“Killed by fire.”
Ji Yunshu looked pensive, but remained silent.
“It cannot be done?” Jing Rong probed her.
“I didn’t say it can’t be done, but it requires time.”
“How long?”
Ji Yunshu perceived Jing Rong’s nervousness from his words. Even though these questions were a bit uncalled for, there was obviously more to this than meet the eye. So she asked him, “How many in total?”
Jing Rong lowered his eyes. Then, his mouth slowly opened, “Seventy-two corpses altogether.”
“Huh?” Ji Yunshu’s mind blanked.
Jing Rong’s expression was desperate and anxious as he awaited her answer.
Finally, after she carefully calculated, she informed him. “If there is no accident or delay, I’ll need at least a year to complete the task.”
Jing Rong was shocked. “It takes such a long time?”
‘Hey, hey, hey! Are you an appraiser and can determine the authenticity of my words just so casually? We’re talking about dead bodies from more than 10 years ago! And as many as seventy-two of them!’
Her forehead wrinkled; she was this close to telling him off, “Your Highness! I only have two hands, and two eyes. Even if I don’t eat, drink and sleep, it’s completely impossible for me to draw the faces of that many dead in a short span of time.”
Jing Rong knew he was asking for something excessive. He took a deep breath, but didn’t ask any more questions.
“Why did your Highness suddenly ask me those questions? Could it be…”
Jing Rong interrupted her with a shake of his head. “Let’s discuss this matter another time. Focus on the examination of the bodies at hand. Your raise is depending on your performance.”
‘You’re the one who distracted me with your questions.’ But those words, Ji Yunshu would naturally not speak them out loud. She took advantage of this zeal to put one’s shoulder to the wheel. The most important thing right now as to close this case.
She meticulously examined the corpse up and down, left and right. She did the front, so only thing left was the back. She flipped the corpse over, revealing the back. From the neck all the way down to the buttocks, the skin had turned black from the fire.
Then, her glance fell on something. She discovered something on the lower back of the corpse, located just 2.5 cm above the buttocks.
‘That place looks strange!’ Whatever it was, it was round, and the skin color inside it was much lighter than the charcoal black of the surrounding skin.
‘Why?’
Jing Rong noticed her expression and hastened to ask her. “What did you find?”
She pointed at that round mark on the lower back. “Your Highness, look at this. Why would that spot have a different color than the rest of the back?”
The round mark wasn’t very big. Without careful observation, it could easily be overlooked.
“That mark… is very strange.” Jing Rong squinted his eyes.
Ji Yunshu quietly speculated. Suddenly, her eyes widened. “It seems that before he was burnt, his back pressed onto something. That must have made that mark. So when his body was burning inside that abandoned house, it couldn’t be thoroughly burned, leaving behind such a mark on the back.”
Jing Rong nodded and agreed with her speculations. However, he also had an alternate explanation, “Since he died in an abandoned house, it might not come as a surprise since debris could have been under his body.”
Jing Rong’s argument was also valid, but Ji Yunshu’s intuition told her that whatever made this mark on the corpse’s back was absolutely not as irrelevant as normal trash!
At that instant, a loud thud, as if something had fallen to the ground, sounded from outside.
Ji Yunshu and Jing Rong looked at each other. In sync, they ran outside.
As soon as they ran outside, they found Fu Bo collapsed on the ground. Next to him, the big cauldron had been smashed and the new solution of vinegar was spilled on the floor.
Ji Yunshu nervously ran over to Fu Bo. She squatted down and examined him.
She didn’t care getting her hands dirtier with blood as she supported Fu Bo up. It was only then that she saw Fu Bo’s arm bleeding. His clothes were rapidly getting soaked in his own blood.
‘This is… This is a wound made by a sword!’
Jing Rong also took notice of the sword wound on Fu Bo’s arm. Immediately, his intuition sounded an alarm.
In the blink of an eye, several black-clothed figures leaped out of the shadows. They all had a mask, and landed in a formation around them, swords drawn. Without a moment’s hesitation, they attacked all at once, stabbing Jing Rong through. He had no room to escape.
Ji Yunshu’s eyes widened from extreme shock!
‘Did he get stabbed to death?’
But reality soon showed that she had grossly underestimated this deity.
In the instant that the attackers had stabbed him, Jing Rong had spun, using his wide sleeves to catch eight of the swords. As the sleeves tore, he launched himself into a flip, safely avoiding the rest of the attacks!