After a while, Huang Shiyun came out and said, "Concubine Wu Jie is invited."

Xiao Jiading stepped in and saw that Wu Zetian had returned to the soft couch to sit down, and was looking at him with inquiring eyes. Several eunuchs next to him stood with their heads down.

Xiao Jiading stepped forward and bowed and said, "Empress, I still have some ideas about this case. I want to report it to you alone, don't you know if it's possible?"

An old eunuch scolded in a sharp voice: "Bold..."

Before he could continue to scold, Wu Zetian waved his hand to stop him: "You all retreat!"

Several palace maids and eunuchs looked at each other, then bowed to the blessing, agreed to retreat, and closed the door.

Wu Zetian had no expression on his face and said, "If you have anything, just say it."

Xiao Jiading pondered for a moment and said, "After the autopsy, I found that Chuntao and the others were ragged and seemed to have been torn apart. I was puzzled at that time because the place where they died was an abandoned ice cave. They used bronze cauldrons and a large amount of wood to block the stone gate. People outside could not enter at all, and there was no trace of damage found in the cave inside. This means that the injuries and clothes on their bodies were caused by tearing and beating each other? I couldn't figure it out at the time, but now I figured it out."

"What have you figured out?"

"I know that when people are in severe cold conditions, they will soon freeze to death when they are outdoors without cold conditions. When their body temperature drops severely, they will have consciousness disorders. Instead, they will feel very hot and irritable, and they will take off or tear their clothes. This can explain why their clothes were torn and their skin was scratched without outsiders invading them."

Wu Zetian snorted coldly: "You mean, they were crazy because of the cold. They tore their clothes and scratched themselves? -Don't forget, it's hot summer now!"

"But for people with special abilities, it is very simple to turn the hot summer into the cold winter."

"What's the meaning?"

"I once saved a child named Leng Jian. He learned the Ice Palm by chance. I just saw him. He told me that the ice palm of his Ice Palm can control the degree of freezing. It seems that the Empress had asked him to use this ability to force confession, of course he didn't know. He might have been arranged to use his palm to show his palm technique, turn a house into an ice cave, and put people who need to force confession in the house. The child said that the Empress had also asked him to make several iglooes."

Wu Zetian said coldly: "You want to say, what igloo did Leng Jian kill the four of them?"

"I dare not!" Xiao Jiading and his tone were faint. "I just said something, and I just said it. What I said just now was all about it. If the Empress thinks I am talking nonsense, then I won't say it anymore.

"I believe it, don't do these tricks of retreating to advance with me. Then, what are you thinking about in your heart?"

Xiao Jiading smiled at the corner of his mouth: "If you suspect the Empress only by this, it would be too ridiculous. Fortunately, there is also a very important evidence that they would lie in the Empress's bedroom when they died."

"What's the meaning?"

"I found some strange patterns on the back of the deceased, some mysterious arcs. At that time, I couldn't understand how these mysterious patterns reached the back of the deceased? Could it be that there are really ghosts and gods in this dark?"

"What kind of pattern, please explain it clearly."

Xiao Jiading smiled and lowered his head, as if he had just seen the puzzle of bluestone slabs on the ground. He screamed in surprise, squatted down, stroked the pattern of sun and moon on the bluestone slabs with his hands, and said, "Oh, it's like this arc, round, and inwardly arc, I just want to look like crescent moon. I believe that if there is a corpse on the floor of the Queen Mother's bedroom, it will definitely leave the same mark."

Wu Zetian's pretty face changed slightly and immediately recovered. He snorted and said nothing.

Xiao Jiading continued: "I heard that a person will have corpse spots one hour after death. This is formed by depositing on the lower part of the body after the blood in the body is stopped and cannot flow because the heart stops beating and cannot flow. However, the compressed part of the body will not have corpse spots. If the compressed object has a pattern of yin and yang concave and convexity, due to the uneven pressure of each part, this concave and convex pattern will be printed on the compressed part of the deceased, leaving pattern characteristics on the surface of the compressed object. If this pattern can be found, it can be compared. This is basically the only conclusion."

Wu Zetian said: "I want to remind you, you just said that they were in an ice cave and blocked the stone gate with a huge bronze cauldron, and blocked the door with wood or something. Are there any signs of outsiders invading the ice cave? What I want to ask you is, how can I freeze them to death?"

"The Empress didn't listen carefully to what I said just now. They didn't die in the ice cave. This is very obvious. Although the ice cave is called the ice cave, it has been abandoned and there is no ice inside. So although they are colder, they are far from freezing to death. The most important thing is that the ground of the ice cellar is just a large bluestone with no arc pattern. So, it is not the first scene of the crime. It is the scene of the corpse removal."

"You mean, they died in my bedroom, and I moved them to the ice cave?"

"I dare not. I didn't say it was made by the Empress. Perhaps it was unknown whether it was made by the Empress's men on their backs."

"You are so slippery and dare not mess with me?"

"Hehe, according to my inference, the time for the transfer of the body should be half a month ago. I asked the temple host that the Empress and her subordinates went to Qingling Temple half a month ago, and they had never been there before or since."

Wu Zetian smiled at the corner of his mouth: "Since you know that I took someone to Qingling Temple half a month ago, there is one thing you must explain clearly. If you can't explain clearly, all your inferences are nonsense!"

"Please give me some advice."

"Time!" Wu Zetian said slowly, "I went to Qingling Temple half a month ago, but Chuntao and the others disappeared a month ago. This can be proved by everyone in my bedroom. If I killed them a month ago and moved the bodies to Qingling Temple half a month ago, then in such a hot day, the bodies would have rotted and smelled, and I was afraid that people would smell them as soon as I went out. How could they cover up?"

Xiao Jiading smiled and said, "There is actually no problem, because although they disappeared a month ago, they were actually killed half a month ago. I believe that in the past half month they suffered from torture such as severe cold. They died miserably half a month ago. Within two hours after their death, the people in the Empress Palace took advantage of the opportunity of the Empress going to Qingling Temple to burn incense and quietly transferred the body to the ice cave of Qingling Temple. In this way, there would be no stench of the corpse."

"You're just speculating!"

"It's not just speculation, I have evidence."

"What evidence?"

"Green-headed fly!"

Wu Zetian frowned slightly: "What's wrong with the green-headed fly?"

"Although green-headed flies are very annoying, they can sometimes help us find out the true face of the case. Because green-headed flies have many regular characteristics, one of which is that they only like fresh corpses that have just died, so after a person dies, green-headed flies will soon fly to lay eggs on them. The growth of green-headed flies has certain regularity. These eggs will turn into maggots, using the soft tissue of the corpse as food, and will become pupate and become adults in about ten days to half a month. At this time, the corpses are no longer fresh, so the grown flies will fly away to find fresh corpses without laying eggs on the rotten corpse. The large number of flies I found in the ice cellar are the green-headed flies that have pupated adults. From this, it is inferred that the death time should be about half a month. This is exactly the time when you took someone to Qingling Temple to burn incense."

Wu Zetian was very surprised: "How do you know these?"

"When I was a child, I heard what our old coroner said, but if the Empress didn't believe it, we could do an animal experiment where fly growth would be known."

"No need." Wu Zetian said, "I believe what you said. You won't make up some things to lie to me. However, although you have a reasonable explanation for the time issue, there is another key issue that you must explain clearly, otherwise it will be useless."

"What's the problem? Is it the problem of the stone door closure?"

"That's right!" Wu Zetian heard Xiao Jiading say something, and obviously thought about it, and couldn't help but feel nervous. "Since there are no other signs of damage in the ice cave, that is, there are no other passages. So, what about such a heavy bronze cauldron, plus so much wood, blocking the stone gate from the inside. How can I or my people send the body in, block the stone gate and then come out?"

"This problem has bothered me before, but when I was hiding from the rain in the pavilion, I saw a large pool of water quickly accumulate on the ground, so I figured out the whole story. It was water that pushed the huge bronze cauldron and so much wood to block the door! - The little nun of the temple once told me that when the construction of this ice cave was basically completed, I found a very serious problem, that is, water is prone to accumulation here, and rainwater penetrates into the ice cellar. If the rain is heavy, it will cause the ice cellar to be submerged, so this ice cellar was abandoned. There is a lot of rain this year, especially some time ago, heavy rainstorms caused disasters and floods on the streets. I believe that floods also poured into the ice cellar. Under the floating effect of the water, the large bronze cauldron and wood rushed to the stone gate and stopped along the water flow. After the water receded, it happened to be where the stone gate. The corpse was also located behind the wood, which can also prove that the corpse would drift."
Chapter completed!