TGCFNM -Chapter 213 Too Stifled

After the Qi family had left, Chu Ling turned to Su He and said, “Another charred corpse was found in the courtyard. It needs to be examined as well.”

Su He nodded. “I brought all the tools. Once the body arrives, we can begin.”

“Where’s Master Wan?” Chu Ling asked.

Su He raised a hand to wipe his nose, his eyes darting to the side. “He said a letter came from home.”

Chu Ling immediately understood and nodded. “Family matters are indeed more important. I’ll stay here and wait for the body… In that case, Young Master Fu, please head back first. You must be tired today.”

“I won’t delay Your Excellency’s work then.” Fu Qingyu gave a slight nod and left with Qing Tong.

After everyone else had gone, Chu Ling couldn’t help but smack Su He on the shoulder and said through gritted teeth, “If you can’t lie, then don’t. It was way too obvious.”

Su He awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck. “Well… it wasn’t exactly a lie. A letter really did come from home.” It was just that the sender was Steward Zhu.

Chu Ling pinched the bridge of her nose in exasperation. “Next time, you’d be better off telling the truth. If you tell the truth, people might not even believe you.”

Su He asked seriously, “Why?”

Chu Ling snorted. “Because with that face of yours, no matter what you say, it sounds like you’re brushing people off.”

Su He hesitantly touched his face. Really?

Taking a breath, Chu Ling composed herself and said to Su He, “Let’s start with examining Master Qi’s body. We need to see exactly what happened to him.”

Su He replied directly, “I already conducted a discreet autopsy… His mouth and nose were blackened. His lungs contained a large amount of soot. Much of his body was burned and ulcerated. There were signs of struggle on his hands. His left leg, which was relatively intact, showed abrasions from scraping against the ground. He likely struggled to crawl out, but he was too old. So the conclusion should be death by burning.”

Chu Ling gave a slight nod. “I’ll go inside and take another look.” After saying that, she glanced back at Madam Qi before slowly walking in.

Master Qi lay flat on a wooden board. The body, already examined and stitched back up, now appeared entirely blackened, as though it had never been examined at all.

Madam Qi held back her tears as she drifted forward, lowering her gaze to look at Master Qi’s burned and rigid body. In the end, she couldn’t hold back any longer, and tears fell.

“How could you… how could you be so heartless!” Madam Qi cried, clenching her fist as if to strike him, only for it to pass lightly through.

Chu Ling sighed inwardly. Looking at the relatively intact clothes on Master Qi’s body, she asked, “Su He, have his clothes been checked?”

Su He shook his head. He was a coroner—he only examined bodies.

“Check his clothes for anything. Inspect them carefully,” Chu Ling said.

Su He nodded and began thoroughly examining the portions of Master Qi’s clothing that were still intact, searching to see if anything had been overlooked.

Meanwhile, Chu Ling stepped out of the mortuary. In a secluded spot, she looked at Madam Qi, who had followed her, and asked, “What did you mean just now? What do you mean by ‘so heartless’?”

Madam Qi bit her lip slightly and said through tears, “Forget it. He’s already dead. What’s the point in pursuing it now?”

“Of course it must be investigated,” Chu Ling said softly in consolation. “You have no children, no one to collect your body. If you cannot even be given the truth, then how unbearably stifled your whole life would have been.”

Madam Qi stared blankly at Chu Ling as tears slid down her cheeks. “My lord, my whole life… I truly have lived in suffocation.”

It turned out Madam Qi’s maiden surname had been Zhou. Her father had been a teacher at the county school.

Her parents had four children in total, and she was the youngest.

After her two elder brothers married and established their own households, they moved away. Another elder sister was married off to another town. Being the youngest, she remained at home to care for her aging parents. At first, this life was not bad at all. She loved reading; the house was filled with books. Even if she never married, spending her life tending to her parents would have been fine.

But then a matchmaker came.

The match she proposed was for Master Qi’s second marriage.

At that time, Miss Zhou still harbored hopes for the future and absolutely refused to marry a man thirty years her senior. But the matchmaker, relying on her silver tongue, persuaded her parents. They felt their daughter was getting older and could not remain at home forever. Hearing that the man taught in the capital and was a person of status, they agreed to marry her off.

And so, Miss Zhou married and became Master Qi’s second wife.

Though Master Qi married her, he treated her indifferently and did not allow her to bear children. Every day she was so busy her feet scarcely touched the ground. She had not a moment of leisure—reading was out of the question. She lost her only passion entirely.

Later, her mother-in-law, who had long tormented her, grew old and near death. Even then, fearing that she might covet the Qi family’s property, the old woman left all the family assets to the two children. She received nothing, only a small monthly allowance from Master Qi for household expenses.

But she knew her husband had money. He was merely guarding against her. The money he earned was deposited with his son; she had never seen any of it.

Eventually, she resigned herself to fate. She thought this was simply how her life would be. Perhaps when her husband died, she might finally live a little more easily.

The day before yesterday had been her husband’s seventieth birthday. She had been busy the entire day, so exhausted her body felt limp and her shoulders as heavy as if filled with lead. She had no choice but to return to her room for a short rest.

At that moment, her drunken husband suddenly invited her to drink. After she took a single cup and collapsed, the next time she woke, she found herself unable to move—trapped within a sea of flames. Her husband had intended to burn her alive.

“My lord, I cannot understand it. Why would he kill me? Why?”

“According to Master Qi’s son,” Chu Ling said quietly, “if you both burned to death together, it might be recorded as lovers who died in a joint suicide. Master Qi may have been trying to conceal something.”

Bai Su could not help asking, “You were the one who shared his pillow. Did you truly know nothing?”

Madam Qi shook her head. She truly knew nothing. She had been confined within the courtyard, unable to go anywhere. Even the half-old clothes she wore were castoffs from Master Qi’s daughter—fabric she herself disliked.

Chu Ling looked at Madam Qi and sighed. “Your life was more than stifled—it was painful. You should have sought a divorce long ago.”

Madam Qi shook her head. “No. I am already so old. If I divorced, people would laugh at me.”

“Caring too much about others’ opinions only makes life exhausting. A lifetime is short—why mistreat yourself?” Chu Ling knew that most people here could not overcome that mental barrier, so she suggested, “If it truly was your husband who drugged you, then I will have you buried separately under the Zhou name. How would that be?”

Madam Qi choked back a sob, lifted her sleeve to wipe her tears, and bowed deeply. “Thank you—thank you, my lord.”

Chu Ling raised her hand in a gesture of support.

“My lord!” Su He called as he walked out. “We found a piece of paper that wasn’t completely burned. It was hidden inside the lining of the clothes.”