Qingyu Case: Female Minister of Dali Temple

"It was to cheat him of his money." Wu Dong said carefully, "In order to help him gain a foothold in Hongyuan County as soon as possible, the Fan family not only used their connections to make him the dean of the Imperial College, but also assigned several managers to follow him and help him open five or six shops here. After the shops were all on track, the managers went back. The nobles and gentry in Hongyuan County, especially the Fan family's side branches, were jealous of the cultivation of him by the main family, so they did everything they could to squeeze money from him.

"Master Luo also knew their purpose, but in order to complete the task for the family, he could only let them take whatever they wanted. They couldn't just take without giving anything, so they took Master Luo to Luoyanju. In order to please them, Master Luo took the initiative to assume the responsibility of providing Luoyanju with fresh goods under their euphemistic hints.

"Letting Madam Gao take care of those gardens is because Supervisor Luo wants to drag Shanzhang Gao into this conspiracy."

Chen Shao noted the key points of his words and then asked, "Which noble families and gentry took him to Luoyanju?"

"I have never been to Luoyanju," Wu Dong said honestly, "but I heard Luo Jianyuan mention the Wen family, the Ren family, the Gu family and so on a few times. I don't know which family it is specifically."

Chen Shao looked at him inquiringly for a moment, took notes, and then continued to ask, "Who owns Fenglong Commercial Bank?"

Wu Dong shook his head. "I don't know. Supervisor Luo rarely mentions business matters at home. He is not good at business matters. Most of the business is handled by Madam Gao."

Chen Shao didn't believe him completely, but he didn't ask too much. He just asked, "What about Tongchuntang? Who owns it?"

"It used to be the property of the Fan family in Hongyuan County. After Luo Jianyuan arrived in Hongyuan County, the stewards who followed him somehow convinced them that Tongchuntang later became the property of the main family. The scale also increased from the original one shop to the current five shops. After the stewards left, the management rights fell into the hands of Luo Jianyuan." Wu Dong said uncertainly, "But although Tongchuntang has become the property of the main family, the shopkeeper, doctors, etc. inside seem to be the same people as before."

Why is there such a need for such an unnecessary move? Chen Shao asked a few more questions without really understanding them, but Wu Dong also knew the reason but not the reason, so he had to write it down first, put a question mark, and then changed the subject: "Since Luo Zhengxin knew that the nobles of Hongyuan County befriended him to defraud money, did he keep any evidence of their evil deeds?"

Wu Dong said affirmatively: "No."

Chen Shao questioned: "Why not?"

Wu Dong obviously found it difficult to understand and said, "Superintendent Luo said that the best way to protect yourself is to be clean."

No wonder he wanted to lead her to search his house. Without evidence of others' wrongdoing, he couldn't be implicated. Unfortunately, man proposes, God disposes. He wanted to drag Gao Han into the crime and take the blame for him, but in the end he was implicated by Gao Han and was uprooted by Shi Xing's murder case. When the tree falls, the monkeys scatter. He calculated everything, but he missed the human heart. Chen Shao glanced at Wu Dong, then looked at Fu Jiu who came back from the garden, and ordered: "Prepare the carriage and go to the Imperial Academy."

As expected, there was nothing in Luo Zhengxin's house except the certificates signed by Mrs. Gao.

After searching inside and outside for three rounds, Chen Shao took the evidence and asked Wu Dong who followed him: "Are these really signed by Madam Gao, or were they forged by Luo Zhengxin?"

Wu Dong answered bluntly: "It was forged by Supervisor Luo."

Chen Shao interrogated, "If he forged it, what about Gao Han's signature and private seal?"

"It was signed by him. Not long after he came to the Imperial College, he began to imitate Gao Shanchang's handwriting, especially his name." Wu Dong went to a few boxes of calligraphy and paintings, rummaged for a while, and took out a dozen pieces of calligraphy and paintings. Then he took out two pieces of waste paper from the bamboo basket next to the desk and unfolded them. "These calligraphy and paintings are the original works of Gao Shanchang. These two pieces of paper were left when he was practicing Gao Shanchang's handwriting the night before he was arrested. As for the private seal, he used various names to ask Mrs. Gao to steal it and stamp it on."

I started imitating Gao Han's handwriting soon after I came to the Imperial College. It has been nearly thirty years. Chen Shao put Gao Han's calligraphy and Luo Zhengxin's imitations together, then took the lantern in Chan Yi's hand and compared them closely.

"It's exactly the same." said Chan Yi.

Chen Shao nodded. If Wu Dong hadn't explained it in advance, she would have hardly noticed that the calligraphy and paintings were from two different hands. But with his reminder, she could still see some subtle differences after careful observation. For example, Luo Zhengxin's calligraphy was sharper and sharper, like a barren peak; while Gao Han's calligraphy was more rounded and flexible, like a green hill.

Chan Yi hadn't noticed the difference yet, and curiously asked Wu Dong how he could tell them apart. Chen Shao's eyes had already fallen on the large boxes where Wu Dong had been looking for calligraphy and paintings.

During the previous search, they had roughly looked through these large boxes, but at that time they saw that they were paintings and calligraphy, so they did not look through them in detail. At this moment, Chen Shao asked Li Tianliu and Fu Jiu to lift the boxes together, and after dumping all the paintings and calligraphy on the ground, they saw that the bottom of the boxes were piled with handwritten Buddhist scriptures.

The handwriting on the Buddhist scriptures is Luo Zhengxin's own.

Chen Shao picked up a stack of books and flipped through them one by one. After flipping through forty or fifty pages, a piece of yellow paper suddenly appeared. The first half of the yellow paper was full of handwriting, while the second half was a talisman with the birth date of a person written on it. Unlike the neat handwriting of copying Buddhist scriptures, the handwriting on the first half of the yellow paper and the birth date of the person in the talisman were all very sloppy.

After asking Fu Jiu to shine the lantern closer, Chen Shao spent a long while to identify the talisman and finally saw that the birth date in the talisman belonged to He, Luo Zhengxin's second wife. The first half of the page described how He was greedy and ruined his plans, and how he could not wait to poison her. This piece of paper alone was ironclad evidence that Luo Zhengxin had poisoned He.

After taking out the yellow paper and handing it to Fu Jiu, Chen Shao picked up a stack of Buddhist scriptures and handed them to Li Tianliu, asking him to look through them as well. Chan Yi then joined in.

A total of seven yellow papers were found.

In addition to Ye, He and Xue Meilan, there are four other women's names.

They were women sent by several students in the academy, and he kept them by his side because of their outstanding looks. Two of them could not bear the humiliation and hit their heads against the pillars when he was not paying attention, while the other two begged him to let them go, which angered him and caused him to torture them to death.

Really afraid of ghosts, Chen Shao looked at the names on the yellow paper and asked, "Where are the bodies of those women?"

Wu Dong quickly said, "In the courtyard where the two gentlemen live."

Chen Shao: "Lead the way!"

Luo Zhengxin had two sons and a daughter. His daughter was married to the fourth son of the second branch of the Ren family. His two sons were not married yet and lived in the yard next to him.

The bodies of the four women were used as fertilizer and buried in the garden in their yard.