Book 1: Now we don’t hear the loom shuttle; we only hear our daughter sighing.
问心木兰
Chapter 6: Mulan investigates one’s heart (0)
Of course (seeing) the dead is scary!
“Owh……owh……”Poor Hua younger brother leaned against a tree at Liu Meng’s courtyard, as he vomited out everything in his belly.
He-he-he-he-he’s just scared of the dead, so what!
This is a corpse, not a dead pig, dead goat or dead cow, how could this be the same?
He Mulan gave the Hua younger brother who was producing all sorts of vomiting sound a glance helplessly, as she shook her head in amusement.
Luckily this person did not enlist in the military and partake in the war. If not, he will not be dying in the war, but will be dead due to vomiting.
The Liu family pair of siblings that had been entrusted to Liu YuAn’s tang uncle (1) was outside the courtyard. Their guardian initially did not want the two kids to head over as they might be badly upset. But they are not able to keep a hold of them. Once the guardians are not paying attention to them, they ran over to Liu Meng’s house.
As Liu Meng is the main suspect, he was tightly tied up by the muscular servants that were sent by Liu village chief. But his face showed that he was full of grievances. Seeing He Mulan examining the corpse, he immediately shouted: “This Xianbei lord, yesterday you saw it too, when this lowly one went to his house to address my vengeance I brought my bat, so why would I kill him at my family’s courtyard with a dagger!”
He Mulan ignored him. She only lowered her head as she scrutinized Liu YuAn’s wounds.
“Lord You has arrived! Official Head Zhang has arrived!” The Liu villagers joyfully welcomed them. They brought Yucheng county’s magistrate and Yucheng county’s official head into Liu Meng’s courtyard.
At this era, there is no imperial examination yet. In DaWei, local governance was dependent on Han-ren’s nobles and their descendants and disciples. Xianbei-ren oversaw the army and Xianbei 36 departments of ministerial affairs.
The county’s magistrate is Liang county You magistrate’s disciple, known as You Ke. As he only turned 24 this year, he is considered a young government official.
You Ke brought the County government’s official head, coroner and scribe to the scene of the crime. He saw a Xianbei male kneeling on the floor as he was examining the corpse. Standing beside him were the village chief and the (Liu) land’s head. Seeing this sight, he can’t help but be taken aback.
“May I ask, the commanding head, this is……?”
“This is Hua family’s General. The person who was known as The Valiant General.”
The head let out a cough. He did not reveal Hua Mulan’s identity in front of the masses of Liu villagers, but he displayed a manner which would let You Ke secretly know of her identity.
Xianbei-ren prize military achievements the most. But the difficulty of a Xianbei commoner being promoted was about the same as Han-ren. Hua Mulan entered the military in the status of an ordinary soldier, not Xianbei nobility. She got promoted to a 5-ranked “valiant general” before she was 30 years old and, in the army, this was considered rare.
Magistrate You was shocked after hearing it. He scanned the tall and skinny “man’s” back view. He almost did not dare to believe that this skinny and weak-looking “man” who was taller than him is the legendary heroine “Hua Mulan”.
At the corner, He Mulan who had already checked the corpse stood up. She spoke to the magistrate and the official head who just came: “Magistrate You came at the right time. There’s an 80 to 90% chance that this Liu YuAn was not killed by him, instead, he committed suicide.”
After the official head heard what He Mulan said, he immediately knelt to examine the corpse at the side. The coroner here was a man who belonged to the untouchables (2). From the start till the end he did not dare to instruct anybody. Seeing the official head examining the body, he immediately knelt to the side to start the inspection of the corpse and the wounds.
When the coroner flipped over the corpse, Hua younger brother came back from vomiting. He saw Liu family’s lad was littered with over 17 to 18 wounds and the corpse that was in a mess. Shortly after, he felt a surging in his stomach. Yet again, he ran to another side to vomit out everything. He had even vomited bile out.
“I will have to trouble the head to dispatch two attendants to send my brother out.” He Mulan was not shocked by the sight of the corpse, but she was shocked by the manner of Hua younger brother who looked like he vomited out his heart, liver, and stomach.
To prevent the old Hua family’s sole male descendant from dying due to vomiting here, He Mulan can only let someone send him out.
Seeing the head’s attendant leading Hua younger brother out, He Mulan then approached Magistrate You, clarifying: “When another person hurts someone, the stab wound should appear heavier when it enters, and when the knife should be pulled out lightly. Right now, Liu YuAn’s wound appeared like the knife slid into his body lightly, while the pulling out action appeared heavier. Comparing the wounds in his body, it appears that it was arranged in the same pattern. The wounds were not scattered messily. His hands and legs did not suffer from any form of injury from resistance. His nails and other parts of his body did not show any obvious sign of injuries from resistance or a struggle.”
She contemplated for a moment, then she extrapolated what had happened at the scene. “His whole body had 18 knife wounds. Other than the two stab wounds to his heart that were fatal, the rest of the other wounds were not fatal. Also, towards the left side of the body there were more wounds, while on the right side, there were lesser wounds. There weren’t any wounds on his back or the back of his head. This reflects that the wounds were created by himself who was right-handed.”
“Normally, if someone encounters someone who was stabbing him, there should be some signs of struggle or signs of the victim trying to escape. These 18 wounds were all frontal wounds. There is a possibility that he was tied up and could not move, but there are no bodily marks of him being tied up.”
“From this, we can deduce that Liu YuAn who was a right-hander stabbed the non-fatal parts of his body with a dagger for over ten times. He tried to make it seem as if he was getting murdered. Lastly, using the water vat at the side, he washed his body clean of any shreds of evidence of his deeds. He then moved beside the water vat to wait for his death. This person should have consumed alcohol, so he felt more courageous, as there is a faint alcoholic smell in his mouth. Between his teeth there is blood, it should be caused by the time when he was bearing the pain. He might have bitten down on something too hard which caused the blood. Therefore when he was going in and out of the courtyard, he did not cause a commotion to allow others to discover this.”
You Ke almost felt his jaw drop as he witnessed He Mulan clearly explain her conjectures which were akin to an “autopsy report”. After hearing what she had said, beside her, the brave villagers and the able-bodied men who are guarding the scene of the crime felt their faces turn white.
“Liu YuAn died due to blood loss. The water vat must have been mixed with fresh blood for it to attract so many bugs. The time of death should be around last night. Before he bled to death, he must have quietly lied down somewhere to await his death. If it was because of a struggle which led to his death, fresh blood should be splattered around the courtyard. If he’s (Liu Meng) the one who killed (Liu YuAn), such a clean scene of the crime would mean that he previously shifted the corpse into the courtyard. My Lord can head over to the perimeter around Liu house to do an inspection. If there are no obvious traces (of him moving the corpse), I am afraid this will be what had transgressed.”
You Ke, who heard what Hua Mulan had said felt his body go cold. Just by listening to her he could feel Liu YuAn’s feelings of hopelessness and conviction at that moment. Adding on to the fact that he still had children, so he is different from those people who could completely disregard everything and go all out.
That coroner who was about to examine the deceased ripped off all the deceased’s clothing to look at the wounds. Hearing what the Xianbei man had said, he immediately followed her directions to inspect. He moved over to the nose and mouth area to get a whiff, then, he pried open the mouth. He nodded towards the official head, signifying that what she had said was correct.
The official head had been working for a very long time. In a day-to-day basis, he had seen many cases of miscarriage of justice and corpses. But he had never met a case so strange. He went as far as to mutilate his body to this degree that would make it appear like he was killed.
He Mulan saw that the deceased’s clothes were peeled off his body by the coroner. She immediately headed over to examine the lower neck, lower abdomen and a few other parts of his body to search for other possible parts of his body that were wounded. But she could not find any abnormalities, which only proved to confirm her conjecture.
The head, the village chief and Magistrate You knew that Hua Mulan was a female. Seeing her unabashed behaviour when she glanced at a man’s naked body to inspect the abdominal area, they cannot help but marvel.
If she was any other female, no matter how brave they were, they would have to take a step or two back. (3)
“There is a feud between Liu YuAn and Liu Meng?” Magistrate You saw that the official head and the coroner said that the wounds looked odd. He turned to Liu Meng in a hurry. He could not understand what kind of hatred would cause a tribesman of the same tribe to frame another using his death.
“My Lord, previously, Liu Meng and Liu YuAn had always been in dispute. It is related to his family’s land deed.” Elder Liu murmured into Magistrate You’s ears. While He Mulan stood at the side, looking at the corpse. No one knew what she was thinking.
A moment later, a yamen runner discovered a piece of wood that had bite marks on it at the courtyard. According to what He Mulan had deduced; this should be the object that Liu YuAn bit into by using to reduce his pain. Magistrate You saw that this case was so easily resolved and was overjoyed. In a hurry, he gathered all his subordinates to command them to bring the suspect and all the other parties who were implicated in the case back to Yucheng county.
This included Hua Mulan, the pair of Liu family children and the Liu family’s tang uncle.
Liu Meng got to know that he had a chance to wash his status as a prime suspect. Therefore, he repeatedly kowtowed to He Mulan who made the conjecture. He Mulan gently moved away, not accepting his grateful gestures of kowtows.
While she was leaving Liu house’s courtyard, He Mulan passed by the pair of Liu family siblings. The Liu family’s son coldly spat at her.
In the eyes of the pair of siblings, it held animosity, helplessness, and fear towards the future.
They might not have known what really happened to their father, but they knew that because of what she had deduced, their lives from now on would be likely different.
Just yesterday, she had saved the boy from being beaten up. His tears and snot were rubbed against her chest. His sister’s soft and weak “thanks” were whispered to her.
However, today, she was treated like their enemies.
“Hey, brat, what are you doing! Are you looking for a beating!” Hua younger brother had vomited till his legs had gone soft. When he blindly saw that the kid had spit on his sister, suddenly, his legs do not feel soft and his head doesn’t hurt. Since he regains his senses, he was about to yell at them.
“Forget it, he was just afraid.” He Mulan took a look at the spit on her feet. She had a complicated expression as she ascended the horse.
He was just afraid.
He could not hate his father. He was also not courageous and had the power to continue hating the strong Liu Meng. To him, hatred cost nothing. The safest option now was to feel apologetic in his heart, so he’d obviously appear to himself as not the bad person.
In her many years of handling cases, she had seen too many situations like this. And these made her numb.
It was just saliva. Compared to that, she had been thrown eggs at and stones at before.
After He Mulan ascended onto the horse, she turned her head to find that a bunch of villagers was carrying Liu YuAn’s corpse on to the bull cart. The way they carried it was akin to how they carried a sack riddled with holes or a dead pig.
Once a person dies, he would be left with nothing.
The person who wanted to use death to defend himself, exposed himself.
There was always a point of time where He Mulan hated her profession to the core. This is a job that sometimes needed them to completely forgo glorious praises. Although she was already not a forensic scientist now, her body, her memories, and her mouth and tongue were no longer hers, she would continue to mirror her actions (in her past life).
This is her expertise, her domain. In her own domain, she is as confident in it as a god.
Sometimes, the truth and justice were not relative. It was even more so for equality and justice. It was merely pure truth.
Sometimes when the truth was revealed, it brought about pain for many people.
Should she continue with what she was doing?
Moments later, He Mulan threw her vulnerabilities to the back of her mind. She placed her doubts back to the bottom of her heart.
Every now and then, she would approve of what she was doing once again.
But the next time, she would still do it like what she did today.
“Yip!”
(0) 问心 came from the phrase 问心无愧. 问心无愧 is used when one is being unashamed in having a clear conscience when questioned or being suspected. The literal meaning of 问心 is to question one’s heart. The title of this chapter would mean that Hua Mulan examines or investigates probably Liu YuAn or Liu Meng’s conscious.
(1)Tang uncle: father’s side uncle. It could be Liu YuAn’s brother & the children’s uncle OR Liu YuAn’s father’s brother & Liu YuAn’s uncle. It was not made explicit here.
(2) untouchables: Untouchability, in its literal sense, is the practice of ostracizing a minority group by segregating them from the mainstream by social custom or legal mandate. (From google)
In ancient China, the untouchables (ruan ji) refers to people not belonging farmers, businessmen…etc in social rank list. They are a special social class whose social status is lower than that of ordinary people in a hierarchical society. They generally cannot marry ordinary people. In many societies, it is deemed as a form of slavery. The Ruan Ji system has existed since ancient times and was abolished during the reign of Emperor Yongzheng of the Qing Dynasty.
(3) take a step or two back: (literal translation) It means to shun or avoid doing something.
Fleur’s corner:
Early release in lieu of me not putting in another small info snippet about Mulan!! I thought more of you guys would appreciate an early update instead of more historical snippets. :3 But please do check out the , to show support for what I’ve done!
I’m in the process of editing ch3 with my editor. There might be some mistakes there about Liu JiaLang. Please bear with me.
There will be a chapter released next week. Do look forward to it!
Follow me on Tumblr for quicker updates!! RSS is up for those who use it. Click on RSS button on the menu bar to add it to your RSS feed.