A car accident, our family of three crossed

"Your Excellency, I have said that the deceased did die from arsenic, but he was not poisoned by the lip balm mixed with poison."

Upon hearing this, the old woman retorted excitedly: "You, you are talking nonsense. My daughter-in-law was clearly poisoned to death by that poisonous lip balm. How can you say it's not true?"

"Humph! How she died, I'm afraid only you know best." The coroner sneered and ignored her. Instead, he turned to the county magistrate and said, "Sir, I have seen the poisoned lip balm. It does contain arsenic, but the amount is small. If it is only applied on the lips, it will not be fatal in a short period of time."

He paused, glanced at the mother and son meaningfully, and continued, "I can tell from the body of the deceased that he had taken a large amount of arsenic before his death, which is why he died suddenly. You are the deceased's closest relatives, so you must know this, right?"

"Besides, judging from the deceased's expression, she did not drink it voluntarily, but was forced to drink it."

"You're talking nonsense, you're slandering people." The old woman retorted loudly in panic, as if as long as her voice was loud enough, reason would be on their side.

The husband of the deceased even kowtowed to the county magistrate and cried out for justice, "Sir, it's unjust! Sir, we didn't do it. We didn't poison her to death."

Hang Shuheng, who had been silent for a long time, suddenly curled his lips and smiled, and said nonchalantly: "But no one said that you poisoned her, and the coroner didn't mention any names, so why are you so eager to identify yourself?"

The deceased's husband was stunned. After thinking carefully, isn't that right? The other party did not thank him by name. He was too nervous and only focused on crying out for injustice without thinking deeply about other issues.

Hang Shuheng no longer had the patience to waste time with them, so he turned around and bowed to the county magistrate, saying, "Sir, if you want to know whether the death of the deceased is related to the mother and son, perhaps you can send someone to search their home. Maybe there will be some clues, such as poisonous drug residue or something."

After hearing Hang Shuheng's suggestion, the county magistrate immediately sent people to search the home of the deceased in the slum.

When the mother and son saw this, they were so frightened that their faces turned pale and cold sweat broke out. They dared not say a word and could only pray in their hearts that nothing harmful would be found in the search.

However, this time, God was not on their side, and what they feared came true.

The yamen runners returned soon. They did not return empty-handed, but brought back a bag of medicine residue. "Sir, this is the medicine residue that I dug out from under the tree in the yard of the deceased's home. Please take a look."

When the mother and son heard the words of the yamen runner, their faces suddenly turned pale and they began to tremble slightly uncontrollably.

The county magistrate took a look at the medicine residue with a polite look, and then asked the coroner and the doctor to check it together.

After some verification, arsenic was indeed found in the drug residue.

The county magistrate was furious and slammed the gavel, shouting, "Mother and son of the Hu family, I want to ask you why you have these arsenic-containing drug residues buried under the tree in your yard. Tell me the truth."

The mother and son were so frightened by the county magistrate's authority that they could not speak clearly. They kowtowed and kept crying out for injustice.

"My Lord, my Lord... It's unfair, it's unfair... These are just drug residues. I, a humble person, don't know what's going on."

Hang Shuheng did not give them a chance to breathe and pressed on: "Let's not talk about the drug residue for now, let's talk about where the lip balm in Yanzhi Shop came from. You must know this, right?"

The mother and son didn't know why he was repeating the question he had just asked, and they stammered and couldn't answer.

The county magistrate at the top knocked the gavel at the right time and shouted, "Hurry up and speak."

"Reply, reply, sir, I have already said that the lip balm was given to me by the rouge shop as a gift from my wife who bought something there."

So, after many twists and turns, we came back to the original question. This time, the county magistrate asked, "You can't even afford to pay for medical treatment and medicine, so where do you get the money to buy things from the rouge shop?"

The old woman thought for a moment and put the blame on her dead daughter-in-law. "My Lord, please be wise! My daughter-in-law bought these things. We, we don't know where she got the money!"

"Do you think that you can get away with pushing the blame on a dead person and making sure there is no evidence?" Hang Shuheng smiled coldly and said to the county magistrate, "Sir, please look at the account book. It records the whereabouts of each box of lip balm that was sent out. Among these people, there is no information about the family of the deceased. This shows that they are lying."

The county magistrate really looked through the photo album again and found that there was indeed no record of the deceased receiving any gifts. He shook the account book in his hand and asked, "How do you explain this?"

The old woman felt guilty and muttered, "Who, who knows if they missed it themselves..."

However, before she could finish her words, Mei, who had remained silent the whole time, interrupted her categorically, "Impossible."

Mei looked at the county magistrate and explained, "Your Excellency may not know that the formula for the lip balm was created by a good friend of mine. To thank her for giving me the formula, I allowed her to share the profits. So, in order to keep the accounts clear, the rouge shop would keep a record of every transaction involving lip balm. There is no record of their purchase in the account book. There is only one possibility: they never went to the rouge shop to buy anything from it."

"You, you're lying. My daughter-in-law went to your shop to buy something. You black-hearted little bitch, you killed someone and you're still finding all kinds of excuses to justify it."

When the old woman faced Mei, she was no longer as cautious as she was with the county magistrate, and she started cursing as soon as she opened her mouth.

Even though Mei had heard all kinds of unpleasant comments about her from the outside world, she couldn't help but feel very angry when someone said this to her.

Hang Shuheng lightly said, "You keep saying that you went to the Rouge Shop to buy something, but you can't prove it. I think you really don't take adults seriously. Do you really treat adults as fools and make fun of them?"

These words were so heartbreaking that the mother and son immediately kowtowed and begged for mercy, "Please forgive me, sir. Please forgive me, sir. We would never dare to tease you."

The county magistrate who was sitting at the top had a slight twitch in his mouth. He felt that the young man was implying that he was a fool, but he had no evidence.

Feeling a little unhappy, he took out his anger on the mother and son, "I think you are very brave. Tell me, where did the lip balm mixed with poison and the drug residue buried in your yard come from? If you don't tell the truth, don't blame me for torturing you."

They didn't dare to tell the truth. They just insisted that they knew nothing and blamed everything on the deceased.

If they kept on nagging like this, even the county magistrate, who had been waiting to watch the show, would lose his patience and angrily slammed the gavel. "I think you won't cry until you see the coffin. Come, drag these two out and give them twenty strokes of the cane. I want to see who is more stubborn, their words or the cane of my yamen."

Several bailiffs came forward, dragged the mother and son away without saying a word, put them on the torture bench and started beating them with a board.

The mother and son screamed in agony as the board hit them again and again. The husband couldn't bear the tenth board and cried out, "Sir, please stop. I'll tell you everything. Please stop. It's my mother. It was all my mother's fault."

The old woman, who was howling in a rage, forgot the pain in her body immediately after hearing what her son said. She looked at her son in disbelief and said, "Son! What did you say? How can you say it was your mother who did it?"

"Mom! Just admit it! I can't stand it anymore. If you don't plead guilty, I, your son, will be beaten to death." He didn't dare to meet his old mother's disappointed and heartbroken eyes.

The old woman never dreamed that her son would push all the blame onto herself. She thought her son was trying to push her out to die!

At this moment, she only felt that the pain from being beaten with a stick was far less than the pain in her heart, and she suddenly felt hopeless.

The county magistrate signaled the bailiffs to stop the caning and bring the man back to the court.

"My Lord, my Lord, I confess, I confess everything. My mother did everything by herself. It has nothing to do with me." As soon as the husband of the deceased returned to the court, he did not hesitate to push all the things onto his old mother. "My mother disliked my wife's poor health and said she was a burden to the family. In order to pay for her medical treatment and medicine, the family has already owed a lot of debts, so my mother..."

Everything was explained clearly without any hesitation or delay. Even the details of how the deceased was poisoned were described in great detail. The only difference was that the target was a different person.

After listening to his explanation, the county magistrate turned to the old woman and asked, "Do you agree with what he said?"

The old woman no longer had the heart to struggle. If one of them, mother and son, had to be brought to justice, let her do it!

Even though she was disheartened by her son's attempt to push her out to take the blame, she was still willing to take the blame for her son. She numbly lay on the ground and admitted all the charges, "Sir, I admit that everything was done by me alone. It has nothing to do with my son."

"In that case, tell me the truth about your crimes, including the drug residue buried in the yard and the lip balm laced with poison. Tell me where these evidences came from."

The old woman hesitated for a long time before she began to speak: "Your Excellency, I didn't want to kill my daughter-in-law at first. It was someone who suddenly came to my house and told me that my daughter-in-law wouldn't live long anyway, so why not use her to write an article and make some money."

What she said was true. Someone did come to them and told them about this not long ago. Otherwise, even if they didn't want to be burdened by their daughter-in-law's illness, the worst that could happen was that they would stop treating her and prescribing medicine for her. In any case, they would never have thought of using a dead person to extort money!

The old woman narrated how the man had instigated them to carry the dead body to the rouge shop to cause trouble, and even how the man had taught them to say what they wanted. She explained the whole story one by one, including the medicine bag and lip balm mixed with arsenic, which were also provided to them by the man.

After she finished her explanation, Hang Shuheng asked, "Do you know who that person is and what his name is?"

"I don't know. That person didn't tell me that!" The old woman shook her head.

Hang Shuheng asked again: "If you meet that person again, would you recognize him?"

This time, the old woman nodded and said, "Yes, yes. If I meet that person again, I will definitely recognize him."

Hang Shuheng nodded with satisfaction and said to the county magistrate, "Sir, since this lady has confessed her crime and proved that Mei was wrongly accused, can Mei be released in court?"

The county magistrate pondered for a moment and was about to nod in agreement, but Peng Desheng, who had been silent for a long time, couldn't stand the loneliness and interrupted him.

"Don't forget, we found a batch of lip balms mixed with poison in Mei's Rouge Shop! How do you explain this?"

The county magistrate glanced at the county magistrate with some displeasure at the county magistrate's attempt to steal the spotlight, but he had no choice but to continue the conversation: "Yes, this is indeed a problem, Mei, how do you want to explain it?"

Mei really didn't know how to explain this matter. It was true that the lip balm was mixed with poison, and it was also true that it was found in her shop and could not be faked.

Hang Shuheng did not embarrass her too much, and took over the topic, "Your Excellency, this is exactly what I want to say next."

He was halfway through his words when he suddenly looked at the county magistrate Peng Desheng, smiled maliciously, and then said, "Don't worry, sir, this matter may be related to you!"

Peng Desheng's heart skipped a beat when he heard this, and he had a bad feeling. How did this involve him?

Seeing the people outside the venue start to whisper and look at him with strange eyes, Peng Desheng couldn't help but get angry and shouted: "Hang Shuheng, don't slander me here."

Hang Shuheng ignored him and turned to the county magistrate to present evidence, "Sir, I have a witness who can explain why the lip balm in the rouge shop was mixed with poison. I beg you to call the witness to the court."

"Alright." The county magistrate slammed the gavel and asked, "Where is your witness now?"

"It's in the teahouse opposite the government office." Hang Shuheng humbly bowed to the captain of the police beside the county magistrate and said, "Thank you for taking the trip, Captain Lu."

After getting the county magistrate's nod of permission, Captain Lu took two constables out of the yamen and walked towards the teahouse opposite. Not long after, they came back with a middle-aged man.

The man was the one who was captured by Zhou Huan's secret guards yesterday. As soon as he arrived in the court, he knelt down and saluted, and introduced himself.

"Greetings, sir. I am Lin Sanquan, a commoner. I am currently working as a handyman in the Mei's Rouge Shop."