Situ Ce and Helanbing arrived at the scene on rented fishing boats. Cai Zhixian was still sitting far away on the chairs placed by the river beach drinking tea, breathing the river breeze and waiting for them to inspect the scene.

The old man who found the human bones sat on the bow of his boat with a depressed look on his face. Several other fishermen were talking with him. When they saw that the people from the yamen came, they all retreated.

According to the rules, Situ Ce would investigate first. At the same time, Helanbing went to ask the fishing old man when he discovered the body.

The body was lying on the sand that had been dug up halfway, lying on its back, with both upper limbs in front of the abdomen, and both lower limbs stretched straight out, with a robe wrapped around it, and there was no clothing inside.

The deceased is a woman, and the soft tissues in her body have become as rotten as mud. The head has almost become boned, and there is still a little soft tissue adherence, and it has been separated from the cervical spine. After Situ Ce's examination, no traces of external force breakage were found. It should be the natural separation after decay. The skull cavity is filled with river sand, and there are several pieces of broken bones in the river sand. Splicing the broken bones can form a complete skull, which proves that it belongs to the same person.

After Situ Ce inspected the scene, he found that except for the long gown, there were no relics left by the deceased. He waved and called Helanbing over.

After He Lanbing covered her nose and saw the scene briefly, Situ Ce said: "The body is already so high that it is as rotten as mud. It is not easy to transport it back to the yamen. I can only perform an autopsy here. I need to peel off the carrion and check the bones and internal organs. Is it okay?"

Helanbing said: "This is an unknown corpse. Now the family cannot be found, and the time cannot be delayed. Therefore, it should be possible to have an autopsy immediately. I will report to the magistrate."

Crazy Cai quickly agreed to an on-site autopsy.

Situ Ce first conducted a physical examination and found that neither the trunk nor the limb bones were fractured. After the chest and abdomen were cut open, the internal organs had been semi-liquidized. From the remaining part, no signs of trauma were found.

Next, Situ Ce focused his examination on the head and left lower limbs of the corpse.

He examined the deceased's head in detail and found obvious violent external scars. However, soft tissue such as scalp remains on the bones, which is inconvenient to observe and needs to be processed before research.

After reporting to Cai Zhixian for approval, Situ Ce personally packed the head with the sand inside and outside with a cloth bag, and brought the left lower limb and clothes back to the yamen. The remaining body was transported from the coroner to the burial tomb in the east of the city to find a place to bury it.

When he returned to the yamen, Situ Ce asked his maid Linglong to find a pot, set up a stove in his bedroom to make a fire, and put a large pot of water inside.

Linglong stared at him with big eyes: "Master, what are you doing? Are you cooking?"

"Haha, no, you need to cook something else, and use it to solve the case. However, you'd better avoid it because it will be disgusting."

Linglong likes to watch the fun the most. In the past, she had to come and watch the fun the bloody clothes and weapons that Helanbing had brought back to solve the case. This time, the new master actually wanted to use cooking to solve the case. This is unprecedented, so he must see it.

So Linglong smiled and said, "I'm not afraid. I'm so brave. When I was a child, I dared to pass the cemetery alone at night!"

"This has nothing to do with ghosts, it's just that it's disgusting, afraid that you can't eat."

"Don't worry!" Linglong said, "I can eat it even if it's disgusting!"

"Okay, whatever you want." Situ Ce opened the bag and took out the large defective head on the left that had mostly rotted.

Linglong's pretty face was a little pale, her stomach churned, and she hurriedly raised her hand to cover her mouth, and felt that she had just praised her. Now, it's just that, it's a joke to make people laugh at me, so she quickly put down her hand again.

Situ Ce smiled and put the head and broken feet into a basin of clean water, and carried out a preliminary washing first.

As the sand was washed away by water from the skull cavity, a small round iron bead was left in the skull cavity, the size of a finger.

Situ Ce was very curious, picked it up and observed carefully, pondered for a moment, and placed the small iron bead on the table. He put the washed head and broken feet into the pot, and then took out the bone fragments from the bag and put them in. He said to Linglong: "Please fan the air and make the fire bigger."

Linglong's pretty face was as white as paper, and she felt that the things in her stomach were already reaching her throat. In order to save face, she tried her best to endure it. She didn't dare to speak, but just nodded, squatted beside the stove, holding a big palm fan to stir up the fire.

Soon, the water boiled.

Linglong held it in for a long time and finally suppressed the disgust between her chest and abdomen. She looked up at Situ Ce, wanting to show off her strength. Seeing Situ Ce's eyes staring at the pot, she also looked into the pot. Then she saw that the head was rolling up and down in the boiling water, and the big hole in her eyes looked at her gloomyly. Her mouth was gone with only two rows of white teeth, showing a strange smile.

Linglong could no longer help but throw away the palm fan, cover her mouth and run out of the house. Before she could run to the door, she spitted out with a whistle, and was soaked all over the floor.

Situ Ce smiled and shook his head, and picked up the palm-leaf fan and fanned the wind.

After cooking for four or five hours, all the flesh on the human head finally fell off the skull.

Situ Ce added 0.5% of the sodium hydroxide solution to the pot, which was for disinfection. He continued to cook for half an hour, then washed and let cool. He put it on the table and began to restore the skull.

He fixed it with gum, measured several pieces of bone fragments, observed it carefully, and pondered for a long time, so Linglong called Helan Bing.

He Lanbing had come when he was cooking his head, but he left at the door. Now he came again, covering a thick scarf with his mouth and nose. He frowned and asked in a muffled voice: "Have you done it?"

"alright!"

"These things should be called coroners, but they just have to do them by themselves, which makes the house smell so stinking and disgusting."

Situ Ce smiled and said, "You can't be afraid of dirt or smell when solving a case. You must do everything yourself and check it yourself, so that you can find as many clues as possible."

"I can't tell you! Okay, what are you asking me to do?"

"I have found out clearly. Judging from the bone condition, the deceased was about sixteen years old, a woman, and the death was half a month ago."

He Lanbing was surprised: "Is it your spell calculated again?"

"Yes, and I found out that the deceased was homicide, which is a criminal case! But this is not calculated using magic, but inferred from the evidence found."

"Oh?" He Lanbing was a little surprised, "What evidence have you found?"

Situ Ce walked to the table, pointed to the white skull of the skull and said, "I have checked it. There are three fatal injuries in the skull of the deceased, - look here."

Situ Ce pointed to an arc-shaped fracture line on the upper left temporal part of the restoration of the skull. "This fracture cannot cross the fracture line when it reaches the fracture line below, and it can be seen that the fracture line below was formed first, and the fracture above was formed later. Judging from the fracture situation of the two fracture lines, the strength is very strong, and both of them cause comminuted fractures, so both of them are fatal injuries!"

Helanbing nodded: "Both places are fatal injuries. If the deceased commits suicide, then after the first fatal injury is formed, he will definitely be unable to perform the second injury. So by reverse reading, you can tell that this is not suicide, but homicide!"
Chapter completed!