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It was a gory murder, according to the case file.
The entire Mo family – mother, father, son – had been wiped out in a single night, found dead in their beds the next morning. The cause of death was the same for all of them: loss of blood due to an amputated left arm.
The missing limbs had been found stashed under the bed of one Mo Xuanyu, the late Madame Mo’s nephew.
It was obvious he was the culprit, according to all the newspapers. Mo Xuanyu had been routinely abused by the family, and indeed still bore fresh bruises and scratch marks when he had been detained by the police. It was rumored that the abuse was so severe, the poor boy had picked up every kind of nasty behavior and mental malady under the sun (the most laughable of which was an apparent phobia of the Mo servants' signature yellow uniform). In fact, the very day before the crime, cops had reportedly been called to the Mo residence when Mo Xuanyu had thrown a fit over a stolen item and threatened the family directly. All the servants and neighbors testified that the boy was “crazy” and - as if there was even a need for more evidence - a search of his room confirmed his obsession with the occult, yielding a veritable library of books about satanic rituals and all the props a horror movie could ask for. Of course he would seek revenge with such a gruesome crime, all the witnesses said. It was a shame the boy turned out like this, but a crime was a crime after all, no one like that could be allowed to run around free in society.
There was just one problem still nagging at Lan Wangji’s conscience as he looked over the mug shots that Lan Jingyi had taken of the suspect.
Why were Mo Xuanyu’s clothes so clean?
The murders had been about as messy as death by blood loss could get, with blood splatter across the walls and trails of congealing red droplets leading from each of the family member’s beds to Mo Xuanyu’s room. There had been no attempt to hide the crime.
“Because he’s a sicko,” Detective Jiang Cheng had snorted, rolling his eyes dismissively. “I’ve dealt with a lot of crazies over the years and they get off on this stuff. No use trying to understand it.”
His answer hadn’t satisfied Lan Wangji. If Mo Xuanyu had made no attempt to hide his crime, why were the clothes he was wearing when he was arrested blood-free? If he had changed out of the clothes he had allegedly worn during the murder, the police couldn’t find them in his room. If the bloodstained clothes had existed at one point, then they had been thoroughly hidden. What was the point of that if Mo Xuanyu was going to make everything else so obvious, not even bothering to throw a sheet over the pile of hands under his bed?
Unfortunately, the case was out of Lan Wangji’s hands. If he had been the assigned prosecutor, he certainly would have waited more than five minutes to charge the suspect when there was such a blatant problem like this left unresolved. He had attempted to convey his misgivings to Prosecutor Su She, but, as expected, he had been soundly ignored.
“I know an easy case when I see one,” Su She had sneered, like that was something to be proud of.
Lan Wangji had responded to that with silence, passing over his impulse to say, Of course; how else could we expect you to maintain your impressive win rate?
In any case, that was how Lan Wangji found himself seated in the gallery of Courtroom No. 3 on this mild Monday morning. His paperwork could wait just a few hours; he needed to see how this case resolved.
Su She stood at the prosecutor’s table, not even bothering to go over his notes. Across the way, Mo Xuanyu sat at the defense table, looking remarkably calm for someone in his position as he thumbed through a stack of papers.
The crease of Lan Wangji’s mouth deepened into a frown.
Where was the defense attorney? Furthermore, how could Mo Xuanyu sit there going through lists of evidence without so much as a jittery leg? Goodness, the man was even humming as he scribbled notes with his pencil-
Two things suddenly occurred to Lan Wangji in quick succession.
Mo Xuanyu wasn’t just going over evidence for the hell of it, and moreover he wasn’t anxiously looking around for his lawyer because he wasn’t expecting one to show up. Mo Xuanyu planned to defend himself.
And – embarrassingly, this second thought was more startling than the first – Lan Wangji knew the song Mo Xuanyu was humming.
He stood up without thinking, jolted by the half-formed urge to march over there and demand where Mo Xuanyu had heard that song. Thankfully, a beat later the bailiff called for everyone to rise for the Honorable Judge Nie Huaisang and Lan Wangji remembered where he was.
“You may be seated,” Nie Huaisang said as he took his place on the bench, not even looking at the court in favor of fussing over the lay of his robes.
Lan Wangji slowly sat back down, feeling vaguely off-kilter. He had to reassure himself a few times that he was indeed sitting up straight and the tilting of the room was only in his mind.
Mentally shaking himself, he forcibly refocused on observing the trial.
Nie Huaisang was already addressing Mo Xuanyu: “I understand you forfeited your right to an attorney and will be defending yourself in this case?”
Mo Xuanyu nodded. “Yes, Your Honor.” He said it seriously, but the tension around his mouth holding back a smile seemed to suggest it was the kind of gravity one used for a joke.
Nie Huaisang seemed troubled by this, but did not ask any further questions. He turned to Su She. “Does the prosecution have an opening statement?”
“Yes, Your Honor,” Su She said. He shuffled his papers to seem intelligent, but then set them back down without even looking at them. “This case is quite simple. The defendant, Mo Xuanyu, was kicked out of boarding school several years back for bad behavior and has been living with his aunt, the late Madame Mo, and her family ever since. He has been considered a lost cause mentally for some time now and this led to friction between the defendant and the victims. Finally, the defendant snapped one night and brutally murdered the other three members of the Mo family, cutting off-“
A lazy “objection” sounded from the defense. Impressively, despite the lack of energy, it carried a tone of dismissiveness that effortlessly stopped Su She from continuing. It was as if someone had gently placed two fingers over his mouth and whispered, “Shhh.”
Mo Xuanyu was leaning with his elbow on the desk, cheek resting in the palm of his hand and squishing the edge of his idle smile. He raised his other hand like he was in a classroom and said, “Your Honor, the prosecution is testifying.”
“Oh! I suppose you are, Prosecutor Su She,” Nie Huaisang said, flicking open his paper fan to hide the lower half of his face in apparent embarrassment. “If you would be so kind as to leave the testifying to your witnesses… Was there anything else you wanted to add or will you be calling the first one to the stand?”
Su She stared blankly at the judge for a long moment, like he didn’t understand what was being said to him. Finally, he stood a little straighter and replied, “Oh, yes- The prosecution calls…” He fumbled with his papers, letting them fall into an untidy pile as he excavated his witness list. “… Detective Jiang Cheng to the stand.”
The fingers of Mo Xuanyu’s hand against his cheek suddenly flexed, his nails leaving little white dots of pressure in his skin, before relaxing again. It was a reaction that should have gone unnoticed, except that Lan Wangji was paying an admittedly alarming amount of attention to him.
Did Mo Xuanyu flinch at the mention of Jiang Cheng’s name, or was Lan Wangji just overthinking a natural tick?
When Jiang Cheng had taken his place on the witness stand, Su She cleared his throat and said, “Witness, state your name and profession.”
The detective had his arms crossed, intensifying the severe expression that had seemingly been carved into his face with a chisel at birth. “Jiang Cheng,” he answered curtly. “Lead detective.”
Nie Huaisang began fanning his face, his eyes peeking out over the top of the paper. “Detective, can you tell us about the case?”
Jiang Cheng adjusted the fold of his arms and began without any preamble: “We got a call at 7:05 AM from the Mo residence. A male servant who identified himself as Liu Tong said he had gone to wake up Madame Mo and found the bodies. When we arrived, we found that all three victims had their left arms amputated and the autopsy confirmed they died of blood loss. There were trails of blood that led to the defendant’s room and we discovered the missing hands under his bed. We knew he had a motive, so we arrested him right away.”
“Thank you, detective.” Nie Huaisang’s eyes flitted over to the defense. “That seemed fairly straightforward. Does the defense wish to cross-examine the witness?”
“Yes, Your Honor.” Mo Xuanyu’s eyes narrowed, lending a touch of danger to his otherwise pleasant smile. He stretched his arms above his head and then swung them down to rest his hands on his hips.
(Lan Wangji was a little ashamed to admit, even to himself, that he found his eyes lingering on how this pose accentuated the curve of Mo Xuanyu’s waist.)
“Okay Detective, can you repeat your testimony for me?”
Jiang Cheng began reciting his testimony again as asked, monotonously going line by line. When he repeated the phrase, “the autopsy confirmed they died of blood loss,” Mo Xuanyu theatrically slapped a hand down on his desk and yelled, “Hold it!”
The detective’s eye twitched. “What?”
Mo Xuanyu tapped his chin thoughtfully. “You say the autopsy confirmed the victims died of blood loss, and that’s all that’s in the report. I was wondering, did the coroner run any other tests?”
“Yeah,” Jiang Cheng replied. “It's procedure. But we went ahead with the case before they finished the other tests because the cause of death was obvious.”
“I see.” Mo Xuanyu nodded along. “So you didn’t test to see if there were any drugs still present in the victims’ systems?”
“Objection!” Su She interrupted. His already shrill voice kicked up into a higher register when he shouted. “How is this relevant? Detective Jiang Cheng already stated the cause of death was blood loss, not poisoning.”
Nie Huaisang fanned himself more quickly. “Do we know for sure that it wasn’t poisoning, Detective?”
Jiang Cheng wrinkled his nose in annoyance. “Yes. The examination of the bodies indicated they had gone through hemorrhagic shock, which is consistent with death due to blood loss.”
Mo Xuanyu laughed lightly. “Oh no, no, you misunderstand me! I’m not asking because I think the cause of death is wrong. I just think it’s curious that no one discovered the bodies until morning.”
Su She’s face screwed up into a scowl. “What do you mean?”
“Well,” Mo Xuanyu said reasonably, “getting a limb amputated is pretty painful, right? How come none of the victims woke up screaming? Don’t you think someone would have heard and come running?”
Lan Wangji’s eyebrows shot up at that, along with the volume of the courtroom as everyone in the gallery burst into noisy reaction. It was such a simple question, and yet it overturned the entire premise of the prosecution’s case. He had been so preoccupied with the question of the clean clothing that he hadn’t even thought of it.
Nie Huaisang slammed his gavel down a few times, flinching at the sharp sound of the wood. “Everyone, everyone quiet please.”
“The Mo family’s rooms are located in a separate building from the servants’ quarters,” Su She snapped, slamming down a map of the Mo manor. “It is entirely possible that they couldn’t hear.”
“Objection.” Mo Xuanyu rested his chin on his fist with an amicable smile, like he was talking to a kindergartner. “Did you forget already? There were three victims, and their rooms are all right next to each other. The murderer couldn’t have sawed off all their hands at the same time. The first victim, my dear cousin Mo Ziyuan, should have woken up the other two with his screams before the murderer could even finish killing him.”
“Oh my,” Nie Huaisang said. He folded his fan and began tapping it against his palm lightly. “That is certainly a problem… How do you explain that?”
“They must have been drugged with some kind of sedative,” Mo Xuanyu replied confidently, putting his hands back on his hips. “Something strong enough to keep them knocked out while their hands were amputated. That’s why I asked for more details about the autopsies.”
Su She seemed to be at a loss at that, clutching the edge of his desk with gritted teeth. Steam could practically be seen rising from his head.
Luckily for him, Jiang Cheng cut in: “Hang on. Whether or not the victims were sedated doesn’t exonerate you, Mo Xuanyu. You could have easily been the one responsible.”
“Can you testify to the court about this matter?” Nie Huaisang asked.
Jiang Cheng nodded. “In our investigation, we found bottles of diazepam in the house. It’s a sedative used in some sleeping pills, but it’s strong enough to be used to knock people out for surgery. The Mo family kept this drug around to calm the defendant whenever he had a disruptive episode. He knew about the existence of the drug and what it did, so he could have drugged the victims before killing them.”
“Hold it.” Mo Xuanyu narrowed his eyes. “How could the def- I have access to the victims? When would I have had the opportunity to drug them all? And, on top of that, how could I have gotten ahold of the drug in the first place? They were the ones feeding it to me, so they were the ones who had the bottle.”
Su She, having composed himself during Jiang Cheng’s interjection, cleared his throat meaningfully. “The prosecution can call another witness to testify to this matter, Your Honor.”
“Please do.” Nie Huaisang turned to Jiang Cheng. “Thank you for your testimony, Detective, you may step down.”
Once Jiang Cheng had been escorted out, Su She called the servant who had discovered the bodies, Liu Tong, to the stand.
Liu Tong had a thin face, which made his eyes appear to bug out strangely. They were constantly flickering this way and that and, combined with his frequent habit of scrunching his nose with little sniffs, he was overall reminiscent of a hungry rat. He wore an inky black servant’s uniform with the character “Mo” embroidered on the collar, thread so dark it was nearly impossible to read.
“Witness, your name and profession,” Su She said.
“Liu Tong, servant at the Mo residence,” Liu Tong answered, rapidly glancing around the courtroom. His voice had an underlying scratchy quality.
Nie Huaisang flicked his fan back open, as if to hide from those searching eyes. “Would you please testify about the sedatives allegedly given to the victims?”
“Yessir.” Liu Tong nibbled on his thumbnail absentmindedly between sentences as he spoke. “That Mo Xuanyu is always throwing temper tantrums and going crazy, okay? He yells at the air a lot and sometimes breaks things, and it’s no good for anyone. So we keep sleeping pills in the kitchen and Madame Mo instructed me to put them in his food sometimes. We keep them hidden in case Mo Xuanyu ever gets out of his room – only me, Madame Mo, and Young Master Mo knew where they were. I’m supposed to crush them into powder and mix it into the food so he doesn’t notice, but I got a little lazy sometimes and just threw the whole pill in. I guess he could have taken them out and saved them in his room. My mistake.”
“Hold it!” Mo Xuanyu curled a strand of hair around his finger as he took a thoughtful pause, tugging at it absently. “About how often did you give... me these pills?”
Liu Tong wrinkled his nose at the question and with how taut his skin was stretched over his cheekbones, it warped his entire face into a collage of misplaced creases. “Damn near everyday,” he said. “Or don’t you remember all your own tantrums?”
Mo Xuanyu released the coiled lock of his hair to lean his hand on the desk. “So did you give me a pill the night of the murder?”
Liu Tong shook his head. “No way.”
Nie Huaisang asked, “Can you add that to your testimony?”
“We always gave Mo Xuanyu a pill when he got too loud. But that idiot was actually behaving the night of the murder so we thought he’d be okay without one. Now that I think about it, he was probably only behaving to make sure he’d be awake to kill everyone later.”
Mo Xuanyu suddenly smacked his hand against the desk lightly and then jabbed an index finger at the witness. “Objection!” He grinned, crinkling the corners of his eyes with a joy that seemed a little too genuine for a court of law. “Got you.”
Liu Tong’s bug eyes widened and they seemed as if they would pop right out of his skull. “W-What?”
Mo Xuanyu slid forward a piece of paper before setting his elbow on the desk and leaning forward with his chin resting on the back of his knuckles. “You said I was behaving that night, but that you gave me pills anytime I ‘got too loud,’ was it? Well you see, I have a police report right here from the day of the murder. Earlier in the afternoon, Mo Ziyuan stole something from me and I tried to get it back. Police were called to put a stop to the altercation, isn’t that right?”
“That’s right,” Liu Tong admitted nervously.
“What does this have to do with anything?” Su She snapped. “It’s just more evidence that you had a motive to kill the victims! You were angry enough to start a fight, weren’t you?”
“Yeah!” Liu Tong picked up on Su She’s words right away, nodding vigorously. “You even- You even said you would cut off Young Master Mo’s hand! You planned to kill him!”
Mo Xuanyu was unruffled by these counterarguments. He only smiled pleasantly and shook his head. “You testified,” he said slowly, poking a finger in Liu Tong’s direction, “that anytime I ‘got too loud,’ you would give me a sleeping pill. If a disturbance large enough to call the police doesn’t qualify, then what does?”
Noise began simmering in the gallery and Nie Huaisang timidly tapped his gavel until they quieted.
“What is the defense suggesting?” he finally asked.
Mo Xuanyu swung himself upright and planted his hands on his hips. “I was drugged the night of the murder,” he declared. “I couldn’t have committed the crime.”
“If not you, then who?” Su She shot back.
Mo Xuanyu blinked at him innocently. “Who? Well, the only person left alive who knew where the sedatives were, of course.” He nonchalantly gestured at Liu Tong with his thumb. “The witness. Duh.”
The gallery erupted into sound. Nie Huaisang gave a few light taps of the gavel, but when that didn’t work, he brought it down with proper force and the conversations began to taper off.
“That’s quite an accusation,” the judge said uncertainly.
“Where’s your proof?” Liu Tong cried, pulling at the collar of his uniform and exposing the columns of veins in his spindly neck. “You got no proof it was me!”
Su She banged a fist on his desk emphatically. “That’s right! Where’s your evidence?”
“I am going to need to hear some decisive proof,” Nie Huaisang put in apologetically.
“Don’t worry, don’t worry, I got some.” Mo Xuanyu held out a photo of a bright yellow uniform. “Hey witness, does this look familiar to you?”
Liu Tong paled when he saw that, making his dark eyes seem even beadier. He didn’t reply.
Mo Xuanyu shrugged. “That’s okay, you don’t have to answer, I already know you do.” He pointed at the collar of the uniform in the picture. The character “Mo” was embroidered there in white thread. “This is the uniform all servants of the Mo family are expected to wear, is it not?”
Su She was practically filing his teeth down to the quick with the way he was grinding them together. “So?”
“So,” Mo Xuanyu went on, shaking the picture with exasperation, “it’s yellow. Every single servant’s uniform in the Mo household, including yours, is supposed to be yellow. But witness, I see that you wore your uniform today and it isn’t yellow.” He paused, a smile creeping back across his face. “It used to be yellow though, isn’t that right? You dyed it black yourself, didn’t you? Because you had to cover up the original color.”
He gently laid the picture back down on the desk and leaned forward with his head tilted like he was having a friendly conversation about the weather. Liu Tong visibly flinched back, chewing on his thumbnail with more force.
“Because it was covered with blood,” Mo Xuanyu finished. His mouth was curved in a smile but his eyes were sharp as knives. “And even if the dye masks it, it’s still there underneath. All we have to do is test your uniform and we’ll have our proof.”
Lan Wangji thought for a moment that he heard thunder outside, but when it continued to sound, he realized it was his own heartbeat, deafening in the utter silence of the courtroom.
Suddenly, Liu Tong’s teeth snapped through his thumbnail and blood began trickling down his hand, staining his sleeve.
“It was supposed to be easy!” he screamed, slamming his hands down on the podium. All the flailing sent blood splattering across the front of his uniform, dying the embroidered “Mo” an uneven red. “A crazy crime for a crazy fool! They all hated you- I even overheard Young Master Mo saying I was in the will before you, me, a servant!” His tirade was interrupted by a shrill laugh. “With that money… With that money, I could have been the rich slave driver instead of breaking my back serving food to lunatics! But now… But now…!” His voice abruptly kicked into a higher pitch, resembling something closer to a pig squeal than human language. “It’s all over!”
With that final declaration, his strings were cut and Liu Tong collapsed over onto the floor.
Lan Wangji stood outside the courtroom door, watching people chattering among themselves as they filed out. The final verdict of “Not Guilty” was still buzzing somewhere just behind his ears.
Mo Xuanyu… How could someone who was both not an attorney and considered a lunatic have pulled off a defense like that out of the blue?
Lan Sizhui appeared at the other end of the lobby and came to stand beside him. “Just got done calling the coroner about the autopsies…” He trailed off, blinking in surprise. “Is the trial over already?”
Lan Wangji nodded. “Not guilty.”
Lan Sizhui smiled. “Wow, that was pretty quick. I’m impressed.”
“Mm.” It was impressive. Too impressive.
“I looked into the family, by the way,” Lan Sizhui added conversationally. “Did you know the Mos made their money generations ago scamming people by calling themselves spirit mediums? Of course, now that no one believes in magic anymore, they say they can’t do it because their blood was diluted through marriage over the years, but there were rumors Madame Mo’s late sister had the gift.”
That gave Lan Wangji pause. “Her sister?”
“Mo Xuanyu’s mother,” Lan Sizhui confirmed. “I guess that means he must have been capable of channeling spirits too, right?” He laughed softly. “Can you imagine if all those stories were actually true and he just channeled a famous lawyer to defend him?”
As if summoned by the conversation, Mo Xuanyu himself finally exited the courtroom. He was grinning at nothing in particular as he strolled out, arms folded behind his head and whistling a familiar tune. The light coming in through the far window cast his features in shadow and if one only glanced at him without looking too hard, he could surely be mistaken for someone else.
“Mm,” Lan Wangji said softly. “I can imagine.”