As soon as Gu Ci left the palace, he hurriedly rode his horse toward the Imperial City Guard Bureau.
Just as he stepped through the entrance, he bumped head-on into a hurriedly moving subordinate from the Guard Bureau.
Recognizing who had arrived, the yamen runner greeted him with a smile, “Investigator Gu, you’re back. Chief Investigator Cheng is waiting for you in the discussion room.”
Quite a few scions of aristocratic families in the capital would be sent by their senior family members to the Imperial City Guard Bureau to be tempered for a year or two upon reaching a certain age, so as to pave the way for their future official careers.
Yet Heir Gu was an exception; he had passed the entrance examinations relying on genuine ability.
It was said that at age thirteen, Heir Gu had defeated over a hundred examinees who participated in the selection trials at the same time.
Hearing this, Gu Ci smiled and nodded, walking toward the inner discussion room.
He knocked on the door, scanned the situation inside, and realized that apart from the other investigators who were out handling cases, everyone else was present.
In the main seat sat a young man in his early thirties, clad in the official robes of a fifth-rank chief official of the Imperial City Guard Bureau. He looked majestic and upright.
Seeing that the newcomer was Gu Ci, Cheng Hui relaxed his tense expression slightly and greeted him with a soft smile: “Gu Ci, there’s just a case quite tricky. I want to hear your thoughts.” With that, he handed a file pouch to Gu Ci, gesturing for him to sit down and read.
The moment Gu Ci saw this formation, he knew they had encountered a major case, and immediately took the materials to read through them.
The more he read, the uglier his expression became.
As it turned out, a murder and corpse-abandonment case had occurred a few days prior in Kang County, not far from the capital.
Ordinarily, this case could have been handled by the Kang County Yamen, but before the local yamen could solve the case, two identical murder and corpse-abandonment cases occurred successively, with all the victims being young women.
Such continuous, successive homicide cases would inevitably cause panic among the common people.
Therefore, in order to appease the populace as quickly as possible, the case was transferred to the jurisdiction of the Imperial City Guard Bureau.
Seeing Gu Ci stop his movements, Chief Investigator Cheng stared at him intently and asked solemnly, “How is it? Are you confident we can crack the case quickly?”
After a brief moment of deliberation, Gu Ci replied with earnest and sincere words: “My lord, this subordinate accepts the assignment!”
Hearing the satisfactory reply, Chief Investigator Cheng patted Gu Ci’s shoulder and gave a hearty response: “Good! Crack the case as quickly as possible; I await your good news!”
Handing the case over to Gu Ci gave him absolute peace of mind. Although this person usually acted dissolutely and neglected proper business, his capabilities when tackling serious matters were beyond question.
Furthermore, Gu Ci had successfully solved several major cases during his tenure at the Imperial City Guard Bureau.
Another reason was Gu Ci’s identity as an Heir, which caused local officials everywhere he went to show him a degree of deference a considerable asset for investigation personnel.
Gu Ci discussed the case files further with several colleagues, and seeing that the sky was gradually growing dim, he finally returned to his estate, where House Steward Zheng was already waiting to greet him eagerly.
Steward Zheng anxiously scanned Gu Ci up and down, and seeing that he was neither injured nor beaten, he finally managed to swallow his suspended heart back into his stomach.
Noticing his listless and dispirited state, Steward Zheng’s newly lowered heart instantly rose back up. His brows knitted tightly with anxiety, and his entire body trembled slightly. “Young Master, why did you return so late today? Did something happen in the palace?” Could it be that he caused trouble in the palace and suffered punishment?
Seeing Steward Zheng so worried about him, Gu Ci couldn’t help stopping in his tracks to offer a soothing smile: “It’s fine, Steward Zheng, don’t let your imagination run wild. I just have to go out on an official errand tomorrow, and I didn’t know how to ask leave from His Highness, so I’m a bit troubled.”
Steward Zheng and the estate’s guards were veteran soldiers who had followed his grandfather onto the battlefield in the past, and they viewed him as their own flesh and blood.
At this, Steward Zheng truly set his mind at ease. A warm smile bloomed across the corners of his mouth again, while he silently added a mental prayer: “Amitabha, bless my young master to be free of illness and disaster.”
Early the next morning, even as he was preparing to head out, Gu Ci still hadn’t figured out how to broach the matter of taking a leave of absence to the Seventh Prince.
It wasn’t that it was hard to speak of; after all, the study companion position had been brought up by the Prince himself, yet just a day later he was skipping out, leaving him feeling somewhat apologetic toward the Seventh Prince.
Moreover, the Crown Prince and the Sixth Prince usually targeted Jun Yichen at every turn.
In the end, Gu Ci left a written note, had someone send it into the palace, and led two yamen runners straight toward Kang County himself.
By evening in Kang County:
The moment Gu Ci and his party stepped into Kang County, the county magistrate, having caught wind of the news, was already waiting outside the prefectural yamen to receive them.
Gu Ci handed the reins to the attendant behind him and turned to step into an inn. “We’ll stay here tonight; we’ll head to the crime scene tomorrow morning.”
“Ah, My Lord, the yamen over there…” one of the yamen runners called out in a troubled tone. Seeing that Gu Ci had already entered the inn and had no intention of paying him any mind, he let out a deep sigh.
Another attendant chuckled at the sight and teased, “I say, Wu Chuan, this isn’t your first time going out on an assignment with Investigator Gu, how could you forget Investigator Gu’s rules?”
The attendant named Wu Chuan made a face as if he were about to cry, replying, “Who in our Imperial City Guard Bureau doesn’t know that Investigator Gu never accepts hospitality from local officials when investigating cases outside? But… this time is different!” Saying this, he vigilantly leaned closer to the person beside him, lowering his voice to whisper into his ear: “It’s said that this Kang County magistrate is no ordinary figure; he reportedly has backing, and his patron is no small fry. Aren’t I just worried he’ll give us small shoes to wear?”
The person beside him sneered upon hearing this: “Him! Give Investigator Gu small shoes to wear? You really worry too much!” With that, he tied up his horse and stepped into the inn.
On the second day:
Gu Ci was in the main lobby eating breakfast while reviewing the clues he had gathered.
Suddenly, he felt a gaze fixed upon him. Just as he was preparing to challenge the source, he met a pair of smiling peach-blossom eyes.
Gu Ci froze slightly, then quickly stood up and welcomed them with a smile: “Seventh… Master Chen, what brings you here?” Unclear of Jun Yichen’s purpose in coming this time, it was safer for the sake of insurance not to expose his identity.
Jun Yichen looked at Gu Ci with a bright smile, responding as he heard the call: “I heard that Ah Ci was coming to Kang County to investigate a case today, so I obtained permission from my family and specifically came to follow Ah Ci and broaden my horizons.”
Hearing this, Gu Ci’s eyes lit up slightly. In other words, the Emperor had agreed to let the Seventh Prince come to Kang County to find him.
That was fine too; leaving him alone in the palace was something he couldn’t feel entirely at ease about.
After finishing breakfast, the group prepared to head toward the yamen morgue. Only then did Gu Ci notice the black-robed youth following behind Jun Yichen, though he didn’t ask further questions—it must be his personal bodyguard.
The yamen morgue was located at the head of East Street, several hundred paces away from the yamen. As soon as the group walked in, they saw a grey-robed youth standing beside a corpse, inspecting and recording something simultaneously.
Seeing them walk in, the youth eagerly stepped forward to greet them. “You must be the lords from the capital. Our magistrate had us waiting here for you since early morning.”
Gu Ci smiled, nodded in acknowledgment, and stepped slightly to the side, gesturing toward the person beside him to introduce him to the youth: “My surname is Gu, and this is my friend, Master Chen.”
He glanced up and down at the youth before him, asking with a smile, “This young master must be Xu the Coroner from the yamen, right?”
Xu Xi hadn’t expected the lords from the capital to even know a minor figure like himself, and asked with incredulous disbelief, “Lord Gu knows me?”
Gu Ci smiled. “I’ve long since heard that the Kang County Yamen has a young coroner with top-tier autopsy skills.” This was also the reason he hadn’t brought along a coroner of his own on this trip.
With that, Gu Ci stepped past him and walked straight over to the female corpse he had been examining moments before. He scanned the corpses and furrowed his brows slightly.
“Why is the corpse decomposed to such an extent? Is there some hidden circumstance behind this?”
Hearing this, Xu Xi immediately stepped forward and presented his compiled autopsy report for Gu Ci’s perusal.
“My Lord, please look. The times of death for these female corpses are separated by two to three days. Logically speaking, the degrees of decomposition ought to be different, but today I discovered that the decomposition degree of the final victim is virtually neck-and-neck with the first victim.”
Hearing this, everyone began inspecting the remaining two corpses, and sure enough, it was precisely as the coroner had stated.