Chapter 11

Linyang City lies to the north of Dingzhou, a vast stretch of fertile land known as the granary of Jiangnan. Though not as commercially prosperous as Dingzhou, its proximity meant frequent exchanges between the two.

Before Jin Shu even stepped into the magistrate’s office, the stench hit her like a wall. She frowned slightly and glanced at the autopsy report, which stated the time of death as approximately eight days ago.

Eight days? More like eighteen. The smell was far too strong.

“There’s nothing worth seeing here. We examined the body and sent it to the burial office. Now you’ve dragged it back again—what a hassle,” muttered the Linyang coroner, pinching his nose and eyeing the slender man before him with disdain.

Was the prince into this kind of delicate type? Traveling with such a soft-looking young man?

But Jin Shu had no time to size him up. She focused on the report in her hand, which, aside from the date of death, simply stated “death by asphyxiation.”

Extremely brief.

“Hey, how’d you get into the Six Gates? What’s the pay like? Easy work?” The coroner nudged her with his elbow, irritating Jin Shu enough to snap the report shut with a loud clap. She didn’t bother replying to his sloppy demeanor. She tied her sleeves, donned gloves, and walked straight into the room. From the display shelf, she pulled out a flat box and opened it—only to freeze.

The box, which should’ve held knives and saws, contained only a few scattered tools.

“Where are the rest?” she asked, surprised, turning to the coroner at the door.

The tall man waved his hand dismissively, trying to air out the room. “Didn’t need them. Just sitting there gathering dust. Sold them.”

“Sold them?!” Jin Shu stared at him. “You sold your tools?!”

“Yeah. Gotta eat, right? Can’t eat if I don’t sell.”

Their eyes met. Jin Shu was so stunned by his innocent expression that she couldn’t even respond. In all her years as a coroner, she’d never met someone like this. Suddenly, that questionable “eight days” on the report didn’t seem so surprising.

She pressed her lips together, took a deep breath, tied on her face cloth, and picked up a small scalpel. Seeing the dried residue on the blade sent a rush of blood to her head. She looked around. Not even an oil lamp to light, nor a clean cloth to wipe with. So she lifted her robe and wiped the blade clean herself.

To the Linyang coroner, she looked like a madwoman. He took two steps back in alarm.

Jin Shu didn’t care. She lowered her head, her thoughts narrowing to the corpse before her. From the moment she bent down, time seemed to vanish. Her focus sharpened, her gaze locked onto the blade as it moved. Her eyes grew brighter with each cut.

At some point, Li Jin had appeared behind her, watching her with one brow raised. After a while, seeing her rise without a word, he stepped forward and glanced at the body. “Well?”

Jin Shu shook her head. “Tools are incomplete. I can only give a rough assessment.”

Incomplete? Li Jin paused, turned to look at her sparse tool kit, then fixed his gaze on Magistrate Yang An.

Judging by Yang An’s confused expression, Li Jin already knew—this man was clueless.

“How rough is ‘rough’?” Li Jin asked, taking a strap from Zhou Zheng and tying up his wide sleeves. He picked up one of the few remaining knives and began to toy with it.

“The deceased was around forty years old, about six and a half feet tall. There are strangulation marks on the neck. His right arm has a tattoo—two characters: ‘Love’ and ‘Vengeance.’ But…” She paused, turned the deceased’s head slightly. “There’s a messy wound at the back of the skull. I suspect trauma, but without proper tools, I can’t confirm.”

She glanced at the coroner chatting casually in the courtyard. “His left leg bones also feel off, but again, I can’t verify. So… I can only offer a rough hypothesis.”

“Go on,” Li Jin said, eyes narrowing as he tossed the knife in the air.

The flick of the blade made Yang An’s heart jump.

Everyone knew Prince Jing was a battlefield legend—once charging through enemy lines with just two lieutenants—a true war god. Since relinquishing his command and taking over the Six Gates, he’d become a guardian figure to the people. Now this formidable figure had landed in Linyang, catching Yang An completely off guard.

Originally, Yang An had written a letter accusing Liu Cheng’an of refusing to lend Master Jin, just a tactic to delay the case. He never imagined Li Jin would personally bring Jin Shu from Dingzhou.

Li Jin had already reviewed Yang An’s background en route. A seasoned bureaucrat in his thirties, Yang An was slick in official dealings but hopeless at solving cases—especially compared to Liu Cheng’an. Unable to crack the case, he’d sent report after report blaming Liu Cheng’an’s stinginess.

See? It’s not that I can’t solve it—it’s that he won’t lend help.

But Jin Shu didn’t care about politics. Her focus remained on the corpse.

“There are two possibilities. First, the head wound was inflicted postmortem—he was strangled first, then struck. Second, he was injured first, then strangled and buried.” She spread her hands. “With limited tools, that’s as far as I can go.”

Li Jin nodded, then turned. With a flick of his wrist, the knife flew past Yang An’s ear, slicing through the air and striking the coroner’s report in the courtyard with a loud clang, embedding itself in a red pillar.

Smiling, he stepped forward. “Magistrate Yang, your coroner—selling tools and bluffing his way through—truly admirable.” Then he turned to the stunned Jin Shu, untying his sleeves. “Let’s go.”

“Go where?”

“To buy knives.”