Qingyu Case: Female Minister of Dali Temple

The Yulin Guards have surrounded the entire cornfield.

Holding a torch, Chen Shao walked around the cornfield first, then stood at the location designated by Luo Ye for burying the dead alive, holding the torch, and looked around from far and near.

This cornfield was less than a hundred feet away from Dashi Village. The noise of their approach caused the dogs in the village to bark wildly. Many brave villagers followed the direction of the barking and left the village to look over here.

The Wen family’s farm was on a mountainside a little further away. Although it was late in the evening and the firelight was particularly dazzling, one could still see the magnificent palaces on the mountainside through the dim moonlight.

Mr. Luo said attentively, "There are several mountains over there that have been occupied by the Wen family. There used to be villages at the foot of two of the mountains, but the Wen family thought they were interfering with hunting, so they forced the people in those two villages to move elsewhere. They also said they would compensate for the fields at the foot of the mountain, but later they never paid."

Chen Shao held up a torch and shone it on the mountains he pointed to, and asked, "Where are those two villages now?"

Mr. Luo pointed to the side and said, "Over there."

Chen Shao moved the torch over. It was almost dark, and there were all kinds of trees and crops blocking the view. Although the torch was moved over, he could not see anything. Retracting the torch, Chen Shao asked, "Didn't anyone report to the police?"

Uncle Luo looked at the cornfield in front of him.

Chen Shao immediately understood that the Wen family's killing of a chicken to scare the monkeys had frightened the surrounding villages. Those who did not want to die immediately did not dare to report to the authorities. After taking a few steps back and doubling the range, Chen Shao ordered: "Dig!"

Many Yulin guards were experienced in digging graves. Following her orders, they dug three feet deep from the outside to the inside.

No bones were seen.

Chen Shao jumped into the pit, picked up a handful of soil, twisted it, put it under his nose and smelled it, then decisively ordered: "Keep digging, and move gently."

This time, the Yulin Guards dug less than two feet down when they discovered two human bones.

Mr. Luo, who was standing outside the pit, breathed a sigh of relief quietly. When he picked up his sleeves to wipe the sweat off his face, he glanced into the distance unintentionally. Seeing the farm staff secretly running away, he immediately said to Chen Shao in panic, "Sir, they ran away, the people in the farm ran away!"

Chen Shaoshun glanced in the direction of his finger and said calmly, "The monk can run away, but the temple cannot. If they like to run, then let them run."

When the Wen family is questioned, they will naturally give out the names and addresses of these people.

After asking the Yulin Guards to leave the pit, Chen Shao led Xu Guang back in. The bodies had already turned to bones, but because of the soil, they still maintained their posture at death.

"Were they poisoned before they died?" Xu Guang carefully dug away the soil covering the bones, looked at the blackened remains, and asked in confusion.

The blackening of the bones does not necessarily mean poisoning. Long-term contact with certain microorganisms in the soil may also cause the blackening. Therefore, Chen Shao did not rush to answer him. After stopping him from taking the skull, he took the torch from Chan Yi and scanned the bones in front of him from head to toe.

The corpse in front of him was lying prone, with his arms naturally bent downwards, protecting the two corpses in his arms. One of the corpse's legs was stretched straight out, and the other leg was half squatting. There were traces of fractures on the ribs and spine, and the neck of the corpse was black.

Returning the torch to Chan Yi, Chen Shao asked Xu Guang to step aside. She took two steps forward and carefully squatted in front of the corpse. After cleaning the dirt off the corpse, she cleaned up the corpse while checking it.

It's a female corpse.

Age between twenty-five and thirty.

He is about 1.6 meters tall.

The color of the temporal bone at the base of the skull is darker than other parts. This is a symptom of internal bleeding. The presence of this symptom indicates that the body died mechanically.

The hyoid bone of the corpse was intact, with no signs of fracture. The cervical vertebrae were also intact, with no signs of fracture. Strangulation and strangulation were ruled out.

There are cracks in the ribs and spine, but there are no fracture lines or bone fragments caused by heavy impact, that is, it was not caused by impact. From the scene, it can be basically determined that the fracture was caused by the heavy pressure of the soil. As to whether it was squeezed and broken before death or after death, it will be determined by steaming the bones.

Considering the characteristics of mechanical death, it can be basically determined that the corpse in front of us was buried alive to death.

Despite this, Chen Shao still carefully collected the teeth from the corpse and wrapped them separately in a handkerchief. Afterwards, she deliberately turned over the soil around the corpse. There were no clothes or hair residues in the soil, only two half-rotten wooden hairpins. Judging from the current state of the hairpins and the corpse, the owner of the corpse died about eight to eleven years ago.

The female corpse was holding the skeletons of two children, who were about five or six years old and seven or eight years old, judging from their height. Chen Shao did not participate in the cleanup. After instructing Xu Guang to collect the teeth of each skeleton as intact as possible and to carefully examine the temporal bone, she left the mud pit.

"When you first came to Dashi Village," Chen Shao called Luo Ye over and asked him while patting the dirt on his hands, "Who provided you with the evidence?"

Luo Ye knew that she was looking for witnesses. He quickly took a look at the bones she had sorted out from the mud pit and replied, "They are from Dashi Village. I will take you there."

After Chen Shao shook off the mud on his body, he called Wu'er to follow him.

When the people in Dashi Village saw the people in the cornfield coming towards the village, many of the timid ones immediately hid back at home. The braver ones retreated to the entrance of the village and stopped to watch. The braver ones just stood there without moving.

The only people who didn't move were three people and three dogs. The three people were a hunchbacked old man and two middle-aged men, and the three dogs stood on both sides of them.

In the light of the fire, the hunchbacked old man recognized Mr. Luo at a glance. Before they came closer, he shouted, "Is that Mag?"

Master Luo responded loudly: "Second Master, you have good eyesight. It's me. I'm back!"

After answering, he quickly explained to Chen Shao: "It's Zheng Kun from Dashi Village. He is almost seventy years old. The villagers respectfully call him Second Master. When I came to Dashi Village to collect these evidences, I lived in his house. I didn't dare to reveal my identity, so I lied in Dashi Village and said my name was Mag. Second Master is old, his hearing is a little deaf, and his eyesight is a little blurry. If Second Master offends me in a later time, I hope you will forgive me."

Chen Shao did not respond.

After Zheng Kun recognized Master Luo, he gave a few instructions to the two middle-aged men beside him. The two middle-aged men went into battle together and caught the three dogs that were barking with their tails between their legs.

"I haven't seen you here for a long time." As the team approached, Zheng Kun came forward with a wooden stick. He greeted Luo Ye first, then looked at Chen Shao and others, "This is you..."

Master Luo quickly stepped forward to hold his arm, and whispered in his ear: "Second Master, this is Master Chen from the capital. I brought him here to investigate the Muramasa family case?"

"Oh, you are an elder from the capital. Excuse me." Zheng Kun's teeth had almost fallen out, and his speech was a little slurred. Even so, when he heard that Chen Shao was an elder from the capital, he was about to kneel on the ground with his stick. Chen Shao took two quick steps and supported him, "Old man, no need to be so polite."

Zheng Kun said "OK" three times in a row, then supported Luo Ye's hand and stood up. "Before you said that you would make the Third Old Family's grievances known to the world, and I thought you were just bragging. I didn't expect you to really invite such an important person here today. This is amazing, really amazing!"

Master Luo leaned close to his ear and said shyly, "Second Master, I came here to ask you about the situation of Muramasa and Wen's manor. Tell me again what you told me back then."

Zheng Kun said "OK" several times, then groped his way towards the village, saying, "This is a long story. If you don't mind, please come inside and sit down."

After Master Luo conveyed his words, Chen Shao immediately followed his footsteps, "I'm really sorry to bother you so late at night."

Zheng Kun didn't hear clearly, and after Master Luo repeated it in his ear, he said, "What's the point of disturbing or not disturbing? The third brother's family are all good people. When they were buried alive by those bastards, we were afraid of the power of the Wen family and didn't dare to help. Later, the good fields were occupied by those bastards. The fields that were divided back could not even fill their stomachs after working hard for a year, but the taxes they should pay were not reduced. What is this? This is retribution! I'm old and I don't have many years to live. It would be easy to die. But look at the children in this village, one or two of them are pale and thin. If I continue to be greedy for life and afraid of death, in another ten or twenty years, this village will be extinct. Just that Zheng Liu and Wang San's fourth and second children, you still remember, they all died at the beginning of the year. They said they were sick, but there was no sickness, they all starved to death. And Wang Pozi and Li Er's wife were also starved to death. Many people starved to death."

As they spoke, the group slowly walked into the village.

The dogs that had been there before came out barking again.

Before, it was far away and he couldn't see clearly, but now the dogs were right in front of him, Chen Shao saw that the dogs were as thin as paper, and he could see their bones clearly through a layer of skin. The dogs were like this, and the villagers who were hiding and secretly looking at them were even more so.

Zheng Kun hit the dogs with a stick and started to chatter again: "If you had come a few days later, these dogs would have been killed and eaten. It's because they didn't eat at home, otherwise they would have died long ago. It's not our fault that we have no conscience. It's really that people can't afford to live these days, let alone a few dogs."

While he was speaking, Chen Shao also looked at Dashi Village from time to time.

Dashi Village was the most dilapidated village she had ever seen. If it weren't for the dogs barking at them and the villagers secretly looking at them, it would not be an exaggeration to say that it was an abandoned village.

Zheng Kun's home is in the east of the village, and it consists of just a few dilapidated thatched houses.

The tables, chairs and stools in the room were all broken.

Zheng Kun's eldest son brought over the only tree stump that was worth seeing. After Luo Ye rushed to take it, he wiped it with his sleeve before handing it to Chan Yi. "All the tables and benches that can be used at home have been taken out to exchange for food. My Lord, please sit on it for a while."

Chen Shao did not refuse. After sitting down, he glanced at Zheng Kun and his two sons, and then fell on the children hiding at the door. The children's faces were dark yellow, and their hair was sparse and yellow. Judging from their physique, the children were at most seven or eight years old, but judging from the age of the adults, they were obviously older.

Upon seeing this, Chan Yi led two Yulin guards to take out all the food in the carriage and distributed it to the children in the village.

There wasn't much food in the carriage, and each child only got a piece of dessert at most.

Chen Shao looked at the children wolfing down their food and ordered Li Tianliu, "Immediately arrange for someone to check how much food there is on the Wen family farm."

After Li Tianliu arranged for the people to go, Chen Shao turned around and said to Zheng Kun's two sons, "Please find a few more people to go to the nearby villages and shout, asking each family to bring their belongings to the Wen family farm to collect food."

Zheng Kun's two sons looked at Li Tianliu, then at the Yulin Guards behind him, and ran out with joy. Zheng Kun's two daughters-in-law were still a little worried, and Chan Yi came over to comfort them at the right time: "Don't be afraid, the Wen family dare not come to trouble our young master."

Chen Shao was persuaded by her, and turned around to ask Zheng Kun: "Old man, when did the Wen family own a farm here?"

After Master Luo passed on the message, Zheng Kun replied, "That's too early. Let me calculate... When the Wen family bought the farm here, the eldest was just 23 years old. Now the eldest is 41 years old, so it must have been 17 or 18 years."

Chen Shao asked again: "How long has the Wen family's Zhuangzi been here and proposed to exchange land with you?"

It was only after Luo Ye leaned over and repeated her words in his ear that Zheng Kun replied, "I've only been here for less than a year."

That means Muramasa's family has been buried alive for seventeen years. Chen Shao continued to ask: "How many people are there in Muramasa's family?"

"The third son has three sons, two of whom are married and have grandchildren, as well as two unmarried daughters and an old mother, a total of thirteen people." It was rare that Zheng Kun heard her words clearly without Luo Ye repeating them. Tears welled up in his cloudy eyes, and he wiped them away tremblingly, and continued, "At that time, none of us expected them to be so cruel. They wanted to change the land, and the first one they found was the third son. As soon as the third son said he disagreed, they pushed all of Muramasa's family into the cornfield you dug, and then dug a pit to bury them. They came prepared, with long knives and swords in their hands. The third son and several sons wanted to resist, and they picked up the long knives and swords and chopped them at them. We were all scared, and by the time we reacted, the third son and his family had already been buried."

Zheng Kun started to cry again as he spoke. "We all saw what happened to Lao San's family. They buried Lao San and came to us to exchange land. None of us dared to disagree."

Mr. Luo added, "They forced several villages around here to exchange their good farmland, but they didn't exchange the taxes together. The crops grown on the farmland they got back were not enough to feed the whole family, and they still had to bear such heavy taxes. Over the years, many families were forcibly captured and forced to do labor because they owed taxes every year."

Zheng Kun said: "It's all good now. The master is here, and the hard times are over."

Chen Shao said nothing, stood up, walked around the house and went out. The village was a little noisy. After learning that they could go to the Wen family's farm to collect food, every household was looking for baskets to put food in or calling the whole family to go out together. Chen Shao stood at the door of Zheng Kun's house for a while and told Chan Yi: "Let's go over and take a look."