After transmigrating into the book, I helped my mother reconcile with her divorced husband.

The Crown Prince led Lu Zhiyuan to the place where the carriage had been found, where they saw Zuo Yi directing the guards to carry the children down from the carriage. Upon seeing them, Zuo Yi spoke a few words to the guards, who all stopped what they were doing and looked over.

"Your Highness...Young Master, Madam, the coroner from the yamen has already left. We felt sorry for these children piled up in the carriage, so we thought we'd take them out first."

Lu Zhiyuan saw Zuo Yi rub his hands together, and then looked at the guards who had just held the child; they all had a bit of tension on their faces.

Most of them had never seen Lu Zhiyuan perform an autopsy, but they had heard of her procedures and were afraid that their actions might have damaged the body or the crime scene.

"You've done a good job. Please arrange those children in one or two rows. I need to perform autopsies on them." Lu Zhiyuan took out some veils and handed them to the Crown Prince, who then passed them to Zuo Yi, who immediately distributed them.

“A corpse that has been dead for several days will produce a large amount of corpse gas, which is poisonous and can cause death if inhaled in excess. I soaked this veil in a medicinal solution, which can effectively block toxic gases, including but not limited to corpse gas and miasma.” He called Zuo Yi back after he had just finished distributing the veils: “There are also some pills here. Those with corpse gas can expel it, and those without it can strengthen their bodies.”

The seventeen children, the oldest being about seven or eight years old, and the youngest just over one year old, still wore silver necklaces given to them by their families, with red thread carefully trembling near their necks.

Through those children, it's as if you can see what they looked like when they were alive.

The first girl, around seven years old, was thin, with pale skin, and suffered from severe malnutrition. Her clothes were altered from a boy's, suggesting she had an older brother. The stitches were coarse, made with miscellaneous thread. The patches on her clothes were made from scraps of different fabrics, their colors similar to the original garment, and the patches were done rather skillfully.

The girl's mother must have worked in the embroidery shop, and the scraps of cloth were waste materials she collected.

The soles of the shoes were thick and hard, covered in dirt. The uppers were thin and made of a different material, indicating the girl came from the countryside. Her fingernails were short, and the spaces between her fingers were black—not mud, but the sap of some kind of plant.

There was obvious wear and tear on both sides of the collar, which matched the bruises on the shoulders. Lifting up the daughter's clothes, sure enough, the same bruises were found on her shoulders.

The Crown Prince's gaze followed Lu Zhiyuan's finger, and when he saw the two bruises, he couldn't help but ask, "What is this...?"

"Has Your Highness ever carried or shouldered a sack?"

The crown prince shook his head. He was the crown prince; how could he possibly carry or bear such a thing?

“Ah Yuan carried it.” Lu Zhiyuan patted her shoulder: “Little girls, especially petite girls like this, when carrying or lifting heavy things, their bodies will habitually lean forward due to their own strength or the weight of the objects, causing the weight of the objects to fall on their shoulders and here.”

Lu Zhiyuan patted her back: "The bruises on my shoulders and back are from carrying things."

"You were memorizing things when she was so young?" The Crown Prince's focus was different: "Is this how the Marquis's mansion treated you?"

“It wasn’t the Marquis’s residence, it was much earlier.” Lu Zhiyuan didn’t want to dwell on this issue and continued, “There are not only bruises on her shoulders, but also this. This repeated breaking and scabbing indicates that she often carried or lifted things. The bruises are so obvious because she was carrying or lifting things when she was alive. Have the constables from the county government take the girl’s portrait to the nearby villages or the places in the county town that sell vegetables and dried fruits and ask around.”

The Crown Prince looked at Zuo Yi, who quickly ordered someone to write down the information.

The second little girl was about five years old. She was clearly different from the first girl; she came from a wealthy family and was well-cared for. She had a round face, a slightly upturned nose, and pouty lips. Her eyebrows were very dark, her skin was very fair, and she wore a pink brocade jacket. She had a necklace around her neck, and her bracelets had been removed.

There was a little syrup on his clothes, and judging from the location of the syrup, he had eaten candied hawthorn before the incident.

The hair bun was symmetrical, with only one side adorned with a hair ornament. Lu Zhiyuan instructed Zuo Yi to remove the hair and post it along with the portrait throughout the city, especially in areas frequented by merchants and the wealthy.

The prince asked, "What if she wasn't from the county town?"

Lu Zhiyuan affirmed, "It is she. Her shoes are very clean!"

The prince looked at the child's shoes. Compared to the first girl's shoes, they were indeed cleaner, with only a thin layer of dust.

"If she was abducted from outside by human traffickers, the long and bumpy journey, the various transfers, would not have resulted in her hair being so neatly styled, and her clothes and shoes not being so clean. She is a girl from the county town, from a well-off family, and is very much loved by her family. A girl this age would not be carried when she goes out. She would either be in a sedan chair or a horse-drawn carriage. The county is not like the capital, the streets are not so wide, I guess the girl was in a sedan chair on the day she went missing."

Zuo Yi couldn't help but exclaim, "Madam is amazing! That coroner from the county yamen looked at this place for ages and couldn't figure it out at all."

Lu Zhiyuan didn't believe Zuo Yi's words. She didn't believe that the coroner hadn't seen anything, unless he was a fake coroner. These children were clearly kidnapped by human traffickers. Who were these traffickers connected to? The Duke of Rui. The Duke's mansion had just had an incident, and at this critical juncture, discovering a sedan chair piled high with dead children, it was understandable that the coroner didn't want to get involved.

The prince pondered, "When a young girl goes out, she must be accompanied by family members. If she has family members, how did she get lost and fall into the hands of human traffickers?"

Lu Zhiyuan examined her hands: "She didn't go out with her parents. If she did, she would definitely be traveling by carriage. When she goes out, her parents would definitely be holding her hand. Her parents wouldn't abandon her; they would always keep an eye on her whereabouts, unless they are particularly unreliable. Also, judging from this girl's attire, if she went out with her parents, there would definitely be servants or maids accompanying her. Even if her parents are unreliable, the servants or maids would still keep an eye on the young lady's movements."

The little girl must have gone out accompanied by her nanny or wet nurse. She rode in a sedan chair, and while they were shopping, the sedan chair and its bearers stopped elsewhere. The little girl wanted candied hawthorns, and the nanny or wet nurse sold them to her. While the nanny or wet nurse was paying, the little girl was distracted by something else, or perhaps a slave trader covered her mouth and nose and took her elsewhere.

The candied hawthorn skewer fell as the little girl struggled to finish it.

It didn't fall to the ground with a "thud," but rather rubbed against my clothes, leaving a little bit of syrup.

The remaining children were in similar situations, just like the first and second children, they were all abducted by human traffickers. Some of them were from other places. In addition to the obvious stains on their clothes, there were also wounds left by humans and boys were disguised as girls, and girls were disguised as boys, in order to evade the government's investigation.

"Can the madam determine the cause of these children's deaths?"

“An overdose.” Lu Zhiyuan lifted one of the children’s hands, revealing a noticeable stain around his sleeve. “This child was clever; he pretended to drink the medicine first, then spat it into his sleeve. Unfortunately, he was trapped under the other children and couldn’t climb out. Unlike the other children, he suffocated; he had very obvious symptoms of asphyxiation.”