Qingyu Case: Female Minister of Dali Temple

The Sun family's back garden is planted with many valuable flowers and plants. There are no flowers at this time of year, and many trees are bare. But regardless of whether there are flowers or not, whether the trees are bare or not, you can see that the branches of the trees are intact, and the branches and leaves of the flowers and plants are equally lush.

In short, there were no signs of a fight.

Chen Shao stopped ten steps away from the pavilion.

Gu Feiyan and Chan Yi, who were following her, also stopped.

Chen Shao's eyes fell on the one-way blood footprint in front of the pavilion. The direction of the blood footprint was from the pavilion to the outside, and the source of the blood footprint was in the pool of blood that had already dried under the stone table in the middle of the pavilion.

"Give me a torch." Chen Shao ordered.

Fortunately, it hadn't rained for nearly a month or two, and the county government and the Sun family had also taken good care of the place. Although the bloody footprints had all dried up, they were still intact.

Chan Yi brought the torch over, and Chen Shao took it, squatted in front of the bloody footprints, and used the torch to illuminate the bloody footprints from beginning to end. The soles of the shoes have diamond patterns, and the diamond patterns are more compact and dense at the soles and heels, and open and sparse at the arches.

I measured it in the air with my hand and found that the bloody footprint was between seven and nine inches and eight inches long, which, converted into modern units, is about a size 43 foot.

After observing several other bloody footprints, Chen Shao discovered that each bloody footprint was heavy on the heel and slightly lighter on the sole, and the distance between steps was basically the same. At the same time, the patterns of the bloody footprints were clear and complete, with almost no worn parts.

After entering the pavilion, Chen Shao stood in front of the stone table and his eyes first fell on the stone table.

There were three dishes of leftovers on the stone table: one dish of peanuts, one dish of roasted lamb, and one dish of fried leeks and clams. The plate of peanuts had broken into pieces, and the peanuts were scattered everywhere.

Next to the three dishes of leftovers, there were two empty wine jugs.

The direction in which the wine jug tilted was consistent with the direction in which the peanuts were spilled, and also consistent with the splattered blood.

Chen Shao walked along the stone table again and stood in front of the stone bench on the west side.

Judging from the shape of the splattered blood, Sun Shouyi was killed by the murderer after his throat was slit while he was sitting on the stone bench in front of her, and then his body was dismembered.

Chen Shao turned around and looked at the cloth rope on the beam.

The cloth rope is the scattered clothes, and then tied into a long strip.

The fabric of the cloth rope was silk, and one section was covered with tiger hair. After stepping on the open threshold and taking down the cloth strip and handing it to Chan Yi, Chen Shao took the torch and shone it around again.

The crossbeam was about 15 feet above the ground, and more than 10 feet above the open sill. At such a high distance, it was easy to put up the cloth alone, but it was not easy to tie the body upside down on the crossbeam.

The torch swept across the beam little by little, and sure enough, it saw several bloody handprints where the cloth strip was tied.

"Chan Yi, go up and see if there are any bloody footprints." Chen Shao ordered.

Chan Yi flew onto the beam, took the torch she handed over, and immediately said, "Yes, it's exactly the same as the bloody footprints on the ground!"

Chen Shao said "I know" and let her come down.

From the distribution and shape of the bloody footprints, she had deduced that the murderer was a young man between 20 and 30 years old who was skilled in martial arts. The bloody footprints on the beam further confirmed her speculation.

After walking around the pavilion again and failing to find any useful clues, Chen Shao left.

Sun Wangchun, Madam Sun, Zhou Lao and County Magistrate Jin, who were waiting outside, saw them come out and immediately turned their eyes to Chen Shao.

Chen Shao took the strip of cloth from Chan Yi's hand and asked Sun Wangchun, "Was this torn from Sun Shou Yi's clothes?"

Sun Wangchun nodded in agreement.

"That's it for tonight. I'll come again tomorrow and have someone continue to guard this place." After instructing County Magistrate Jin, Chen Shao turned around and looked at Madam Sun's eager eyes. He paused and said, "I can't see any new clues at the moment. Sorry."

Mrs. Sun tried hard to suppress her disappointment and opened her mouth to ask a few more questions, but was stopped by Sun Wangchun.

After leaving Sun's house, Chen Shao did not go back to the county government office. Instead, he found an inn on the street and stayed there.

Magistrate Jin mistakenly thought that she was dissatisfied with the banquet in the evening and hurriedly apologized on the ground.

Chen Shao was too lazy to talk to him any more and ordered directly: "Go and bring me all the evidence or clues of these cases, right now."

County Magistrate Jin went back to the county government office trembling with fear to get clues.

Zhou Lao was still guarding the inn.

Chen Shao took out Sun Shouyi's case file and looked at it for a while. When he looked up and saw that he was still there, he couldn't help but ask, "Master Zhou, do you have anything else to say?"

Zhou Lao was not a tactless person. Hearing this, he quickly said, "My lord, you have traveled a long way these past few days. It is better for you to rest early. I will come again tomorrow. I will not disturb you today."

After waiting for a while, seeing that she had no intention of staying, he turned and left.

After he walked away, Chen Shao put down the case file, asked Chan Yi to prepare pen and ink, thought for a while, and wrote down the characteristics of the murderer one by one: male, height between five feet one and five feet three, feet between seven inches nine and eight inches long, age between twenty and thirty years old, practiced martial arts since childhood, came from a good family, had outstanding appearance or temperament, was polite and considerate in dealing with others... After thinking for a moment, Chen Shao put a question mark behind "polite and considerate in dealing with others".

He then continued to write: He appears to be humble and polite, but is actually cruel and may have abused animals in private.

After writing this, Chen Shao thought for a moment before putting down his pen.

As soon as she put down her pen, Gu Feiyan reached out and took the paper away.

After reading what she wrote, Gu Feiyan said, "Long legs and martial arts skills are easy to tell, but how did you know about height, age, family background, and appearance?"

Chen Shao said: "There is a formula to calculate height by foot length. It cannot be said to be infallible, but the accuracy rate is extremely high. There is also a formula to calculate age by step length. The accuracy rate is slightly lower, but it is good for reference."

"What about family background and appearance?" Gu Feiyan asked, "Is there a formula for that?"

"No," Chen Shao looked at the strip of cloth on the side, "I haven't seen other scenes yet. From the scene of Sun Shouyi's crime alone, Sun Shouyi was wearing a tiger-skin coat, which was very valuable. Not only did the murderer not take it with him, he also tore it up to make a rope. From the records in the case file, after Sun Shouyi's death, the gold, silver, and jade jewelry on his body were not damaged. In addition, the murderer was wearing new shoes when he killed people. All these combined can determine that the murderer must be rich."

Gu Feiyan questioned: "Can't it be revenge?"

"Seeking revenge and taking away valuables are not contradictory. Moreover, there are only four motives for murder, namely money, power, love, hatred, and impulse killing." Chen Shao said slowly, "The crime scene was in the back garden of the Sun family, which rules out impulse killing. The Sun family is just rich, not powerful, which rules out power. Xitang County is so small, and Sun Shouyi currently has only a few concubines. Although they spend their days in debauchery, they have never caused any romantic scandals, so love can also be ruled out. As for money and hatred, Sun Shouyi is just a dandy boy who only knows how to eat, drink and have fun. Even if he has an enemy, it is very likely that the enemy is caused by money."

"According to what you said," Gu Feiyan questioned, "the murderer has nothing to offer, so why kill him?"

Chen Shao glanced at the paper in her hand and shook his head, "I'm also curious, if the murderer has nothing, why do you want to kill him?"

Chan Yi reminded: "Sir, Lord Jin is here."