Plotting with You: The Forensic Scientist in Ancient Times!-Chapter 502 - 501: Loose Teeth and Falling Hair

When Zhu Yu reached out to check the condition of the eyes, her other hand instinctively rested on the top of the High Priest’s corpse’s head, wanting to hold the head in place. At the moment of releasing her hand, a strand of long hair slipped down with the lift of her fingers.

Zhu Yu frowned.

If what lay before her was a mummy, or decomposed to the point of being just bones, the hair falling off might make some sense.

However, the High Priest before her, while saying he looked lifelike might be an exaggeration, he wasn’t even close to a mummy, let alone decomposed. Except for the already shriveled eyeballs, he looked more like a living person who was emaciated from cold and starvation.

By reason, in such a condition, his eyeballs shouldn’t be so shriveled, and his hair shouldn’t fall off so easily either.

Zhu Yu had a more certain guess in her mind. She squatted down, carefully pinching the High Priest’s jaw joint to open his tightly closed mouth.

As soon as his mouth opened, before Zhu Yu could even touch it, several teeth fell out from his mouth.

Seeing this, Zhu Yu didn’t hesitate anymore and carefully laid the High Priest’s corpse on the ground. The legs, which had been in a cross-legged position, slightly spread open, and in the process, hair fell off again in considerable amounts.

Zhu Yu first used the light to look inside the High Priest’s mouth and saw that his gums were not completely shriveled or withered. Except for appearing particularly dry due to the lack of saliva, they weren’t much different from a living person. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

However, the teeth in his mouth were loose and would fall out with just a slight touch.

Feeling increasingly certain, Zhu Yu retrieved her leather pouch, quickly unbuttoned the white robe on the High Priest, exposing his chest. She then took out her Black Iron long-handled knife from the leather pouch, knelt beside him, and carefully made a long incision from his chest to the navel...

Moments later, Zhu Yu dressed the High Priest in his robe once more without any signs of tampering. It was then she felt a chill coming from beneath her. As she stowed away her tools, she noticed her legs were cold, as if she’d just been pulled out of an icy hole.

Looking around carefully again, she noticed the cold black stone slab on the floor. Upon touching it, it felt just like any usual slab at first, but after a while, the cold slowly seeped through.

Wasn’t this the kind of bizarre slab used in the Little Mountain Building to snap her out of unconsciousness through freezing?

Zhu Yu pursed her lips, got up to stretch her stiff legs, and once she felt comfortable walking, she headed outside the tent that the talisman had set up, back to Lu Qing’s side.

"Master," she said seriously, continuing her half-grown child’s tone to Lu Qing, "I’ve carefully examined him, and that High Priest is dead beyond dead, completely dead!

Though I’m not sure if it’s because he had been taking elixirs in the past, the red sand he ingested seemed to have preserved him as if he were still alive."

"Are you certain?" Lu Qing inquired, feigning interest.

"Disciple is sure!" Zhu Yu replied with absolute certainty, both outwardly and inwardly convinced.

Just earlier, she saw faintly glimmering small silver beads in the High Priest’s lungs, which indicated red sand toxins seeping into the marrow!

What she didn’t say was that aside from the presence of mercury poison from the red sand affecting the High Priest, the entire house had an inseparable connection.

"He’s dead..." The guards were not surprised by this conclusion, but with evidence now before them, they were even more convinced.

They exchanged glances until one blurted out, "Divine Doctor, wouldn’t you like to take a look yourself?"

Ultimately, they weren’t fully reassured by just the young disciple’s word, fearing they couldn’t report back to King Fan that only the Divine Doctor’s apprentice had examined him.

Lu Qing paused in silence, then slightly nodded, "I shall have a look myself but you must wait outside and not interfere."

The guards were quite agreeable to this request and promptly turned to leave.

After all, the High Priest was dead, and it was unlikely that the four protectors who closed themselves off with him were alive, so there were no worries about the Divine Doctor having ulterior motives.

After all, in the presence of a few corpses, what tricks could one possibly play?

With their agreement, they left the room, leaving the space for Lu Qing and Zhu Yu alone.

"Did you examine everything that needed examination just now?" Lu Qing stepped forward to inspect the High Priest’s body after the men left. "Do the other bodies need similar checking?"

By then, Zhu Yu was already in front of a protector’s corpse, squatting down to pry open the person’s eyelids, finding the same shriveled eyeballs inside. She shook her head at Lu Qing, "No need for that, I’ve mostly checked everything.

Not only were the High Priest’s lungs full, but even his heart had many tiny mercury beads visible, which couldn’t form in a short time. He must have been deeply poisoned before death.

It seems this High Priest was not only crafting elixirs for King Fan, but also for himself and his close protectors...

In my judgment, these five people should have died not long after entering this secluded room."

"So they didn’t decay because of the mercury beads in their bodies?"

"That’s part of the reason," Zhu Yu waved her hand, tapping the smooth black stone slab on the floor, "This slab is exactly like the unusually cold one in the Little Mountain Building secret passage.

With such a thing, it’s like placing their corpses in an ice cellar. Combined with the boarded-up windows and doors, plus over a foot-thick wall sealed with a composite soil, it completely turns this place into an isolated air-tight space, providing further preservation against decay."

Upon hearing this, Lu Qing bent down to touch the stone slab and, indeed, felt the coldness seep into his palm.

Just as he was about to further question Zhu Yu, the guards outside suddenly shouted, "Who goes there—!"

This was followed by the clanging of weapons clashing.