Bone Painting Coroner

he looked at ji yunshu with his dark eyes and didn't speak for a long while.

ji yunshu tilted her head to the side. "well, if you don't want to reply, i won’t force you. just pretend that i never said anything and you never heard anything. now, if you still want to die, you’ll have to be quick about it. although i won't stop you, you should move quickly before those people outside come in. once they do, i’m afraid your acupoints will be sealed again. at that time, if you get an itch somewhere on your body, the inability to scratch it will be worse than being stabbed. "

well, she’s experienced that before! it was simply terrible.

the man's brow furrowed and a measure of surprise crept into his cold hard eyes. he thought to himself, this person sure has a strange attitude and manner of speech.

isn't it more logical to hold a knife to his neck and interrogate him? shouldn't he try to stop him from killing himself, and torture him to death afterwards? or keep him alive as bait for his compatriots? but how is it that after asking a lot of questions and talking around the topic so extensively, he ended up saying things like, ‘pretend that i never said anything’ and ‘you never heard anything’. he even bizarrely encouraged him to commit suicide? and to do it fast?! what a strange person.

in order to express the sincerity of what she said, ji yunshu really turned her back. "i'll watch the door for you, you’d better move quickly, but... don't splash blood on my clothes, i'm a poor scholar, i only have one or two decent sets of clothing, if they get dirty and can't be washed off, i'll have to dispose of them then and buy some new ones. of course, you also know, a poor man like me, naturally doesn't have much silver at hand, so i'm getting a daily meal of pickles and carrots, besides, i'm..." she's going to go on talking!

but she was interrupted by the man behind her. "it's an order!"

silence suddenly rang out. at that moment, ji yunshu also stopped talking. a satisfied smile appeared on the corners of her scarlet lips. surprisingly, she was right to use the move of "playing cat and mouse". turning around to look at the person on the bed, she put away her previous carefree expression and straightened up. "you were ordered to kill a prince?"

heh. the man smiled, his pale face twisted in a fierce scowl and his eerie eyes full of cruel, murderous intent. "that prince deserves to die."

"why does he deserve to die?"

"he just deserves to die. i'd advise you not to get too close to him."

"why?"

"lest in the future..."

"what about the future?"

after that series of questions, the man clammed up. he suddenly realized that he had been tricked and revealed something he shouldn't have. he immediately changed his tune and said, "anyway, i've already been captured and i am going to die anyway, so if you want to know anything, find out for yourselves."

ji yunshu couldn't help but laugh and sigh, "you're really stubborn."

"the word ‘stubborn’ is nothing to someone who isn't even afraid to die."

"that's right."

the man didn't say anything.

ji yunshu suddenly thought of something, "hey, if you really want to die, you might as well try a dose of medicine for me."

huh?

she took out a small bottle, turned it over in her hand, then threw it on the bloodstained sheet. "this is a poison i developed. i don't know whether it works or not. since you want to die, why don't you try it for me before you do? if it works, you'll die as you wished and i'll burn you paper money next year. if it doesn't work, there's no harm in finding another way to die." death, the way she spoke about it, seemed to be an easy, everyday affair. no sweat!

the man said, "poison?"

"you don't dare?"

"why not?" the man took the bottle and looked at ji yunshu. he smiled and immediately unscrewed the stopper and drank all the poison inside! not a drop was left.

the medicine took effect quickly, within a few seconds. the man spat out a mouthful of blood. the already bloodstained sheets were in an even more miserable state now. he covered his chest and fell to the side, weakly raising his eyes to look at ji yunshu who was standing beside the bed. "to be able to die in your hands, i have no complaints, and will leave without regrets!" when he finished speaking, his eyes rolled up and didn’t take another breath. he was dead.

his body tilted sideways and rolled to the ground. bang!

hearing the loud noise, jing rong immediately rushed in. when he saw the scene in front of him, his eyes narrowed. he went forward to check the guy's breathing and found that he was indeed dead. "what happened?"

"he wanted to die, so i helped him." there seemed to be a good intention in the tone.

jing rong, on the other hand, was speechless.

mo ruo came in right after and saw a man lying on the ground with his mouth full of blood. he took his pulse to make sure that he was really dead. what a pity! his brows wrinkled. "i wasted a night saving this man's life. it wasn’t easy and he still died just like this."

he grit his teeth again and spoke harshly, "from now on, i will never save anyone casually. my reputation as a highly-proficient doctor has been destroyed." with a fierce wave of his wide sleeves, he stepped out of the door.

jing rong called for two guards and ordered, "throw the man into the mass grave and let the wild dogs eat him."

only after the guy was dragged away did ji yunshu put away her laid-back appearance. with a serious face, she asked jing rong off to the side, "that wasn’t really poison, right?"

jing rong hooked his lips and smiled, "the medicine that mo ruo makes is always strange, but if he says it's not poisonous, then it definitely isn’t poison."

"then how do you plan to investigate next?"

"wait until that guy comes back to life in the mass grave."

……

deep into the night, under the hills on the west side of yufu, there was muddy road overgrown with weeds. a cool breeze flowed through the valley, rustling the surrounding treetops and tall grass. the sound extended all the way to a hollow behind the hill. that was a huge pit dug out by human beings. it didn’t appear strange from a distance, but a closer look would give anyone the creeps.

in that hollow, one rotting corpse after another was piled on top of the others. some had disintegrated into a pile of bones, while others were bloody and yet others were full of maggots.

and some....look like they had been through a giant blender. it looked disgusting.

most of these bodies were people who died of starvation and anonymous people who were not claimed. because they couldn't afford to be buried, or people were too lazy to dig up the earth and erect a monument, they were directly thrown into this mass grave.

the man who was ordered by jing rong to be thrown into the mass grave was awakened by a putrid stench of decay. before he even opened his eyes, his throat was the first to react. he choked and coughed, vomiting out all the poison he had previously drunk, and his pale face turned red.

when he saw where he was, he was filled with surprise. he looked down and saw a woman's corpse with a festering face and gouged out eyes under him. "ugh!" even though he had faced countless killings and deaths, he was still frightened by the scene before him.