The Corpse Reader Read Online Free

sleep.

    Cí was up before dawn so he could meet Judge Feng at the residence of Bao-Pao—where government officials stayed whenever they were in the area—to examine the corpse. In the room next door, Lu was snoring loudly. By the time he awoke, Cí would be long gone.
    Cí dressed quietly and left the house. The rain had stopped, but the air was muggy. He took a deep breath before diving into the labyrinth of tight village roads, where a series of identical worm-eaten huts were laid out like carelessly aligned domino tiles. Every now and then there was the tinted light from a lantern in a doorway and the smell of tea brewing, and Cí could see the ghostly outlinesof peasants on their way to the fields. But the village was still mostly asleep; the only noise was the occasional wailing dog.
    It was dawn when he reached Sergeant Bao-Pao’s residence.
    Judge Feng was on the porch, dressed in a jet-black gown that complemented his cap. Though stone-faced, he drummed his fingers impatiently. After the usual reverences, Cí thanked him again.
    “I’m only going to take a quick look; don’t get your hopes up. And don’t look at me like that,” he said, seeing Cí’s disappointment. “I’m out of my jurisdiction, and you know I haven’t been taking on any criminal work lately. And don’t be so impatient. This is a small place. Finding the culprit will be as simple as shaking a stone out of your shoe.”
    Cí followed the judge to an annex where his personal assistant, a silent man with traces of Mongol in him, kept watch. Sergeant Bao-Pao was inside, along with Shang’s widow and sons—and Shang’s corpse. Seeing it, Cí couldn’t help but retch. The family had positioned it on a wooden chair as if Shang were still alive, the body upright and the head stitched to the neck with reeds. Despite the fact he had been washed, perfumed, and dressed, he still resembled a bloody scarecrow. Judge Feng paid his respects to the family and asked their permission to inspect the body, which the eldest son granted.
    “Remember what you have to do?” Feng asked Cí as he approached the body.
    Cí remembered perfectly well. He took a sheet of paper, an inkstone, and his best brush from his bag. Then he sat on the floor next to the corpse. Feng, commenting that it was unfortunate they’d already washed the corpse, came closer and began his work.
    “I, Judge Feng, in this, the twenty-second moon of the month of the Lotus, in the second year of the era of Kaixi and the fourteenth of the reign of our beloved Ningzong, Heaven’s Son and honored emperor of the Tsong dynasty, with the relevant familyauthorization, undertake the preliminary investigation, auxiliary to that which should be carried out no less than four hours after the notice of death to the magistrate of the Jianningfu Prefecture. In the presence of Cheng Li, the deceased’s eldest son; the widow, Mrs. Li; and the two other male children, Ze and Xin; as well as Bao-Pao, the local sergeant; and my assistant Cí as witness.”
    Cí noted down the dictation, repeating out loud each of Feng’s words.
    Feng continued, “The deceased, name Shang Li, son and grandson of Li. According to his eldest son, fifty-eight years of age at the time of death. Accountant, farmworker, carpenter. Last seen the day before yesterday, midday, having attended to his work in Bao-Pao’s warehouse, where we are now. His son declares that the deceased did not appear to have been ill, showed only the normal signs of aging, and had no known enemies.”
    Feng looked over to the son, who confirmed the facts, and then Feng asked Cí to recite his notes.
    “Due to an oversight by his family,” continued Feng disapprovingly, “the body has already been washed and clothed. They have confirmed that when it was brought to them, the body had no wounds other than the large cut that separated the head from the body—undoubtedly the cause of death. The mouth is exaggeratedly wide open, and”—he tried,