The First Criminal Judge of the Zhenguan Era

Chapter 98 The Shock of the Crowd: Has This Deciphered the Dead's Clues?
While everyone was still in shock and horror, Liu Shuyi had already squatted down, turned the corpse that was facing away from them over, and then looked at the corpse's face.

Sudden!
Liu Shuyi's pupils suddenly contracted.

Looking at that face with its wide-open eyes, ferocious expression, and seemingly filled with countless rages and resentments, he changed his expression, a rare occurrence for him.

It wasn't because the face was particularly terrifying; he had seen faces far more grotesque and frightening than this.

It was because... he knew this person!
"This...isn't this Wan Langzhong from the Ministry of Justice? I'm not seeing things, am I!?"

Wang Gui also saw the man's face. The moment he saw it, he couldn't help but look at Liu Shuyi and exclaimed in shock.

Du Gou's expression also changed slightly. He examined it carefully and frowned, saying, "It is indeed Wan Langzhong. How could it be him?"

Wan Rong, a fifth-rank official in the Ministry of Justice, was the true head of the Ministry of Justice where Liu Shuyi worked.

Because Wan Rong left Chang'an a month ago on orders to supervise the handling of cases by local officials, Liu Shuyi had not met Wan Rong since he traveled through time.

This is why Qian Wenqing dared to target and scheme against him the moment he was promoted to Assistant Director of the Ministry of Justice. If their superior, Wan Rong, had been present, Qian Wenqing would have had to consider Wan Rong's feelings and reputation to some extent and would not have acted so hastily.

He was still considering how to get along with Wanrong after his return.

Unlike Qian Wenqing, Wan Rong never targeted the original owner of this body. Of course, he also never intervened in Qian Wenqing's bullying of the original owner...

They had absolutely no interaction with the original owner, neither caring for nor excluding her; they were complete strangers.

So, how should we get along with Vang Vieng? Should we form a friendly alliance, or maintain the old relationship and treat it as a normal superior-subordinate relationship?

He had been thinking about this matter and was even prepared to ask Du Ruhui for advice, but who knew... he would actually meet Wan Rong in this kind of situation!

Wanrong had become a cold corpse.

He no longer has to worry about this.

Liu Shuyi took a deep breath, his expression returning to its usual calm.

He carefully observed Wan Rong and saw a clear wound on Wan Rong's chest.

The front of his shirt was soaked with blood, which froze into ice crystals in the cold weather.

Wan Rong was wearing an official robe, which had some wrinkles but wasn't very dusty.

After thinking for a moment, Liu Shuyi took off Wan Rong's robe.

The hideous wound on his chest immediately came into clear view.

Upon seeing this, Du Gou and Cui Lin also squatted down and examined the corpse with Liu Shuyi.

Although they don't perform autopsies, their years of experience investigating cases have given them some expertise in dealing with corpses.

Du Gou examined the wound carefully and said, "It looks like a sharp blade like a dagger pierced the heart..."

"It's not as simple as just stabbing."

Cui Lin reached out and vigorously pulled at the wound a few times, saying, "After the murderer stabbed Wan Langzhong in the heart, he twisted it a few times, which rapidly aggravated Wan Langzhong's injury. That one blow should have been enough to kill Wan Langzhong."

Du Gou thought for a moment and nodded in agreement.

Liu Shuyi glanced at Cui Lin and realized that Cui Lin was indeed very experienced.

Although Cui Lin was somewhat arrogant, his own abilities were indeed quite good.

He didn't participate in their discussion and directly took off all of Wan Rong's robes.

At this moment, everyone noticed that Wan Rong had some injuries on his arms, knees and other parts of his body.

Wang Gui said, "It seems that Wan Langzhong fought with the murderer before he died."

"wrong."

Unexpectedly, Liu Shuyi shook his head upon hearing this: "Wan Langzhong did not fight with the murderer. Either he was caught in the murderer's trick before he died and was unable to resist, or he was very familiar with the murderer and trusted him. He did not expect the murderer to make a sudden move and had no time to resist."

"what?"

Wang Gui was stunned for a moment.

Du Gou and Cui Lin also subconsciously looked at Liu Shuyi.

Wang Gui couldn't help but say, "Wan Langzhong clearly has wounds on his body, and these wounds look very fresh, obviously caused recently. In addition, his clothes are disheveled, which is obviously the result of a struggle before his death, right? How can you say that he did not fight with the murderer, Yuanwailang?"

Seeing that everyone was looking at him with confusion, Liu Shuyi said, "Wan Langzhong does have scars, but scars do not necessarily mean that they were caused by fighting with someone."

"You may not know that there are two types of human wounds: wounds inflicted before death and wounds inflicted after death."

"Injuries sustained before death? Injuries sustained after death?"

Wang Gui looked completely bewildered.

Du Gou and Cui Lin frowned slightly, seemingly deep in thought.

Liu Shuyi took in their reactions and continued, "Our bodies have a strong self-healing ability, so when we are injured, our bodies will begin to heal themselves immediately... I call this a life response."

"For example, if we get a scrape, the wound will bleed and scab over. In more serious cases, it will become red and swollen, and granulation tissue will appear... These are all corresponding reactions of our body to the injury."

"But if we die, our bodies have no metabolic capacity after death and cannot heal themselves. Therefore, if we suffer a scratch after death, it will generally only cause the skin to break and peel off, which will be waxy yellow, without blood scabs, and the underlying tissue will not be congested—that is, there will be no redness or swelling."

Liu Shuyi's words were completely outside their area of ​​knowledge. After all, given their status, they had no need to accompany the coroner to examine corpses, and even among coroners, not all of them necessarily knew this knowledge.

So it took them a while to process the knowledge that Liu Shuyi had forced into their heads, and at the same time they understood what Liu Shuyi meant.

They quickly lowered their heads and looked again at Wan Rong's corpse.

Looking at the scars on Wan Rong's arms and knees, they realized that most of these scars were from bumps and scrapes.

And these scratches...

There were no scabs or redness, only peeling of the surface skin...

"This……"

Wang Gui stared wide-eyed, incredulously saying, "These wounds don't show any signs of life as the official described, so they must have been caused after Wan Langzhong's death!?"

Cui Lin's expression kept shifting as he said, "I'm afraid that after Wan Langzhong was murdered by the murderer, his body was moved by the murderer, and during the process, Wan Langzhong suffered some bumps and scrapes."

Lu Yangyuan then recalled Liu Shuyi's conversation with the old man when he arrived, and looked at Liu Shuyi, saying, "Could the howling sound that old man mentioned be the sound made by Wan Langzhong?"

What was that howling sound?

Wang Gui and the others looked at Lu Yangyuan in confusion.

Seeing Liu Shuyi nod, Lu Yangyuan then told everyone about Liu Shuyi's conversation with the old man and the old man's discovery that distinguished him from others.

Upon hearing this, Wang Gui couldn't help but say, "I've had so many people inquire with the villagers, but none of them have heard any howling..."

He looked at Liu Shuyi and couldn't help but say, "Master Liu, what incredible luck you have! You just happened to run into an old man and you got such an important clue."

Liu Shuyi smiled and said, "I'm really lucky today."

"certainly not!"

Upon hearing this, Lu Yangyuan said, "That old man didn't originally intend to say these things. He is very afraid of people in our court. He wasn't sure if he had misheard the voice, so he didn't want to speak up for fear of causing trouble for himself."

"But when Liu Yuanwailang saw how hard he was working and knew that someone in his family urgently needed money to buy medicine, he was kind-hearted and bought his firewood. He also thoughtfully reminded him to hurry back and buy medicine to treat his wife's illness... The old man was grateful for Yuanwailang's kindness and wanted to repay him, so after hesitating several times, he told him about it."

"It was the kindness of the official that moved him. If it were anyone else who met him, they probably wouldn't have been able to get the information out of him."

Everyone was surprised by this unexpected turn of events and couldn't help but look up at Liu Shuyi.

Zhao Feng said, "I know best about the kindness of the young master. It seems that only the young master could have asked this question."

Wang Gui nodded repeatedly with emotion: "If that's the case, then I'm truly incompetent. I'm only concerned with investigating the case, afraid that if I don't solve it, I'll lose my head. How can I possibly care about anyone else?"

He looked at Liu Shuyi and said, "Sir, I take back what I just said. You weren't lucky; it was inevitable that you would find out about this clue."

Liu Shuyi was surprised that Lu Yangyuan, though a martial artist, was so perceptive that he could even observe the old man's thought process.

He laughed and said, "The process is not important. The result is that we did not miss this important clue, and that is enough."

That's what they said, but everyone still couldn't help but feel a sense of emotion.

Du Gou increasingly felt that his father's choice of Liu Shuyi as the Du family's son-in-law was a brilliant decision.

Even someone as proud as Cui Lin looked at Liu Shuyi with an undisguised sense of admiration. In his life, he only respected two kinds of people: those who were stronger than him and those who were as pure as Wei Zheng, whose words and deeds were consistent.

Liu Shuyi, both are correct.

"Alright, let's get back to Master Wan."

Liu Shuyi pulled everyone back to their senses and said, "Based on the life reaction, we know that the wounds on Wan Langzhong's body were all post-mortem injuries, and the screams or howls that the old man said he heard came from the direction of the shrine."

"Our current location..."

As Liu Shuyi walked out of the cave, he saw that they had reached the other side of Cuihua Mountain. In front of them was a not-so-wide road, and beyond that was an almost 90-degree vertical cliff.

He said, "If Wan Langzhong was killed here, the old man couldn't have heard the sound in the village at the foot of the mountain. So Wan Langzhong was most likely killed outside or inside the shrine."

"But his body is here. It's obvious... the murderer moved his body here, and therefore injured the body during the process."

This time, everyone had no more questions and nodded emphatically.

Du Gou pondered and said, "So, in reality, Wan Langzhong only had this one fatal wound to his heart inflicted by the murderer, so he really did not fight with the murderer."

"It's just unknown whether he was unable to fight back, or whether he knew the murderer and was unprepared for the attack."

Liu Shuyi squinted and said, "If they don't have the ability to fight, that's fine, but if they don't take precautions... coming to this abandoned and eerie shrine in the middle of the night, yet having no defenses against the murderer, what kind of identity does this murderer have that would make a doctor from the Ministry of Justice trust him so much?"

Everyone felt a chill run down their spines.

They realized that if it was the second scenario, then the murderer... probably wouldn't be an ordinary person either.

"What could it be?" Wang Gui couldn't help but ask.

Liu Shuyi shook his head: "We need to ask someone to help us confirm this."

Please help...

Du Gou's eyes flashed, and he said, "I'll send someone to fetch my sister right away."

He knew that Liu Shuyi needed to confirm whether Wan Rong had been drugged by the murderer before her death, which would have rendered her powerless to resist, and the only person capable of doing so was his own sister.

"And one more thing……"

Liu Shuyi said to Du Gou, "While you go to invite Miss Du, Vice Minister Du should also arrange for someone to go to the Ministry of Justice to help me find Master Du."

"Looking for Father?" Du Gou was taken aback.

Liu Shuyi nodded and said, "I know that a month ago, Wan Langzhong was ordered by His Majesty to go to various prefectures with officials from the Court of Judicial Review and the Censorate to supervise the handling of cases by local officials, but I do not know his specific itinerary."

"Therefore, I would like to ask Vice Minister Du to have someone inquire with Lord Du about which prefectures and cities Wan Langzhong has visited in the past month, what his itinerary has been like in the last few days, whether Wan Langzhong has sent any letters to Lord Du during this period, and whether there has been anything unusual about him."

Du Gou understood Liu Shuyi's meaning and said directly, "I'll send someone to deliver the message right away."

After saying that, he quickly left.

Liu Shuyi slowly exhaled.

He turned his head and looked at Wan Rong lying on the cold ground. Logically speaking, as a special envoy of the imperial court, Wan Rong should have been accompanied by officials wherever he went, or at least protected by guards. But here, there was only Wan Rong's corpse.

His bodyguards were also killed, and the killer took his body away...

Or perhaps Wan Rong encountered some accident and left the special envoy's group alone, without any guards.

If that's the case, what happened to him? And where did the accident occur?
Why did the disappearance of a special envoy like Vang Vieng go unnoticed? Did the members of the special envoy delegation not know he was missing? Or is this incident related to the special envoy delegation?
and also……

Liu Shuyi shifted his gaze upwards to the dark and deep cave. This cave was a place of salvation built by the ancestors of the local people, but the secret inheritance has been lost. These people know nothing about the secret of the shrine. How did the murderer know it?
Luck? That would require an incredible amount of luck!
But if it wasn't luck, what was the reason?
And wasn't the thief's goal to place the stone tablet and create a miracle?

Why kill Wan Rong?
Judging from Wan Rong's cause of death, it does not seem to be a sudden accident.

If Wan Rong discovered the thieves' actions by chance, he should have been on guard against them. How could the thieves have managed to kill him head-on?
strangeness……

Countless questions, like sparks rising from a torch, kept surfacing in Liu Shuyi's mind.

However, due to a lack of crucial clues, he was unable to unravel these doubts.

In the end, Liu Shuyi had no choice but to take another deep breath and temporarily suppress these thoughts, waiting to find new clues before considering these issues again.

Liu Shuyi withdrew his gaze and was about to go outside the cave to investigate the situation.

But as soon as he looked away from Wan Rong, he suddenly paused.

"This is?"

He suddenly appeared in front of Wan Rong and immediately squatted down.

"Sir, what's going on?"

Seeing Liu Shuyi's strange behavior, Wang Gui couldn't help but ask him.

Upon hearing this, everyone else also looked at Liu Shuyi.

Then Liu Shuyi raised Wan Rong's right hand, reached out, and grabbed Wan Rong's middle finger...

Then... break it open with force!
The middle finger bent instantly and pressed against the back of the hand.

Seeing this, Wang Gui and the others felt a sharp pain in their fingers and instinctively gasped for breath.

"Master, why are you bending Master Wan's middle finger?" Wang Gui asked curiously.

Cui Lin and others were also puzzled by Liu Shuyi's strange behavior.

Liu Shuyi stared intently at Wan Rong's right middle finger and said in a deep voice, "Do you think his finger is broken or not?"

"what?"

Wang Gui was stunned for a moment, then said, "Of course it broke! It was right against the back of my hand, how could it not break?"

"Yes, it's broken!"

Liu Shuyi then raised his head, looked at Wang Gui and the others, and said, "But I didn't break it."

"What? Not you?"

Everyone was startled.

Liu Shuyi nodded: "I just noticed that Wan Langzhong's right middle finger is slightly backward, which is different from the other fingers. This means that when he died, when his body was stiff, his middle finger was different from the other four fingers."

"This suggests that either he did it himself, or the killer deliberately broke it after killing him."

"Whether it's the case or not, it means that this finger is very special."

"So I came to check, and then..."

He put the middle finger back down and said, "I found out it's broken."

Cui Lin frowned deeply: "How did it break? Did the murderer do it, or did he break it himself?"

Liu Shuyi did not answer immediately, but carefully observed the finger. After a moment, he picked up Wan Rong's left hand. At this moment, his eyes flashed and he said, "I think he must have broken it himself."

"Himself?" Cui Lin stared intently at Liu Shuyi. "Are you sure?"

Liu Shuyi raised Wan Rong's left hand, facing Cui Lin and the others, and said, "Look, there is a small wound on the web of Wan Langzhong's left hand. This wound still shows signs of life, indicating that it appeared before his death."

"And the size of this wound..."

As he spoke, he picked up Wanrong's right hand again and compared the nail of his right middle finger with the wound on the web of his left hand...

"This... matches up!?" Wang Gui said in surprise.

Liu Shuyi nodded: "Yes, it matches up. The size is exactly the same, and even the slight curve is perfectly aligned. So it is very obvious that this wound was caused by his right middle finger."

"The wound wasn't large, but it was quite deep, which means he was scratching his left hand's web space very hard. Why? Why did he do that?"

“This…” Wang Gui frowned, looking puzzled.

Cui Lin didn't understand either.

Liu Shuyi took in the reactions of the group and said, "Have you ever thought about why it was the tiger's mouth? Why not some other location?"

"Why?" Wang Gui felt like a child who had just started school, knowing nothing but asking "why".

Fortunately, the others were in similar situations, so no one laughed at him.

"We can try it out..."

Liu Shuyi prompted, "If we want to break off our right middle finger, what do we need to do to succeed?"

How to do it?
Wang Gui subconsciously gripped his right middle finger with his left hand and then bent it downwards—

Just then, he looked down at his two hands, and as if struck by a sudden thought, his eyes widened.

"this--"

"When I bend it like this, my right middle finger lands right at the web of my left thumb!"

"Could it be...? That can't be right! My fingernails can't even reach the base of my thumb..."

Upon hearing this, Liu Shuyi said, "This was clearly deliberately removed; it wasn't an accident."

"Clearly intentional, not an accident..."

At that moment, Wang Gui felt as if Liu Shuyi's words were a divine revelation, instantly enlightening him.

He suddenly looked at Liu Shuyi and said, "Does the Master mean that Doctor Wan deliberately left such a nail wound on the web of his left hand to remind us that he broke off his right middle finger himself, so that we would not mistakenly think that it was the murderer?"

Cui Lin also stared intently at Liu Shuyi.

Liu Shuyi let out a long breath and said, "Wan Langzhong is a senior official in the Ministry of Justice. He has seen countless cases and reviewed countless files, so compared to others, I think he should be more calm when faced with a case."

"Moreover, because of their experience, they know how others investigate cases. Therefore, if they know they are doomed and want to leave important clues or evidence for the investigators, they will not hesitate to react."

"In other words, as long as he doesn't die instantly, he has a chance to leave clues for us!"

Cui Lin's eyes flickered, and this time he said without hesitation, "You're right. If it were me, and someone wanted to kill me, I would know I was going to die, and I would definitely leave clues... Otherwise, I would not be willing to let the murderer go unpunished!"

"The murderer first stabbed Wan Langzhong in the heart with a dagger, then twisted the dagger and crushed Wan Langzhong's heart... There were a few breaths in between, and if Wan Langzhong had acted decisively, he could have broken his fingers."

Wang Gui's heart pounded like a drum, and his scalp tingled uncontrollably.

At this moment, he felt a surge of heat boiling within him, as if he was unable to calm down because of Wan Rong's indecisive yet ruthless decision.

He had met Wanrong before, and in his memory, Wanrong was a kind-hearted man in his forties who always smiled at everyone. He never expected that Wanrong would do such a thing in the face of death!
He took a deep breath and said, "What kind of message was he trying to leave us by breaking off his middle finger?"

Cui Lin shook his head: "I don't know Wan Langzhong. Only someone who knows him well enough can solve this."

Wang Gui hurriedly looked at Liu Shuyi, but Liu Shuyi also shook his head: "I'm not that familiar with Wan Langzhong either."

"Although we were both in the Ministry of Justice, when Wan Langzhong left Chang'an, I was just a minor official in the Ministry of Justice. I didn't even have the right to speak to Wan Langzhong, and I didn't know his habits."

Hearing Liu Shuyi's words, Wang Gui couldn't help but feel somewhat disappointed.

He frowned deeply: "Then what should we do? Should we go find Wan Langzhong's family?"

"No need."

To everyone's surprise, Liu Shuyi shook his head and said, "Although I am not familiar with Wan Langzhong, that does not prevent me from deciphering his hints."

"what?"

Wang Gui blinked blankly, not understanding Liu Shuyi's meaning for a moment.

Cui Lin, however, stared intently at Liu Shuyi, his voice rising slightly at this moment: "You mean to say!?"

"good."

Liu Shuyi nodded slowly: "I have deciphered Wan Langzhong's hint."

"What!?" Wang Gui finally understood, his voice even higher than Cui Lin's: "Really?"

Everyone else looked at Liu Shuyi in disbelief.

How long has it been? And Liu Shuyi isn't even familiar with Wan Rong, yet he's already deciphered Wan Rong's strange hint?
Under everyone's watchful eyes, Liu Shuyi spoke up: "The fact that Wan Langzhong would leave clues in this way means that the murderer has already attacked him, and he knows that he is about to die..."

"And this also means that he has very little time! In such a short time, he has no chance to think deeply and leave any complex hints."

"In other words, his hints probably don't require much thought, and may even just be the surface of the situation!"

"Furthermore, Wan Langzhong has extensive experience with cases. He knows all too well what kind of clues investigators need. The simpler the clues, the less likely they are to go wrong! If they are complicated, his clues may never be solved, and he will have to suffer the pain of losing a finger before he dies, which would be a waste of his efforts."

"so……"

He looked at everyone and said, "Keep it simple! Keep your thinking simple! Just like a three-year-old child thinking, only looking at the surface, seeing whatever is what they want..."

"What I saw was that the third of the five fingers was bent..."

"Outside the shrine, there were only woods. As I climbed the mountain, I saw some trees that had been blown down by the strong winds and weighed down by the blizzard..."

"There happened to be a stretch of road where I met the old man, and there were five trees very close together, with the third tree being bent at the right angle."

"You said..."

Liu Shuyi laughed and said, "Isn't this a coincidence? The five trees are standing straight up, just like our five fingers. And the third tree is falling down, just like the middle finger is bent."

"This this……"

Wang Gui stammered, "Isn't this too easy?"

Cui Lin was also somewhat incredulous. It was indeed far too simple. He simply couldn't believe that someone as wise and decisive as Wan Rong would leave behind such a foolish hint.

"Simple?"

Upon hearing this, Liu Shuyi simply looked at them intently: "What you see is simplicity, but what I see is the most direct and clearest hint left by a dying and unwilling person in the last moments of his life, a hint that even a fool could understand!"

"Let's go!"

Without any hesitation, Liu Shuyi turned around and walked into the cave.

"Whether it is right or wrong, you'll know once you get there."

(End of this chapter)