Chapter 27: Veterinary Medicine

Chapter 27: Veterinary Medicine

He looked to be about five or six years old, wearing thin, tattered clothes. The grime on his face couldn’t hide the deathly pale color, and his body was stiff.

There was no doubt: he was dead.

Lin Su furrowed his brow, his gaze icy. Having survived the apocalypse, he was no stranger to life and death, but that didn’t mean he didn’t care. On the contrary, no one valued life more than people who fought through the apocalypse—whether their own or others’.

Having been unexpectedly reborn, he just wanted to kick back and have an easy life. But trouble just kept finding him, and now someone was dead because of it.

“Your Honor, get justice for me, an old man! My grandson ate a bowl of noodles from Lin Ji at noon, and within moments, he was throwing up and having diarrhea until he stopped breathing! My poor boy was only five, poisoned to death!”

The old man banged the drum to lodge his complaint, kneeling with the dead child in his arms, pleading bitterly to the dignified Lord Magistrate seated high in the hall.

Qin Hu, the Magistrate of Yucheng County, had just turned forty. His own younger son was about the same age as the child before him, and the scene made his heart ache.

*“Slap!”* The gavel slammed down heavily. Qin Hu barked, “You people of Lin Ji, Zhang Da accuses you of poisoning his grandson. Is it true?”

Lin Su and his four companions knelt neatly on the western side.

Lin Su had no problem kneeling; he did so with an upright posture. Fu Yun followed suit without a single flaw. Though Xu Lei and the others were anxious, they forced themselves to remain composed.

Lin Su clasped his hands and said, “Your Honor, that’s absolutely not true.”

“We run a food stall and would never commit such a heinous act that would also ruin our own livelihood. Moreover, we’ve never even met this old man. We have no grudge. Why would we harm his grandson? Please look into it, Your Honor.”

The old man retorted angrily, “My grandson got sick after eating your noodles! Either you poisoned it or your ingredients were dirty, which poisoned him to death!”

Lin Su glanced at the magistrate, who didn’t stop him, then said, “Ridiculous! Dozens, if not a hundred, people ate our noodles this morning. If the ingredients were tainted, why did only your grandson get sick?”

The old man stomped his foot, “Then he was just unlucky and ate the bad batch! Because that was the only thing he ate!”

Qin Hu stroked his beard thoughtfully and ordered, “Bring the coroner. Do an autopsy.”

The coroner examined the child: pale complexion, purple lips, bloodshot eyes—clearly died from poison.

He also tested the leftover noodles in the stomach and the bowl the old man held. The silver needle turned black, indicating a potent toxin. “Your Honor, there’s no other food in the kid’s stomach. He was indeed poisoned by the noodles.”

Qin Hu glared and slammed his gavel. “What do you people of Lin Ji have to say now?”

Seeing this, Lin Su frowned. Thinking of the mess made of their food cart and the two malicious officers, he realized that asking to check the ingredients now would probably backfire.

Or rather, it would be exactly what the person behind this wanted.

While he was trying to think of a way out, he heard a soft mumbling from beside him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Fu Yun staring at the child’s body and the old man’s bowl.

“Gelsemium elegans, Stellera chamaejasme, arsenopyrite...” Fu Yun sniffed the air. “And croton seeds, licorice, jujubes? Sesame seeds?... Are these used to kill rats?”

A lightbulb went off in Lin Su’s head. That was it—he’d been looking at it the wrong way.

He knew Fu Yun was skilled in medicine, and the people of Xiaowan Village knew it too, but no one in the county did. Someone who doesn’t know medicine would have to buy it somewhere specific.

After a moment’s thought, he moved his lips and quietly asked Xu Lei whether the two tall, thin officers had touched them, or whether they had touched the old man or the child’s body.

Xu Lei shook his head no. The four of them had been held back by the other two officers and had no chance to get close.

Lin Su nodded and replied to Qin Hu, “Your Honor, could we determine what poison this is and where it came from? We’re just honest farmers who’ve never had poison like this.”

As he spoke, the coroner had already picked out several: “Your Honor, the poisons include gelsemium elegans, croton seeds, and some mineral toxins. The rest may require several doctors to verify.”

Thus, the coroner and three physicians from the city’s major clinics discussed it for a while. Based on the symptoms, the leftover noodles, and even scraping some poison powder from the bottom of the bowl, they found more than a dozen really poisonous stuff, along with a few non-toxic oil-bearing seeds—exactly what Fu Yun had mumbled.

The poison was weird and complicated.

One physician stroked his beard and said, “Croton seeds can kill a person, but rats love ’em. Not only do they not get poisoned, they even gain weight from eating them. Your Honor, this might be rat poison, but stronger than normal rat poison.”

Upon hearing this, the old man looked around and suddenly shouted, “Exactly! Lin Ji must have bought rat poison, accidentally mixed it into the food, and poisoned my grandson!”

But no one bothered to answer him. Another physician examined the powder carefully and noted its faint pink color. “If it’s rat poison, this color is just like the rat poison from Dongcheng Vet Drugstore.”

So Qin Hu slammed his gavel again and summoned the owner and clerk of the Dongcheng Veterinary Pharmacy.

The owner saw the powder and the list of ingredients, and his face fell.

What were these people trying to do by writing down his secret recipe?

“Your Honor, this is indeed our rat poison. No other shop has it.”

His recipe used not only multiple potent toxins but also several foods that rats loved, mixed in optimal proportions to mask the poison’s smell and attract rats. Once ingested, the poison killed them instantly, preventing them from running off with the poison and potentially harming humans.

“There you have it! What’s there to argue about? It was you, Lin Ji, who carelessly used rat poison to kill my grandson! My poor grandson...” The old man, seeing that no one was responding to him, couldn’t resist making another presence known.

Lin Su clasped his hands to Qin Hu and said, “Your Honor, this absolutely could not have been us. Please see the truth of it. We are simple farmers. We set up our stall in the county during the day and return to the village at night. Our routine is simple and monotonous. Moreover, farmers never use rat poison—only city people do.”

As he explained, everyone began to understand. In the countryside, rats had many natural predators. If a rat came into the house, a predator would soon sniff it out. If rats became too numerous, people would simply get a cat—no need to feed it, no cost—much more effective than rat poison.

In the city, most ordinary families also used cats. However, shops like fabric stores and warehouses found that cats could damage or contaminate goods, so they often used animal poison instead. The Dongcheng Veterinary Pharmacy’s rat poison was expensive but highly effective, favored by many shopkeepers.

The pharmacy owner couldn’t help but defend his product: “Our rat poison is sold as a powder, but our clerks always warn customers of its high toxicity and instruct them to use it carefully. It must be mixed with water into a paste and fixed in a high, hidden place like a roof beam. After use, hands must be washed three times, and everything that touched the poison—including the wash water—must be disposed of. Our customers follow these instructions.”

“Furthermore, we keep records of every sale of such potent poisons. Anyone can check them.”

The two clerks went through the records and found no record of Lin Su or his companions purchasing rat poison. “Your Honor, none of the people from Lin Ji have bought rat poison from our shop.”

Not only that, but Qin Hu ordered the officers to inquire about recent buyers of rat poison. All were long-time customers of the shop, with no suspicious findings.

By this point, the suspicion on Lin Ji’s group had somewhat diminished.

Seeing this, the old man grew frantic. Clutching the child’s body, he cried out again, “Your Honor, they could have obtained the poison elsewhere! Regardless, my grandson died after eating their noodles. The poison had to come from their stall!”

The old man was not without cunning; his words hit the crux of the matter.

But that was exactly what Lin Su wanted. “Your Honor, I have a plan to prove our innocence.”

“Oh? What plan?” Qin Hu stroked his beard and asked.

“Please have the coroner test the ingredients and utensils from our food stall for poison.”

Upon hearing this, the old man’s eyes lit up with a flash of joy, even though he’d been crying.

Sure enough, the coroner found traces of poison in the leftover noodles and seasoning bowls. Several silver needles turned pitch black, showing just how strong the poison was.

“Oh, so you *did* poison my grandson! Your Honor, get justice for me!” The old man could not contain his excitement.

Lin Su cast a sidelong glance at him. First, he checked with the pharmacy owner that their rat poison was deadly strong—even a tiny amount could kill instantly. Then he said to Qin Hu, “Could Your Honor have them bring a dog?”