The Coroner Clears the Wronged: The Strange Cases of Macheng

A decomposed corpse is found on a desolate stretch of land, and everyone says it is Mrs. Yang. Her husband, Tu Rusong, is convicted of killing and dumping his wife’s body. Beaten into a confession, he becomes the notorious wife-killer of Macheng. But Su Jianbai, a coroner who has lived in seclusion for years, examines the coffin and says just one thing: “This isn’t a woman.” With those words, the ironclad murder case cracks wide open on the spot. Then an even more terrifying truth emerges: The “dead” Mrs. Yang is still alive. And the nameless corpse used to convict Tu Rusong was actually a traveling peddler who had been murdered to silence him. A husband framed with a corpse, a fake death and escape, a coroner falsifying evidence, a county magistrate burying the case, officials and gentry colluding, and witnesses murdered to cover it all up... The decomposed corpse on the wasteland has exposed more than a family scandal. It has revealed a dark secret that the entire Macheng county government dared not bring to light.