After the coroner finished speaking, Pei Tan remained silent for a long while. Seeing this, the coroner respectfully offered the piece of skin back to him with both hands.
Pei Tan studied the markings on it—crooked and uneven, hard to tell whether they were symbols or simply misshapen characters.
At that moment, one of the attendants asked: “The person who threw this human skin into your robe, my lord—what was their intent? Shall I take men to investigate their identity at once?”
Pei Tan examined the skin for a while, then calmly tucked it into his sleeve. “No need. You won’t find them.”
The attendant stiffened, somewhat dissatisfied. After all, the Ministry of Judicial Review specialized in criminal cases—a piece of human skin had been stripped from a corpse—how could they not investigate?
Pei Tan then said quietly: “The person we saw at the banquet was a woman disguised as a man.”
The attendants and the coroner both jolted, exchanging startled glances.
“My lord, how could you tell… that it was a woman in disguise?”
That guest had indeed drawn attention at the banquet, with odd clothing and mannerisms. Yet Pei Tan had immediately discerned her true identity. He brushed his fingers beneath his nose: “When she bumped into me, her body carried the mingled scent of rouge and corpse rot.”
Only women used rouge. And carrying this piece of human skin for so long would naturally leave the stench of death.
The attendants had stood right beside Pei Tan, yet they had smelled nothing. Still, none of them doubted him. They knew their lord’s nose was unlike ordinary men’s—no matter how carefully one washed, the scents clinging to a body could not escape his detection.
Who was this woman? Why had she appeared at another family’s wedding banquet, carrying a strip of human skin?
The attendants of the Ministry felt a chill down their spines.
“She is not a citizen of Chang’an, nor anyone living on its streets. No matter how you search, you will never find her.”
The coroner asked instinctively: “My lord, do you mean… she might be an outsider?”
That was possible. Many cases in the Ministry’s records had ended unresolved—travelers and merchants passed through Chang’an in endless numbers. Commit a crime, slip away, and who could ever catch them?
But Pei Tan’s gaze grew darker: “No. Besides outsiders, there is another kind of person—those who dwell in Chang’an, yet can never be found upon its streets.”
The coroner and attendants were baffled. What kind of person could that be?
Pei Tan explained: “When she toasted Su Shouyue at the banquet, she used palace etiquette. And when she left, her instinctive bow was also a palace gesture.”
Such habits were ingrained from childhood. No matter how one tried to conceal them later, they would surface unconsciously.
The coroner’s face paled. “My lord… you mean she came from the palace?”
Who else would know palace etiquette?
A heavy shadow fell over the hall.
Pei Tan’s expression remained grave: “Women of the palace have only two identities. Either consorts or servants.”
“Carrying human skin, she could not be a consort. She must be a palace maid.”
“But even a palace maid—how could she possess a strip of human flesh?” the attendant asked, bewildered. Ordinary maids would never dare such a thing.
Pei Tan’s eyes grew more profound. After a pause, he said: “In what part of the palace would one come into contact with corpses?”
The men he had sent to investigate soon returned with an answer: “Outside the palace gates, near Xuanwu Gate, there is a burial ground. It is used to inter nameless corpses from the palace. Over time, it has become known as a mass grave. It is where the bodies of executed criminals are dumped. Since they are guilty of grave crimes, families are forbidden to claim them, so they are cast into the pit.”
The name “mass grave” could not be more fitting.
Pei Tan gave the attendants a long look. “Then let us go see this ‘mass grave.’”
There could be no cemetery within the palace walls—it was considered inauspicious. But beyond the walls, no matter how hellish the place, no one cared.
Pei Tan rode in his blue soft sedan, carried by several bearers, to that desolate ground outside the palace. No one ventured there except corpses and those who brought them. Yet as Pei Tan brushed his fingers beneath his nose, he recognized the scent—the same as that clinging to the little palace maid yesterday. He walked slowly into the burial ground. The earth rose in several mounds, faintly exuding the stench of decay. He noticed a patch of soil that had recently been disturbed.
The attendants had already brought shovels. Pei Tan pointed to the spot:
“Dig it open.”
They set to work at once. Not far away stood Xuanwu Gate. The guards there could not fail to see Pei Tan and his men. Yet no one came to interfere. The graveyard lay outside the palace walls—that was one reason. But the greater reason was that the man standing there in plain robes was none other than Lord Pei.
Even the guards of Xuanwu Gate, though relegated to this desolate post far from the palace’s splendor, were not so blind as to fail to recognize him.
The case of Zong Huo was infamous throughout the court and the city alike. Even the Empress’s pleas could not save him, the late-born son of Minister Zong Chuke. Branded a “Calamity Star” by Zong Chuke himself in a fit of rage, Pei Tan was known for his blue soft sedan chair. One glance was enough for the guards to know who he was. And knowing, none dared provoke him.
Pei Tan watched his attendants dig, his gaze sweeping once over the two immovable guards of Xuanwu Gate. Just beyond that threshold lay the divide between palace and world.
So many corpses—only the palace could produce such numbers.
Suddenly, a shovel struck something hard. “My lord, we’ve found it,” an attendant called.
Pei Tan stepped forward. “Open it. See what it is.”
Two attendants hauled up a heavy corpse wrapped in a reed mat from the freshly dug earth.
At once, a heavy odor spread—not the stench of rot, but something else.
One attendant frowned. “This smell…” He touched the mat, brought his fingers to his nose, and recoiled in shock. “My lord, it seems to be lamp oil.”
This body had been buried deep, unlike the others, which lay shallow and reeked of decay. Clearly, someone had deliberately buried this one far below.
Another attendant confirmed: “It looks as though someone poured oil over it, intending to burn it—to destroy the evidence.”
But why had they not burned it, and instead buried it?
Pei Tan’s eyes lingered on the mat—the careful knots, the strands of hair protruding.
“Shall we open it, my lord?” an attendant asked.
Pei Tan nodded. “Open it.”
The attendant drew his blade and swiftly sliced the mat. It split down the middle, revealing the corpse within. They turned the body over, and all faces paled. Pei Tan stared at the remains.
The severed head was shocking enough. But more striking was the corpse’s clothing—immaculately clean and fine.
The attendants recognized it instantly. “My lord… this is the attire of the Minister’s household.”
The corpse wore brocade and jade, the insignia of the Minister’s residence clear upon his belt. This was no servant, but a master of the household. Combined with recent events, there could be only one identity: the son of Minister Zong Chuke, executed weeks ago—Zong Huo.
Zong Huo had been sentenced to beheading. The attendants froze. If this truly was Zong Huo, then not only had they killed him, but now they had desecrated his grave. Even hardened men of the Ministry felt a chill crawl up their spines.
Pei Tan’s voice remained calm: “Lift his sleeve.”
Though puzzled, the attendant obeyed, carefully rolling up the corpse’s sleeve. At once, he gasped. The arm bore a patch of mangled flesh—an entire piece of skin missing.
Pei Tan drew out the strip of human skin he had received earlier and held it against the wound. It matched perfectly.
The attendants trembled. “My lord…?”
Unthinkable. The skin they had found belonged to Zong Huo. Who had cut it from his body and delivered it to Pei Tan?
All recalled the bitter feud between their master and Minister Zong. Because Pei Tan had exposed Zong Huo’s crime of reckless riding, the case had reached Emperor Zhongzong, and Zong Huo had been condemned. Minister Zong Chuke hated Pei Tan to the bone. Could this strip of skin have been meant as revenge?
But Pei Tan did not think so. He crouched beside the corpse, examining it closely.
It was clear: only the tattooed patch of skin had been removed. The rest of the body remained intact. If this were mere revenge, why cut away only that piece?
“Remember,” Pei Tan’s attendant whispered, “the coroner said this tattoo might be the mark of *mo xing*—the ink punishment for slaves. But why would the son of a minister bear such a mark?”
Pei Tan lifted his gaze from the corpse’s ruined face, his voice low: “Or perhaps… the dead man is not Zong Huo at all.”
Though the body wore Zong Huo’s clothes and matched his build, the destroyed features and the mysterious strip of skin gave Pei Tan reason to doubt. Perhaps the man they had unearthed was never the minister’s son at all.