There is a god in the sky

Chapter 84 The Arson Case at the Yu Mansion (Part 5)

Under the white sheet was a charred corpse, burned beyond recognition, a truly horrifying sight.

Sui Feng subconsciously took a step back, but when he saw that the two people in front of him remained expressionless, he quickly stood back up.

“No one has touched this body,” Shen Lan said after taking a look.

When a coroner examines a body, he cannot rely solely on visual inspection; even slight movement of a charred corpse can alter its appearance.

Xiao Ji breathed a sigh of relief. "That's even better."

Shen Lan nodded, judging from the posture of the corpse: "He should have been tied to a pillar, which was burned to ashes, while his body remained in the posture before he died."

"Strange, this is obvious, why didn't Judge Yan mention it?"

Sui Feng peeked out and, mimicking the movements of a corpse, could indeed imagine that the person was tied to a cylindrical object before death.

Shen Lan asked in confusion, "If all three corpses were burned to this state, how did the Yu family identify Lord Yu?"

In this state, the corpse's appearance, and even its skin features, are completely burned away.

Xiao Ji raised an eyebrow. "It should be body type."

Even if Yu Yuanwang were burned to ashes, his physique would still be larger than others.

Shen Lan understood. After examining the deceased's respiratory tract and lungs, she confirmed that, as the coroner had said, the person had indeed been burned alive.

"My lord, please look, there is a lot of soot in the deceased's trachea and lungs, which shows that he inhaled it before he died. If the body was cremated after death, there would be no such things."

Xiao Ji stared at Shen Lan's hands, watching her dissect the corpse with such speed and precision, and couldn't help but ask, "Why is Miss Shen so familiar with the human body?"

Shen Lan said without any concealment, "I started collecting corpses in mass graves when I was eight years old. I would dissect each one to study it. Practice makes perfect."

Seeing Xiao Ji frowning and remaining silent, she added, "I've said it before, Young Master Fu is someone I picked up from the mass grave."

Xiao Ji couldn't imagine that if Fu Qingyan hadn't been still alive, he would have been a pile of minced meat by now.

He couldn't even imagine the scene of an eight-year-old girl carrying a corpse home late at night and dissecting it to study it.

How strong of willpower does it take to not be afraid?

Shen Lan said calmly, "What's there to be afraid of? The corpses I've dissected were all buried intact, which is better than being torn apart by wild animals in a mass grave."

She removed a piece of cloth that was not completely burned from the deceased's tightly closed mouth, which was probably why the deceased was unable to call for help.

"It's certain that it was murder," Shen Lan said definitively.

Xiao Ji picked up the small piece of cloth with tweezers. It looked somewhat like a woman's handkerchief, but this was too common. Perhaps the murderer had just picked it up casually in Tingxiang Garden.

Shen Lan took a knife and gently scraped off some ash, revealing the charred bones.

"The body was burned for a long time. Normally, the time from the start of a fire to its extinguishing is not long enough to burn a body to this extent."

"so what?"

"So, this person was splashed with an accelerant, such as liquor or tung oil."

Shen Lan measured the height of the charred corpse with a tape measure, recorded it, and said, "Although the body will shrink after being burned, we can roughly estimate that his height in front of him was eight feet one inch."

Xiao Ji's eyes suddenly lit up; this deduction was too amazing.

Is there any basis for this claim?

Shen Lan didn't want to tell him that she got this idea from a textbook, so she tentatively asked, "How about we find a corpse and burn it?"

Xiao Ji immediately refused.

"No need, I believe you."

Shen Lan smiled and lifted the white sheet covering the second corpse.

Her smile froze on her face, and she asked somewhat uncertainly, "The authorities said that Yu Yuanwang and his two servants died?"

"Yes."

"But this is a female corpse."

Xiao Ji subconsciously looked at the corpse's chest. The corpse had been burned for so long that there was almost no flesh or skin tissue left, making it difficult to tell whether it was male or female.

How did you know it was a woman?

“Look at the hip bone.” Shen Lan explained simply: “Women, especially women who have given birth, have much wider hip bones than unmarried and childless women.”

Sui Feng asked curiously, "Logically speaking, the government should have verified the identities of the missing persons from the Yu family before confirming their identities. Why would they make a mistake?"

"There are two possibilities. One is that one of them is not from the Yu family, and the real murderer has escaped, so it's a one-for-one exchange that makes perfect sense."

Another possibility is that someone in the Yu household is lying.

Shen Lan recalled the statements of the gatekeeper and the maid, and subconsciously felt that the second possibility was more likely.

“Go ask the Yu family who is the real power holder. To fabricate a perfect lie, it needs to be executed from top to bottom.”

After examining the female corpse, Shen Lan concluded: "The deceased was a woman who had given birth. She was probably not very old and was about seven feet five inches tall."

Unfortunately, we didn't examine the scene. Most women wear jewelry, and gold and silver cannot be burned away; we could deduce the deceased's identity from these items.

Xiao Ji wrote down Shen Lan's autopsy findings one by one and said in a deep voice, "With this record, Judge Yan will investigate it thoroughly."

It seems that the fire at the Yu residence was not started randomly.

Sui Feng kept his eyes on the time, and seeing that Shen Lan had finished checking, he urged, "We should go back now, otherwise we'll be easily discovered."

The three left the mortuary and discussed the case in the car.

Shen Lan closed her eyes, recalling what she had heard and seen while standing outside Tingxiang Garden.

"Just across the wall, someone shouted: 'Fire!' The person's voice was slightly aged, so he must be an elderly person."

There was a burnt smell in the air, the smell of ordinary burnt wood, and I could hear hurried footsteps nearby, which must have alerted many people…

Xiao Ji said in a low voice, "You were right not to go in back then."

Otherwise, being at the crime scene, any further explanation would be useless.

Shen Lan smiled wryly: "Unfortunately, I can't prove that I've never been to Tingxiang Garden."

Xiao Ji comforted him, "I'll have Fu Qingyan go out and ask around. Maybe someone saw you that night. As long as they remember the time, it'll be easy to handle."

Shen Lan thanked them again, saying she would never forget their kindness in going to such lengths for her.

"Judging from what Judge Yan said, Tingxiang Garden is not a respectable place. Yu Yuanwang must have entertained guests there before. This Yu Yuanwang must be a lecherous man."

Sui Feng said from outside, "I overheard Young Master Song cursing Lord Yu, saying he was a good man and a playboy."

Shen Lan and Xiao Ji exchanged a glance.

Seeing the worry in Xiao Ji's eyes, Shen Lan coughed uncomfortably.

"I...I didn't know he was that kind of person."

She had considered that Yu Yuanwang was probably after her beauty, but she was confident at the time that she could handle it.

Xiao Ji looked at her disapprovingly, "You don't even know what kind of person he is, yet you dare to go to a meeting late at night. That's the Yu family residence!"

Even if Shen Lan is a master, she can't fight against four opponents, and the other party can also poison or drug her. Can she defend herself against them?

"It's not exactly late at night," Shen Lan explained weakly.

"Hmph." Xiao Ji turned his head away, ignoring her.

Upon arriving at the government office, Sui Feng escorted Shen Lan back to her room. They encountered no officials or constables along the way, and the journey went smoothly.

As Shen Lan lay in bed, thinking about Xiao Ji's condemnation and worry, a warm feeling rose in her heart.