Qingyu Case: Female Minister of Dali Temple

Chen Shao ordered without questioning: "Go to the dock and continue to supervise Changshun and Yongshun Cargo Company. If there is any situation, notify me immediately."

Mr. Luo responded slowly, "Okay."

"I don't want 'good', I want immediate execution." Seeing his still lifeless appearance, Chen Shao said bluntly, "You should know that with those boys and girls you trafficked, you are enough to die a hundred times. The reason I kept you is that you are still useful. Now, your revenge has indeed been taken, and you don't care whether you live or die. But the revenge of those boys and girls has not been taken yet. You don't fear life and death, but I think you don't want to see your wife and children not rest in peace after death!"

Mr. Luo looked at her suddenly, and the brilliance on his face at that moment was even brighter than when he saw Luo Qingrong yesterday.

Chen Shao looked back at him with cold eyes.

Luo Ye opened his mouth tremblingly, then forced himself to sit up with his arms, "I, I'll go right away."

"Don't forget, Luo Qingrong is still in jail." Chen Shao said this coldly, then turned and left.

Luo Ye fell back on the bed with cold hands and feet, shedding two lines of tears without any sign of sadness or joy. After a while, he sat up again, slowly slid off the bed, went to the backyard to fetch two buckets of well water, and washed his head twice. Although the sun was bright, the well water was icy cold. After shivering a few times, Luo Ye went back to the room, changed into clean clothes, ate a few snacks, drank half a bowl of water, and slowly groped his way out of the prefectural government.

The weather was very hot, but Luoyanju was busy as hell.

In the past, the assembled corpses would be taken back to the prefectural government one by one. Later, when there was no place to put them in the prefectural government, they were left there.

Chen Shao hasn't been to Luoyanju for a long time.

The carriage passed by people who were going to several gardens to watch the fun in twos and threes, and slowly stopped in front of Luoyanju.

Since the fall of the Wen family, the roads leading to the gardens have been cleared of guards or yamen runners. Many people like to come here to join in the fun when they have nothing to do. When the Zhu family was sieged, the Yulin guards who were guarding the gardens were also withdrawn due to lack of manpower. Now there are only four yamen runners left in each garden. Chen Shao is generous, and the yamen runners are not as domineering as before, which leads to a constant stream of people coming to watch the fun from morning to night.

Chen Shao got off the carriage, looked at the people who were rushing here, then looked at the people who were already gathered at the door, nodded slightly, and then entered Luoyanju.

Luoyanju was covered with straw mats inside and outside, on which were densely packed bones. Chen Shao walked and looked, and the bones were well put together, except for the occasional missing of one or two small bones, there were almost no mistakes.

"Sir." Xu Guang came out from behind upon hearing the news. He bowed with sweaty hands and asked, "Sir, how come you have time to come here today?"

After Chen Shao joked, "See if he's being lazy," he opened his eyes and saw his dark, skinny face, and couldn't help but say, "You're darker again."

Xu Guang wiped the sweat off his forehead with his sleeves, "It's hot, and I'm always exposed to the sun, so it's inevitable that I'll be darker. But I'm already old, and I even have several grandchildren, so I don't mind being a little darker."

She always felt that he was showing off, but she had no evidence. After silently complaining, Chen Shao stopped in front of a corpse with several hand bones missing, "What's going on?"

"This situation is very common," Xu Guang answered calmly, "There are too many bones to be pieced together, and they are all piled in one place. If we really have to piece together one piece at a time before moving on to the next piece, it would take who knows how long it will take to piece together this garden alone. In order to speed things up, I asked them to place the bones that they really couldn't find bones in this way first, and when they have finished piecing together the bones, they can use the remaining bones to find their owners."

"That's a good idea." Chen Shao nodded in appreciation. "How long will it take for this garden to be completed?"

"It should only take three to five days to finish it." Xu Guang answered uncertainly.

"Are those students obedient?" Chen Shao asked casually.

Xu Guang nodded. "They are all very obedient. There are a few who are really clumsy, so we let them do odd jobs."

As they talked, the two had already passed through several courtyards and slowly walked to the courtyard where they were now piecing together the bones. In the courtyard, the students were divided into groups of two or three, a total of 26 groups. The members of each group were hiding under the shade of trees, under the eaves, and under the corridors. Everyone squatted and chattered while piecing together the bones. I don't know if it was because they were used to it, but everyone looked lively and lively, and there was no trace of the panic they had when they were first arrested.

Xu Guang clapped his hands and shouted, "Stop what you are doing, the master is here."

The seventy-three students who were just chattering and laughing immediately stood up like frightened rabbits and looked towards the door in unison. When they saw Chen Shao, many of them changed their expressions instantly, and many of the more timid ones were already trembling.

When she was first arrested, many people still hoped that the law would not punish her. However, with the demise of the Wen family, especially the Zhu family, everyone had a new impression of her: vicious and cruel.

After Chen Shao scanned them one by one, he said calmly: "Continue to fight with your corpses, don't worry about me."

The students squatted down again obediently without stopping their work, but no one dared to say a word.

They all entered the academy by trafficking their sisters or being accomplices to evil, and they were punished for these crimes. Chen Shao naturally didn't care whether they were afraid or not. He walked slowly, starting from the nearest group, and then walked around each group. After asking a few questions from time to time, he slowly returned to the gate, "How many corpses have you found?"

Xu Guang quickly replied, "Eight hundred and thirty-seven."

Chen Shao glanced at the four piles of bones in the yard and asked, "Are these the only four left?"

Xu Guangxian replied with a "yes", and then said: "Over there, we only need one more Changlefang to finish the excavation. I plan to come back and dig here after they have finished the rest, to see if there are any bones that have been missed."

"When they dig again, have them pile up all the dirt outside," Chen Shao walked out of the yard and gave instructions, "These corpses...will be buried here when the time comes."

"Buried here?" Xu Guang looked around.

"My plan is to demolish the garden after all the remains are cleaned up, and then bury the remains in the garden." After Chen Shao finished speaking about his idea, he changed the subject and said, "Of course, if you have a better suggestion, you can also put it forward."

When Xu Guang heard that Luoyanju was going to be pushed, he subconsciously looked around and said, "It would be great to bury them here, but how many can be buried?"

Chen Shao looked at the corpses around him and asked instead of answering, "Among the 837 corpses you pieced together, how many are male and how many are female?"

Xu Guang answered with full knowledge: "There are 248 male corpses and 589 female corpses, all between the ages of 11 and 19."

"They are all in their prime years." Chen Shao said softly, "Let alone Luoyanju, even the entire Hongyuan County may not be able to cover the suffering they have endured."

However, due to technical limitations, she could not identify their names from the bones, nor could she find their families. The only thing she could do was to let them see the light of day again and bury them properly. Her eyes slid over the bones, and Chen Shao said slowly: "Outside Luoyanju is the Wen family's courtyard, and outside Bitaoyuan is the Zhu family's courtyard. After the bones are cleared, we will move the courtyards together. The conditions are a bit poor, so we can only ask them to make do with it."

If they were buried in the suburbs, no one would remember them after three to five years. Only if they were buried in the best and most fertile place in the county town, people would remember them forever.

It is both a memorial and a warning.

Xu Guang asked in a hoarse voice: "The coffin..."

Chen Shao was silent for a moment before he replied, "Just use the straw mat for now."

Xu Guang nodded, and after a while he uttered the word "OK".

Chen Shao retracted his gaze and looked at him, intentionally changing the subject: "Don't you have a lot of corpses collected and are observing their changes? How are they going?"

When he said this, Xu Guang immediately forgot about the corpses on the ground and said indignantly, "They are all buried."

Chen Shao looked him up and down, "Why did you suddenly give up?"

"It's not that I want to give up," Xu Guang endured for a while before complaining, "It's the people living near this garden and these students who think it's too smelly. The students are fine, but the people around me forced me to bury the bodies. They also threatened me that if I didn't bury the bodies quickly, they would go to the governor's office to sue me, and they would also throw rotten vegetable leaves and rotten eggs into my house, so that they would live in the stench too."

Chen Shao chuckled twice: "Only the people around here dislike it. Don't your family members dislike it?"

Xu Guang hung his head and said, "I hate it too."

The stench of corpses is extremely aggressive. Once you get it, it will hardly dissipate for ten days or half a month. This is the case with modern protective clothing and gas masks. In this place without any protection, I am afraid it may not be completely dissipated in one or two months. This is probably one of the reasons why the status of coroners in ancient times was low.

"There is a long way to go, don't be discouraged." Chen Shao comforted him casually and told him all the things he had learned from the chief steward and Zhang Zhongcai about the garden. After listening, Xu Guang cursed him as a "beast"! Chen Shao smiled and did not correct him. After taking another look at the corpses around him, he slowly said, "You continue to be busy. I just came to take a look. It's nothing important."

Xu Guang asked, "Sir, are you going to the big pit where people are buried?"

Chen Shao said 'hmm'.

Xu Guang immediately said, "I will go with you, sir."

Chen Shao said indifferently: "Let's go, but before I leave, I have to go check on the situation at the bone digging site."

Xu Guang said: "I will lead the way for you, sir."

Wu Dong's family has dug up Happy Forest.

Compared to the plump and delicate appearance when they first came to dig bones, now, whether adults or children, they all became pale and thin, and their expressions were also very listless. When they saw them coming, their originally numb expressions suddenly surged with fear, and the two young children were so scared that they burst into tears.

Chen Shao looked at Xu Guang questioningly.

Xu Guang replied disapprovingly, "He was dithering earlier and refused to listen even after being beaten several times. He finally behaved himself after seeing the adults coming over. He got scared because he thought he was going to be beaten again."

"Didn't you give them food?" Chen Shao asked.

"Why not?" Xu Guang said with more disapproval, "We give them the same food we eat for every meal. They look like this because they have done too many bad things and are scared of themselves. You don't have to pay attention to them, sir."

Seeing their angry but not daring to speak, Chen Shao did not ask any more questions. After leaving Happy Forest and looking around at the Peach Garden, the Winding Path Garden, the Moon Courtyard, and the Plum Garden, Chen Shao got on the carriage and prepared to go to the outskirts of the city.

However, the carriage was stopped less than a hundred feet away.

The people who stopped the carriage were the shop owners under the Zhu family, all of whom were holding account books in their hands.

Obviously, they were learning from the shop owners in the Wen family.

Two days ago, the shopkeepers of the Wen family's shops stopped Quan Shuyu and took the initiative to hand over the account books, and then they received the news of pardon. They followed suit and naturally wanted to be pardoned.

Chen Shao did not even get off the carriage. He just moved to the window, glanced at the account books in the hands of the shopkeepers, and then glanced at the people who quickly gathered around to watch the excitement. He said tolerantly: "I don't want to accept the account books here. Send them to Miss Quan at the prefectural governor's mansion. Just like the Wen family, as long as you have not committed serious crimes such as murder in the past and confess voluntarily, I can consider pardoning you."

One of the shopkeepers bravely asked, "Miss Quan is inspecting the Wen family's shops today. Should we also ask Miss Quan to inspect the Zhu family's shops?"

Another shopkeeper nudged him with his elbow and whispered, "Where are the Wen and Zhu families from?"

The shopkeeper who spoke first suddenly looked anxious and knelt down and said, "I deserve to die. Please forgive me, sir."

"Get up." Chen Shao said calmly, "Miss Quan has a lot of things to do. If you want her to inspect your shop, then go and discuss with her to see if she is free."

"Thank you, sir." The shopkeepers said in unison.

Chen Shao said 'hmm' and asked, "The shops you own belong only to the Zhu family, right?"

The shopkeepers responded in unison: "Yes."

"Okay then," Chen Shao ordered, "Go find Miss Quan."

The shopkeepers responded "yes" in unison again and stepped aside.

After the carriage passed them and left the path leading to the garden and drove onto the wide road, Chen Shao asked Fu Jiu, "I asked Ding Lisheng to send someone to Hanyuan County to investigate Quan Li'an's case. How is he doing?"

When Xu Guang was with them, he was the one driving the carriage, while Fu Jiu rode a horse with Li Tianliu on either side of the carriage. Hearing her question, Fu Jiu said, "I'll ask him when we get back."

Chen Shao reminded: "Don't forget it."

The place where the nobles dug the pit to bury the people was Bianhe Village in the southern suburbs of Hongyuan County. Bianhe Village had the Zhu family and Gu family's manors, which were adjacent to each other. The pit was at the foot of a low mountain about 200 feet away from the two manors.

The Zhu family's farm had been controlled by the Ren family. When Chen Shao arrived, the Ren family's steward who was in charge of controlling the Zhu family's farm hurried out to greet him. However, there was no movement from the Gu family.