ALL NOVEL Chapter 263
Song Zhen asked, "Huaiying, have you investigated the ages of these two children?"
Di Renjie nodded, "Yes, they are probably in early childhood (ten years old)."
Song Zhen pointed at the two bodies and said, "Do you think their body shapes are normal?"
Of course not. They look five or six years old at most.
According to the investigation data submitted by the Dali Temple clerk, Niu Ma's family is not poor, but an upper-class family in Yihe Village.
How could such a family have such a heinous tragedy? It is really puzzling.
Now, Di Renjie puts the suspect on Niu Ma.
According to the oral statement of the Jinwu Guards of Dingding Gate, Niu Ma has not been setting up a stall at the city gate for ten days.
Not three days as the villagers said, nor seven days, but ten days.
So, what did he do during the ten days he disappeared?
But his wife had no way to find out his whereabouts, after all, there were no cameras in ancient times.
Song Zhen gently lifted the little boy's head and examined it carefully.
Suddenly, he felt something strange.
He touched his scalp and felt a small hole in his skull.
Song Zhen quickly looked down, wow, this is...
No wonder the head and body of the corpse are not the same color, so that's it.
When Di Renjie saw Song Zhen like this, he ran over and asked, "Shouzheng, have you found anything?"
"Yes." Song Zhen's tone was quite heavy.
He used his fingers to gently push open the scalp of the corpse, and a clearly visible small hole appeared in front of the two of them.
"What is this?"
"I guess the murderer should have chiseled open the head of the deceased before he died and injected mercury into it!"
Di Renjie was shocked! This method is even worse than steaming.
Who is it? How could he be so cruel to such a young child?
"Mercury..." Di Renjie understood, it turned out that gold was really hidden in the corpse.
Mercury is mercury, which belongs to metal.
Now, the five elements of gold, wood, water, fire and earth are all complete.
Song Zhen ran to check the girl's body again and came to the same conclusion.
They were all killed by forcibly chiseling their skulls and injecting mercury before they died.
It was not because of steaming.
However, Di Renjie couldn't understand why the deceased's current appearance was not showing an expression of pain, but a smile?
"It's very simple. After death, their facial muscles were adjusted by the murderer."
Song Zhen picked up the girl's right hand and saw that she clenched her fist tightly. If she died peacefully with a smile, she shouldn't have shown this posture.
Di Renjie couldn't imagine how much pain these two young children had endured before they died.
Just the association is enough to make people shudder.
"What kind of deep hatred is there?"
But Song Zhen shook his head: "Is there a possibility that it is not a deep hatred?"
Mercury was poured into living people, and many boys and girls who died in this way were unearthed in later generations.
Song Zhen believes that this is more like a kind of burial.
Historical records show that in the Ming Dynasty, all concubines who met the conditions for burial were required to dissect their heads before death, and make a hole in their heads to inject mercury into them.
The reason for injecting mercury is to keep the body from decaying.
Song Zhen also found multiple small holes in other parts of the body, especially in the chest, which seemed to be regularly drilled, which should be the place where mercury was injected.
Di Renjie speculated that sinking into water and fire should be a necessary part of the ritual.
So, the murderer injected mercury into the dead body, most likely to keep the body intact? So that it would not fall apart due to steaming.
Song Zhen said: "There is another possibility. Because the density of mercury is higher than that of water, it will sink to the bottom of the water after entering the water, so when the body was found, it was under the water surface."
If so, how much mercury was injected into the body?
Song Zhen shook his head and said: "This is difficult to calculate. Because the body has been steamed, the fat in the body is squeezed out of the body by the high temperature. At the same time, it also absorbs a lot of water."
He found a relatively blurred fingerprint on the boy's neck.
A very normal fingerprint, there is no obvious difference from the ordinary person's shape.
It's a pity that it is now in the Tang Dynasty, not in the future.
Otherwise, with fingerprint identification technology and the public fingerprint database, the murderer can be found in minutes.
Di Renjie expressed his gratitude, and he turned away with a heavy heart.
Song Zhen stopped him and reminded him solemnly.
"Huaiying, you must remember that the murderer in this case is cruel. Don't fight him. The most important thing is to protect yourself."
Di Renjie paused,He was silent for a while and nodded.
......
Time passed quickly, and before he knew it, another fifteen days had passed.
Time came to the Gengzi day of the Jiyou month of the Dingsi year (September 25, 657)
However, there was no progress in this case.
Since this case happened in a village outside the city, Li Zhi did not take it seriously. Although he knew that a murder had occurred, he did not force a deadline for closing the case.
Unlike the last time when the Goguryeo princess died in a mansion outside the palace, it was right under the emperor's nose, and the nature was different.
But as time went on, the atmosphere of the entire Dali Temple became more and more irritable.
The day after Lu Yang took office, he went to the Ziwei City to meet the saint.
As a result, Li Zhi casually mentioned: "I heard that a murder occurred outside the city?"
This sentence made Lu Yang confused.
But he had no choice but to admit that he was unlucky.
During this period, the Dali Temple and the Luozhou government office were not idle.
They posted Niu Ma's portrait everywhere in the city outside the city, hoping that the public could provide clues.
Song Zhen paid for it himself and offered a reward. If anyone reported useful information, they could get 100 strings of cash.
Many people who went there for the money reported to the authorities, but they were hesitant and could not say anything.
Since the information was useless, the Dali Temple and Luozhou government office were not stupid, so they naturally did not give money.
They underestimated the ugliness of human hearts. The rejected people, in turn, falsely accused the two court units of being dishonest and taking free information, and refused to give money.
Unconsciously, it seemed that there was one more trouble.
......
Wei Chen, a farmer in Yihe Village, took a hoe to work in the fields outside the village as usual.
The sun was unusually hot today. He drank a few mouthfuls of Yihe water and washed his face by the stream, and then he felt more comfortable.
He took off his shirt and cleared the weeds in the field with his bare chest.
This year, the weather was good, the climate was normal, and the weather was good, so the grain could be harvested normally in the fall.
In the northern region of the Tang Dynasty, after the wheat matured, crops such as millet were planted, and three crops could be harvested in two years.
In the Tang Dynasty, wheat was usually harvested in April of the lunar calendar, so millet was planted in the fields at this time.
After working for a whole morning, he sat in the shade by the field to rest.
Suddenly, an unknown object fell from the sky and hit him heavily behind him.
He walked over curiously and was immediately scared.
......