Volume 11 - Chapter 4

The Apothecary Diaries

The Hanged Body in the Office - Part 2 #

Content warning: This section contains descriptions of a corpse.

The niece Rahan was meeting properly for the first time in over a year had an unpleasant look on her face.

“Hey there, sis.”

“Go away, calculator glasses.”

Maomao greeted Rahan with an insult right off the bat.

“Maomao!”

Next to Maomao was Rakan. Rakan wanted to hug Maomao, but she was keeping him at bay by jabbing his cheek with a broomstick handle, warning him not to get any closer.

“Maomao, why don’t you go a bit easier on him?”

“Then why don’t you switch places?”

“Absolutely not.”

After rejecting Maomao’s suggestion, Rahan looked at the other two present.

One was Doctor Liu, the head of the court’s medical staff. He was from the same year as Rahan’s great-uncle Ruomen, and had a reputation for being difficult.

The other was a rather young man of average height and build, with a frivolous-looking face.

“Where’s the coooorpse?”

He had an oddly sparkling look in his eyes, before immediately being struck on the head by Doctor Liu.

“Tinyou, be quiet.”

Apparently his name was Tinyou. A guy’s name was irrelevant information to Rahan.

While Rahan thought the troublesome ones had also tagged along, he decided it was fine since the main person had shown up. If Rakan started causing trouble, he could just pass it off to Maomao. She was likely thinking the same thing.

“Since I’m not free either, could you show me the body quickly? There’ll be a report from Lady Tsuki this afternoon. We don’t have time to dawdle.”

Doctor Liu spoke with bulging veins on his temples.

The report from the Saidou expedition forces was also relevant to Rakan, so Rahan wanted to wrap it up quickly too.

“This way.”

Onso guided them. The young Shunsai was kept in another room, as it was too much stimulation for him. Being a diligent child, he had asked if there was anything he could do, so Rahan had him clean another room Rakan used.

“…Pardon me, but it seems the Ras are too lenient with their own kin.”

Doctor Liu looked at Rakan, Maomao, and Rahan.

“What’s wrong with spoiling my daughter?”

Rakan answered matter-of-factly. It was pointless to tell this man to read the air.

Since Doctor Liu wasn’t a fool either, he understood there was no point in saying anything to Rakan. He entered the office with a poker face.

“Is this the one?”

The ‘Lance’ was still hanging from the ceiling beam, as Rahan had instructed not to take it down yet.

“But we can’t do anything with it like this, can we?”

Doctor Liu narrowed his eyes.

“Ooh, he’s deeeaad.”

The man named Tinyou pranced about excitedly.

“You said it was an abnormal body, but it’s just a hanging one…”

Maomao muttered aloud, unintentionally. That’s why Rahan had used the term “abnormal body” - referring to a body with an unknown cause of death, which could include poisoning.

Truthfully, Maomao likely had no intention of coming to Rakan’s office. So Rahan had to give her a reason to come.

“At this point of being hanged, isn’t it already suicide?”

Another strike landed on Tinyou’s head from Doctor Liu.

“It seems you have some basis for it not being suicide. That’s why you’ve preserved the scene like this.”

Doctor Liu examined the body.

“That’s correct.”

Instead of Rahan explaining further, Onso took over, having conferred that he was better suited for advancing the discussion.

“There’s a contradiction with it being suicide.”

“What kind of contradiction?”

Onso took out a rope.

“This rope is the length from the deceased man Wang Fang’s neck down. Considering the angle of the hanging rope, Wang Fang’s height, and the chair’s position, would it have been possible for him to hang himself?”

To Rahan’s eyes, the world seemed overflowing with numbers. For Wang Fang to hang himself from that rope, the chair would need to be nearly a foot closer, otherwise he couldn’t reach up high enough despite stretching.

“What if he kicked the chair away while jumping off it? Wouldn’t it move then?”

Tinyou offered an opinion.

“Considering the position of the chair back, how forcefully would he have had to kick?”

Rahan answered in place of Onso.

Perhaps due to Tinyou’s disruptive presence, Maomao was quiet, wrinkling her nose with a suspicious look as she kept her distance from Rakan offering her snacks.

“I see. So you didn’t take the body down to have me confirm this?”

“That’s correct.”

“Can we say the chair’s position hasn’t changed either?”

“Shall we call the gawkers as witnesses?”

Doctor Liu seemed the type to want clarity on matters, doubting what should be doubted.

“Still, for Doctor Liu himself to come…”

“My way of saying to send trainees over bothered you, didn’t it? You needed a supervising official present.”

In other words, it was a consideration to prevent any fabrication of evidence.

“Then let’s have the body brought down.”

“Understood.”

Onso summoned some martial officers to lower the body.

“Everyone, please have a seat on the chairs.”

“Yes.”

Tinyou promptly sat on a long chair.

“I’m fine.”
“Me too.”

Doctor Liu and Maomao remained standing.

They struggled to bring the body down by cutting the hanging rope partway. The “Lance”, Wang Fang, had a robust martial officer’s build.

According to reports, Rakan had discovered him two years ago. With good instincts and quick movements, he was promoted. He had a personality suited for actual combat and had carried out the trial missions Rakan assigned him without failure. He had ambition, but also greed. However, it stated that with proper supervision, there would be no problem—

But he must have deteriorated during Rakan’s absence.

“Finally got him down.”

Honestly, the body laid out on a cloth was so unsightly that Rahan wanted to avert his eyes.

“Tinyou.”

“Yessir.”

Doctor Liu indicated for Tinyou to examine it first. Maomao peered at the corpse from behind Tinyou too.

“What do you think?”

“There are nail marks left on the neck. Signs of struggling, wanting to remove the rope due to suffocation.”

Tinyou had an unexpectedly serious look. Maomao nodded as she observed too.

“He was suffering.”
“Suffered, huh.”

“Isn’t hanging supposed to be without suffering?” Onso asked, puzzled.

“With a hanging, gaining enough momentum to hang causes the neck joint to dislocate, inducing unconsciousness. In that case, there shouldn’t be any struggling.”

Doctor Liu explained.

“So it’s an easy death?” “There’s no easy way to die. If it fails, you suffer, so I don’t recommend it.”

Onso forced a wry smile at Doctor Liu’s words.

“Let’s remove his clothes.” “Yes.”

Tinyou began stripping the corpse’s clothes off. Maomao moved to assist as well.

“Oh? You’re going to help?”

From Rahan’s recollection, Maomao had always been told by Ruomen not to touch corpses.

“It’s work.”

Without any hesitation, Maomao proceeded to strip the naked male body, despite it being a corpse. Rahan wondered if she was really accustomed to disrobing men’s bodies.

“Maomao. You shouldn’t touch dirty things like that.”

Rakan was scattering crumbs from stale snacks as he spoke. Rahan was amazed he could eat in front of a corpse.

“From the lividity in the legs, it’s been quite some time already. How long would you say? Missy?”

“It seems to have definitely been over half a day. The redness in the lower body is quite intense.”

“Yeah, from the stiffness of the flesh, I don’t think it was more than sixteen hours ago.”

Tinyou prodded at the corpse.

Doctor Liu’s silence likely meant Tinyou wasn’t wrong.

“Even accounting for some margin of error, it was evening to night time.”

Rahan touched his glasses. What had this man been doing at a time when work hours were long over?

“No doubt the cause of death was hanging, right?”

“Yes.”

Doctor Liu didn’t object to this either.

“Can you clearly state whether it was suicide or homicide?”

“We can’t tell that for sure. You probably want to consider homicide given the chair positioning I mentioned earlier.”

In response to Onso’s question, Tinyou shook his head. Doctor Liu nodded in agreement.

Maomao narrowed her eyes, looking up at the ceiling beam.

“What’s wrong, sis?”

“…”

Rather than answering, Maomao silently stepped on Rahan’s toes, but fortunately, his shoe tips were cushioned, mitigating the impact.

“What’s the matter?”

Rahan asked Maomao again.

“I was just thinking the rope is looped around the beam like a lasso. That way, you wouldn’t need a ladder.”

“A lasso?”

“It’d be faster to show you.”

Maomao glanced briefly at Doctor Liu.

“Then please demonstrate.”

Onso said, and Maomao tended to listen relatively obediently to him, if not Rahan.

“My apologies, then.”

Grasping the rope, Maomao first attached a weight and swung it around before throwing it towards the gap between the beam and ceiling.

“How would you tie this to the beam?”

“You’d immediately see by looking at the knot on the beam-attached rope. Like this.”

Maomao lightly tied the end of her rope and threaded the other end through.

“By pulling this rope…”

The rope tightened, binding itself securely to the beam.

Watching this, Rahan nodded with an “Ah, I see.”

“So that’s how it is.”

“What’s ’that’s how it is’?”

“Well, I was wondering how the culprit could’ve killed a capable martial officer if it was a homicide.”

The victim was a sturdy martial officer after all. He wouldn’t have been easily strangled.

“The culprit Father-in-law indicated certainly didn’t seem capable of killing a martial officer.”

“You saying that old man figured out who the culprit is?”

Maomao squinted suspiciously.

“Yup, Papa figured it out right away.”

Rakan suddenly appeared beside them, causing Maomao to instantly move away.

“Even if the culprit is known, Father-in-law doesn’t know the motive, method of killing, or evidence. Well, since we understand the killing method now, I guess it’s just the motive left?”

“The motive, huh.”

Maomao glanced briefly toward the long chairs.

“You know something?”

“More or less.”

“Tell me, sis.”

If it was orchestrated by one of Rakan’s subordinates, there could be various problems. Rahan wanted to proceed as smoothly as possible.

“I don’t really want to say.”

“If you don’t, we’ll be late for Lady Tsuki’s report.”

With an unpleasant look, Maomao opened her mouth.

“It’s not some deep motive though. The culprit is probably just a ‘woman’, right?”

“You’ve got it.”

Rahan was impressed. Rakan had referred to a “white go stone”. A “white go stone” indicated a woman, while a “black go stone” was a man.

Maomao snorted derisively.

“So that’s what it is?”

“That’s what it is.”

With an exasperated look, Maomao gazed at the naked corpse.