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Chapter 81 The Blade is Different

I guess at this moment everyone has already determined in their hearts that no one believes Cao Chenfeng is innocent.

Now, when someone suddenly said "I believe it", everyone present was stunned for a moment. They subconsciously looked in the direction of the voice and saw the chief secretary beside King Xiaoyao. He was standing outside the crowd, looking firmly at General Cao in the middle of the crowd.

Cao Tianbao didn't expect that someone would say that he believed Cao Chenfeng. When he saw that the person who spoke was Zhu Yu, he was surprised.

Cao Chenfeng also heard it. He endured the pain and propped himself up, wanting to see who was willing to believe him.

"Do you believe him?" Cao Tianbao looked at Zhu Yu suspiciously. He had only thought that this man had some special abilities since he was able to save the guard who had been determined by the coroner to have died of poisoning on the night of King Xiaoyao's wedding. That was why he agreed to ask him to help examine Zhuang Lanlan's body.

But the other party was Lu Qing's man after all, and he was not sure what the master and servant were up to.

"I believe it." Zhu Yu nodded firmly.

Zhuang took two steps forward, trying to rush to Zhu Yu, but failed and was quickly stopped by the yamen runners from Jingzhao Prefecture.

"You believe him?! Why?!" Although he was not getting along well with her, he still gave her a vicious look and questioned her harshly.

"Based on this." Zhu Yu remained calm in front of Zhuang Zhi and pointed to the ground next to him.

In the past, she had seen relatives of the deceased who were hundreds of times more emotional than him, and had also dealt with situations where they had lost their minds. In her eyes, Zhuang Zhi's anger was nothing to be afraid of.

Everyone, including Zhuang Zhi, looked in the direction of her finger and saw the sword that she had left exposed to the sun.

Just now, Cao Tianbao had been whipping Cao Chenfeng for quite a while, and the knife had been left in the sun. It had become a little hot, and there were one or two flies flying around it.

Everyone looked puzzled, but Jingzhao Yin, who seemed to have the most experience with this kind of thing, frowned and asked, "The knife was exposed to the sun, and flies are attracted to it. Doesn't this prove that the knife was a murder weapon and was stained with blood, hence the fishy smell?"
How did it become evidence proving Cao Chenfeng's innocence?"

Because he was confused, he didn't think too much and asked. After he finished speaking, he felt that his words seemed to have confirmed that Cao Chenfeng was the real murderer. Fearing that Cao Tianbao would be unhappy, he quickly glanced at Cao Tianbao again.

However, Cao Tianbao had no time to pay attention to him at the moment. Instead, he looked at Zhu Yu with confusion, waiting for her to explain.

"If this knife was the murder weapon that killed Zhuang Lanlan, and it pierced her body while she was still alive and remained inside, only being pulled out after she was completely cold and her blood had coagulated, then the blade would have been stained with a large amount of blood that had dried on it." Zhu Yu also glanced at the two flies that were flying around with a lack of interest. "If that were the case, then you gentlemen would have seen far more than just these two flies.

These are the things that are most abundant in this season. A knife stained with blood is getting hot in the sun, emitting a fishy smell. It should be covered with blood by now."

Jingzhao Yin suddenly realized and nodded slowly, feeling that what Zhu Yu said seemed to make sense.

When Duke Yan saw Zhu Yu's expression, he recalled what happened on the night of Lu Qing's wedding. He couldn't help but feel disgusted and subconsciously snorted in disdain.

Cao Tianbao's ears twitched slightly, but he didn't turn around, his gaze still fixed on Zhu Yu, clearly waiting for her next words. Cao Chenfeng finally realized someone was speaking for him, seemingly believing in his innocence. He was suddenly surprised and delighted, as if someone had suddenly dropped a rope while he was clinging to the edge of a cliff.

He didn't care about the pain all over his bloody body, and crawled on the ground quickly towards Zhu Yu, wanting to hug Zhu Yu's legs like he had just done to his uncle Cao Tianbao, and ask this benefactor who might speak up for him to help him continue to clarify the matter.

Just when he was about to grab the edge of his benefactor's clothes if he crawled forward less than three feet, a figure suddenly blocked his way.

Lu Qing, who had been watching coldly from the sidelines, now walked over to stand in front of Zhu Yu and asked with interest, "Chief Secretary, although I have always had confidence in your abilities, isn't it a bit hasty to conclude that Cao Chenfeng is not the murderer based solely on the number of flies and insects?"

"Your Highness is right. It would be hasty to draw such a conclusion based solely on insects." Zhu Yu nodded at him and said to Cao Tianbao, "General Cao, you just asked me if I found anything else when I examined Zhuang Lanlan's body.

That’s what I didn’t say.”

She pointed at the knife on the ground and said, "The sword you gave to my nephew is too wide for the fatal blow to Zhuang Lanlan."

Cao Tianbao was stunned, and looked at her with even more confusion.

The Jingzhao Yin standing by also looked at the yamen runner beside him in confusion.

The yamen runner who had been in charge of transporting the corpse that day was glared at by Shangguan and quickly said to Zhu Yu, "Sir, this knife was indeed stuck in the woman's body that day. We pulled it out with our own hands and kept it separately. There is absolutely no doubt about this."

"I know," Zhu Yu nodded to the yamen runner, "but the knife was inserted after Zhuang Lanlan died."

As soon as she said this, everyone present showed a look of surprise, and even Lu Qing raised his eyebrows slightly.

"When a person's skin and flesh are cut by a sharp blade while they are still alive, the edges will naturally curl slightly inward, and the cut will appear dark red due to the bleeding.

However, if the animal is already dead, the blood will coagulate and no longer flow, and the skin and flesh will become cold and stiff. At this time, if you use a sharp tool to cut it, the blade will no longer curl, and the cut area will be no different from a piece of pork.

Because the blood has already coagulated, the wound is often pale."

Seeing the time was right, Zhu Yu shared another discovery he had made, "The skin in the middle of Zhuang Lanlan's chest wound is curled and dark in color, while the skin at the ends is not curled and is pale.

The penetrating wound on the back is generally narrower than that on the front, and the skin and flesh of the entire wound are slightly curled up and dark red in color.

So I speculate that the murderer must have killed Zhuang Lanlan, waited until she was dead, pulled out the original knife, and inserted the sword left by Cao Chenfeng in the embroidery building.

Fearing that he wouldn't be able to control the direction of the knife in her body and would create a new wound on her back, exposing her weakness, the assailant simply inserted the knife without penetrating Zhuang Lanlan's body, thus not changing the original penetrating wound on her back.

(End of this chapter)