Fan Chun’s fingernails, palms, and feet were all free of dirt and gravel, and her clothes also lacked any suspicious residues. Just as Feng Sanxun had said, she was not drowned in the pond.
However, Ran Yan recalled the back garden of the Yin residence, especially the pond near the fragrant wood pavilion, which was surrounded by stones. If the victim’s head was submerged in the water from the Water Pavilion, it might also be possible that no dirt or gravel would stick to her, but were there jasmine flowers and honeysuckles nearby?
"Could it be a bathtub?" Xiao Song interrupted Ran Yan’s thoughts.
"It’s very possible. Then the other murderer should also be a woman?" Ran Yan remembered Wan Lu telling her that Cui Mei had conspired with a woman. Could she be the murderer?
Xiao Song’s lips curled into a faint smile, "That’s not necessarily the case. Many men also enjoy taking baths with flower petals..."
Men taking baths with flower petals! Ran Yan’s scalp tingled, and she cast a weird glance at Xiao Song, "You men are quite elegant."
Despite her comment, Xiao Song’s words reminded Ran Yan. She immediately went back to check the corpse’s shoulder and neck area. The contusions were in an inverted eight shape. The body had already entered the early stages of decomposition; she could only determine that the person had used their right hand to press the back of the victim’s neck and submerge her in water.
Thinking back to the first time she saw Fan Chun’s body, Ran Yan felt a slight stirring in her heart. She had only glanced at her briefly then and had not dared to examine her carefully. Yet, she still remembered that there were contusions on the victim’s head, overlapping with the wounds.
At that time, the wounds on the victim’s head were covered by fresh blood, obscuring the details. The blood was clearly not the victim’s; it might have been from an animal or someone else. This was a ruse fabricated by the murderer to create the illusion of an accident with a post.
Upon inspection, Ran Yan felt it was possible that the murderer didn’t have enough strength. They hadn’t knocked the victim unconscious with one blow and had to strike again. But the appearance of swelling and cyanosis from drowning should be quite different from death by blunt trauma. Even a fleeting glance should not have led to such a mistake!
"When you examined the body, did you find anything suspicious?" Ran Yan turned back to ask Feng Sanxun.
Stroking his beard and pondering carefully, Feng Sanxun finally said, "Nothing unusual, was there?"
There must have been! Ran Yan once again observed the body’s head carefully and finally found some white powdery substance between the strands of hair, "When you examined her, was she wearing makeup?"
"Indeed, in order to see her complexion clearly, I washed off the makeup from her face with water." Feng Sanxun then asked, "Isn’t it normal for women to wear makeup?"
"But you later concluded that she drowned!" Ran Yan couldn’t contain her anger. When a body lay before a forensic doctor, it was destined to lose the chance to accuse the killer itself. They entrust everything to the hands of the forensic doctor—how could one be so negligent!
If she had drowned, her makeup couldn’t have remained intact. Not to mention in the Tang Dynasty, even in the era she grew up in, not all makeup was waterproof!
"If you knew there was another killer, it must have been the killer who applied the makeup. What’s so strange about that?" Feng Sanxun, being reprimanded by a young woman, had some trouble saving face and couldn’t help but retort loudly.
Ran Yan stared coldly at him, "After drowning, Fan Chun’s complexion would definitely not be pleasant to look at. Yet, this person was able to disguise her with makeup in such a way that there were no traces of being submerged. Such superb makeup skills are not attainable by all women, are they? Such makeup cannot be successfully applied with poor quality powder. How many establishments in Suzhou City sell high-quality makeup powder and rouge? What scent did the powder have? What kind was it? These are all clues!"
Feng Sanxun was dumbfounded by the question and ultimately could only mutter, "As Forensic Doctors examining injuries and causes of death, the whole Great Tang operates . I am only following the rules."
Xiao Song, who had originally been enjoying the drama, gradually became sober as he saw the cold anger in Ran Yan’s beautiful eyes.
"Enough, enough. Knowing that the killer is skilled in makeup is already a major breakthrough." Seeing the atmosphere grow tense, Liu Pinrang immediately started smoothing things over, "Do you have any other findings, Seventeenth Lady?"
Knowing that she always became too serious when it came to autopsy matters, Ran Yan moderated her emotions. Here was the Tang Dynasty, not her original world, and said, "No, but I suspect that there was more than one person who killed Fan Chun."
"Go on, tell us," Liu Pinrang urged.
"There was an overlapped injury on the deceased’s forehead. I’ve examined it carefully. The first layer is a bruise in a curved shape, with simple epidermal peeling and unclear subcutaneous bleeding borders. There were no compressions on the bone surface, suggesting this injury was inflicted before death. The blunt object was made of wood, but not a stick. I can’t yet determine what it was." Ran Yan didn’t care if they understood the professional terminology; as long as they knew she had evidence for her final conclusions, that was enough.