Chapter 92 - 58: Make-Up on a Dead Man’s Face
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.