Yan Tongshu stretched out a finger and pressed it on the bruise. "My lord, when a person is alive, the blood circulates. When a person is beaten or bumped, the blood vessels rupture and the blood accumulates, thus forming a bruise. A bruise will appear swollen.
When a person dies, the blood has coagulated. When you touch a bruise, it will feel hard. Bruises caused during life appear in various shades of blue-purple or red-purple. Once the person is dead, the color of the bruise will not change anymore.
However, look at the bruises on Zhao Gengtian's body. The edges are smooth. When you press them with your hand, there is no swelling, let alone a hard feeling. The color of the bruises everywhere is almost the same, with no variation."
Yan Tongshu removed her finger, and indeed, there was no change in the bruise.
She looked up, her eyes as sharp as a blade, and her words shocked everyone present. "So, these bruises are fake."
Fake?
Magistrate Li was suddenly shocked and angrily asked, "Who examined Zhao Gengtian's body?"
Constable Xu Qiu stepped forward and replied, "Your Honor, it was Liu Hun."
Magistrate Li said, "Bring him here."
Xu Qiu replied, "Yes."
After a while, Liu Hun was called over.
Magistrate Li's eyebrows were cold and stern. His voice was not loud, but it carried a heavy weight. "Liu Hun, I'm asking you, did you examine Zhao Gengtian's body carefully?"
Liu Hun didn't know what had happened. He only felt that the magistrate's face was not looking good today.
He replied nervously, "My lord, I examine every body seriously and carefully."
Magistrate Li asked, "Then why didn't you notice that the bruises on Zhao Gengtian's body were forged?"
"Forged?"
Liu Hun was at a loss. "It's impossible. I really examined it carefully."
Magistrate Li looked at Yan Tongshu, and Liu Hun immediately understood. "May I ask this young master, on what basis do you say that the bruises on Zhao Gengtian's body are forged? Do you have any evidence? Making baseless accusations is slander."
Yan Tongshu said a few words to Xu Qiu.
Xu Qiu brought a bowl of vinegar. Yan Tongshu dipped a cloth in the vinegar and applied it to the bruises on Zhao Gengtian's body. After a while, she gently wiped the bruises with the cloth, and the bruises disappeared.
Yan Tongshu said, "These bruises were painted with beech tree juice."
Liu Hun was so scared that he immediately knelt on the ground. "My lord, I didn't know. I didn't know that bruises could be forged. Please investigate clearly, my lord..."
Yan Tongshu interrupted Liu Hun. "You're lying. There have been precedents for forging bruises with beech tree juice. It's not something special. You thought this was a small case that was obvious at a glance, so you didn't examine the body carefully. That's why you overlooked it and caused a miscarriage of justice."
As soon as these words were spoken, it was a devastating accusation against Liu Hun's profession as a coroner. Naturally, Liu Hun couldn't accept it.
He angrily said, "On what basis do you say that I was not careful?"
Yan Tongshu's eyes were cold and fierce. She pointed at Zhao Gengtian and said, "Then tell me, what was Zhao Gengtian's fatal injury?"
Yan Tongshu was imposing, and her eyes were intimidating. Liu Hun lacked confidence and subconsciously took a step back. "It was the injury on the back of his head."
Yan Tongshu pressed on. "Are you sure? The amount of bleeding from the injury on the back of Zhao Gengtian's head was very small, and his skull was not broken. Are you sure that the injury on the back of his head was the fatal injury?"
"But there is only this wound on Zhao Gengtian's body now..." Liu Hun looked up and saw the questioning and scrutiny in Yan Tongshu's eyes. He became even more flustered and rambled, "Anyway, it can't be poisoning. I checked, and he wasn't poisoned."
Yan Tongshu said, "It's indeed not poisoning."
Liu Hun said, "You—"
Liu Hun was about to argue when Magistrate Li gave him a warning look. He immediately shrank his neck and didn't dare to say a word.
Magistrate Li said coldly, "Get out of the way. I'll deal with you later."
Liu Hun shrank like a quail. "Yes."
Magistrate Li personally presided over the trial of this case, so he naturally knew the ins and outs. Now that Yan Tongshu mentioned that the bruises on Zhao Gengtian's body were forged, after a moment of thought, he understood. "It seems that he wanted to extort the recipe for the soup cake topping by using the bruises, but he didn't expect to lose his own life in the scuffle."
What Magistrate Li meant was that even if there was no fight, Zhao Gengtian's death was related to Zhao Sheng.
Zhao Sheng naturally wouldn't admit it. He became anxious on the spot and cried out loudly, "Magistrate Li, I'm wronged! I didn't even touch that old bastard... I didn't touch my grandfather. I really didn't touch him. He suddenly stopped moving and hit the cabinet and died on his own."
Yan Tongshu looked at Zhao Sheng and comforted him. "Don't be in a hurry. The case hasn't been fully investigated yet."
Zhao Sheng's tears streamed down.
He was extremely afraid of death.
Magistrate Li looked at Yan Tongshu with admiration in his eyes.
This young scholar was quite knowledgeable and capable despite his young age.
He wondered what level of academic achievement this young man had reached.
If he hadn't entered the officialdom yet, he could be the one to recommend him.
Magistrate Li's voice softened a lot, no longer the harsh tone from before.
He said to Yan Tongshu, "Tell me your judgment."
Yan Tongshu respectfully replied, "Yes. I found out that before the incident, Zhao Gengtian had been well - behaved for seven days in advance and didn't conflict with others. He deliberately wore thick clothes, presumably to cover the bruises painted on his body in advance. He kept shouting and scolding all the way, and he closed the door after entering the room. This was probably to create the illusion that he had a fight with Zhao Sheng and extort the soup topping recipe from the Yang family."
Magistrate Li said, "This inference is reasonable."
Yan Tongshu continued, "But he didn't expect that he would suddenly fall ill and die."
Magistrate Li asked, "Fall ill?"
Yan Tongshu replied, "Yes, Zhao Gengtian was sick."
Yan Tongshu stretched out her hand to Pearl, but there was nothing in her hand.
Yan Tongshu looked over and saw that Pearl was shivering behind Aunt Yang, with her eyes tightly closed. She looked so small, pitiful, and helpless.
Yan Tongshu embarrassedly smiled at Magistrate Li and quickly ran to Pearl's side, whispering in a low voice, "Pearl, the testimonies."
Pearl still had her eyes tightly closed. She trembled as she took out two pieces of paper from her bosom and gave them to Yan Tongshu.
Yan Tongshu presented the papers with both hands to Magistrate Li. "My lord, these are the testimonies from Doctor Li, who treated Zhao Gengtian. Doctor Li is now outside the door. If you don't believe me, you can call him in for questioning."
Magistrate Li nodded to the constable, and the constable went to invite Doctor Li.
After Doctor Li came, he repeated what he had said to Yan Tongshu.
Yan Tongshu said, "My lord, Zhao Gengtian's illness caused headaches, a stiff neck, occasional vomiting, weakness and numbness in the limbs, a decline in vision, blurred or double vision, and was also accompanied by epilepsy and convulsions. In my judgment, it was probably due to yin deficiency in the liver and kidneys, deficiency of qi and blood, and blockage of phlegm and blood stasis. When he got emotional, it was easy for yang - qi to rise in the liver, and the qi and blood would rush upwards, leading to the rupture of blood vessels in the brain and sudden death."
Actually, Yan Tongshu originally wanted to say it was a spontaneous cerebral hemorrhage.
But this term didn't exist in this era, so she had to put it in another way.
If Yan Tongshu really overturned the case, Liu Hun's career as a coroner in the Kaifeng Prefecture would be over. He interrupted, "This is just your speculation. Even if the bruises on Zhao Gengtian's body were fake and Zhao Sheng didn't fight with him, it's hard to say that Zhao Sheng didn't push Zhao Gengtian in a fit of anger, causing him to hit the cabinet and die."
"Zhao Sheng is just a street hooligan. He's always been fond of brawling and lies come out of his mouth as easily as anything. How can we believe what he says?"
Hearing this, Zhao Sheng realized that this coroner wanted him dead. He immediately glared menacingly at Liu Hun.
Magistrate Li looked at Yan Tongshu and said, "What he said makes sense."
Yan Tongshu lowered his eyes, bowed and said, "My lord, when there is doubt, the defendant should be presumed innocent. At present, all the evidence proving that Zhao Sheng beat Zhao Gengtian to death has been overturned, and no one has witnessed Zhao Sheng hitting anyone. Even though I can't prove that Zhao Gengtian died of a sudden illness, the Kaifeng Prefecture can't prove that he died at the hands of Zhao Sheng either. There is neither a witness nor material evidence."
Hearing this, Zhao Sheng felt that he was saved.
He exchanged a look with Aunt Yang, and both saw the ecstasy of surviving a disaster in each other's eyes.
Liu Hun sneered, "Humph! You just have no evidence."
Yan Tongshu said in a cold tone, "I do."
Liu Hun said, "See, you young whippersnapper, talking nonsense..."
He suddenly stopped in surprise, "You do?"
Yan Tongshu's solemn gaze swept across Liu Hun and then turned to Magistrate Li, "Magistrate Li, please allow this student to conduct a craniotomy to examine the body."
A craniotomy?
Cut open Zhao Gengtian's head?
Not to mention the others, even Pearl, who had been closing her eyes and pretending not to see since Zhao Gengtian's body was carried out, suddenly opened her eyes.
Pearl shouted, "My lord, no!"
Cutting open a dead person's head.
No!
It's too horrible!
Absolutely not!
Magistrate Li frowned in thought, and then fixed his sharp eyes like a falcon on Yan Tongshu, "Can a craniotomy find the truth?"
Yan Tongshu straightened his back, his eyes clear and firm, "A craniotomy can determine the bleeding point. If Zhao Gengtian really died from hitting the wooden cabinet and injuring the back of his head, the severity of the injury could never be as mild as it is now. There should at least be a skull fracture and subarachnoid hemorrhage..."
Magistrate Li asked, "Sub what membrane?"
Yan Tongshu bit his tongue in annoyance. He had spoken too quickly and couldn't hold back for a moment.
But it couldn't be helped.
There were no alternative words for the things inside the brain.
"It's..."
Yan Tongshu didn't know how to explain it. After thinking for a while, he simply borrowed a pen and paper from the clerk and drew a simple diagram of the brain, "Magistrate Li, please look. If it's a traumatic bleeding death caused by a collision, the bleeding will be in this area..."
Yan Tongshu circled the position of the arachnoid membrane with a writing brush, and then circled a position below with the brush, "If it's a sudden illness and sudden death, then it's an intracranial medullary hemorrhage, that is, this position. Actually, this is quite easy to understand.
Zhao Gengtian's bruise was faked. The only wound was the bruise from hitting his head on the cabinet. Since it was an external wound, the bleeding from the wound must be in a position closer to the surface..."
Yan Tongshu tried his best to explain in an understandable way, "If it's due to emotional excitement and intracranial rupture and bleeding, then the bleeding point must be inside and not connected to the external injury.
Moreover, after the craniotomy, the degree of bleeding from the impact wound can be examined. If the wound is shallow and the bleeding position is small, or there is even no bleeding reaching this position, it means that the impact was not the cause of death, but the illness was."
Magistrate Li was completely confused.
He looked at the coroner Liu Hun and said, "Liu Hun, tell me, is this method useful?"
"This... this..."
Liu Hun really wanted to dismiss Yan Tongshu's words as nonsense, but in the field of corpse examination, he wasn't the only one who knew.
He could excuse his previous mistakes by saying that he was careless and not careful enough.
But if he denied Yan Tongshu's words now, and Yan Tongshu brought in other more experienced coroners to testify, then he would be considered unskilled in his craft and of low moral character.
Coroners could only work in government offices. If he made a mistake now, at most he would be transferred from the Kaifeng Prefecture to a local government office. But if he was of low moral character, who would dare to employ him in the future?
Liu Hun hesitated and said, "My lord, what this person said makes some sense, but this method has never been used by this humble one. Moreover..."
Liu Hun glanced at Yan Tongshu, "My lord, our bodies and hair are gifts from our parents. Even dissection needs to be carried out with extreme caution and with the understanding of the family members. What's more, a craniotomy? This is really against human ethics!"
Indeed, even dissection had to be done with the utmost caution, and now there was even talk of a craniotomy to examine the body.
Magistrate Li was in a dilemma.
