103 Motives and Speculations - 32.5

Feeling a chill run down his spine, Ying Xiao Dan saw the cold sneer on Princess Leifeng's face disappear quickly like ice melting and Fan Zhu Xia's usual languid smile replaced it as if the expression he saw before was nothing more but a trick of the eye.

Seeing that he was still staring at her with a dazed expression, Fan Zhu Xia decided to no longer pay heed to his thought and only gave him a small reminder before focusing on the task at hand.

"Pay attention..." Fan Zhu Xia reminded briskly while her eyes were already glued on to the dead body while her hands fluttered about as she checked the cause of death.

As soon as Ying Xiao Dan heard the words, he got a hold of himself and quickly paid attention. On the other hand, noticing this, Fan Zhu Xia also started explaining what she was doing.

"Right now, I'm looking for any distinguishing features or marks on their bodies... I've heard that some organizations has those on their members..."

"... Also check all of his limbs to see if there's any..."

"... Now help me turn the body over so we can check his back..."

"No marks? Hmm, let's get a sample of his blood..." Fan Zhu Xia murmured, bringing out a porcelain bottle from her space and reaching for one of the smaller knives.

Curious, Ying Xiao Dan asked, "What's the blood for? Couldn't we just use the needles to check for poison?"

"We could, but getting a sample now will make it more convenient for me to compare with the others should there be different poisons on each body. This is also much more safer to do."

After collecting enough blood to fill at least half the bottle, Fan Zhu Xia handed it to Ying Xiao Dan before fluidly stitching up the slit she made on the dead man's wrist to stop the bleeding while any stray drops of blood was taken in by the table made of Lifeblood Jade.

"You put that over there for now on one of the unoccupied shelves. I've prepared some ink and paper there, do label the bottle as well."

"How should I label it, Princess?"

"According to which one we handle first so just numbering each bottle later should be fine."

With a nod, Ying Xiao Dan quickly labeled it and also did the same to the folded clothes on the table before returning to watch what Fan Zhu Xia was doing.

They spent the next two like this with Ying Xiao Dan learning quite a lot from watching and assisting Fan Zhu Xia. Although it was quite tiring despite the breaks they took in between, to Ying Xiao Dan, all of it was worth it.

Earlier he had thought that collecting blood was already quite novel, Fan Zhu Xia then proceeded to stun him when she started cutting the body open and examining the insides of the corpse.

At first, Ying Xiao Dan thought that it was unnecessary but then when Fan Zhu Xia started explaining things, his thoughts were once more refreshed.

Before, he thought that in order to more accurately examine the internal workings of the human body, a physician would need good cultivation if not higher and a talent in manipulating their spiritual qi to guide it inside their patients to check what's wrong but with the method Fan Zhu Xia taught him, even if one didn't have an ounce of cultivation, as long as they had the knowledge, they'll still be able to do this, albeit with higher risks due to possible blood loss but from what Fan Zhu Xia explained, as long as you don't cut the person open like what she did since she opened up the whole chest cavity, minor treatments involving cutting open just a small part to treat a specific area should be fine as long as you're skilled enough and work fast.

Along the way, Fan Zhu Xia also showed him the different effects of poisons on a body. Initially, they thought that only a small number of them were poisoned but as it turns out, aside from the bodies with varying signs of poisoning such as purplish blue lips, stiff blue-black tongues and darkened fingernail or blackened veins and burst arteries, several of the others who committed suicide in a different way also had a more subtle yet deadlier poisons inside their bodies.

Regarding that, those bodies were immediately ordered to be carefully discarded with Fan Zhu Xia giving very specific instructions which the Second Young Master; Fan Yong Rui ended up personally handling to make sure no accidents happened since he dropped by to see them earlier.

Now, they finished examining the last corpse, Fan Zhu Xia who still had some injuries felt incredibly tired that she didn't even want to move. Both rested for a bit before she let Ying Xiao Dan who was still in high spirits due to his excitement about the new things he learned go and summon her maids to escorts her back.

As soon as the two arrived, Chun Tao and Chun Hua saw their young miss who accidentally fell asleep while reclining against a willow tree near the large medicinal garden in the courtyard.

When they neared her, they didn't expect for her to suddenly wake up despite their efforts to keep quiet and not disturb her.

"Chun Hua... Chun Tao..." she called out groggily.

"Princess, let us help you back... You still need to rest. Master will worry and wouldn't want you to push yourself like this..." Chun Tao said gently while Chun Hua nodded in agreement.

"Yes, I know... Help me back first. I can take a bath."

The two did as they were told and aa soon as they reached Fan Zhu Xia's Blooming Phoenix Courtyard, Fan Zhu Xia simply told them to prepare some food for to eat after she finished cleaning herself up.

Just as they finished setting up the food, Fan Zhu Xia came out wearing a simple yet elegant, white robes with red embroidery. It almost resembled the clothes she wore when Fan Hui Zhong first found her.

Seeing the food prepared and smelling it's mouth-watering scent, Fan Zhu Xia's remaining sleepiness were swept away and Fan Zhu Xia ate with relish.

In the past two days, her cousins would drop by from time to time but couldn't stay long because of all the things they still had to take care of.

Fan Li Jie was preoccupied with Fan Song Xue since he was being trained personally by their grandfather. It was the same case with Fan Xian Liang and only Fan Yong Rui was different.

Fan Yong Rui was busy preparing because he was ordered to accompany the escorts provided by the Thunder Vale Country to the visiting princess as they sent her back home and they were due to leave tomorrow.

In fact, Fan Li Jie was the one supposed to go as per request of the princess but under Fan Song Xue's influence, it was changed to Fan Yong Rui instead.

At first, Fan Yong Rui was a bit disgruntled about the whole thing but when he found out that his brothers had to go into closed-door cultivation with their grandfather, he quickly became more accepting of it, much to everyone's amusement.

On the other hand, her little brother; Fan Shi Hong was also being trained by their aunt; Wei Rou Xiang whenever she has free time to help improve his strength and stamina while both Fan Hui Zhong and Fan Hui Liang were busy taking care of official matters.

This particularly applies to Fan Hui Zhong who became even busier and was practically always in a meeting with the emperor especially after Fan Zhu Xia informed him of their findings.

From what she found out during the examinations, coupled with their suspicions that the Zhan Clan might be involved is highly likely. This is due to the fact of the various types of poisons found in some of the corpses as well as their previous assassination attempts on the Fan Family.

As of now, this lead is currently being investigated while they are trying to figure out the motives of the people responsible.