Chapter Sixty-Nine: The Court of Justice

Si Xi was startled, exclaiming, “The dagger is my father’s keepsake—I didn’t use it to kill anyone!”

A man wheeled himself into the room and said, “What proof do you have that Si Xi is a murderer? Just a dagger? A dagger is an inanimate object—anyone could use it to kill, then frame someone else.”

“That’s true, but answer me this: is your page Si Xi left-handed?” Ji Changge fixed his gaze on Wang Jue.

Wang Jue glanced at Si Xi and replied, “He is.”

“That settles it. Take Si Xi back to the Court of Justice. I want to interrogate him thoroughly,” Ji Changge ordered the guards.

“You cannot take him,” Wang Jue said coldly.

Ji Changge’s narrow eyes shifted to him. “If not him, then do you mean yourself?”

“It has nothing to do with my master! If you must arrest someone, arrest me. I acted alone! My master has the imperial exam tomorrow—this is his…”

“Si Xi.” Wang Jue looked at him.

Si Xi immediately fell silent, his face crumpling with the threat of tears. Every time his Seventeenth Lord spoke to him in that tone, it meant he was to keep quiet. He had wanted to say that his master had waited so long for this opportunity—his old mistress had begged countless people for this one chance, all because his young lord was disabled.

“You claim you killed Zou Ming. Then when you stabbed him with the dagger, how did you manage to kill someone bigger and stronger than yourself?” Wen Jing asked, studying Si Xi.

Si Xi avoided Wang Jue’s gaze, gritted his teeth, and said, “I—I stabbed him straight in the heart. He didn’t have time to dodge and fell instantly. I stabbed him again a few times, and he stopped moving, and then…”

“Silence! What nonsense are you spouting?” Wang Jue suddenly shouted in anger.

“He saw you coming at him and didn’t resist?” Wen Jing pressed on.

“I—I acted very quickly. He had no chance to fight back!” Si Xi declared loudly.

“Then after you killed him, where did you dispose of the dagger and the bloodstained clothes?” Wen Jing continued.

“I…I threw the dagger onto the fake mountain behind the garden. As for the clothes, I burned them…” Si Xi’s voice grew softer as he spoke.

Wen Jing exchanged a glance with Ji Changge. Even without saying it aloud, he understood—Si Xi was certainly not the killer; his story was full of contradictions.

“A fine performance. Take him away,” Ji Changge sneered.

Wen Jing was taken aback. What game was this? He knew Si Xi wasn’t the culprit but still insisted on taking him?

Wang Jue cast a cold glance at Ji Changge but said nothing more.

“Seventh Lady, there’s another corpse. Come with me to the Court of Justice for the autopsy,” Ji Changge said to Wen Jing, then turned to Wen Qiran. “Lord Wen, I leave this place in your hands.”

“Rest assured, Lord Ji. Not a soul will move,” Wen Qiran replied.

As Wen Jing handed the box to Qingliu, the maid finally recovered her wits. She had just watched her mistress examine that terrifying corpse from head to toe without so much as a furrowed brow. Was this really her mistress? Not only had her temperament changed, but even her tolerance for fear seemed transformed.

Wen Jing and Qingliu shared a carriage, while Ji Changge rode on horseback. Si Xi and two other guards occupied another carriage, their party making its way to the Court of Justice.

“Mistress, was that an autopsy back there?” Qingliu asked.

“Yes. That’s why I asked if you were afraid of corpses. Such occurrences may become frequent; you must prepare yourself,” Wen Jing said, glancing at her. Judging from Qingliu’s reaction during her first “visit” to an autopsy, the girl seemed a suitable candidate—at least she hadn’t fainted at the sight, nor had she vomited. That was a good sign, though perhaps because today’s examination had not involved a true dissection, so the scene wasn’t too gory.

“Ah?” Qingliu was startled by the words “may become frequent.” Truth be told, she didn’t care for such scenes—so foul and bloody—but she could endure it. Whatever her mistress requested, she would comply.

“Mistress, where did you learn the art of autopsy?” Qingliu asked in surprise. It had only been a few months since they last met, and now her mistress was acting as a coroner. Was it really so easy to become one?

“It was taught to me by a master. You must keep this secret,” Wen Jing replied mysteriously.

Qingliu nodded. She didn’t care if it was a great master or not. From what she’d seen, both Ji Changge and her old master seemed to place much importance on Seventh Lady Wen—a good thing.

Watching Qingliu break into another silly grin, Wen Jing’s lips twitched. This girl could shift from worried frowns to foolish laughter in an instant. She might appear simple, but who knew what schemes she harbored inside? Her looks were also an asset—even the shrewd Lady Wen had been deceived by her, and this face had certainly played its part.

Upon their arrival at the Court of Justice, Ji Changge had Si Xi thrown straight into a cell, showing no intention of questioning him immediately.

“Who is this?” Lord Liang, the Chief Justice, asked in surprise. The youth seemed barely thirteen or fourteen—could this truly be the killer?

“He is a prime suspect. I will question him later,” Ji Changge replied.

Wen Jing frowned. Prime suspect? In truth, Ji Changge was simply afraid of failing to deliver results by tomorrow and incurring the emperor’s wrath—so he’d picked someone at random to take the blame. But how could he so casually wrong an innocent?

“And this is?” Lord Liang looked at Wen Jing.

“This is the physician I invited to perform the autopsy—Seventh Lady, the legitimate daughter of Minister Wen of the Ministry of Rites,” Ji Changge explained.

“An autopsy?” Lord Liang glanced at Ji Changge, making sure he wasn’t joking. He could hardly contain his disbelief.

“My lord, please review this—the results of the autopsy performed by Lady Wen,” Ji Changge instructed the guard to hand over the paper.

Lord Liang took the note and saw it was densely written, yet much of it made little sense to him. “What is this ‘contused laceration’?”

Wen Jing took the paper and her face darkened. But thinking it over, she couldn’t blame the guard—these were all modern forensic terms, unfamiliar to him. She corrected the words and explained, “A contused laceration is a wound caused by a heavy object striking, or when someone falls against the ground or another hard surface, resulting in a skull fracture. As for ‘defensive and restraint wounds,’ as the names suggest, those are wounds inflicted during the victim’s resistance, or marks left by binding and restraining the person.”

Lord Liang nodded, his gaze toward Wen Jing less suspicious than before, but still incredulous that a woman would conduct an autopsy. In all his years handling cases, he had never seen a female coroner.

“My lord, shall we have Lady Wen examine the body of the examinee who died at the Tongfu Inn?” Ji Changge suggested.

“Very well,” Lord Liang replied, stroking his beard.