Da Tang: Father, can I resign?

Chapter 77 God Duan comes to Junchen

Ashina Jieshelu is a relatively familiar stranger.

He was the new gatekeeper general who replaced Wei Daijia and came to arrest Li Ming.

On the night when the emperor was seriously ill, the Jieshe led the troops to surround the Lide Hall and sent a wave of armed oil companies to Li Ming...

Thinking of this, Li Daozon breathed a sigh of relief.

He subconsciously believed that the rumors among the Turkic merchants came from this incident:

The association leader acted on the order that night, and after word of mouth spread, the news distorted into that the association leader was planning a rebellion.

It's okay, just a rumor.

But Li Ming did not move, just like the Acalanatha statue in Hongfu Temple.

Because he knows the truth of Zhishibu too well.

I know how fantastic this guy's news is.

However, the information about the Ashina association rate was surprisingly completely correct.

Ashina Jieshelu was Tuli Khan's younger brother, and they returned to Tang together ten years ago.

Moreover, that guy often wore his hair disheveled and dressed like a savannah girl in the palace. He had been standing still in his official position for many years and often held banquets to make friends with all kinds of people.

Most importantly, as a general of the imperial guards, Ashina Jieshelu rarely showed up in public, and there was almost no personal information circulating outside.

That’s right, it’s all right…

Suddenly, I got verifiable and very reliable information from an unreliable person.

Anyone would find it weird.

"Your Highness, do you think that what this Turkic merchant said is true?" Li Daozon noticed Li Ming's abnormality and asked in a low voice.

Li Ming pondered for a moment:

"Do you still remember what you said when we were seeing off the emperor? The Ashina Society led the people on horseback, with their heads down and their minds uncaring. They were suspected of planning a rebellion, right?"

Li Dao Zong was startled and shook his head slightly:

"It's just a joke. I also think it's far-fetched."

The Right General of the Gate Guards was, jokingly, a gatekeeper who caught children, but if you were to be serious, he was a high-ranking military officer below the fourth rank.

If a General of the Central Army was hastily impeached because of rumors and groundless suspicions among merchants, he would probably be accused of "undermining the stability of the court" and "undermining national unity".

"The Right Guard led part of the imperial guards and accompanied the emperor to Jiucheng Palace."

Li Ming whispered:

"The defense of Jiucheng Palace is far less tight than that of Taiji Palace. Ashina Jieshe's position is very strategic."

Li Daozon naturally knew the pros and cons of this, and his eyebrows slowly wrinkled into the shape of a "川" character.

"The wine is ready. Fill your glasses."

Zhi Shibu felt very uncomfortable and made small talk while dividing the wine in the small jug into two shallow bowls.

Li Ming woke up from his deep thoughts and ordered on horseback:

"Pour the wine into the rat's mouth."

Li Daozon felt strange about this childish and unreasonable request.

But after spending a long time with Li Ming, he gradually got used to this nonsensical young master.

Without saying anything more, he took out another hundred bucks from his pocket and threw it to the merchant.

I am a man of the grassland, how can I allow myself to be humiliated by you country bumpkins... Zhi Shibuzhen really wanted to scold you loudly.

But the other party gave too much.

Driven mad by poverty, he put aside his dignity as a prairie man, grabbed a regular customer of the store, and pressed the rat's head into the wine bowl.

The rat drank a few gulps of heated realgar wine and was released again.

As the three people watched with bated breath, the mouse crawled a few steps unsteadily.

Suddenly he vomited blood and fell to the ground and died.

Zhishibu's face turned pale all of a sudden:
“Oh my god, how did this mouse die?!
"No... this wine is really fine! I drink it often myself! Brother Ming, you have to believe me!"

The medicinal wine in his hand suddenly turned into poison, and he was so anxious that his tongue became tied.

Li Daozon frowned and looked at Li Ming inquiringly.

He didn't believe that the Turk would be stupid enough to sell poison in public.

But the fact that the wine turned into poison did inexplicably coincide with one or two unsolved cases.

He felt something was about to surface...

"It's not your problem." Li Ming calmly comforted the frightened Zhi Shi Bu Zhen:
"Realgar wine is poisonous in the first place."

"But..." Li Daozon was about to argue something when his pupils suddenly shrank.

He understood Li Ming's intention:
"You mean...

"'Warm' realgar wine, is it poisonous?"

Li Ming nodded affirmatively:
"That's right. And what is produced by heating realgar wine is arsenic."

One day, when he was browsing his phone, he accidentally touched a link in the "Loving Family" group. This useless piece of trivia invaded his brain in a rude way, so he only had a general impression of it.

I never expected that thousands of years ago, there were actually people who used this method to commit crimes!

"Hot realgar wine... is actually poisonous?!"

Li Daozon felt that his worldview had been refreshed, and he couldn't help but feel a wave of fear.

Why hasn’t it been discovered yet?

Because soaking realgar wine in summer is a custom that has been introduced from the south in recent years and is still a new thing for people in Guanzhong.

In addition, in summer, Xijing is hot and firewood is expensive, so no one will bother to heat the house.

This resulted in the people of Chang'an being unfamiliar with its toxic properties.

"Who prepared the pot of realgar wine that Li Xiaogong drank?" Li Ming asked.

Li Dao Zong answered without hesitation: "It's the Seventh Aunt."

He knew the course of events by heart.

Because the Seventh Aunt was the youngest and had never had an overly unrestrained relationship with other people, and was the most "clean", she was the one who served Li Xiaogong in his daily life.

Recalling the layout of the main hall of the Prince's Mansion, there was indeed a small charcoal stove.

It is just on the right side of the main seat, very convenient.

At that time, Li Xiaogong and Li Hui had an argument, and it was the Seventh Aunt who threw the wine pot on the stove.

After striking Li Hui hard, Li Xiaogong was so angry that he picked up the wine pot and drank all the wine in it.

Little did they know that realgar had been decomposed by heat, dissolving arsenic into the wine...

"The origin of the Seventh Aunt... She was a maid in the Turkic tent..."

The seventh aunt was a Turk, and Ashina Jieshelu was also a Turk.

Is there any relationship between the two?
Or is it pure coincidence?
Li Daozon's thoughts became a tangled mess. He scratched his head frantically, feeling like he was about to grow a brain.

"Don't think too much about it. Start with the existing clues." Li Ming analyzed calmly:

"There is something wrong with the Seventh Aunt. Let's interrogate her first." "Okay!"

Li Daozon raised his whip and hurried back to the Dali Temple.

"Wait." Li Ming stopped him:

"Take me to my shop first."

Li Dao Zong almost got a stitch in his side, and grimaced anxiously:

"Your Highness, at this critical moment, don't hide your private goods!"

Li Ming shook his head confidently:
“I have a man under my command who is an expert at interrogation.

"Since we're already here, it won't take much time to make the trip."

“Since we are here now” has a special magic for the Chinese people.

Li Dao Zong suddenly realized that he had been tricked by Li Ming from the beginning to the end.

If you want to test whether realgar wine is poisonous when heated, there is plenty of realgar wine in the Prince's Mansion, you can just open a jar and heat it up.

Why did you come to Xishi specifically?

Isn’t it just to lure him over and find the so-called interrogation expert “on the way”?
That guy had better know something... Li Daozon glared at Li Ming in the back seat, gritted his teeth, turned his horse's head, and galloped towards the corner of West City.

"Hey, wine!"

Zhi Shibuzhen looked at the horse galloping away, completely confused.

What are those two people doing here?
…………

Next to the porridge stall, Li Ming bought the base from the Hu merchant at a low price.

Now it has become a classroom for children.

As soon as the primary school classes were suspended, the top students who were studying in primary school, under the organization of Di Renjie, taught writing to dozens of "newspaper boys" under Lai Junchen.

The weather was hot and the children were divided into two distinct groups, glaring at each other.

There was the sound of hurried horse hooves outside the door.

"Brother Ming is here!"

Lou Shide, who was daydreaming, suddenly noticed something and shouted.

The quiet classroom immediately became noisy, and both the teachers and the students being taught rushed out.

"I'm back!"

Li Ming shouted excitedly and jumped off the horse smoothly.

Just as he was in mid-air, Li Daozon grabbed him by the collar and pushed him back onto the saddle.

Li Ming: "..."

"Um, Lai Junchen, I have something to talk to you about."

The older kid with shifty eyes squeezed out of the crowd, rubbing his hands, with a lewd smile on his face:
"Hey, Master Ming, what do you want from me?"

Li Ming waved at him, motioning him to come closer, and whispered:
"There is a woman who I suspect is not telling me the truth."

"What does Master Ming mean?"

"Please help me find out. There is no limit to the method."

Lai Junchen shuddered all over, and his obscene expression disappeared.

Instead, there was an innocent, childlike, and sincere smile.

…………

"We have already interrogated her about this detail. Aunt Seven said that she just put the wine on the stove."

In the Dali Temple Prison, the warden in charge of the interrogation reported dejectedly.

After Li Ming and his party returned to the Dali Temple, they immediately explained the situation to the temple chief Sun Fujia.

Including that hot realgar wine is poisonous, and the Seventh Aunt who warmed the wine is a major suspicion, etc.

Sun Fujia was like a drowning man grabbing a life-saving straw and immediately organized an interrogation.

However, nothing could be asked.

Because Seventh Aunt came from the Mobei grassland and had lived in a bitter and cold place since childhood, she developed the habit of heating up everything she drank before drinking.

Regardless of the weather, she would warm the wine for Li Xiaogong more than once or twice.

This statement was also corroborated by the testimonies of other persons.

Combined with the latest facts, the case becomes:
When Li Xiaogong and Li Hui were arguing, the Seventh Aunt habitually put realgar wine on the stove.

She was a Turk, so naturally she didn't know the characteristics of this southern thing.

Li Xiaogong had been the governor of Yangzhou, so he might know something about it, but he was arguing at the time and didn't notice his teammates' tricks, so he drank the poisoned wine...

In other words, the Li Xiaogong case was actually an accident caused by an ignorant girl and an irritable middle-aged man?
"hiss……"

Sun Fujia was a little dazed, his eyes were blank.

After practicing Taoism for half a year, you now say, "It was just a misunderstanding, it was just an accident." Isn't that a bit too much?
Even if Your Majesty did not dismiss him, he himself would have wished to dismiss himself.

"Ugh……"

Li Daozon's expression was not much better than his.

After Li Ming's reminder, he became more cautious.

Why the hell are there so many surprises?

The emperor and the crown prince were poisoned on the same day, was that also an accident?

There were thousands or even tens of thousands of people in Taiji Palace, and millions of people in Chang'an.

How come only the three of them fell into the trap?
Royal family, realgar, Turks...

This is the commonality between the two incidents.

But I just can't string it together.

Because the clues reached the only breakthrough point, which was the Seventh Aunt.

Suddenly it broke...

"Sun Tingwei."

Li Ming, who had been silent all this time, suddenly asked:
"Are you sure that Turkic woman is telling the truth?"

Sun Fujia felt that his professional level was questioned, and replied unhappily:

"Of course. The family of Prince Hejian has been detained and interrogated for several months.

"Who can withstand months of interrogation in the Dali Temple Prison, especially an aunt who lives a life of luxury?"

Li Ming said leisurely:
"It's hard to say. So I brought someone with me who might be able to help us find out."

Only then did Sun Fujia turn his gaze to the strange boy in the corner.

The young man's vulgar temperament made Sun Fujia instinctively disgusted.

He suppressed his disgust and asked:
"Who is this?"

"Lai Junchen, hehe, Master Ming asked me to ask that woman a few questions." Lai Junchen rubbed his hands excitedly.

(End of this chapter)