Qingyu Case: Female Minister of Dali Temple

The entrance to the cellar is under the bed in the innermost room.

The Imperial Guards had already lifted the bed to the side and lifted up the wooden board covering the entrance.

The entrance was not big, only about two feet wide and long. The cellar was quite deep, and the natural light could not reach the bottom. Chen Shao stood at the entrance, feeling the cold wind blowing out of the cellar, and his heart sank slightly. This cellar had more than one entrance and exit!

"Bring a torch!" Li Tianliu obviously realized this. When the Yulin Guards lit the torch and came over, he snatched it, shone it into the cellar twice, and then jumped down.

Three imperial guards holding torches jumped down after him.

Watching the light of the torch gradually disappear in the cellar, Chen Shao, knowing that his guess was true, went down to the cellar after the Yulin Guards set up the ladder.

The cellar is not big, about 100 square meters, but it is nearly three meters above the ground.

The cellar was empty.

Chen Shao took the torch from the Yulin Guard and shone it around.

The ground was only slightly compacted, without much modification. There were messy footprints everywhere. Many of the footprints were fresh, having been formed in the past one or two days. Following the movement trajectory of the footprints, it can be seen that they all came in empty-handed from another entrance and left from another entrance with heavy loads.

Chen Shao identified them carefully and found a total of twenty-one pairs of different footprints. Excluding Li Tianliu and the three Yulin guards, there were still seventeen different pairs of footprints.

After asking Chan Yi to go up and get paper and pen and write down the characteristics of the twenty-one pairs of footprints one by one, Li Tianliu and the three Yulin guards also came back.

After taking a quick glance at the feet of several people and pointing them to have their feet scratched off, Chen Shao looked at Li Tianliu.

Li Tianliu's face turned pale. "The other entrance is at Ma San's shop. The knives and swords in here were moved away last night."

As he said this, his eyes vaguely swept over the few people who were guarding the courtyard yesterday.

Several people lowered their heads at once, and one of them said, "We didn't hear any movement last night."

"Don't blame them," Chen Shao said, "I didn't think it through."

She thought that the cellar was just a basement, and she didn't consider at all that there might be other exits in the basement.

Even though she had just learned that there was another exit, she only guessed that the knives and swords in the cellar might have been emptied last night. She had never expected or even thought that the other exit would be in Ma San's shop.

After shining the torch around again, Chen Shao asked, "How did you find out that they took away these knives and swords last night?"

"There are horse hoof and wheel marks inside and outside his shop. It's obvious that they were just made." Li Tianliu said in a cold voice, "I've asked the neighbors. Although they didn't hear any noise at night, they can all testify that there were no such marks in front of his door before dark yesterday."

"In other words," Chan Yi suddenly asked, "if we had come here last night, we could have found those knives and swords before them?"

Li Tianliu's already cold face turned cold again. Apparently he remembered that it was she and Quan Shuyu who stopped Chen Shao from coming last night on the grounds that only by coming today to search for these knives and swords would the people be more alert. This led to the disaster of these knives and swords being taken away overnight by the prince's gang of the previous dynasty.

Chen Shao did not respond. He looked up at the entrance of Uncle Fang's house and ordered, "Lead the way, let's go to Ma San's shop and take a look."

The entrance to Ma San's shop was below the chopping board for slaughtering fish. Because of years of slaughtering fish, there was a layer of black blood stains on the ground and the wooden board covering the entrance. The last time she came here, she found that he was not there, so she went back to interrogate Bao Chengle, so she did not search carefully. In the end, she had already found out, but she still let the prince's party of the previous dynasty move those knives and swords away. She should bear 90% of the responsibility.

He took a look at the traces of the carriage in the house, and followed the traces out of the shop. Watching the traces disappear among the mottled traces of various colors on the road, Chen Shao raised his foot, followed the main road, circled back to Uncle Fang's courtyard, stood in the courtyard, and looked in the direction of Ma San's shop.

"It's all my fault," Chan Yi said ashamedly as she stood beside her, "I knew that the princelings of the previous dynasty were full of tricks, but I still advised you like that last night."

"It has already happened, so don't dwell on whether it is right or wrong." After Chen Shao comforted him briefly, he called Li Tianliu over and said, "I observed carefully on the way from the cellar to Ma Sanpu just now. When they dug the passage, some were deep and some were shallow. You have to arrange people to check every household along the passage. The terrain on the Shipailou side is low, and people live so densely. If there are a few more heavy rains, water will accumulate and it will easily cause a landslide."

Li Tianliu immediately led people to check.

After thinking about it, Chen Shao gestured to Chan Yi and said, "Go with him and explain everything to him."

Chan Yi admitted that he had done something wrong and was looking for an opportunity to make up for it. Upon hearing her words, he immediately took a small path to chase after Li Tianliu.

After Chen Shao watched the crowd leave with them, he returned to Uncle Fang's house and searched every room carefully. The results of the search were not ideal. Apart from identifying the owners of each room, he found almost nothing.

After asking the Yulin Guards to take the kitchen knives and several axes from the house, Chen Shao returned to the prefectural government first.

Quan Shuyu went to the Zhu and Gu family mansions to guard again. Not knowing when she would come back, he asked Zhang Ruyuan and others to wait for her in Qingfeng Courtyard. Hearing the noise of her coming back, Zhang Ruyuan and others came out of Qingfeng Courtyard one after another, calling her "Master" and walking towards her.

Chen Shao originally planned to ask Bao Chengle about the knife, but when he saw them, he had to temporarily suppress the idea and took them to the study. After letting them sit down, he was about to tell them the purpose of looking for them, but Zhang Ruyuan picked up the teapot and found it was empty. He immediately stood up and said, "If the adults have any instructions in advance, I will listen to them later. I will go to make tea."

Before she could refuse, he went out with the teapot.

Seeing that he had not forgotten to close the study door, Chen Shao smiled and turned to the others and said, "I called you here for no other reason than to ask you how you feel about checking the account books and the money vaults and granaries of each household for quite some time now."

Chang Si was upset that Zhang Ruyuan had snatched away his chance to show off. Upon hearing this, he said, "I used to think that the clerks in the government office were not worthy of being on the stage, and only people with no future would do this job. In the past few months, I have been following Miss Quan to check the account books, count the money vaults and granaries, and I have come to deeply understand the difficulties of those clerks."

Chen Shao asked: "How do you say that?"

Chang Si said touchingly: "I used to think that studying was for the purpose of becoming a good official after one gets ahead in life. The only thing on my mind about how to be a good official was to benefit the people. Now I find that for a so-called good official, whether or not one can benefit the people is not the most important thing. The most important thing is whether or not one can stick to one's original intention."

Geng Dingli and Kang Zhengzong nodded in agreement.

Cui Shu sneered disdainfully.

Chen Shao looked at him: "Do you have a different opinion?"