Chu Chu motioned for Xiao Jin Yu to wait three steps away while she ran over to peer into the pigsty, letting out a startled "Yah!"
"What's wrong?"
Before Chu Chu could answer, she gasped again, "Huh?"
"Chu Chu..."
Before she could turn and speak, Zheng Youde's voice rang out.
"You two... you two done looking? If you're done, start the corpse examination!"
Zheng Youde shouted from seven or eight steps away, but he was panting from exhaustion and shivering from the cold, making his voice tremble and devoid of any official authority.
Chu Chu turned around, pursing her lips in distress. "This kind of corpse... isn't my responsibility."
Zheng Youde felt smoke practically coming out of his head. It must have been those two newly taken concubines causing a ruckus during the New Year ancestral worship, offending the ancestors. Otherwise, why would nothing go right since the yamen opened today? Even Chu Chu, who usually obeyed every word, was arguing with him. "If it's not your responsibility, then whose is it?"
Chu Chu gestured with her chin toward the kitchen ahead. "Theirs."
Both Xiao Jin Yu and Zheng Youde froze.
Corpses... under the kitchen's jurisdiction?
Xiao Jin Yu couldn't help but wheel himself closer to glance into the pigsty. He saw two large white pigs lying motionless opposite each other, eyes closed, blood trickling from their mouths—clearly dead.
But aside from these two dead pigs, he truly didn't see any body parts Zheng Youde had mentioned.
Zheng Youde was, after all, a county magistrate—surely he could tell the difference between dead pigs and dead people...
Xiao Jin Yu frowned slightly, watching Zheng Youde slowly shuffling over. "County Magistrate Zheng, are you certain you saw a human body part in here?"
"Nonsense! It was a huge arm!"
The registrar, already drenched in sweat, couldn't resist adding, "I saw it with my own eyes as well... undoubtedly a human hand... scholars do not speak falsely..."
Xiao Jin Yu frowned and looked carefully into the pigsty again, his gaze finally settling on the muddy area between the two pigs.
"Chu Chu," Xiao Jin Yu raised a hand to point, "see what that is..."
Chu Chu followed his finger and spotted something white peeking out of the black mud, as if buried. She ran to the woodpile outside the kitchen, pulled out a long dry branch, reached into the pigsty, and poked at the white spot, lifting out a white fragment.
Chu Chu held it up for a closer look. "Yah! It's bone! Human bone!"
She quickly poked around a few more times, unearthing several other small, broken bone fragments from the same area.
"Several pieces of human bone!"
Zheng Youde finally made his way over, fuming as he leaned against the pigsty railing. "What bones! It was a human hand! The hand... the hand... where is it! Why are the pigs dead!"
Xiao Jin Yu looked coolly at Zheng Youde, who seemed to have seen a ghost. "When you saw the dismembered body earlier, were these two pigs still alive?"
"Not just alive... they were snorting and grunting for food!"
Xiao Jin Yu's expression grew colder. "And you didn't post any yamen guards here?"
Zheng Youde already felt he'd hit rock bottom in misfortune, and now being questioned like this by a tea merchant made him furious. "This is my yamen! My yamen! Who would dare cause trouble! Pigs!"
"Exactly. Pigs."
Zheng Youde stared blankly. Chu Chu also froze, leaning in to whisper by Xiao Jin Yu's ear, "Wang Ye, the pigs are already dead..."
Xiao Jin Yu nodded slightly. "These two pigs died from eating that human arm.""Nonsense!" Zheng Youde couldn't take it anymore. "People eat pigs, not the other way around!"
Xiao Jin Yu frowned slightly. "Do you know how to feed pigs?"
Zheng Youde was taken aback but still answered, "Of course I do."
"You don't even know what pigs eat. You need to learn again."
Zheng Youde gripped the railing so hard his chubby hands turned white. "What... what do pigs eat?!"
"Pigs eat everything," Xiao Jin Yu glanced at the bone fragments Chu Chu had brought up, "including humans."
Chu Chu was startled—this was her first time hearing that pigs eat people too. She immediately crouched down to carefully examine the cross-sections of the bone fragments, where she spotted several clear, deep tooth marks. The bones had clearly been bitten through.
"It's true! It really was eaten by pigs!"
Zheng Youde's face turned pale. "Non... nonsense!" He grabbed the registrar's shoulder and staggered over to see for himself.
Chu Chu moved closer to Xiao Jin Yu and whispered, "Wang Ye, how did you know pigs eat people?"
"I read it in a book..."
"Those literary collections you read actually talk about pigs?"
Xiao Jin Yu gave a faint, bitter smile. "No... it was in a book about pig farming."
"You read books about pig farming too?"
Xiao Jin Yu lowered his voice to the softest possible whisper. "Didn't Grandfather tell me to learn how to feed pigs..."
Chu Chu suddenly jumped up. "No! You can't learn how to feed pigs anymore!"
Xiao Jin Yu was stunned. Though he couldn't be happier to hear those words, habit compelled him to ask, "Why?"
"What if you fell into the pigpen and got eaten by the pigs?!"
Xiao Jin Yu had contemplated many ways to die, but this one had never crossed his mind.
"...If I don't learn, Grandfather will get angry again."
"I'll talk to Grandfather!"
"Alright..."
Zheng Youde stared for a long time but couldn't make anything out—just a few broken bones. The large tooth marks on them sent chills down his spine.
Zheng Youde had no choice but to shuffle back step by step. He forced a stern expression and looked at Xiao Jin Yu, whose face was also slightly pale. "Fine, so pigs eat people... but how could they die from it?"
☆ Chapter 55: Four Happiness Meatballs (Part 14)
Xiao Jin Yu furrowed his brows slightly and looked again at the two dead pigs in the pen. "Poisoned."
Zheng Youde stared blankly. "Human flesh... is poisonous?"
Chu Chu quickly interjected, "Human flesh isn't poisonous at all!" She tugged at Xiao Jin Yu's sleeve. "Detective Tang, Lord Tan, and Magistrate Ji all ate it, and they were perfectly fine!"
Zheng Youde felt his scalp go numb, and the registrar's legs trembled uncontrollably.
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