Tuqiu Jiu hadn’t expected things to be so easy. Could it be that invoking the name of an immortal would grant him smooth passage everywhere?
He shook his head, dismissing the thought. While the excuse of an immortal might be useful, it likely wasn’t that powerful.
He couldn’t help but feel that Wen Wuhai’s attitude toward him was overly friendly. Even in later eras, criminals weren’t treated with such kindness, were they?
However, he had no time to dwell on Wen Wuhai’s demeanor, as he was utterly exhausted.
Wen Wuhai could ride a horse to Li Bu’s villa, but Tuqiu Jiu had to rely on his own two feet. Not only was he still considered a criminal, but even as a commoner, he would have had to walk.
The distance was considerable, and coupled with his physical weakness, by the time they reached the gate, he could only lean against it, gasping for breath.
Wen Wuhai watched him with some concern but could do nothing more. In the prison or the courtroom, surrounded by his own people, showing Tuqiu Jiu preferential treatment hadn’t been difficult. But now, out in the open, even though the area around the villa was sparsely populated, caution was necessary. Any lapse could bring trouble not only to himself but also to Tuqiu Jiu.
Once Tuqiu Jiu had caught his breath, Wen Wuhai turned to the slave-official and said, “Knock on the door.”
The slave-official bowed in acknowledgment and went to do so.
Inside the villa, only a few people remained: a gatekeeper and a handful of guards. No one else was present.
The slave-official revealed Wen Wuhai’s identity, and after a moment’s hesitation, the gatekeeper opened the door.
Wen Wuhai led Tuqiu Jiu straight to the crime scene. As Tuqiu Jiu had suspected, the scene hadn’t been properly preserved, and it was unclear how much evidence remained.
When they arrived, the door to the hun was tightly shut. A patrolling guard came over to help open it. Tuqiu Jiu immediately asked, “Has anyone been here recently?”
The patrolling guard shook his head. “No.”
Tuqiu Jiu pressed further, “Has anything inside the hun been moved?”
The guard gave him a puzzled look, then glanced at Wen Wuhai, wondering why a prisoner was asking questions while Wen Wuhai stood by silently.
However, since Wen Wuhai hadn’t reprimanded him, the guard answered truthfully, “No.”
Tuqiu Jiu breathed a small sigh of relief. The situation was slightly better than the worst-case scenario he had imagined.
As the door opened, sunlight streamed in, illuminating swirling dust in the air. This confirmed the guard’s claim that no one had been here for a long time.
Tuqiu Jiu didn’t rush inside. Instead, he first peered into the hun, comparing it with the images in his memory.
Inside was a small chamber containing a narrow bed, a clothes rack, a bronze mirror, and other items.
To be honest, if he hadn’t known this was a hun beforehand, Tuqiu Jiu would never have associated such a refined little room with a place like a toilet.
Even though the scene was in disarray due to the crime, the elegance of the chamber was undeniable.
After a moment of admiration, he pushed these thoughts aside and continued his careful inspection. He soon confirmed that nothing had been disturbed—the bloodstains on the floor were still visible, and even fragments of the vase remained.
However, there were no markings like the outlines of victims’ bodies, common in later eras.
Fortunately, his memory still held some images, allowing him to carefully avoid the spots where Li Bu and the others had fallen while examining the rest of the area.
He first hypothesized that there was another culprit. To render three people unconscious without a sound and remain undetected, the perpetrator must have been hiding.
The small chamber of the hun was not large, and there were few places to conceal oneself. The inner room, which housed the toilet, was one possibility, and the rafters above were another.
However, hiding in either of these places would not allow someone to knock others out silently. The inner room had a door; to emerge, one would have to open it, which would surely alert Li Bu. The rafters presented a similar issue—there were no pillars in the small chamber, so descending would require jumping down, which would also create noticeable noise.
So… where could they have hidden?
Tuqiu Jiu looked around. Behind him, Wen Wuhai followed quietly, leaving the patrolling guards outside utterly confused—who exactly was Wen Wuhai?
Lost in his own thoughts, Tuqiu Jiu hadn’t noticed this. He circled the room, examining every corner, and finally fixed his gaze on the bronze mirror.
The bronze mirror placed here resembled a full-length mirror from later eras, standing slightly taller than Tuqiu Jiu. Besides the central bronze mirror, both sides were adorned with lacquer paintings, making it about as wide as three people. Moreover, the mirror stood upright, supported by a base, so it was entirely possible for someone to hide behind it.
Tuqiu Jiu instinctively felt this mirror was the key. Earlier, when the slave-official recounted the case details, he mentioned that most areas had been thoroughly inspected.
Only this bronze mirror had been overlooked—or perhaps “overlooked” wasn’t entirely accurate. At first glance, the mirror indeed appeared unremarkable.
However, at a crime scene, sometimes the most unremarkable things are the most suspicious.
Tuqiu Jiu approached the bronze mirror for a closer look, taking the opportunity to glance at his own reflection.
The mirror must have been polished regularly, as its surface was highly reflective, no less clear than later mercury mirrors. The image it cast was neither dim nor distorted.
Looking into the mirror, Tuqiu Jiu noticed that this body’s appearance bore some resemblance to his own. The eyes were slightly rounded, with corners that drooped a little, giving them an innocent, animal-like clarity. Paired with a tall, straight nose and well-shaped lips, the overall impression was one of delicate harmlessness.
However, the body was somewhat thin and small, with a face that could truly be described as palm-sized. The complexion was pale, even the lips lacking color.
Tuqiu Jiu couldn’t help but worry that a strong gust of wind might blow him away.
Because of the resemblance, Tuqiu Jiu felt even more accepting of this body.
But as he examined himself closely, he suddenly noticed something—a red line on his face in the mirror.
The line was not obvious, even faint, and its color was a dark red. If one didn’t look carefully, it could easily be missed.
Tuqiu Jiu instinctively reached up to touch his face, then looked down at his fingers. There was no color on them. When he looked back up, the red line was still there.
He turned to Wen Wuhai beside him and asked, “Wen Wuhai, could you please check if there’s a red line on my face?”
Wen Wuhai paused briefly, observed carefully, and shook his head. “Aside from dust, there’s nothing else.”
Tuqiu Jiu: …
There was no need to emphasize that, was there? He knew his face wasn’t clean—it wasn’t as if there were proper washing facilities in the prison.
However, he had no time to dwell on this. Instead, he tilted his body slightly and asked, “Then, do you see a red line on my face in the mirror?”
He hadn’t moved before, but as soon as he did, he noticed the red line on his face shifted position accordingly.
Tuqiu Jiu immediately widened his eyes and said, “No, something’s wrong with the bronze mirror.”
As he spoke, he leaned closer to the bronze mirror, and the red line moved from his face to a spot slightly below his collarbone.
Wen Wuhai also leaned in to take a look. As they drew near, Tuqiu Jiu bent down to examine it carefully and discovered the red line was positioned precisely between Wen Wuhai’s chest and abdomen.
As an undernourished minor who had grown up with poor nutrition, Tuqiu Jiu was naturally shorter than an adult man. Could it be a coincidence that this red line appeared right in front of Wen Wuhai’s chest?
After all, Li Bu had also died from a dagger piercing his heart.
Tuqiu Jiu deeply felt he might have found a crucial clue.
He reached out and touched the part of the bronze mirror where the red line appeared. While the rest of the mirror was smooth, that particular spot felt as if there was a seam.
Large bronze mirrors like those used by nobles were typically cast as a single piece, not assembled from separate parts.
Tuqiu Jiu immediately shared this discovery with Wen Wuhai, who also reached out to touch it and found the seam stretched across the entire mirror.
While Wen Wuhai examined the seam, Tuqiu Jiu turned and went behind the bronze mirror.
The back of the mirror also featured lacquer paintings depicting several figures, though Tuqiu Jiu couldn’t recognize who they were. He had no interest in pondering their identities either. Instead, he carefully observed the part of the painting corresponding to the red line on the mirror.
At first glance, the lacquer painting seemed flawless, but upon closer inspection, he noticed a circular pattern that appeared slightly blurred and distorted. Tuqiu Jiu ran his fingers along it and felt a seam there as well.
However, this seam wasn’t a long strip like the one on the mirror but rather a circular shape.
Tuqiu Jiu immediately said, “Wen Wuhai, please come and take a look.”
Wen Wuhai turned and walked behind the mirror, asking, “What is it?”
Tuqiu Jiu pointed at the circle and said, “There’s a seam all around here. It must have been deliberately cut.”
If the bronze mirror could have been pieced together from two parts, it was unlikely that someone would intentionally paint a circle in the middle of the lacquer painting on the back. Moreover, this circle disrupted the overall composition of the painting. Although the perpetrator had been careful enough to make it almost unnoticeable, a closer look still revealed the flaw.
After examining it carefully and then looking at the painting as a whole, Wen Wuhai suddenly said, “It’s not just here.”
Tuqiu Jiu was momentarily stunned. Following Wen Wuhai’s gaze, he noticed another slightly incongruous pattern a bit higher up. He reached out to touch it and, sure enough, found another circular seam.
Standing in place, he glanced at Wen Wuhai. The positions of these two circles were also quite intriguing: the lower one was between the waist and abdomen, while the higher one was near the chin and throat.
As he was visually assessing them, Wen Wuhai had already called over the tingzu to carefully examine the two circular areas. After a thorough inspection, the cut-out sections were removed.
Tuqiu Jiu couldn’t resist reaching out to test them. The two circular holes were just large enough for an arm to pass through.
However, even if one could pass an arm through these holes, the bronze mirror in front would still block the way.
A flash of insight struck him, and he turned to look at Wen Wuhai. “Does that crack in the bronze mirror mean the mirror can separate?”
Wen Wuhai looked up. The bronze mirror was framed on all sides, including the top. The frame was solid, so theoretically it shouldn’t be able to separate, but… After a moment’s thought, he reached up and touched the wooden frame above the mirror. Sure enough, he found a crack there as well.
Not only that, he even felt a small ring.
Tuqiu Jiu stood on tiptoe and also touched the ring. At this point, he had enough to piece together the scenario.
The murderer had hidden in the shadows behind the bronze mirror. When Li Bu approached to look at his reflection, the murderer separated the mirror, then extended both hands through the two round holes—one hand gripping the victim’s neck, the other holding a dagger that stabbed straight into the heart.
With his throat constricted, Li Bu couldn’t cry out in time. After being stabbed through the heart, he died quickly. The murderer then released his grip, restored everything to its original state, and wiped the blood off the bronze mirror.
As for how the murderer used the ring above to separate the mirror… Tuqiu Jiu glanced up at the roof beam. It wouldn’t be difficult with an extremely thin thread looped over the beam. Most people wouldn’t easily look above the mirror, and with the dim lighting at night, it could easily go unnoticed.
Excitedly, Tuqiu Jiu laid out his speculation. Wen Wuhai half-closed his eyes, pondered for a moment, and nodded. “That is indeed possible.”
Wen Wuhai largely agreed with Tuqiu Jiu’s analysis, mainly because the bronze mirror had already been separated, and within the crack, dried dark red blood remained.
The next question, then, was where Tuqiu Zhi and Tuqiu Fei were during the murder.
Had they actually followed Li Bu?
After hearing Tuqiu Jiu’s doubts, Wen Wuhai said, “They did follow Li Bu, but they didn’t enter; they only stood guard outside the door. At the time, the hun door was closed, so they likely couldn’t know what was happening inside. Later, they claimed to have heard Li Bu call them in, but as soon as they entered, they felt a heavy blow to the back of their heads and immediately lost consciousness.”
Tuqiu Jiu looked up at Wen Wuhai in surprise. “Is this… recorded in the judicial record?”
Wen Wuhai replied, “That was their initial statement. Later, they changed that part.”
Even though they changed it, the original statement remained on record. In this era, retracting a confession was considered a crime in itself, warranting increased punishment—this served as the basis for the heavier penalty.
Tuqiu Jiu breathed a slight sigh of relief. Wen Wuhai gave him a deep look and said, “Don’t relax too much. Until the murderer is found, their suspicion cannot be cleared.”
After thinking for a moment, Tuqiu Jiu said, “After knocking out Tuqiu Zhi and Tuqiu Fei, the murderer had ample time to stage the scene. Once the staging was complete, leaving would likely only be possible through the window.”
Wen Wuhai said, “The area outside the window has already been inspected. No clues were found.”
A place as important as the windowsill wouldn’t be overlooked by an experienced tingzhang; it would certainly have been examined carefully.
But Tuqiu Jiu insisted, “Perhaps something was missed? I’ll go take a look.”
With that, instead of opening the window directly, he went outside and circled around to the exterior of the window.
Outside the hun window was a flowerbed, planted with flowers and shrubs Tuqiu Jiu didn’t recognize, and the ground below was naturally all soil.
He entered cautiously, lightening his steps as he approached the window, carefully observing the surrounding ground.
His efforts were not in vain; indeed, he discovered some traces a short distance from the window.
Tuqiu Jiu turned and called out, “Wen Wuhai, there seem to be footprints here.”
He said “seem” because many days had passed, and the footprints were no longer very clear.
After Wen Wuhai brought the tingzu over to examine them, he immediately ordered measurements of their length and width.
Following a round of measurements, the tingzu promptly reported, “Wen Wuhai, this footprint is approximately seven cun and eight fen long.”
Tuqiu Jiu quickly converted this in his mind to a modern shoe size of around 42.
Upon hearing this, Wen Wuhai frowned slightly and glanced at Tuqiu Jiu, saying, “For now, we can only confirm that there was a third person at the scene. The case will be reopened for investigation, but finding the murderer will likely not be easy.”
When Tuqiu Jiu heard that the case would be reinvestigated, the weight in his heart lifted—at least he had bought himself some time.
After a moment of thought, he looked up at Wen Wuhai and said, “The murderer must have been someone present in the villa that day, and not a slave-official or servant. That narrows the scope considerably.”
Wen Wuhai replied, “Even so, there are still dozens of people. With such vague clues, it will be difficult to identify the culprit.”
He wasn’t saying the case couldn’t be solved, but he didn’t want Tuqiu Jiu to get his hopes up too high.
Unexpectedly, Tuqiu Jiu smiled and said, “It’s not that difficult. With this single footprint, we can estimate the murderer’s approximate height, which would narrow the list of suspects to just a few.”
Wen Wuhai turned to him with a look of astonishment. “Estimating height from a footprint? Are you certain?”
Tuqiu Jiu straightened his chest and declared confidently, “For adult men, foot length is roughly one-seventh of their height. If you don’t believe me, Wen Wuhai, you can test it yourself!”
Author’s Note:
Tuqiu Jiu: Solving cases is my specialty! Police dog raises its head proudly.jpg