Farmhouse Green Plum

Chapter 700: Borax

Fortunately, the father and son of the Cheng coroner were completely focused on the needle marks and didn't react to the fact that there was anything wrong. Instead, they disagreed, saying, "This scar is too large for acupuncture."

The child coroner knew that with Song Ying's medical skills, he would be able to identify needle marks more accurately than them, so he took out a silver needle and handed it to her.

Song Ying held the silver needle and inserted it shallowly into the wound. After a brief probing, he said, "This needle is too thick. It should be a fine needle."

"Impossible!" Cheng the coroner was even more unconvinced. The acupuncture needle is the smallest of the nine needles, as thin as a hair. How could it leave such a large needle mark?

The child coroner handed Song Ying another silver needle. She glanced at it and said, "It's still a little thick."

"This is the thinnest needle we use for autopsy."

Song Ying frowned and used it. She carefully inserted the needle along the wound, carefully comparing the needle body with the scar, and said with certainty:

“It was indeed a needle mark left by acupuncture, but I was a novice and kept pricking the needles, which caused the marks to become larger and took a long time to heal.

When she died, the corners of her mouth were pulled abnormally, causing the skin on her face to be stretched and the needle marks to be enlarged."

At this point, she paused. "Generally speaking, needle marks disappear within an hour after acupuncture. Could it be that she had acupuncture within an hour before her death?"

"Impossible! She died at the beginning of the first lunar month, and she was a member of the harem. She didn't have a life-threatening illness. Who would have asked a doctor to perform acupuncture at this time?"

Song Ying also remembered that the deceased was "possessed" when she was removing her makeup before going to bed. This was indeed strange. She said affirmatively, "I am very sure that these scars are left by acupuncture."

The child coroner believed her judgment and thought for a moment, "If it's acupuncture, there must be more than one acupuncture point. Even if this is the first acupuncture point, the acupuncturist is not skilled and repeatedly pricks the acupuncture point, resulting in a large needle mark.

However, the needles are tiny, so the wounds they leave behind are unlikely to be that large. This suggests that the acupuncture treatment was not long ago when the deceased died. The other needle marks that have healed are likely just superficial healing. Applying hot vinegar to the wounds should reveal any signs of healing."

Coroner Cheng nodded. "Old Wu, go make some vinegar. Xinwa, go ask the captain if the deceased had acupuncture that night."

Coroner Cheng agreed, put down the corpse and left.

After the farmhand had cooked the vinegar and brought it over, the two coroners worked together, dipping a hand towel in the hot vinegar and applying it all over the deceased's face.

Although Song Ying was not proficient in the art of coroner, she was familiar with medical principles. After a little thought, she understood the key.

After a person dies, the blood vessels stagnate and stop flowing, gradually settling in the lower part of the body, forming dark purple corpse spots.

Applying hot vinegar on the face can make use of the pungent and dispersing properties of vinegar and the warming and penetrating properties of heat to make stagnant blood flow briefly, revealing traces that were previously imperceptible.

The child coroner thought she didn't understand, so he carefully explained, "The blood of a living person flows when it's heated, like a rushing river; the blood of a dead person becomes visible when it's heated, like an undercurrent under the ice..."

As he spoke, Cheng, the coroner, uncovered the scalding vinegar towel and saw that the deceased's originally pale face had turned strangely red, as if he were experiencing a last glimmer of life.

What was even more horrifying was that purple spots suddenly appeared on the deceased's cheeks and sides of his nose. The edges were as sharp as if they were carved by a knife, and they looked particularly glaring against the rosy background.

Coroner Cheng's pupils suddenly contracted, and he cried out, "There really is a problem!"

The child coroner quickly picked up the scalpel and cut open a purple spot. A pool of dark red blood slowly seeped out, as sticky as overnight rice porridge.

"Could he have died of suffocation?" Coroner Cheng frowned, then shook his head. "But the deceased's tongue wasn't touching his teeth, and there were no bruises all over his body."

He leaned over to examine it carefully, lightly touching the purple spots with his fingertips. "Ordinary asphyxiated people will have blood stasis in their seven orifices and a bluish-purple complexion, but this woman only has bruises along the Yangming meridian..."

The child coroner flipped his wrist, and the tip of the silver needle picked up a dark red blood clot, which he gently shook off onto the white porcelain plate. He twisted the silver needle between two fingers and slowly spread the blood stain on the white porcelain plate. The porcelain white against the dark red was particularly glaring.

Song Ying leaned over the corpse and used a coroner's needle to push away the blood clots, trying to see if it was caused by disease.

Suddenly, she caught a glimpse of a faint light out of the corner of her eye, which flashed by.

"Huh?" She turned her head and looked at the white porcelain plate in the child coroner's hand. "There seems to be something in the blood!"

"Are you sure?" The child coroner perked up and, without waiting for Song Ying to elaborate, quickly walked to the window with the plate in his hand.

The sunlight shone through the window paper. He searched carefully among the bloodstains with the silver needle in his hand. Soon, the tip of the needle touched something hard.

He quickly picked it out and placed it on the edge of the white porcelain plate to dry.

In the areas not stained by blood, the crystals appeared an unnatural pale white, as fine as sand, yet more crystal clear than sand.

Song Ying turned back and brought a bowl of clean water. The child coroner put the crystals in, intending to wash away the blood stains. However, as soon as the crystals entered the water, they melted away in the blink of an eye like spring snow meeting the scorching sun, leaving only a trace of turbidity in the water.

"It dissolves when it comes into contact with water, but it condenses in the blood and doesn't disperse..." Song Ying frowned and tapped the edge of the bowl with his fingertips. "Could it be borax?"

"Burnax?" The child coroner looked at her. "Is it poisonous?"

"It's extremely poisonous," Song Ying said in a deep voice, "It dissolves when it enters water and makes people cry when it enters blood. It's as fierce as fire. If it enters the blood vessels, it will make the blood thick like glue and block the circulation of qi and blood.

It's okay if it happens in ordinary places, but if the blood vessels in key acupuncture points are blocked, the person will..."

She turned around and looked at the deceased on the bed. "However, there is one thing that is very strange. Borax will corrode silver needles. It looks poisonous. Why would the deceased continue to let others perform acupuncture on him?

Also, there should be branch-like bruises at the puncture site, like dead branches in winter, but I just checked and there are none on the deceased's face."

She paused for a moment, then suddenly thought of something. "Could it be that they used golden needles?"

"Let's first confirm whether it is borax." Cheng, the coroner, breathed a sigh of relief. This concubine was very favored by Mr. Liu, and he refused to believe that she died of evil spirits.

Even during the Chinese New Year, he would go to the county government office from time to time to urge the autopsy results.

Now there is finally some progress!

Returning to the corpse bed, he used a hot vinegar towel to determine the location of the purple spots again, and then cut open the purple spots. Sure enough, he found a lot of white crystals at the location of each purple spot.

After identification and verification, it was indeed borax, and it was extremely pure and highly toxic white borax. Just touching the skin would cause a burning sensation.

At noon, Coroner Cheng Xiao brought back the news that the deceased had indeed received acupuncture before his death.

It turned out that there was a widespread scramble for favor in the Liu family's harem. In order to win favor, this concubine heard about the secret method of using golden needles to maintain youthful appearance from somewhere. Because it was inconvenient for her to stay in the inner house, she asked her personal maid to find a doctor and learn acupuncture techniques for a few days, so that the doctor could perform acupuncture exclusively for her.

The child coroner exclaimed, "Medicine is a profound art. How can it be mastered in just a few days? If it were that simple, wouldn't those pharmacists need to study for seven or eight years before they can even become masters?"