Bone Painting Coroner

Chapter 27 - See You At the Memorial Hall

The crystal candlestick? The one that Miss Zhou lit every night?

Jing Rong had an angry and annoyed face, but in an instant, his sharp features loosened into surprise.

"Don't tell me there's a problem with that candlestick?"

Ji Yunshu pondered for a moment. The more she thought about it, the more her mind was nagging her about an oversight, but the murderers had been apprehended already. They couldn't possibly have overlooked something!

Thus, she shook her head and answered him, "It's nothing... I must be overthinking things."

She slightly lowered the umbrella in her hand and resumed walking.

'This scholar, he seems covered in a veil of mysteries. He speaks in a way that I'm unable to guess his thoughts!'

Jing Rong caught up to her in a few strides. At the same time, he rolled his eyes and asked, "I still have some doubts, do you mind enlightening me?"

"Are you thinking about why I told Lord Liu to deploy his troops around Zhou mansion?"

"How perceptive!"

'Oh!' He hadn't even asked yet, but the scholar's guess was spot on! Jing Rong nodded with an extremely pleased impression. "I simply don't understand how you could determine that the murderer was among the people inside Zhou mansion? Also, how did you foresee them staying in the mansion, awaiting capture? If this Prince was the murderer, I would have long escaped, far from here!"

"Your Highness, think about it. If the murderer was able to put poison in the medicinal concoction of Miss Zhou, and could secretly bring the body to the attic without being discovered, it signifies that this person was extremely familiar with the layout of the Zhou family's mansion. It had a higher probability than the culprit being a stranger, so if I eliminate Lord Zhou and Madame Zhou from the suspects list, all that was left were the servants. Since the murderer didn't want people to suspect him about Miss Zhou's faked accidental fall, it wasn't necessary for him to escape either. In addition, all the servants in this mansion have signed a slave contract, which means that if one of them had gone missing, a report would've been sent to the yamen. However, ever since Miss Zhou's death, the yamen had yet to receive such a notice from the Zhou family. Therefore, I could deduce that the murderer was still inside the Zhou mansion."

"And then?"

"The murderer certainly didn't imagine that his meticulous plan would be exposed, which left him extremely afraid. With such thoughts, he might want to escape, so when Lord Liu left yesterday, I told him about this matter and had him deploy people in the vicinity, taking some measures in case the murderers did try to escape. If he did escape, the yamen runners would be able to catch him red-handed."

"To sum it all up, when you arranged everything with Lord Liu beforehand, you still didn't know the identity of the murderer." Jing Rong narrowed his eyes.

Ji Yunshu nodded. "If I knew, there would be no need for me to stay for a night, and I probably wouldn't have discovered that the murderer was in fact two people. It would have ended with Miss Zhou probably dying with remaining grievances. I was surprised that Suyun practically delivered herself to the door. It was also by chance that I saw her handkerchief. This is truly Heaven's will. It's really not an exaggeration!"

At this moment, Jing Rong's heart gave birth to a sincere admiration for her! But in an instant, his face tensed with distress. With some rebuke in his tone, he told Ji Yunshu, "Teacher, since you are this intelligent, how could you use such a clumsy method to draw out the second murderer? If it wasn't for me, perhaps, you would have already been sent to the doctor."