Detective in the Red Chamber

"Actually, even if you look at the corpse, I'm afraid you won't find any clues."

After entering the gate, Li Jiuming led the way ahead and couldn't help but said, "Although our Qianxiang country is not as outstanding as Da Zhou's, there are still two or three experts who are good at autopsy, and even they haven't been able to find any clues. , what can you, a layman, see?"

Sun Shaozong was perfunctory, but from Li Jiuming's words in his heart, he analyzed that the Ministry of Punishment may not have made the slightest progress until now, and his heart felt a little heavy for a while.

Now we can only place our hopes on his experience in solving crimes far ahead of his time.

However, the three of them walked around for about half an hour before arriving at a secluded courtyard.

Li Jiuming stopped outside the gate of the courtyard, turned his head and confessed to Ruan Rong, "Girl, you can stay here, I will take Sun Duwei in."

Looking at the thin-skinned coffins in the yard, Ruan Rong actually guessed something, but she couldn't help asking "Why?"

"The things inside are not suitable for girls to read. If you are frightened, how can I explain to your father?" Li Jiuming said solemnly, but it had the opposite effect.

On the way here, Sun Shaozong discovered that Ruan Rong was a strong woman, but Li Jiuming's speech had a faint intention of belittling women. How could Ruan Rong be convinced?

as predicted.

Upon hearing this, Ruan Rong immediately tightened her face, and said angrily, "Uncle Li, don't look down on others, so what about girls? I'm much more courageous than your younger brother Li!"

Saying that, he broke in without hesitation.

"Rong'er, Rong'er! Come back, come back quickly... this girl!"

Li Jiuming yelled a few times from behind, but he couldn't stop her, so he had no choice but to pull up and follow her.

Chapter 5

However, Ruan Rong tried her best to break into the courtyard. At the beginning, she walked like flying, but after passing those coffins, her steps slowed down. Her big eyes rolled around, revealing the uneasiness and fear in her heart.

If Li Jiuming said a few casual words of persuasion at this time, she might be about to retreat.

But Li Jiuming is good at handling cases, but he can't read the little girl's mind at all.

He rushed up from behind, and saw that the autopsy room was not far ahead, so he shook his head helplessly and said, "Forget it, since you girl insist on being brave, you can go in with me."

Now Ruan Rong had no way out, so she had no choice but to bite the bullet and cross the threshold side by side with Li Jiuming.

Just when she stepped in and out of the door, she felt a stench rushing towards her face. Even though Ruan Rong covered her mouth and nose in time, she still couldn't completely isolate it, and the disgusting smell flowed down the nasal cavity It crawled in and scratched her stomach with its claws, as if it wanted to take out the overnight meal!

"This... what kind of smell is this, it stinks!"

Ruan Rong suppressed her nausea, and complained angrily, and then heard someone behind her say, "You are right, this is really the smell of corpses from the dead, but it should be the smell left over from the past. If there are rotting corpses in it , the taste should be much stronger."

Corpse stink?

Want to be much bigger? !

Before Sun Shaozong finished speaking, Ruan Rong turned around and ran out of the small courtyard, followed by intermittent vomiting.

"This Rong girl!"

Li Jiuming sighed helplessly, and when he looked at Sun Shaozong again, he felt a little more inquisitive. He had seen many desperadoes who licked blood with the knife head, but he could tell the smell of corpses with a single word, and he could still stand in front of this smell. It is rare to see young people who are calm.

So invisibly, his emphasis on Sun Shaozong increased a bit.

"Captain Sun, please."

"Thank you, Captain Li."

Li Jiuming raised his hand to give way, Sun Shaozong thanked him casually, and walked into the morgue.

At this time, it was around three o'clock in the afternoon, but there were more than a dozen candles burning in the morgue, and those candlesticks were even higher and lower, faintly surrounding a single bed covered with a white cloth.

On the left side of this single bed, two assistants, one fat and one thin, were cleaning the knives silently. When they saw Li Jiuming bring someone in, they just nodded slightly and ignored them.

Sun Shaozong knew that these people who often deal with corpses are often not very gregarious, so he didn't care about it. He walked to the bed on his own, pointed to the white cloth covering it, and asked politely, "Both , can I open it and have a look?"

The thin one glanced up at Li Jiuming, and seeing that he didn't intend to stop him, a mocking smile appeared on his face, and he replied dryly, "It's up to you."

Said, a pair of triangular eyes full of gloating.

Although the fat man didn't speak, he squinted at him, as if he was waiting for a good show.

Faced with these two sinister gazes, Sun Shaozong was very magnanimous. Without saying a word, he stepped forward and raised the white cloth, and directly lifted it to the end!

shuh~

The white cloth was lifted, and a bloody corpse appeared in front of Sun Shaozong immediately. The man's head and limbs were still intact, but the chest cavity was completely cut open. And the bloody mouth that swallowed!

And in the 'mouth', the internal organs, intestines, esophagus and other fragments are all wrinkled and writhing outward, dripping dripping yellow-brown mucus...

Ordinary people would be scared to death on the spot when they saw this horrific scene!

But Sun Shaozong has worked as a criminal policeman for more than ten years, what kind of corpse has he never seen?

Not to mention this kind of "fresh goods" that were disemboweled and disemboweled, they were dismembered and then deep-fried or raw-fried. He has seen more than a dozen of them!

So he bent down nonchalantly, lay down next to the corpse and carefully looked at it for a while, then stretched out his hand and poked in the abdominal cavity, then raised his head and commented, "It should be by a sharp blade, from the left third It was stabbed between the fifth rib and the fourth rib, pierced the liver and caused hemorrhage to die, and the knife edge was downward when stabbing, so it left a cut on the fifth rib."

Fat and thin Wu Zuo and Li Jiuming looked at each other in astonishment.

After a while, the fat clerk put down the knife in his hand, and praised loudly, "Expert! Which yamen is the little brother, and he has such courage and experience at a young age..."

"Cough cough!"

Li Jiuming brought Sun Shaozong here privately, how dare he let him reveal his true identity?

Two dry coughs interrupted Fat Wu Zuo's cross-examination, and said sternly, "Since you know you are an expert, then don't hide it, and tell this little brother the results of your autopsy."

Fat Wu Zuo didn't mean to delve into it, pointing to the corpses and talking, "A total of three corpses were sent, all of which were killed by Ambassador Niu's guards when they resisted. I've seen, none of them are familiar faces, and they should not be from Qinglin Mansion."

Li Jiuming added, "It's not that they came here in the past few days. The city gate guards have no impression of them. It can be seen that they have been hiding in the city for a while, and there are even people who are responsible for taking care of them. Otherwise, more than a dozen foreigners would be in the city. After living for so long, how could no one notice?"

After he finished adding, Fat Zuo continued, "Judging from the calluses on the corpse's limbs and the wear and tear of the teeth, these people usually live a good life and rarely participate in labor, but they spend all day wielding knives and guns."

Shou Zuo said, "However, judging from the strange wounds on their bodies, they should not be officers, soldiers or policemen. It is more likely that they came from city rangers."

Fat Zuo took up the conversation again, pointed to a single bed in the southwest corner, and said, "The one lying there had a tattoo on its back, but it was recently destroyed with brute force. It's probably because the tattoo would be exposed." his identity."

Tattoos?

When Sun Shaozong heard this, his heart moved, and he quickly cast his eyes on Li Jiuming, but Li Jiuming shook his head slightly and said, "The rangers in the six countries of southern Xinjiang have the habit of tattooing. If the tattoo is still intact, I may be able to follow the vine. Find out something, but now..."

Sun Shaozong was a little disappointed, and turned to the two assistants and asked, "Have you checked the food residue in your stomach? Did you find any clues?"

"Sure enough, he is an expert!"

Fat Wuzuo praised again, and then he took out a tray from under the shelf where the knives were placed, but there were three small enamel bowls in the tray, which were sticky and didn't know what they contained, and they were separated by a long distance. There was a nasty sour smell.

"This is what came out of their stomachs." Fat Zuo pointed to the bowl of paste, and said, "In addition to the common meat and pasta, there seem to be some fruits—should not be common fruits on the market. As for the specifics What kind of fruit it is, but the two of us can't tell the difference."

Sun Shaozong cheered up immediately, and blurted out, "Can you use this as a clue to find out where the remaining assassins are hiding?"

"This one……"

Fat Wuzuo and thin Wuzuo looked at each other with wry smiles, and finally Li Jiuming explained, "Southern Xinjiang is known as the hometown of melons and fruits, and now it is the end of summer and early autumn, and there are at least a hundred kinds of fruits. I don’t know how much time it will take to compare them all—and you have to eat them first and then spit them out before you can compare them, it’s really..."

After a pause, he added, "What's more, this kind of fresh fruit is not durable, and it may have completely deteriorated at night."

This is true.

In the absence of scientific instruments, if you want to find out the roots of these fruit residues, you may have to rely on luck-but the iron rule of modern criminal police is that no matter how insignificant the clues are, you can't give up the pursuit!

So Sun Shaozong still begged, "In this case, can the two of you share some of the fruit residue with me? Maybe I'm lucky enough to find this fruit by chance."

This thing is not durable, so what's the use of keeping more?

Therefore, without hesitation, the two assistants agreed to Sun Shaozong's request, took a piece of oil paper, carefully separated nearly half of the fruit residue, packed it and handed it to Sun Shaozong.

Unwilling to give up, Sun Shaozong continued to discuss with these two masters for a long time, but there was still nothing to gain, and finally he had to leave angrily.

Li Jiuming sent him out of the morgue, stopped in his tracks, and said in a deep voice, "I still have official duties, so I won't be sending him away—remember to tell Rong girl for me, don't meddle in this case indiscriminately in the future! "

Sun Shaozong nodded in response, and hurried out of the courtyard door, and saw Ruan Rong standing pale against the wall, with a huge piece of vomit spread beside him, probably even contributed breakfast.

Ruan Rong also found Sun Shaozong at this time, and seeing the vomit in his eyes, she felt a little embarrassed, and scratched the ground with her boots, intending to cover the vomit with soil.

But at this moment, Sun Shaozong's eyes suddenly lit up, and he jumped in front of the puddle of vomit excitedly, squatted down and studied it carefully-unexpectedly, what he said casually just now really made him lucky!

Chapter 6 Fruit Tracking

"It's here!"

Ruan Rong pointed to a grocery store not far in front, and said, "The white berries are only sold by their house!"

When the word 'whiteberry' was mentioned, she slumped her shoulders and frowned, looking as if she was feeling weak.

But the one who reacted the most was Feng Xin who was sitting next to him. His old face was black and green, and he swallowed a few mouthfuls of saliva vigorously, but he still couldn't hold back the acid in his stomach. .

No way, whoever asked Sun Shaozong to observe for a long time can only confirm that Ruan Rong's vomit and fruit residues are seven or eight points similar. In the end, in order to be on the safe side, he had to adopt the most primitive analysis method - cheat Feng Eat it and distinguish it by taste!

So after some indescribable tests, Sun Shaozong finally determined that the assassins ate a fruit called 'white berry', and this fruit was a special product of the neighboring country Zhen, because the transportation was very inconvenient, and there was only There are two merchants for sale.

One of them is a restaurant, and whiteberries have always been used only to entertain VIPs, and have never been sold outside—considering that assassins are unlikely to go to restaurants in groups to consume before their actions, this grocery store in the north of the city , should be the source of 'white berry residue'!

In addition, Ruan Rong also sent a message. As the duo of the six kingdoms in southern Xinjiang, Zhen Country and Qianxiang Country have been sworn enemies for hundreds of years. There is a sign of annexing the Zhen country and dominating the southern border, which arouses great panic among the government and the public of the Zhen country.

Therefore, it is a reasonable inference that the "ranger" from the Zhen Kingdom came to assassinate the special envoy of Dazhou, intending to provoke the relationship between the two countries, and before doing so, he used the unique food and fruits of his hometown to make a fortune!

Less gossip.

But they said that the crowd rode their horses all the way, and when they arrived outside the grocery store in the north of the city, Sun Shaozong ordered Feng Xin and others to wait on the side of the street, then got off his horse, and walked in side by side with Ruan Rong.

It is said to be a grocery store, but it is actually a three-story attic, and it covers a rather large area. After entering the door, the shelves are full of beautiful things. Not only are there special products from the six countries of southern Xinjiang, but they have also opened up the great Zhou Dynasty and the Western Regions. The special area is like an ancient version of an international hypermarket.

Before Sun Shaozong took a closer look, a store clerk came up to him with a smile on his face and said, "Please come inside, you two guests! I don't know if you are a pleasing guest, and want to see what's in the trumpet, or have you already done it?" Do you have something you like? Our things are a bit complicated here, if you have something you want, just talk to Xiao Xiao, and Xiao Xiao can help you guide the way."

This guy is very sweet.

Sun Shaozong pretended to be casual and asked, "I heard that you sell white berries here? It's the special fruit of Zhen country."

"Yes, yes, you two come with me!"

The guy led the way in front, and the two followed closely behind. After a while, they came to a cellar. He bent down and grabbed a red rope, took out a rattan basket from the cellar, and handed it to the two of them. He said, "Look, Mr. Ke, there are only so many of the goods that were replenished this morning."

Sun Shaozong looked down, but saw that the bottom of the basket was sparse, only about twenty fruits the size of ping-pong balls, the bright red ones were still breathing a little, which looked really gratifying.

Although there is a word 'berry' in the name of this thing, it actually looks like a lychee, with a hard shell on the outside and a medium-sized core inside.

"That's right, it's this thing!"

Ruan Rong let out a cry of joy, and then asked, "Dude, did someone buy a lot of white berries at once between yesterday and today? At least enough for a dozen people!"

"This……"

She asked too eagerly, which caused the guy to be vigilant, looked at the two of them suspiciously, and said perfunctorily, "Master, we don't know how many things we sell in a day, I really can't remember... "

Halfway through the conversation, the guy suddenly stared straight at Sun Shaozong's palm—to be precise, he stared at the broken silver in his palm!

Sun Shaozong tossed the silver forward casually, and the shop clerk hurriedly held it in both hands, turned it upside down gently, and found that there were at least four taels, and a face that looked like a chrysanthemum smiling suddenly.

Sun Shaozong asked with a smile, "Should I remember now?"

"Remember, remember!"

The guy nodded his head like a chicken pecking at rice, and said with a smile on his face, "This morning, indeed, a big customer came. Without further ado, he bought a whole basket of white berries, which cost a full 16 taels of silver!"

Bought a basket?

Then [-]% should not be wrong!

Sun Shaozong also couldn't hide his excitement and asked, "Then do you remember what he looks like? How is he dressed? Is it a servant or the master's house? What direction did he walk when he left? Did he take a car or walk?!"

This barrage of questions made the buddy dizzy, but for the sake of money, he still tried his best to recall, "The man looks nothing special, and he should be a servant of a rich family - hurry up when he leaves." In a carriage, it seems to be heading north."

"Going north?!"

Sun Shaozong was really overjoyed now, the grocery store was already in the north of the city, and if he wanted to search north, the scope would be much smaller!

After getting an affirmative answer from the shop assistant, he reached out and grabbed two 'white berries' from the rattan basket, and pulled Ruan Rong out of the gate without looking back.

to the street.

Without further ado, Sun Shaozong peeled off one and put it in his mouth, chewed the pulp, and spit out the core on the palm of his hand.

The guards were puzzled when they saw him throw the fruit peel and core in front of him, and said loudly, "Brothers, let me take a closer look! We will split up later and collect all the fruits north of this grocery store." In the storage yard, go through everything carefully for me, and report to me immediately if you find similar peels and cores!"

The so-called 'yard' is the ancient garbage dump.

From morning till now, at least seven or eight hours have passed. Normal people should not leave these rubbish at home, so as long as they can find these peels and cores in the yard, they can follow the clues to find out where the assassin hides. !

Of course, if those assassins were so cautious that they didn't even dispose of the garbage, then Sun Shaozong could only inform Qianxiang court of this information and let them conduct a carpet search.