—this iron rice bowl had sustained him for half his life, and he absolutely could not lose it!
He argued stubbornly: “Your Honor, Chang Xiaohu’s lips and mouth bore traces of foam. He must have been drowned. I have been a coroner for fifteen years—I could not possibly have made a mistake!”
Since half a year had already passed, the “foam on the lips” was there in black and white in the case file. Without strong rebutting evidence, Chang Xiaohu could only have died by drowning!
Le Wuya waved his hand, dismissing the three people from the court.
“Could not possibly have made a mistake?” Le Wuya resumed his seat on the bench. “Coroner Shang, those are your words.”
He turned his gaze to Auntie Su and Li, the wife of Blacksmith Jiang.
The two women were huddled in a corner of the court, whispering to each other.
The dazed look on Auntie Su’s face was gradually fading.
They both looked toward Le Wuya, timid and hesitant, as if wanting to speak but holding back.
Le Wuya: “Speak freely.”
Auntie Su opened her mouth, but not a single word came out.
Her grief-stricken eyes brushed over Chang Xiaohu’s corpse like a dragonfly skimming water, then shifted elsewhere. Her shoulders trembled violently.
Seeing Auntie Su unable to speak, Li grew anxious and cut in: “Your Honor, it’s, it’s a small matter… You just asked why we put two objects in Xiao Hu’s mouth. At the time, after Xiao Hu’s accident, everyone was in a flurry. I was by Sister Su’s side, helping with many things. I still remember when we went to buy burial items, the shopkeeper at Jin Ji said: ‘A jade piece in the hand means talent in the next life; a pearl in the mouth means never going hungry.’ We bought them and planned to let Xiao Hu take them on his journey. But at that time, Xiao Hu’s hands were open, and his fingers were very stiff—no matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t pry them shut. My husband tried a few times but was afraid of hurting him, so we gave up. We all discussed it and decided to just put everything in his mouth, so at least, at least in the next life, he’d have enough to eat…”
“Do you have any witness?”
Li quickly replied: “Brother Yu’s wife, Sister Mo, was also there! She knows about this too!”
Coroner Shang’s face was already pale; upon hearing this, it turned even whiter, nearly the color of a corpse.
Speak of the devil.
Carpenter Yu and his wife, Mo, had just finished work together and were leaving their workshop when they heard that Auntie Su had gone to the yamen to file another complaint. The couple had no idea what was happening and were discussing it on the street when the runners who had been sent to summon them recognized them and dragged them back to the yamen.
Mo was confused at first, but when Le Wuya asked why two objects had been placed in Chang Xiaohu’s mouth, she immediately recalled this small incident.
She gestured with her hand, raising her palm: “At the time, Xiao Hu’s hand was just lying open like this.”
None of them had coordinated their stories beforehand, and the details matched precisely.
This testimony was valid.
He lifted his frightened eyes and happened to meet Le Wuya’s gaze.
Le Wuya said coldly: “Coroner Shang, you have worked in criminal justice for many years. I assume you have the ‘Drowning’ section of the Xi Yuan Ji Lu memorized by heart.”
Coroner Shang was struck dumb.
“You don’t remember? Let me recite it for you. ‘For the corpse of one who drowned alive, the mouth is closed, the eyes are half open and half closed, both hands are clenched in fists; for one who threw himself into water, the hands are clenched, the eyes are closed, and the abdomen is rapidly distended…’”
Le Wuya fixed his gaze on him: “You claim that Chang Xiaohu died by drowning. Is it possible for the hands of a drowned person to be open and spread apart?”
Le Wuya’s words grew faster: “According to the case file, all signs on Chang Xiaohu’s body matched the symptoms of drowning; the wounds on his body were caused by debris in the water; the healed wounds were from when Mrs. Su disciplined her son. However, Shang Juncai, you omitted this fatal wound of a fractured skull. As for the deceased’s open hands—inconsistent with drowning—you made bold, reckless claims, insisting that the foam at the corner of Chang Xiaohu’s mouth proved your theory. Were you counting on his decomposed body being unverifiable?”
“At that time, it was the season of summer torrents, and the river water was muddy. If Chang Xiaohu still had breath when he fell into the river, his mouth and nose would inevitably have inhaled mud and debris. Even if Mrs. Su cleaned him as thoroughly as possible, she could not have been meticulous in every detail. Do you want me to pour hot water over his skull to see if any sand and mud run out from the nasal cavity and eye sockets?”
Coroner Shang could no longer argue. He collapsed to the ground, nearly fainting.
Le Wuya’s voice was severe: “Chang Xiaohu was wrongfully killed, and it is entirely your fault! You relied on your knowledge of postmortem examination to falsify the case file, misleading Mrs. Su into believing her son died accidentally so she would withdraw her complaint. Who knows how many unjust cases you have fabricated over the past ten-plus years, how many dead have begged heaven for justice in vain!”
As Le Wuya’s accusations rang out, the crowd burned with righteous indignation, yet remained dead silent.
At the words “begged heaven for justice,” a loud “Excellent!!!” burst from the crowd.
Then chaos erupted outside: shouts of approval, curses, explanations to those who didn’t understand, all kinds of noise mixing together. Even someone with a strong sense of justice hurled a straw sandal with impressive accuracy—it struck Coroner Shang squarely on the crown of his head.
With each word, Coroner Shang’s face grew whiter by a shade.
He understood now.
Le Wuya wasn’t just reprimanding him—he was piling accusation upon accusation, one after another, to seal his fate.