Qingyu Case: Female Minister of Dali Temple

Li Tianliu was still interrogating the Zhu family's manager in prison.

Chen Shao waited until midnight, but he still didn't come back, so she went to bed early. When she was sleeping soundly, Li Tianliu knocked on the bedroom window, waking her up.

Chen Shao struggled to get up, put on his outer clothes, and after reluctantly drinking two glasses of cold boiled water, he came out and sat in the main hall, and said tiredly: "Tell me, what's the matter that makes you so anxious."

Li Tianliu glanced at her disheveled appearance in surprise, then glanced at her lazy posture, secretly complained a few words, and then said: "I have already interrogated the Zhu family's managers."

"Then what?" Chen Shao asked while yawning.

"These managers and Zhang Zhongcai have explained almost the same thing," Li Tianliu said with a bit of displeasure on his face, "So far, no one has seen the great-great-grandson of the former crown prince, but one thing is certain: Wujun Governor Geng Yu has definitely seen him."

"What about Mr. Zhu and the Zhu family? Have they been tried?" Chen Shao asked.

"We'll have another trial tonight." Li Tianliu looked at her, "Don't you have any ideas?"

Chen Shao tilted his head to look at him for a moment, and seeing his provocative look of "I just want to wake you up in the middle of the night on purpose", he shook his head and said calmly: "Even if Mr. Zhu and Mr. Zhu have never met the great-great-grandson of the former crown prince, they must have met a big man with more say than Geng Yu. No matter how the Zhu family came to Hongyuan County, after so many years, there must be a layer of competition for interests between them and the Zhu family of Wu County. Geng Yu is the governor of Wu County. Is he on the side of the Zhu family of Wu County or the Zhu family of Hongyuan County? The answer is obvious. To drive the Zhu family of Hongyuan County to do something, only a big man who is fair in the eyes of the Zhu family of Hongyuan County can come forward."

Li Tianliu blurted out, "He is not the General of the State. The General of the State has only 150,000 fewer troops than the Duke of Chen's Mansion. Moreover, your second brother said that he is very strict in managing the army, and his ability to deploy troops is not inferior to the Duke of Chen's Mansion. If he was the prince's man, the prince's party would not have to plot in secret like they are now, and would have raised troops to resist Tang long ago."

Chen Shao joked: "When did I say it was him?"

Li Tianliu reminded: "Zhang Zhongcai confessed that they deceived Ding Lisheng by using the title of General of the Auxiliary State."

"Of course they want to use the banner of the General of the State," Chen Shao said calmly. "The princelings of the previous dynasty were so rampant in secret, but Datong was still so calm on the surface. Isn't it because they have the two big mountains of Chen Guogong Mansion and the General of the State suppressing them? Using the banner of the General of the State, firstly, only the General of the State can fight against the Chen Guogong Mansion, and secondly, they want to use the situation to alienate the Chen Guogong Mansion and the General of the State. Not to mention the princelings of the previous dynasty, even if I have those ideas, I will act the same way."

Li Tianliu asked: "Since it's not the General of the State, then who do you think it is?"

Chen Shao did not answer but asked: "Who do you think it will be?"

Li Tianliu glanced at her: "I am asking you."

Chen Shao followed suit and said, "Now it's my turn to ask you. Tell me, who do you think it is?"

Li Tianliu said: "I'm not kidding you."

Chen Shao raised an eyebrow, "Do I look like I'm kidding you?"

Li Tianliu looked at her for a moment and said, "I plan to interrogate the Wen family's stewards tonight as well."

Chen Shao nodded: "Okay. The more clues we have, the more likely we are to catch those who defected to the princeling party of the previous dynasty."

Li Tianliu said disdainfully: "Who is that so-called big shot who has more say than Geng Yu? It's not that you don't know, but you don't dare to say it!"

"What?" Chen Shao said calmly, "That person is the one who promoted Geng Yu to the position of Wujun prefect? ​​Who are the people who have the ability to promote Geng Yu to the position of Wujun prefect? ​​Which one of them is not a loyal and wise minister known to the world? Which one of them do you want me to identify?"

Li Tianliu stopped talking.

Chen Shao continued without stopping, "The princelings of the previous dynasty have been plotting to restore the country for hundreds of years. Now, through the cases of those gardens, we have just seen a glimpse of them, which shows how deeply they hide. You want to find out their followers immediately, which is tantamount to forcing them to act in advance. What is the current situation in Datong? I thought I told you clearly enough yesterday."

Li Tianliu snorted coldly and walked away.

Chen Shao looked at his back and did not stop him. But Chan Yi said indignantly: "Why is he going crazy in the middle of the night?"

Chen Shao stood up and walked towards the bedroom, saying, "He's not crazy, he's just anxious."

Chan Yi was still indignant: "Why is he so anxious?"

"I am worried..." Chen Shao paused for a moment and said slowly, "I am worried about who killed my second brother!"

Chan Yi was speechless for a moment, and after a while, she muttered, "Even if he was worried about the Second Young Master, he shouldn't have come to disturb him in the middle of the night. It's nothing that the Young Master didn't change his clothes today, but if..."

Chen Shao smiled lightly, "In order to avenge my second brother, he slaughtered all 8,000 elite soldiers of Beiqu, and he never recovered after that. Now that he knows that the murderer of my second brother is someone else, how can he not hate and be anxious?"

After helping her fall asleep again, Chan Yi looked outside and asked, "Who is the murderer who killed the Second Young Master? Do you know who it is?"

Chen Shao sighed: "If only I knew."

The huge Chen Guogong Mansion has encountered "accidents" one after another, and now only Erbo, Chen Zhao and she are left. Erbo and Chen Zhao only know that it was the treacherous ministers and rebels who killed them, but they have no idea who the treacherous ministers and rebels are. She came to Hongyuan County to use the serial murder case as a cover, and after confirming that she was on tour to hone her reputation, she would secretly look for clues. Who would have thought that by accident, the serial murder case would lead to the former prince's party?

Now, if they want to catch the great-great-grandson of the former prince or the person who has defected to the former prince's party, they have to continue to focus on the cases in those gardens and investigate the green jade as an ordinary smuggling case.

Of course, she was not someone who was good at forbearance, so she did not stop Li Tianliu's impatience.

"It doesn't matter if you don't know," Chan Yi comforted him, "Anyway, we already know about the princelings of the previous dynasty. We know that the Wen family, the Ren family, the Gu family, the Zhu family, the Fan family, the Qi family, as well as the prefects of Wu County and Shu County are all members of the princelings of the previous dynasty. Once we finish investigating the cases of those gardens, we can continue the investigation by following any clue."

"You're right," Chen Shao closed his eyes, "Go to sleep."

This time, no one disturbed them, and the two of them finally slept until dawn.

In the morning, after breakfast, on the way to the field in the western suburbs where the Zhu family buried the bodies as fertilizer, Li Tianliu suddenly said, "Last night when I went to interrogate the Zhu family's managers, Luo Qingrong cried and begged her to admit her mistakes, and said that as long as you release her and the two children, she is willing to honor her father well."

Chan Yi laughed when she heard this. "Has she always been this stupid, or has she become this stupid after living a 'good' life in the Zhu family for more than ten years? Not to mention that Master Luo killed so many young men and women and deserved to die, she threatened to honor her father. Is this something a person with a brain can say?"

Although he knew that he would not bring up this matter for no reason, Chen Shao still answered: "Since she considers herself a member of the Zhu family completely, she should share the joys and sorrows with the Zhu family. Now, whether she can be free does not depend on whether she is willing to honor her father, but on whether she has participated in the criminal activities of the Zhu family."

Sure enough, just as she finished her words, Li Tianliu asked again: "What about Quan Shuyu's grandfather and father? When I went to the prison last night, her grandfather and father also begged me, saying that they knew they were wrong and asked you to forgive them this time for Quan Shuyu's sake. They swore that they would never dare to do it again."

Chen Shao said calmly: "Then tell them that Quan Shuyu is Quan Shuyu, and they are them. Whether they can be forgiven depends on whether they have done anything that violates Datong's laws, not on whose face they are."

Li Tianliu was silent for a long time before he said leisurely, "He is truly impartial and just!"

"This is not about being impartial," Chen Shao corrected, "but it means that no one can override the laws of Datong for any reason."

"According to what you said," Li Tianliu said, "If Fu Jiu commits any crime in the future, will you handle it impartially?"

Fu Jiu protested: "I won't do anything wrong!"

Li Tianliu nitpicked, "What if it's for Duke Chen's Mansion?"

"If it's for the Duke Chen's Mansion," Fu Jiu said without hesitation, "then after I commit the crime, I won't need you to punish me, you can just kill me first."

Li Tianliu sighed and continued, "What if it's for your young master?"

Fu Jiu still said without hesitation: "It's the same for our Master!"

Chan Yi snorted and laughed a few times, and asked provocatively: "Why don't you ask him, what if it's for you?"

Fu Jiu immediately rode away from him, "I can't control him!"

Li Tianliu sneered twice.

Amid the clamor of the three, the carriage soon arrived at Changwo Village in the western suburbs. The Ren family who were guarding the Zhu family's manor had already received the news that Chen Shao was coming, and when they saw her carriage appear, they all came out to greet her.

The leader was Ren Zhongxing.

"Young Master." Ren Zhongxing greeted him all the way outside the village.

Chen Shao looked at him through the car window, "Are you here to guard this place?"

Ren Zhonghang said honestly, "The young master went to Bianhe Village yesterday. I guessed that he might come here today, so I came here early."

"Then lead the way." Chen Shao ordered.

Ren Zhongxing answered respectfully, took the reins handed to him by the servant, turned over and sat on the horse, turned his horse's head and lagged behind Li Tianliu, who was leading the way, by half a horse's length, and asked in a good-tempered manner, "Sir, do you want to go to the farm first, or go directly to that piece of land?"

"Go directly to the fields." Chen Shao replied.

After all, using corpses as fertilizer to grow crops was too horrifying. So Mr. Zhu San deliberately chose Changwo Village, which was home to only the Zhu family's farm, and the land he chose was less than twenty feet away from the left side of the Zhu family's farm.

After leading the people to the field, Ren Zhongxing asked the servants to go back and get hoes and shovels, and then took the initiative to explain: "It is this piece of land. After I came here this morning, I specifically asked the people in Zhujiazhuangzi."

Chen Shao walked around the ground.

The land is neither big nor small, about half an acre.

Peanuts are planted in the field.

Judging from the state of the peanuts, they are already mature.

Chen Shao bent down, grabbed the peanut rhizome in front of him, and pulled it out with force. Then he looked at the peanuts hanging on the roots and instructed the Yulin Guards: "The peanuts have already grown, pull them up first to avoid waste."

"Master, you don't want to bring these peanuts back for us to eat, do you?" Fu Jiu asked. The Yulin Guards beside him all looked at Chen Shao. It was obvious that Fu Jiu's question had expressed their thoughts. Although they were not afraid of corpses, eating peanuts grown from corpses... they simply couldn't even think about it!

Chen Shao said unhappily: "What are you thinking about?"

"It's fine if they don't give us the peanuts to eat." Fu Jiusong went forward angrily and pulled out five bunches of peanuts. The Yulin Guards also went forward to get busy. When the servants of the Ren family took out the hoes and shovels, they had already pulled out almost half of the peanuts in the field.

When the servants of the Ren family joined the peanut-pulling army, Chen Shao asked Ren Zhongxing, "Have you asked the people in Zhu's farm who ate the food grown on this land in the past?"

"I have asked," Ren Zhongxing answered cautiously, "and they all said it was sold. As for who it was sold to, there are different opinions."

Chen Shao asked casually: "You, the Ren family, don't know either?"

Ren Zhongxing lowered his eyebrows and said, "Although they are both aristocratic families, there is still a certain gap between the Ren family and the Zhu family. Moreover, Master Zhu San has always said that he used corpses as fertilizer and ate all the crops he grew. He even praised their unique taste. I only found out today when I confirmed with the servants on the Zhu family farm that all the crops grown on this land were sold by Master Zhu San."

Chen Shao watched without comment as they pulled out all the peanuts. He then watched as, under Xu Guang's direction, they slowly dug a three-foot-deep pit. Finally, amid a chorus of exclamations, some white bones were revealed.

"Don't move yet!" After Xu Guang shouted twice, he knelt down carefully on the ground, dug up the mud and sand with his hands, dug out all the buried bones, and carefully picked up one of the bones.

It's a tibia.

After carefully observing the tibia against the sunlight for a while, Xu Guang climbed out of the mud pit and handed the tibia to Chen Shao.

Chen Shao took it and asked while observing: "Tell me your judgment first."

With nearly a month of experience in bone-matching, Xu Guang boldly said, "This body should have been buried for five to ten years." He took a look at the pelvis in the mud pit and said, "It's a female body, between thirteen and fifteen years old, and between four feet seven and four feet nine in height."

Chen Shao returned the tibia to him, and the moment he took it, he asked coldly: "Who taught you to perform an autopsy like this?"

Xu Guang laughed twice.

Chen Shao still had a stern face. "Autopsy is a very serious matter. A slight mistake can lead to a huge loss. Now you are facing a major case involving several gardens. There are many victims. You don't need to identify their identities. What if you are facing only one dead person today?"

Xu Guang said ashamedly: "Your Excellency is right."

Chen Shao jumped down from the mud pit, squatted down and checked the bones he dug out from head to toe. His eyes fell on the silver hairpin next to the skull and ordered, "Come down and check again!"