The Corpse Reader

16

They followed the man who’d woken them. Cí had no idea who he was, and only caught brief glimpses of the man’s face beneath his threadbare hood. He stopped at every corner to make sure they weren’t being followed before signaling them on. They kept to dark streets and headed westward, toward the mountains, where the main Buddhist monastery, the Palace of Chosen Souls, was located. By the time they reached the Great Pagoda with its tower of two thousand stairs, the night had grown particularly gloomy, with clouds almost entirely obscuring the moon.

The man signaled to them to wait while he identified himself to the entrance guard. Cí tried to get Xu to explain what was happening, but Xu just told him to keep his mouth shut.

In place of the unknown man, an old monk with pale eyes appeared. Xu bowed, and Cí followed suit. The monk returned the reverence and warmly asked them to come with him. Cí was surprised by the ornate gilding on the temple walls and its contrast to the dour solemnity of Confucian temples. After passing through the first rooms, they entered a hallway, plain in comparison, which led to the wing where cremations took place. The smell of burning flesh grew strong. Cí was strangely intimidated by it all.

They came to a cavernous room hewn out of the mountainside. A pall of ash hung in the air. A large pyre was burning up ahead, and, by Cí’s count, there were about ten people in the room aside from the deceased.

Xu walked toward a body next to the pyre. He gestured for Cí to follow and asked the people present to give Cí room for his examination.

As Cí knelt down next to the corpse, Xu whispered to him. “Don’t be nervous, but this was the boss of one of the city’s worst gangs. And these men around us are his sons. They would like it if we could tell them who killed him.”

“What makes them think we can find that out?” he whispered back, trying to appear calm by beginning to prod and examine the body.

“Because…I told them you could.”

“You what?”

Xu signaled for him to keep his voice down.

“Well, tell them you got it wrong, and let’s get out of here.”

“Mmm…can’t.”

“Why’s that?”

Xu gulped. “Because they’ve already paid.”

Cí glanced at the family members. Their expressions were cold and cutting—just like their daggers, thought Cí. He knew if he didn’t play this right, there could be two more corpses added to the pile.

He asked for more light and did his best to appear unconcerned, gruff even. Secretly he was praying he could remember Feng’s teachings.

He brought the lantern up to the dead man’s face: a mess of dried blood and cuts, one ear missing, and the cheekbones smashed in. This was gratuitous violence; none of these wounds looked mortal. The rigidity of the body and the coloration of the skin suggested he’d been dead at least four days. Cí turned to the family members to ask them what they knew about the circumstances of death, and whether any kind of official had looked at the body.

“No one’s examined him,” said one of the elders. “He was found at the bottom of a well in his garden, by a servant.” The elder went on to remind Cí of the deal, in case he’d forgotten: he had to give them the name of the assassin.

Cí shot an angry look at Xu and took a deep breath. The most important thing, he knew, was to seem infallible.

“Remember, it isn’t all down to me,” Cí said, raising his voice so everyone could hear. “Yes, I have the gift of sight and telling, but first come the gods, and as we all know, their will is inscrutable.” He looked toward the old monk for approval.

The monk agreed, bowing. The family members didn’t look impressed.

Cí cleared his throat and returned to his examination. The neck was intact, but when Cí pulled back the sheet covering the body, he found the intestines exposed and covered with writhing maggots. The stench was so strong that Cí vomited immediately. When Cí recovered he asked for some cotton soaked in hemp oil, and he stuffed them up his nose the moment they were handed to him. Then he asked the attending monks to make a pit to lay the body in.

“But he was Buddhist,” said Xu. “They will cremate him.”

Cí explained that the pit wasn’t for burying the body but to warm it. It was something Feng often did as part of his examinations, and it would buy Cí some time, too. As the monks dug, Cí began the more detailed part of his examination.

“With the firstborn’s permission: We have here an honorable male of approximately sixty years. There are no scars or marks on the body to suggest that he had any sort of serious or even mortal illness.” Cí looked around at the family members. “His skin is tender and gives easily under touch, but it is also brittle. He has thin, white hair, which comes out easily when pulled. The bruises to his head and face were likely caused by a blunt instrument.”

He stopped, looking closely at the corpse’s lips. He made a mental note, and then carried on with his commentary.

“The upper torso shows scratches, probably from having been dragged along the ground. In the abdominal area,” he continued, trying his best to hide his revulsion, “there is a deep cut reaching from the bottom of the left lung to the right groin; the innards have spilled out of this incision.” He broke off to force down another retch. “The intestines are distended, unlike the stomach itself. The penis looks normal. The legs don’t have any scratches on them.”

What have you got me into, Xu? It’s not easy figuring out how someone died—what on earth made you think I could identify the killer, too?

He got the monks to stop digging for a moment and help him turn the body over; unfortunately, there were no marks on the back to help him complete a theory he’d begun to form, so he covered up the body.

“It would appear that the cause of death was the large gash across the gut. That led to the viscera—”

“Gods!” shouted one of the older men of the family. “We haven’t paid you to spell out the obvious!” He gestured to a young, thin man with a scar down his face, who stepped forward and, without a word, grabbed Cí by the hair and held a dagger to his throat.

The older man took a stub of a candle and placed it on the ground next to Cí.

“You’ve got until this burns down to give us an answer. If you haven’t figured it out by then, we’ll be mourning you and your partner, too.”

Cí shuddered; he still hadn’t much of an idea of the cause of death. He glanced at Xu, who didn’t return the look.

Cí had embers brought from the kitchen and spread out across the pit. Once they died down, Cí laid a wicker mat over them and sprinkled it with vinegar. Then he had the body laid on top of the mat and covered with a blanket.

Cí’s stomach was in knots. He kneeled down to examine the corpse’s ankles.

“As I was saying, it might seem as if the gash killed him, but all it actually proves is how cunning and depraved the killer was.” He ran his fingers over the ankles. “The killer was cold, calculating, disturbed. He made sure he had plenty of time to carry out the crime, and he manipulated the body so that we’d mistake the cause of death.”

He had the room’s attention now. He tried to focus on what to say, and not on the weak, guttering flame.

“This man did not die from the incision. I know this because the skin immediately around the gash has not attracted worms; that is, when the incision was made, no blood flowed. And that means that when the incision was made, he had already been dead a few hours.”

A startled murmur went around the room.

“Nor did he die from drowning. His stomach is empty, and there are no food particles in his nostrils or mouth, nor any insects or the kind of muck you usually associate with wells. Had he been dropped in the well alive, he almost certainly would have swallowed an amount of this kind of matter. I therefore conclude that he was dead before he was thrown into the well.”

“He wasn’t stabbed or drowned, and he wasn’t beaten to death,” said one of the sons. “So how did he die?”

Cí was all too aware that his and Xu’s lives were on the line. The candle was almost burned down. He weighed his words carefully.

“My conclusion is that your father was poisoned.” Another murmur went around. “Black lips and dark tongue—these are sure signs of one thing, and one thing only: cinnabar, also known as red mercury, the Taoist’s fatal elixir and the demented alchemist’s venom. After he was dead, under cover of night, your father was dragged by his ankles, face down, and thrown most disgracefully into the well in his own garden. But the killer hadn’t finished. He still had time to open up the stomach and mutilate the face—both of which were intended purely to throw us off.”

“How can you possibly know all this?” came a voice.

“The marks revealed by the vinegar vapor are incontrovertible.” He pointed to the finger imprints on the ankles. “And then, the scratches on the stomach, and the nails, which have so much soil under them, complete the picture.”

“This is all very impressive, but you still haven’t given us the name. The name!” the elder bellowed suddenly, and the youth sprang forward again, grabbing Xu and putting the knife to his neck.

A few moments passed; the room was silent.

The elder wasn’t bluffing; he nodded to the youth, who moved to slice Xu’s throat.

“The Great Deceiver!” shouted Cí. It was the first thing that came to his mind.

The youth looked to the elder for direction.

“That’s the name of the man you’re after,” said Cí.

He glanced at Xu, hoping he’d know what to do next. But Xu’s eyes were pressed shut in terror.

“Do it,” said the elder.

Xu’s eyes were suddenly wide open. “Chang!” Xu shouted. “The Great Deceiver is also known as Chang!”

The elder went pale.

“Chang?” He reached a trembling hand into his robe and brought out a knife that glinted in the light. He advanced slowly on one of the men, who took a few terrified steps back.

The elder motioned to the others, and several of the men took hold of Chang. He denied his guilt at first, but when they started pulling out his fingernails, he burst out with the admission, but he said he hadn’t meant to do it.

They took their time putting him to death; the elder slit Chang’s neck veins, prolonging the process with great skill. Finally, Chang breathed his last and collapsed forward.

Then the men turned to Cí and bowed, and the elder handed Xu a purse full of coins.

“The rest of your money.” Though Xu was still recovering from the shock, he managed to return the elder’s bow. “Now, if you’ll allow us, it’s time for us to honor our dead.”

Xu made to leave, but Cí stopped him.

“Hear me!” Cí exhorted the room. “The gods have spoken through us. It was their will that the murderer be revealed. By the power vested in me, I order you to never breathe a word of what has happened here this evening. Not another soul can know. If anyone shares this secret, all hell’s devils and demons will pursue him, and his family, and death will be close on their heels.”

The elder considered the words, pursing his lips. Finally he gave another bow and withdrew with his contingent. Cí and Xu were shown the exit by the monk who had brought them in.

The pair made their way back into the city, coming back down the hill atop which the Great Pagoda sat. There was a glimmer of the rising sun out to sea—a sun that barely seemed real to Cí. They walked in silence, each of them lost in thought over what had happened. As they approached the city wall, Xu turned to face Cí.

“What the hell did you think you were doing, threatening them like that? They know everyone. If not for your clever little sermon, everyone would be hearing about us; we’d be rolling in clients. We’d make enough to buy ourselves our own cemetery! You just threw it all away!”

Cí didn’t think he could tell Xu that a sheriff was trying to track him down. But that didn’t stop his stomach from churning with anger. Their lives had been on the line, and Xu didn’t even see fit to thank him for saving them. All Xu cared about was the future of the business.

He had a sudden urge to get away from Xu—to take Third and get away, anywhere.

“Is this how you repay me?” Cí said.

“Hey, careful now!” shouted Xu. “Don’t try and take all the credit. I named Chang!”

“OK, I get it,” he said. “You’d have preferred it if I let that guy slit your throat. It would have been better, you reckon, if I’d said nothing about the corpse.”

“I named Chang!” repeated Xu.

“OK! Who cares? When it comes down to it, this is going to be the last time we argue like this.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I’m never going to get involved in another situation like that one just because you see a chance to make a bit of money. I still have no idea what the hell you were thinking. I’ve not even finished my studies, and you think it’s a good idea to cart me out in front of those lunatics.”

Xu had opened the purse and was biting one of the coins.

“They’re real silver!”

“I don’t need a silver coffin,” muttered Cí.

“What would you like, then? One made of flax? Because that’s what you’re headed for if you carry on like you have been.”

Cí started to walk away.

“Where are you going?” Xu hurried after Cí. “Here.” Xu emptied out roughly a third of the money. “That’s more than you could make in six months doing anything else.”

Cí rejected it. He knew where avarice led—his father had taught him that much.

“Goddamn, boy. What are you about?”

“That man, Chang, maybe he—”

“Maybe he what?” roared Xu.

“Maybe he was innocent. What made you name him?”

“Innocent! Don’t make me laugh. All of those men were more than capable of butchering their own children. And anyway, he confessed in the end, didn’t he? I knew Chang—everyone knew Chang—and it was common knowledge he was out for the crown. And what does it matter, anyway? He was a thief, a lowlife; sooner or later he’d have ended up dead. It’s better that you and I become a little less poor in the bargain.”

“I don’t care about any of that. You didn’t know for sure. You didn’t have the proof, and without that no one should be accused. Maybe it was only the torture that made him confess. No, I’m never doing anything like that again. Get it? I’ll dig graves, probe patients, examine people dead or alive—but I’ll never again accuse someone without proper proof. If you ask me to do that, the first thing I’ll do is point my finger at you.”

For the rest of the walk, Xu shot poisonous looks at Cí. But Cí didn’t care; he was agonizing over what to do next.

The money Xu had offered him changed things: it meant he could actually take Third and get out of Lin’an—away from all this danger. But Lin’an still held the promise of all his dreams: university, the Imperial exams, and the chance, if he passed them, to win back his father’s honor.

He didn’t want to submit to Xu’s crazy whims; he’d seen what the consequences might be. And he didn’t much want to wait around for Kao to come and finish him off, either.

He kicked a stone and cursed.

He bemoaned not having his father for advice. Or Feng. Someone upright and virtuous to help him through these troubles. He swore to himself that his children, if he ever had any, would never have to suffer this sort of disgrace. He’d do anything to make them proud of him. Everything that had been snatched from his father, he’d win back. That would be their inheritance.

When they arrived at Xu’s houseboat, Cí still hadn’t decided what to do, but Xu’s stance made it easier for him.

“You’ve got two choices, boy,” he said, stepping one foot onto the houseboat. “Keep on working like you have been, or get out of here. Simple.”

Cí looked at Xu and gritted his teeth. He only had one option, really: to keep his sister alive.