Pain! A searing pain shot through the back of her head. Squinting, Xie Qiuxin forced her eyes open with effort, and a thick, pungent smell of blood rushed into her nostrils.
She furrowed her brow. The world was spinning; the ceiling seemed to be rotating around her.
A thatched cottage? Where was she? Xie Qiuxin moved her stiff arms and tried to straighten her head, only to feel something gripped in her hand. Looking down, she saw a bloodstained, rust-covered boning knife clutched in her right hand.
Startled, Xie Qiuxin widened her eyes and looked around. At the sight before her, she couldn’t help but gasp. She was wearing coarse hemp clothing, the very image of ancient attire. And right now, she was standing in a crime scene.
Inside a dilapidated thatched cottage, the old furniture had been knocked over and scattered, and faint splatters of blood still marked the walls.
A battered wooden table sat in the room, and on it lay a woman in ancient dress. Her face was deathly pale, her mouth agape, her eyes wide open. A large patch of crimson stained her chest, several cuts marked her arms, and her clothes were in disarray.
Not a trace of life could be felt from her…
The violent pain at the back of Xie Qiuxin’s head made her memories begin to blur. She had just graduated from the police academy, and last night, on her very first fieldwork assignment, she had encountered a manhunt to capture a fugitive.
Her last memory was of a cold bullet flying toward her forehead. Xie Qiuxin instinctively touched her forehead—smooth and unbroken. She couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. A brush with death brings good fortune! she consoled herself.
But then another person’s life story suddenly surged into her mind, playing back over and over like a film reel. The jumbled memories made her head throb violently. Barely recovering and catching her breath, the pain flared up again, making her clench her fists tightly.
Could it be… I’ve transmigrated? Xie Qiuxin bit her tongue; the pain nearly made her cry out. Not a dream! Judging from the TV shows and novels she’d read, had she experienced the legendary soul transmigration?
It was just her rotten luck—why would she transmigrate straight into a crime scene?
Looking at the boning knife in her hand, Xie Qiuxin sighed. As a police academy graduate, her first instinct was still to check what evidence the scene had left behind. As for whether this was really soul transmigration, that could at least wait until she got out of this dreadful place!
Xie Qiuxin struggled to her feet. Her whole body was still numb—probably from lying on the ground too long. She stretched her limbs and carefully examined the boning knife in her hand.
The knife looked old, its blade narrow at the top and wide at the bottom, with several small nicks along the edge. It must have gone unused for a long time to have gathered so much rust.
The handle was made of wood, bearing the mark of a large bloody handprint. Xie Qiuxin examined it closely and couldn’t help but snort coldly. Ha, what a clumsy attempt at framing someone.
The bloodstains left on her own hand, by contrast, had clearly come from touching the excess blood on the bloody handprint the killer had left on the handle—leaving uneven marks with only a small amount of blood.
And even more obvious was a large fingerprint mark at the joint between the handle and the blade. That was clearly a man’s hand!
But Xie Qiuxin couldn’t help feeling a headache coming on—she was dressed in a male servant’s outfit. According to the original owner’s memories, she had dressed as a boy since childhood and grown up pretending to be a young man.
Fortunately, such an obvious discrepancy would be clear upon comparison! It was just that in this era, no high-tech identification methods existed. If this were modern times, a quick fingerprint comparison would clear her of suspicion in no time!
Xie Qiuxin shook her head and carefully placed the murder weapon in her hands against a cleaner spot by the wall, to avoid contaminating it.
Moving closer to the table, she saw that the blood on the ground had all flowed down from the corpse’s wounds and splattered onto the floor. The blood had settled with no signs of movement. It seemed this was indeed the primary crime scene.
The ground was scattered with straw everywhere, but unfortunately there were no distinct footprints. Looking at the corpse again—she recognized this woman. It was Qian Wan’er, the young lady of the wealthy family of the original owner’s master, Squire Qian!
Seeing Qian Wan’er’s horrifying state, Xie Qiuxin couldn’t help frowning, and carefully recalled what had happened earlier.
Xie Qiuxin had a pair of lazy, gluttonous parents who were also addicted to gambling. Although she was their only child, they couldn’t bear to simply keep her at home, so from an early age they dressed her as a boy, all so she could go out and work early to help support the family.
When Qiuxin was barely ten, she was sent to work as an odd-jobber at Squire Qian’s household. Being a girl, and a frail one at that, she was inevitably bullied by the other servants.
Qian Wan’er was kind-hearted. Seeing how small and weak she was, she had her water the flowers and pull weeds in the courtyard, doing only easy tasks.
On the night of the incident, Qiuxin had just delivered this month’s allowance to her parents. Without even a sip of hot water, she was chased back to the manor—her parents were afraid she’d eat one more mouthful of the family’s food.
But the Qian manor had strict rules: after Xushi (7 PM – 9 PM), the gates were closed and would not be opened. A lowly servant like her wouldn’t dare knock and disturb anyone, so she could only wait by the small gate at the back courtyard.
But before she could even get close, she saw the young lady herself, furtively poking her head out from the back courtyard gate with a bundle in her arms.
Watching the young lady glance left and right, looking as guilty as a thief, she knew something unspeakable was afoot. But it was getting late, and Xie Qiuxin, who had received much kindness from the young lady, couldn’t rest easy letting such a frail young woman go out alone at night. After much deliberation and hesitation, she cautiously followed.
The young lady, however, twisted and turned through the streets until she arrived at the outskirts of the city, outside a long-abandoned thatched hut. After looking around carefully, she knocked on the door. Soon, someone inside opened it.
Perhaps because Xie Qiuxin had grown up disguised as a boy, she was somewhat bolder than most. She tiptoed to the base of the wall, hoping to peek through the window and see what was going on.
Then she heard the door burst open with a bang. As she turned to look, she felt a violent pain in the back of her neck—
And then she lost consciousness. When she woke up, the modern-day Xie Qiuxin had soul-transmigrated into this body. Such an absurd thing was truly hard for someone with a higher education like herself to accept.
But looking at Qian Wan’er’s corpse, Xie Qiuxin couldn’t help feeling sad. After all, in the original owner’s memories, this young lady had been exceptionally kind, and beautiful enough to topple cities.
“Forgive me!” Qiuxin bowed deeply toward Qian Wan’er’s corpse and sighed. Then she began examining the body.
Qian Wan’er’s clothes were the same as those she’d worn that night, but they were in complete disarray—the fabric at her shoulders had been torn open, exposing her fair, white shoulders.
Her facial features were contorted, clearly showing she had struggled. There were also messy fingerprints at the corner of her mouth, as if someone had pressed hard against her face. Someone must have covered her mouth to keep her from screaming.
As Qiu Xin examined the wounds, simulating in her mind the course of Qian Wan’er’s attack, she couldn’t help feeling indignant!
The pale, slender arms bore many scratches, most running from top to bottom—it seemed Qian Wan’er had used her frail arms to try to block her attacker’s blows.
Her fingernails were translucent, with traces of blood and bits of flesh still lodged beneath them. She must have struggled for her life until the very last moment.
Setting down her hand, Qiu Xin examined the chest—a single stab to the heart, the fatal blow. Qiu Xin gestured over it roughly to gauge the size.
The wound was about as long as the widest part of a boning knife—no doubt that was the very blade. Only the wound angled slightly to the right.
A flash of inspiration struck Qiu Xin. She looked at Qian Wan’er’s other wounds. Angling right… a left-handed person!
Qiu Xin jolted as if struck by an electric shock, and immediately went to grab the boning knife in the corner. Sure enough—the thumbprint at the joint pointed in the direction of a left thumb! The killer was left-handed!
Qiu Xin’s gaze traveled up the wall, where a row of knives of various shapes hung rusted on the peeling plaster.
The leftmost hook was empty. Qiu Xin leaned in for a sniff—a rancid, greasy stench. These were pig-slaughtering knives! This hut must once have belonged to a butcher.
Just as Qiu Xin was absorbed in examining the knives, the hut’s door burst open with a bang.
“Someone! Seize this murderous fiend at once!” A squad of government runners kicked the door open, looking ferocious, pointing at Qiu Xin and shouting. And she was still gripping the murder weapon she had just picked up. She froze on the spot…
Good heavens, how could she be this unlucky!