A car accident, our family of three crossed

Wang Jin avoided others and had a conversation with Hang Shuheng, and happened to mention the murder case in the grove.

Hang Shuheng listened quietly without changing his expression.

"The identities of the male victims have been found out. They were from the county's gambling house. As for the female victim, she is most likely Zhang Cuiju." Wang Jin knew a little bit about Zhang Cuiju. After all, she had followed Wan Baolu and had acted pretentiously in front of officials and runners.

Hang Shuheng pondered for a moment and said, "If we can be sure that those people are from the gambling house, then the woman is most likely Zhang Cuiju."

He gave a brief account of how Zhang Dazhuang used Zhang Cuiju to temporarily pay off his gambling debts.

After Wang Jin understood the situation, he nodded. Before he could say anything else, someone on the other side started urging him, so he could only say goodbye to Hang Shuheng temporarily.

Seeing that his grandparents and mother were about to be taken away by the officials, Zhang Dazhuang's son Goudan burst into tears and immediately fell to the ground and rolled around.

The officials in the yamen were not all soft-hearted people. They became impatient with his noise and shouted at him, and the idiot immediately became obedient.

The kind-hearted people in the village were worried that the child was causing trouble and afraid that he would suffer, so they quickly took him away temporarily.

San Ya, who was hiding under the wall, turned pale when she heard the officer say that someone had died and that it might be her mother.

However, the expression on her face was dull. If it weren't for her pale face, others would have thought that the child no longer had any feelings for her mother.

Three people from Zhang Youcai's family were taken to the county government office. It was already late that day, so they were just thrown into jail and locked up overnight as a formality. The trial began early the next morning.

As a relative of the deceased, Hang Shuheng was naturally summoned to the yamen. Accompanying him were Zhang Lizheng and some villagers from Xiaoquan Village, who all volunteered to come as witnesses.

With the testimonies of a group of villagers in Xiaoquan Village, the course of events became clear, and Zhang Youcai and others could not deny their act of deliberately letting the murderer go.

Finally, the county magistrate sentenced them to 30 strokes of the cane as a warning to others. After the beating, the three were left with only half their lives.

Afterwards, the county magistrate ordered people to carry up a female corpse for them to identify. It was indeed Zhang Cuiju, so the county magistrate ordered them to take the body back on the spot.

Ever since the incident with the Wan family, the county magistrate has been relatively active in managing affairs, leaving the second-in-command in the county government, the county magistrate, quite idle. He seems to be being sidelined.

County Magistrate Peng Desheng has been having a hard time these days, worried about being sidelined, and has been feeling resentful with no place to vent.

When he saw Hang Shuheng today, the man he hated so much, he wanted to tease him, "Hang Tongsheng, you are really a frequent visitor to our government office!"

"My Lord, I don't want to either!" Hang Shuheng said expressionlessly, "Maybe I'm possessed by some plague god. Bad luck always happens to me. If you see me next time, please take a detour to avoid bringing bad luck to me."

After saying that, Hang Shuheng didn't even look at Peng Desheng's ugly face, and bowed to the county magistrate and said, "Sir, can you allow me to leave the court first? My mother's funeral is still waiting for me to go back and take care of it."

Things had come to this point, what else could the county magistrate say? He could only slam the gavel and announce the adjournment of the court.

The group came out of the county government office. Hang Shuheng traveled in his own carriage and took some villagers from Xiaoquan Village with him.

As for Zhang Youcai's family, they were beaten with a stick and almost lost half their lives. They were also asked to take Zhang Cuiju's body away. They really wanted to do something but were unable to do it.

Zhang Lizheng and several villagers stayed behind to help, and used a ox cart to send the whole family, both the living and the dead, back to Xiaoquan Village.

The villagers took care of Zhang Cuiju's body and buried her hastily in a vacant lot on the mountain.

"Alas! This July is so unlucky. Two people died in a row out of the blue."

On the Zhang family's side, Hang's mother's body had been placed in the coffin, and a Taoist priest was invited to perform a ritual. After the ritual, the coffin was transported back to Shangtang Village.

The mourning hall at the Hang family has been set up. Once Hang's mother's coffin is transported back, the body will be buried after two days of rest.

During this period, many people got the news and came to pay their respects.

Manager Lu of Wanjuan Bookstore was traveling with Zhou Huan and his son. He had originally wanted to talk to Hang Shuheng about the small picture album in the past two days, but he didn't expect such a thing to happen to the Hang family, so the matter had to be put aside for the time being.

Wang Jin also took time out of his busy schedule to come and pay his respects. The murder case in the grove was still a mystery, and the detectives and runners in the county government were almost too busy to spare any time. He only stayed at the Hang family for a while before leaving.

The most noteworthy thing is that Mr. Jiang, whom Hang Shuheng had visited before, also came.

The old man didn't come here specifically to pay his respects. He was just interested in Hang Shuheng's drawings and came to the door on his own initiative. He didn't expect to encounter such a thing. It was a coincidence.

Since people have already come here, it is impossible for them to pretend not to see it and go home. If they encounter such a thing, they must go to express their condolences.

For Hang Shuheng, Mr. Jiang's visit was both unexpected and expected, except that the timing of his visit was not very coincidental.

As he was busy, Hang Shuheng exchanged a few words with Mr. Jiang and then asked Zhou Huan, who had not yet left, to entertain him.

After all, he is another official host, so it is not impolite for him to entertain Mr. Jiang.

Zhou Huan knew that Mr. Jiang was interested in these wooden toys, so he took him directly to Shuisheng's temporary small workshop for a visit. No matter how much he said, seeing is believing.

Here, Mr. Jiang saw many objects that looked simple but were unprecedented in people's minds, made by this group of young people. He also saw several real objects that he had seen in Hang Shuheng's picture album, with eager eyes.

After spending a whole morning in Shuisheng's small workshop, he even gave the young men a lot of advice, which was very enlightening and benefited the young men a lot.

On the day of Hang's mother's burial, the old Hang family once again opened the ancestral hall, asked for the family tree, and recorded Hang's mother's name on the tree again. Afterwards, Hang's mother's coffin was successfully buried in the Hang family's ancestral tomb.

The villagers all praised Hang Shuheng and his wife for their request to have their biological mother included in the family tree again, and praised them for being kind and filial.

When the old patriarch heard the villagers' praise for Hang Shuheng and his wife, he felt more and more that it was a wise move to put Hang's mother back in the family tree.