The Imperial Coroner

When the old clerk finished speaking with deliberate slowness, Chu Chu had already caught her breath and responded crisply, "Understood!"

"Ah, good, good..."

While nodding and muttering, the old clerk silently took deep breaths. Had it not been for the special instructions from the two gentlemen currently hiding behind the screen, he would have roared at her sharply like scolding a grandson after that sudden table slap just to vent his frustration.

Not only had those two gentlemen instructed him to be gentle and patient with this young girl, they had also replaced the previously prepared corpse examination legal questions with completely unrelated ones.

Fortunately, having served as a clerk in the Ministry of Justice for over twenty years, he hadn't developed any other particular skills except one that had been honed to perfection - obedience.

So the old clerk calmly buried his head in the application form Chu Chu had filled out earlier and asked kindly, like a grandfather from the neighborhood, "Young lady, you were born in the second year of Xiangxing?"

"The ninth day of the first month in the second year of Xiangxing." Chu Chu couldn't immediately figure out what connection her birth date might have with being a coroner. Suddenly thinking that perhaps the capital had many rules and selecting coroners required considering auspicious signs and calculating birth characters, she quickly added, "My father said girls born in the first month are blessed with Empress fate."

"Oh, indeed, that's true..."

While slowly writing on the paper beside him, the old clerk silently thought to himself that if such sayings all came true, then emperors and princes throughout history would all have been exhausted to death in bed...

"How many people in your family?"

"My grandparents, my father, and my elder brother."

"You wrote on the form... your background is official aristocracy, scholarly family, generations of loyal servants?"

Chu Chu straightened her back and lifted her chin, "Exactly!"

The old clerk looked up at her plain appearance and silently stroked his beard, "Then where does your esteemed father currently serve as an official, and what position does he hold?"

"My family has been coroners for generations. My grandfather's grandfather served as a coroner in the government office. My father is now the chief coroner at the Zizhu County office and has solved many difficult cases for the county." Seeing the old clerk frozen in place, Chu Chu hurriedly added, "You know Zizhu County, right? That Zizhu County in Suzhou, County Magistrate Zheng's Zizhu County..."

"Know it, know it... how could I not know it, County Magistrate Zheng..." After letting this place name he had never heard of in his life drift from his mind, the old clerk said impassively, "But young lady, if your family has been coroners for generations, how does that make you official aristocracy?"

Chu Chu blinked, looking at the old clerk with confusion, "Working for the government means being an official, doesn't it?"

So that's what they meant by official aristocracy...

The old clerk released the beard he had nearly twisted off, coughed twice, and wrote on the paper while saying, "Yes, yes... then tell me, what's the explanation for scholarly family?"

"We have so many books about medicine and corpse examination at home that even the fastest-reading scholar couldn't finish them in three consecutive months! I've read all the books about corpse examination in our county, and I also know how to write a corpse manifest."

What a scholarly family indeed...

The old clerk shook his head with a bitter smile and continued making conversation, "Filling out corpse manifests is the duty of the court clerks, not the coroner's responsibility..."

"I know. But coroners need to sign the corpse manifests too. My father said we at least need to be able to understand them, otherwise we wouldn't even know if those court clerks were cheating us."The old clerk silently lifted his head and glanced at Chu Chu. Did this young girl truly not know that the person sitting before her was precisely a clerk from the Ministry of Justice?

"This generation of loyal officials..." The old clerk cleared his throat twice. "You'd better tell me how much you know about the Three Law Divisions."

Chu Chu froze. "Three Law Divisions?"

She vaguely remembered that on their way to the western examination room earlier, when she mentioned the Six Doors to Uncle Qi, he had muttered something about the Three Law Divisions. She felt they were talking about completely different matters, so she only half-listened without paying much attention, naturally never asking what these Three Law Divisions were.

Seeing Chu Chu hesitate, the old clerk prompted, "Don't know the Three Law Divisions? They are the Ministry of Justice, the Dali Temple, and the Censorate. Do you know what these three places do?"

Chu Chu shook her head blankly. She had heard of these three places—they were all in the capital and related to legal cases—but she had no idea what each specifically did.

But if she said nothing now, wouldn't that mean she failed to answer the question? The previous round of injury examination had already been disrupted by the man in the wheelchair. She couldn't perform poorly in this round too. Even if she had to force it, she had to say something!

In her panic, Chu Chu suddenly recalled a few vague phrases Uncle Qi had muttered and hurriedly said, "But... I know the head of the Three Law Divisions. The head of the Three Law Divisions is Wang Ye. I even kowtowed to him outside the Ministry of Justice this morning."

The old clerk raised an eyebrow. "You know Prince An?"

"Yes, yes! It's Prince An!"

The old clerk glanced casually toward the side screen. "Then tell me, what do you know about Prince An?"

Chu Chu racked her brain for Uncle Qi's muddled mutterings and began spilling them out: "Prince An is the current emperor's seventh imperial uncle. He's in poor health and has a bad temper..."

Having only heard it secondhand, she lacked confidence. The moment she saw the old clerk frown, her heart sank in panic, and her face flushed red with anxiety. "I—I also know Wang Ye's name! I know both his given name and courtesy name!"

Seeing Chu Chu's distress, the old clerk quickly soothed her as if comforting a grandchild. "Alright, alright... Don't rush, don't rush. Take your time, speak slowly..."

Chu Chu steadied herself and licked her lips. She remembered Uncle Qi saying it exactly this way—it had to be correct. Suddenly, it struck her that her previous remarks had been about the prince's flaws, no wonder the old clerk seemed displeased. She hurriedly tried to remedy: "I think Wang Ye's name is really interesting." It doesn't seem like it belongs to someone with a bad temper at all."

"Oh?"

The imperial family's surname was Xiao. Prince An belonged to the Jin generation, with the given name Yu. Born in the 26th year of the Zhidao era, which was a Mao year, and with the ancient saying "Jin Yu, beautiful jade," he was given the courtesy name Mao Yu. The old clerk had known this for about a decade now, but he still couldn't see what was so interesting about Prince An's utterly conventional given and courtesy names.