Chapter 68
Chapter 68: The Current Murderer (Part 1)
This chapter was edited by Din2.
“Madam Yang.”
Arriving in front of the Yang family’s courtyard, they just saw Yang Shi was stepping on the stool on the side of the small courtyard to arrange the flowers and plants. Her hands were all dirty, Yang Shi turned around to look one glance at them, she said with a soft voice: “Please come in, the courtyard door is not locked.”
Going through the door hurriedly and entering the inside of the courtyard, they discovered that the flowers and plants blossomed beautifully, they were different varieties of plants and flowers. Gu Yun was not interested with the flowers and plants but she was looking at them up and down customarily, Zhuo Qing walked to the side of the flowers and asked: “Did you plant all these flowers?”
Yang Shi used her hand to move the flower pot, smilingly said: “En. I am usually not busy and like to plant some flowers hastily.”
“You planted them really good.” Discovering several pots of lavender flowers on the top of the shelf that were very beautiful, each string of flower was very special, Zhuo Qing asked: “What kind of flowers are these?”
While she was speaking, Zhuo Qing’s hand stroke the petals lightly.
“Be careful!” Yang Shi’s speaking voice was still not off yet, Zhuo Qing already shouted lowly and she withdrew her hand hastily, her body retreated unconsciously but she was not careful and knocking against the side of the flower shelf. Luckily, Yang Shi who was standing on the side to support her with her shoulder so she did not fall down.
Hearing her yelling, Gu Yun came over in a hurry and said urgently: “How are you?”
Shaking her head, Zhuo Qing answered: “I am ok.” Her fingers were only a little sting, she was only a little bit frightened a moment ago, nothing more. She was looking towards that delicate, colorful and lovely small flowers, Zhuo Qing asked curiously: “What kind of flowers are these, they unexpectedly have long thorns!”
Yang Shi walked down from the stool and explained: “These are my hometown kind of flowers, they are called aromatic herb, these flowers will be quite fragrant during night times. The fragrance can expel and exterminate mosquitos so I have planted some of these at home.”
“Where are you from Madam Yang?” Gu Yun only asked customarily, Yang Shi’s face flashed through a trace of faint distressed and answered: “I am from Huai Zhou Li county.”
Why was she sad when she spoke about her family’s hometown?
Lightly patting off the dirt on her hands, Yang Shi said in a soft voice: “Let us go inside to talk, ok, but it is very messy inside.”
“Good.” Zhuo Qing and Yang Shi walked towards the inside of the house.
Turning her head around to look one glance at the flower shelf on the side, Gu Yun’s eyes flashed through a trace of different color. But she only looked for one glance and then she entered the inside of the house along with them.
“Please drink tea.” Yang Shi placed the teas in front of them. Not waiting until she put the teacup properly, Gu Yun said with a heavy voice: “Li Zhi is dead.”
“What?!” Yang Shi’s hand that was still holding the teacup trembled, said urgently: “Who killed him?”
Gu Yun raised her eyebrows lightly, she said ‘who killed him?’, it seemed that she knew that he was killed ah!
Covering up her radiant eyes, Gu Yun answered: “The authorities found a murder weapon that was used to kill Yang Liu at his family’s home. Since Li Zhi borrowed money from Yang Liu repeatedly and owed him a big amount of money, so we suspected that he wanted to escape due to the debts and killed Yang Liu. But he insisted that he did not kill anybody and still said that he had an evidence that the money was given to him voluntarily by Yang Liu . Originally, he would have been prepared to return home to get his so called evidence, but he was poisoned to death inside the prison!”
Yang Shi lowered her head one more time, Gu Yun could not see her expression clearly, so she could only continue saying: “We came this time, just wanted to ask you if Yang Liu had ever said to you if Li Zhi had any information on his hand that could be used against him. Maybe you had heard while they were discussing about some strange matter.”
Yang Shi shook her head lightly, but she still did not raise her head up.
Gu Yun faced Zhuo Qing to send a meaningful glance, Zhuo Qing understood clearly. Grasping Yang Shi’s hand lightly, Zhuo Qing said: “Madam Yang, please look at me.”
Yang Shi finally lifted her head up, Zhuo Qing soothingly said: “The murderer killed your husband, shifted the blame on Qian Jing and poisoned Li Zhi. You might just be the person whom he is targeting next, I hope that you can cooperate with us and bring the murderer to justice. Not only that this will console your husband’s soul and spirit, but we can also guarantee your safety.”
Yang Shi appeared somewhat lost in thought, she answered after a long time: “I also wanted to help you, but he had never spoken to me about these, they always sent me away whenever they were talking, I really did not know anything.”
She was lying again!
Gu Yun narrowed her eyes slightly and got up all of a sudden, she said: “Fine, ok, since it is like this, we will not disturb you.”
Both of them departed Yang Shi’s home again, but comparing at the time when they came, their eyes seemed to have a lot of traces of understanding. Looking at each other one glance, Gu Yun laughed and said: “We are going to Dan Yu Lan next.”
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Inside the prison, Qian Jing was still tilting his tall leg over to the other leg on that slab bed, but there was no dry grass inside his mouth, rather he was chewing a greasy chicken leg.
Running around for the whole day, Zhuo Qing’s stomach was still empty up until now so when she looked at the relaxed and free eyes of the man in front of her, she could not help to lowly cursed and said: “We work ourselves to death, on the contrary, you are so free and unfettered ah .”
Sitting up, Qian Jing laughed and said: “There is nothing that I can do about it, who makes me to become a criminal.”
Her back was leaning slightly on the cool stone wall, Gu Yun looked one glance at the outside of the window through the black sky, she asked: “Have they not come yet?” It was already in the evening and she was afraid that they missed the good show from the other side.
Under Zhuo Qing’s fierce staring, Qian Jing who was eating unhappily, shrugged his shoulder and said with an indifferent smile: “Not yet, they will naturally show up when the time comes.” If it was not secretive in movements and traces, then it would not be those two people, he had never seen anyone who liked to be mysterious this much!!
Rolling her eyes over, Zhuo Qing cursed, if she had known earlier, she ought to eat until she was full before coming here again!
Gu Yun suddenly asked: “How was it? Did you find anything?”
Zhuo Qing turned around and only saw Dan Yu Lan who come in with an exhausting face. Shaking his head, Dan Yu Lan said with a sigh: “All of the prison’s food were provided in unity, other people’s food did not have any problem, except Li Zhi’s food that had poison in it.”
Zhuo Qing lightly raised her eyebrows, the prison’s food was provided in unity? Then, what was that thing on Qian Jing’s hand, the prison’s food was already so good that each meal could have chicken leg?!
Finished eating the chicken and throwing the bone inside the paper pouch, Qian Jing grumbly said: “Do not look at me, I request the bailiff who is guarding to buy this for me. I am not the one who says this, but the food that is provided in this prison cell can not really be consumed by human!” It still cost him three coins (money) for this errands fee, snatch his money!!
Dan Yu Lan did not pay attention to Qian Jing’s grumbling, he continued to say with a cold voice: “The bailiff who was in charge in distributing the prison food was already locked up. After investigating for one day, he insisted that he, himself was accused wrongly, did not admit to put poison in the food. There are four Imperial bodyguards who patrol at a fix time inside the prison and they also do not see any suspicious person.”
In other words, this day was in vain, he did not have any favorable impression towards the officials at the Ministry of Justice to begin with, Qian Jing immediately mocked and said: “In other words, Li Zhi’s top secret and bizarre death, I see that the Imperial prison at the Ministry of Justice is the most dangerous place!”
Dan Yu Lan investigated for a whole day and he did not even make a little progress. He listened to Qian Jing’s comment now and his complexion was black and somewhat scary. Zhuo Qing lightly coughed to think hard on what to say to bring relief to the atmosphere, just about to stand her body straightforwardly, one black and one red silhouettes already stood at the gate of the Imperial prison, it seemed that they had come for a long time.
Qian Jing and Gu Yun’s faces were serene as if they already detected their arrivals at an earlier time. Even Dan Yu Lan also kept his calm in the face of the unexpected, but Zhuo Qing was unable to endure and lowly shouted: “Please! Can you or can you not show up like normal people a little next time! You will frighten people to death!” She did not have any martial art so it would be impossible to remain calm in an event like this, ok?!
Unfortunately, Ye Mei and Ao Tian absolutely ignored her, they entered the inside of the prison and looked one glance at Dan Yu Lan but did not say anything.
Dan Yu Lan had little interaction with them directly but the names of these two people were absolutely well known in reputation. They practically brought to justice all of the criminals whom the Ministry of Justice and Ministry of War could not arrest.
Gu Yun did not need to explain why Dan Yu Lan was there with them, she believed that they were already clear about it. The gold case had a wide implication, if there was no government personnel who took the lead, they would be unable to do many things.
Looking at the color of the sky (to indicate time), Gu Yun did not beat around the bushes, immediately said: “We are all here, I will say to make headway, ok. With regard to Yang Liu’s case, we have already found the murder weapon, Qian Jing can basically clear from the murder crime. But because Li Zhi is dead, he has not admitted to the murder before his death so Qian Jing is still the criminal suspect at the moment, we need to lock him up temporarily. I suspect that the murderer who killed Yang Liu and Li Zhi, was also enormously affiliated with the gold case during that time but they were both murdered. My trail on this side has already been broken, do you find anything?”
They already helped Qian Jing to cleanse the criminal charge? Not bad, that they cooperated with them to investigate the case so it was not considered to be a wrong decision.
Ye Mei still did not make any brief remark and was only standing to the side, Ao Tian was explaining the three days’ result expressionlessly: “During the gold case at that time, there were Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Appointments and Ministry of War, these three ministries gathered up and chased after the information together. There were five people who were included among these and had the opportunity to overtake the control of the case, respectively, the Ministry of Justice’s government minister at that time, Fang You An, Ministry of Justice’s assistant minister, Ping Ran, Ministry of Appointments’ assistant minister, Tai Xin, Ministry of Appointments’ middle rank minister, Huang Zhong Qu, Ministry of War’s assistant minister, Wu Guo Cheng. Furthermore, there were three people whom Yang Liu had some contacts with, Fang You An, Ping Ran and Wu Guo Cheng. Qu Ze, Yang Liu and Li Zhi were all Ministry of War Wu Guo Cheng’s subordinates. At that time, when Yang Liu returned to report, Wu Guo Cheng was not present, it was Ping Ran who deployed the troops to provide assistance. The outcome when they arrived at the rock cave was that they only saw a lot of wagon’s marks on the ground, the gold were already disappeared.”
Gu Yun asked: “Where are these three people now?” Were they also died, right? Since that day, she always had this feeling that there were a pair of gloomy and cold eyes staring at her. The cold eyes that were staring at them, as long as they made a little progress, he would undertake the task. This feeling was terrible!
“Because he did not do his best to investigate the case, Fang You An was transferred and assigned to be Governor of Tong Zhou’s province. Due to old age, he had to step down and retire to return home on the second year and he died of illness at the beginning of this year. Ping Ran was also demoted, he was transferred to Ministry of War’s middle rank minister, on account of his three years of good performance, he was promoted as the assistant minister this year. Since Supervisor Wu Guo Cheng’s subordinates did not do their best, he had to surrender his middle rank minister position, once he stumbled, he was unable to rise until now.”
It sounded like there was no room to be suspicious, Gu Yun continued to ask: “What are the condition of their financial affairs?”
The condition of the financial affairs? Except for Zhuo Qing, everybody else was staring blankly, Zhuo Qing lowly smiled: “The meaning of her words were their food and clothing expenses, real estate, bank deposits, whether or not they exceeded the proper range of their official salaries.”
Recovering, Ao Tian continued to answer: “After Fang You An’s death, the Fang family has suffered a reversal of fortune, their current life is a little bit better than the ordinary people. As far as Ping Ran, he is always an honest and faithful person, the condition of his home is not better than the ordinary official. Wu Guo Cheng drinks excessively all day long, he owes a lot of money for beer money.”
Qian Jing blew a whistle sound, smilingly said: “The meaning of this word is that they are even poorer lo~~.”
Gu Yun lightly sighed and said: “1 million taels of gold, they would need at least 7-8 chariots if they divided them to be put into the chariot. At the time this matter happened, there were already a group of people who pursued immediately, they unexpectedly did not discover the gold, this was also very strange!” It had been three years since this matter happened, it could be that the mastermind of this case was not a stupid person, it was also possible that he could hide the wealth meticulously. But that large amount of gold, they needed to be circulated, right, it was impossible to disappear without any cause or reason!
Dan Yu Lan was silent from the beginning to end and just listening to their explanations and analysis. The gold case made a lot of noise during that time, he was always responsible to supervise the miscarriage of justice so he was not familiar with this matter. But this case from three years ago, Ao Tian was not the intermediary of the authorities, unexpectedly, he was able to use three days to really investigate this throughly and in detailed.
These people were standing inside the prison now, if they could enter and serve as an official, then it would be very good. But he also understood that trying to persuade them was not an easy matter.
Gu Yun suddenly asked: “Did you finally find the specific location for that rock cave?”
Ao Tian coldly nodded his head.
“It will be necessary for us to go to investigate the site of the rock cave tomorrow, maybe we can discover something new.” Looking towards the color of the sky from outside the window for the third time, Gu Yun craftily smiled: “We just have to see whether or not the fish has taken the bait now!”
What was the meaning to that? Ao Tian and the other people were at a loss this time, Qian Jing faintly thought that it would surely have a good show for him to see tonight, and he shouted: “I want to go also!”
Zhuo Qing casted sidelong glances at him, she answered in a deadly earnest: “Please do not forget that you are a criminal now!!”
After he ate his fill, he was thinking to watch a show? No way!
Gu Yun broke into laughter, Qian Jing indeed bumped into an iron panel, he did not know why Qing held the most grudge for……
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Night time, a great number of dense vegetation was entirely silent, behind the simple and crude of the roof tile house, two bailiffs were guarding outside the door. In this broken roof tile house, Daren had sent someone to search all over once, but they could not find any valuable thing, they were unable to understand why they wanted to have this place guarded! The night vigil was the most boring matter, the two people were leaning lazily against the gate. One person was paying attention to the circumstance of the surroundings, while the other person was closing his eyes to rest.
One black shadow flashed past, vanished rapidly among the motley tree under the moonlight, the body shape rapidly made people to believe that they would merely see their own shadows vaguely.
The silvery light flashed through a night sky, it could only hear a depressed groan, the guarding bailiff’s voice collapsed. The bailiff who was resting his eyes heard the strange sound, just barely opened his eyes so he could not see the shadow clearly before his eyes. He only felt an acute pain on his neck and he was already unconscious before his eyes.
The black clothing person agilely dragged the two unconscious men inside the courtyard, lightly closed the door of the house, leaped to enter the inside of the house rapidly and began to rummage through to look for something. He did not let off every corner of the place, the inside room was rummage through in a complete disorder, the black clothing person did not appear to find the thing that he was looking for, his expression was cold. The black clothing person unexpectedly picked up the iron hoe from the corner and started to dig the kitchen counter, the corners and other places.
Soon, the house was filled with flying dust…..
“He does not want to tear down the wall, right?!” A doubting and mocking sound of a female’s voice echoed faintly.
Another clear and bright sound of a female’s voice said smilingly: “It is very possible.”
In the dark, there were sudden noises and somewhat relaxed laughters inside the uninhabited house, it was somewhat strange to listen to the sounds. The black shadow person was in great alarm and turned his body around suddenly, the cold pupils slightly narrowed to watch attentively at the location of the voices. He threw aside the iron hoe that was on his hand and unsheathed the long sword from his waist, the silver white of cold ray of the moon was especially dazzling to the eyes.