The Golden Hairpin

In the early summer, the body was slightly decomposed, and it felt like mud. She gritted her teeth, grabbed the half-corrupted sticky wrist, turned her head and said to Li Shubai: "Master, the servant has something to say."

"Let's talk." Li Shubai casually said.

However, Huang Zixia was not as relaxed as he was. She let go of the female corpse's arm, went to the hall and knelt down, and said: "Enjoy the emperor, the slave and maid found something suspicious while wearing the bracelet. This matter is both important and both. In matters involving the court, slaves and maids, please hold back all irrelevant people, so as not to reveal the truth."

The emperor thought for a while and nodded in agreement.

Wang Lin frowned slightly and waved his hand to beckon the slaves to retreat.

For a time, the people in the hall stepped back, seeing that only the empress, Wang Lin, Wang Yun, Li Shubai and Huang Zixia were left.

Huang Zixian said to the person who had withdrawn: "Xian Yun, Ran Yun, you two will stay."

Xianyun and Ranyun were all shocked, turned around and looked at her blankly.

Huang Zixia didn't speak to them anymore. She just turned around and stood in the hall, put her hand on the coffin, and said, "Your Majesty the Emperor, Your Majesty the Queen, in my opinion, this corpse is probably not a girl from the Wang family!"

Everyone in the hall involuntarily uttered a low "Ah" cry. The Queen and Queen who had been sitting was even more shocked and stood up.

Li Shubai also looked surprised, and said: "Don't talk nonsense. This body was sent back to the Wang Family Mansion from the palace, and naturally it has been guarded by someone. How could it become someone else?"

Wang Lin hurriedly said: "Yes, there have been people looking after the mourning hall these few days, and the rituals have continued. How can the body change? Besides, who else can fake the appearance of this body?"

Huang Zixian said, "My Lord Wang, please forgive me. I think that when the body appears in the palace, it may not be the corpse of Miss Wang."

Wang Lin was slightly sullen and wanted to say something. Wang Yun stood behind him, frowned slightly, and raised his hand to tap his father's elbow.

Wang Lin was shocked, then turned his gaze to the empress and stopped talking.

The emperor was puzzled, only looking at the coffin, thinking about what Li Shubai had just told him about the reason behind Wang Ruo's death.

But the queen was calm, and asked without hesitation, "Your name is Yang Chonggu?"

"Yes, slave Yang Chonggu, **** in the palace of Kui."

"I heard that you cracked the 4th plan of the capital, so it seems that he is a smart person who can solve the case. You are telling me, why is this corpse not Wang Ruo?"

"Back to the queen, the slave servant was ordered to explain the Royal Palace Law to Miss Wang Ruo. She had touched it many times and remembered that her palm was slender and small. But the palm of the corpse was larger than hers."

"Do you know that she died of poisoning and her body was swollen?"

"The swelling is only the muscles and skin, but it is impossible to increase the bones. The palm bones of this female corpse are undoubtedly larger than those of Wang Ruo." Huang Zixia let go of that hand, straightened up, and said, "At that time, Wang Ruo The post-mortem was Zhou Ziqin, the little son of Zhou Shilang. He must know the palm bones of the body, and the emperor and queen can call him to ask about the results of the autopsy at that time."

Queen Wang pondered for a while, and Wang Lin quickly said: "Duke Yang, the auspicious time for moving the coffin is about to pass. If you stop, is it intentional to embarrass our Wang family? What's more, A Ruo's body appeared in the missing place, and his length was old and he had no clothes or jewelry. It’s not in harmony. It’s normal for this palm to be deformed and enlarged because of poisoning. Do you wonder if you want Aruo to be unable to enter the soil for safety and not to die?"

After hearing the words, Queen Wang nodded and sighed: "Don't miss the auspicious hour. Grandpa Yang, the misfortune of my royal girl is already unbearable. Why do you have trouble?"

"Slaves dare not." Huang Zi Xia lowered his head and said, "It's just that since the body is different, I think it's better to check it carefully, so as not to get confused."

"Chonggu makes sense." Li Shubai finally said from the side, "It's not that I sheltered the **** of the mansion. Since this matter is doubtful, there are countless heroes in the ancestral grave of the Langya King's family for a hundred years, so how can I be buried in a body of unknown origin? It's better to let Zhou Ziqin come over and verify it again. If it is indeed not, that is also a good thing. At least it means that Wang Ruo still has the hope of surviving in the world. What do you think?"

The Queen frowned and turned to look at the emperor. He waved and said, "Go Xuan Zhou Zi Qin."

Zhou Ziqin had already packed up all relevant things in accordance with Huang Zixia's instructions. So this time around, it can be said to be well prepared. He was holding the file from the last time, and the two followers Abi and Ayan behind him carried a heavy box that seemed to be quite heavy, put it down and hurriedly bowed out.

After Zhou Ziqin saluted the emperor, he immediately held up the autopsy file at the time with great interest and said: "The last time I had an autopsy with Yang Chonggu, we recorded the details. The female autopsy was examined at that time: the deceased was a woman who was about five years in length. He was seven inches in feet, his face was blurred, his skin was black and swollen, and his body was pus and blood. The deceased had complete teeth, long shiny hair and ankles, no injuries to his whole body, and his death due to poisoning. In addition, there were also recorded hand bones that could not be judged. It’s a big question, but because there was no evidence at the time, I didn’t mention it either. I just mentioned a sentence in the file temporarily."

Zhou Ziqin closed the file and said: "However, after Chonggu raised the issue that the palm of the deceased seemed to be too large, I later searched for the old masters and orthopedic doctors in the capital, and followed the pig killer to the slaughterhouse to study and inspect. For half a day, he helped Ji Shantang deal with the dead body on the street, and obtained the consent of a dying patient to dissect his body after his death..."

Finally, even the emperor couldn't stand it a little, so he opened his mouth: "Say the important point."

"Yes, I combined with the chapters of Pao Ding Jie Niu, and found that muscles, meridians and bones are connected, trend, and veins are all regular and followable. Therefore, after having bones, as long as they are restored according to the texture, they can restore the appearance of the deceased. Although the muscles of the skull are complex, I haven't been able to grasp it for a while, but according to the palm bones, there is absolutely no problem."

The emperor didn't want to listen to him any longer. He raised his hand and said, "Go and fix it. Don't be too slow. I'm waiting."

Zhou Ziqin took out the mask coated with vinegar and garlic and that kind of thin leather gloves from the box, and handed a set to Huang Zixia.

Huang Zixian took it silently, thinking, my hand that has just passed through the muscles and skin of the female corpse, even though I have washed my hands — I used half a catty of Wang’s bath beans — is it necessary to wear gloves?

However, looking at Zhou Ziqin’s righteous way of asking her for help, she could only wear it on the hand that helped him hold the female corpse, and let him carefully explore the palm bones of the female corpse, and draw hundreds of points and dozens of lines. .

The empress and others have already withdrawn to the main hall for dinner. Zhou Ziqin opened the box and opened a grid. There was a kind of hard yellow clay inside. He quickly squeezed out the bones of his palm according to the dotted line drawing on the paper, and cut a few fine iron wires to connect them. Then take out a softer kind of yellow mud, knead and knead it, piece by piece to cover the bones of the yellow mud inside, and finally wait for the soil to dry a little, take out a few pieces of white tulle, and cut them to cover the outermost. , And paste it carefully and properly with isinglass.

He placed this artificial hand in front of Huang Zixian, quite proud: "How is it?"

Huang Zixia picked it up and looked carefully, her palms were slender, her fingers were strong but not sturdy, yellow faintly revealed under the thin white gauze, which was very similar to the palm of a real person. The hands of Jinnu who have noticed are generally the same.

"What a magical skill!" Huang Zixia admired.

"That is! I have said it, but I want to be the best in the world, I will definitely let Huang Zixia look at me with admiration in the future!"

Huang Zixia turned his face to one side and swallowed the rest of his praise into his stomach.

Wang Yun delivered lunch in person. The staple food was cherry biluo, accompanied by four cold dishes, two hot dishes and a large bowl of soup. It's cherry season, and the flavor of cherry bi Luo is wonderful. Huang Zixian ate two. Seeing Wang Yun kept looking at herself, she touched her face and asked, "Did stuffing touch her face?"

He shook his head and said, "I thought you wouldn't be able to eat it. I didn't expect you to not only eat it, but also eat it so fragrantly."

"It would be better if there was more meat. I'm not happy without meat." Zhou Ziqin said while eating.

An elegant and self-sufficient person like Wang Yun couldn't help but twitch at the corner of his mouth. He turned his head to look at the coffin and artificial hands next to him, and said, "I was negligent. I will definitely get you more next time."

After they hurriedly finished their meal, there was already news that the emperor had finished repairing and asked Zhou Ziqin to take things to Yanjitang.

Abi and Ayan didn't dare to complain, they carried the heavy box and went to the Yanji Hall of the Wang Family. Huang Zixia called Xianyun, and the two of them went to the room where Wang Ruo had lived, and took out a bracelet.

Yanjitang is the main house of the Wang Family Mansion, the Guangxia Huawu, Zhumen is shining, and it has five rooms in size. In the middle of the hall are the upper and lower seats, covered with woven golden peony brocade, and the empress is already sitting on it. There are two rows of twelve chairs under the hall. Li Shubai and Wang Lin sat down above the left and right, and Wang Yun stood behind his father. The rest of the idlers, etc., have all been screened out.

Huang Zixia asked Wang Yun for a tray, put Zhou Ziqin's artificial hand on it, and showed it to them before the emperor. On the other hand, Zhou Ziqin put his palm on the prosthetic hand, compared the size, and said: "Look, everyone, the length of this palm is not much smaller than the palm of my man. It's just that the finger bones are slightly slender. It's just a little thinner. These hands should be obviously larger and stronger than other women's hands. Moreover, there are thin calluses left over the years on the tips of the left fingers and under the edge of the right palm."

Huang Zixian looked at Xianyun and Ran Yun, and asked, "Xianyun, Ran Yun, can you prove that how big is your girl's hand?"

They looked at each other eagerly, and then Xianyun said: "Maybe...maybe it's almost the same, I don't know..."

Wang Yun interrupted them in a deep voice: "Tell the truth!"

"Yes..." Xianyun suddenly panicked, and said quickly, "The girl's hands are very slender and soft. When Aunt Su Qi came to teach the girl the etiquette in the palace, she once praised her hands..."

"Even if you don't tell me, there is more intuitive evidence." Huang Zixia took out the bracelet of Wang Ruo that he had brought before, and slowly bent the pair of artificial hands into a bracelet-wearing posture, and then forced them down. The soft yellow mud in the tulle was deformed, but it still couldn't fit the bracelet.

Huang Zixian held the bracelet in her hand and said: "Wang Hao... The bracelet of the Wang family girl doesn't fit this hand at all."

Everyone looked at each other, and Wang Yun reacted the fastest and said, "If this corpse is not my sister, then there must be an inside story in this case. First, I don’t know where she is now? Second, this corpse that appeared suddenly, and Who is it?"

"Where Miss Wang is now, although I don't know it, some people here will know." Huang Zixia put the artificial hand back on the tray and said loudly, "However, I did not know the identity of the female corpse who was mistaken for Miss Wang. Know who it is."

In the silence in the hall, Huang Zixian turned to Zhou Ziqin and asked: "According to the bone size you just described, you can talk about the details of the female corpse's hands."

Zhou Ziqin nodded, holding the skeletal dot-line drawing he had drawn, and said, “The female corpse’s palm is five inches and three minutes long, and the finger bones are slender. Compared with ordinary women, the fingertips of the three middle fingers of the female corpse’s left hand and the thumb of the right hand are Under the edge of the right palm, there is a thin cocoon left by rubbing all the year round."

"The tip of the left finger and the bottom of the right palm. Most people don't have cocoons in these two places. The only thing they can have is a pipa artist." Huang Zixia made a left hand and pressed the pipa string, and said The action of holding a pipa pluck, "Therefore, there will be a thin cocoon on the tip of the left finger, and the edge of the right palm and thumb are just the place where the pluck is placed. If there is more friction, the cocoon will naturally be left."

Wang Lin frowned and said, "However, there are so many people playing the pipa in the world, where can you determine the identity of a pipa girl whose face is indistinguishable?"

"It's not difficult to know." Huang Zixian broke her finger and said slowly, "First, a pipa artist just happened to disappear in the foreign teacher's workshop recently; second, the package she packed has been found outside the teacher's workshop. There were only a few coats and jewellery in it, which was obviously not cleaned by herself. Third, and most importantly, she was poisoned by poison arrowwood and died."

Zhou Ziqin let out an "Ah" and said, "The Pipa girl you mentioned is a Jinnu from a foreign teacher's workshop! But... was Jinnu poisoned to death?"

"Exactly, Jin Nu once told the queen and Princess Zhao about her past in the palace. We all saw her hand at that time. It was indeed larger than the average woman."

"But that doesn't mean that the female corpse must be her. And she has found the corpse after all, right next to her package... Moreover, the corpse shows no signs of poisoning, it was beheaded to death."

"No, that headless female corpse is not Jin Nu. It was Jin Nu's corpse that was used to impersonate Miss Wang. Because the night Jin Nu died, I was decorating the brocade with Lord Cui, me, Zhou Ziqin and others. Meeting in the building. At the end, we packed a few dishes and sent them to Chongrenfang to a few beggars. As a result, all those beggars were poisoned to death-the poison was poisonous arrowwood."

Zhou Ziqin was even more dumbfounded: "What? The deaths of those beggars a few days ago were also related to us... and this case?"

Huang Zixia was afraid that he would want to explain more, so she interrupted him and said: "Accurately speaking, the deaths of those beggars are related to Jinnu. Because the poison was in the place that Jinnu cleaned up at the time. On the plate of cherries, and she also said that her hand was a little itchy at the time, and said that it was the cause of the cherry stems. In fact, the real reason was that she was poisoned at the time and infected the plate of cherries, which indirectly died of poison. Those beggars!"