Qingyu Case: Female Minister of Dali Temple

Li Tianliu walked in before her calmly with two Yulin guards.

Chen Shao reminded: "Try to hold the torch higher, so as not to light the weeds."

He then instructed Fu Jiu: "Arrange someone to clear the weeds in the yard later. Be careful when clearing them and look for any clues."

While reminding others, she squatted down with the torch in her hand.

The path was clean.

The roots of the weeds are also clean.

The heavy rain during the days when Tao A-mei was murdered washed away all traces.

Standing up disappointedly, Chen Shao walked towards the haunted house.

The environment inside the haunted house was far worse than Sun Qi had described.

The dense swarm of maggots covered the entire room like a thick carpet.

Li Tianliu suppressed his nausea, stretched the torch into the house to shine it around, then stepped aside and looked at Chen Shao to ask if he wanted to go in.

Chen Shao walked to the door and looked at the maggots rolling in the house. His scalp felt numb.

After shining the torch into the house, Chen Shao saw that the maggots were much thicker on the inside than elsewhere. She guessed that the murderer might have dug out the internal organs from Tao A-mei and the others' stomachs. She handed the torch to Chan Yi, took out a handkerchief to cover her mouth and nose, then stepped in and said, "You don't have to follow me. Just wait at the door."

Fu Jiu and Chan Yi, who were about to follow in, both retracted their feet.

The sound of the liquid bursting made Chen Shao's legs numb. She walked a few more steps in and heard another sound of liquid bursting behind her. She turned around and saw that it was Li Tianliu. She said, "Get out, no need to follow me in!"

Li Tianliu said nothing. He used the torch to roll among the maggots near the cobblestones. Looking at the maggots rolling down, he said disdainfully: "I have seen all kinds of battles. How can a small bug hinder my progress?"

After asking him to be careful, Chen Shao ignored him. He turned around and walked to the dense area where the maggots piled up like a mountain. He used a torch to peel away the layers of maggots. Looking at the internal organs that had been rotted beyond recognition, Chen Shao held back the surging gastric juice and moved the torch closer. After identifying that they were human internal organs, he turned them over slightly. Based on the degree of corruption of the internal organs and the growth pattern of the surrounding maggots, he roughly estimated the time when these internal organs appeared.

It’s about the same time as Tao A-mei’s death.

He raised the torch and looked around again. He saw a lot of blood splattered on the cobblestones, so he moved the torch closer to the cobblestones. After cleaning up the climbing maggots, he estimated the approximate range and height of the murderer based on the direction and shape of the blood splatter. Then Chen Shao looked around with the approximate range as the center.

"Young Master!" Amid the blazing torches and the crunching sounds of maggots being crushed as footsteps moved, Chan Yi's voice rang out piercingly, "Come out quickly, the maggots are crawling up your legs!"

Chen Shao looked down and saw that the tip of her shoe was covered with maggots. More than ten maggots had already crawled up her calf. She stamped her feet subconsciously. Hearing the creaking sounds, Chan Yi could no longer bear it and rushed in to pull her out. After cleaning the maggots on her legs and shoes while screaming, she retched and said, "Sir, don't go in yet. Let's get someone to clean up these maggots first."

Chen Shao looked at the maggots rolling on the grass stubble, and then said "OK". He looked at the Yulin Guards surrounding the thatched house, and then at the villagers watching the excitement from a distance. He instructed Fu Jiu, "Go and ask if there is anyone willing to clean up the maggots in the house. We need people who are not afraid of getting dirty or tired, and who are willing to work meticulously. Five or six people will be enough. After the work is done, each person will be paid two taels of silver."

Chan Yi said: "I'll go!"

About a cup of tea later.

Chan Yi brought back six neat middle-aged women.

After leading them to the entrance of the thatched hut, Chan Yi said, "The main thing is to clean out the maggots. You can only clean out the maggots. When cleaning, the broom must not be soaked in water, and the clues inside must not be damaged. Those that can be cleaned can be left behind, and those that cannot be cleaned can be left behind."

No one left.

One of the older women said, "It's just cleaning up maggots. What's wrong with that?"

In which summer does the toilet at home not have this kind of thing? Moreover, it is such a small room, and six people are cleaning it, and each person can get two taels of silver. You would be a fool not to do it.

If she wasn't afraid of offending others, she would have wanted to take it all on her own.

When Chan Yi heard her say this, she said, "Then hurry back and get the broom."

The six middle-aged women were afraid that if they were a step slower, their jobs would be snatched away by others, so as soon as she finished speaking, they rushed home.

After a while, six middle-aged women came back and, according to Chen Shao's request, braved the stench and cleaned the thatched hut in sections. While they were cleaning, Chen Shao asked Fu Jiu to dig a pit next to the thatched hut and asked them to clean out the maggots, dump them into the pit, and bury them all.

Afterwards, leaving Chan Yi to watch them work, Chen Shao took a torch and checked the cleared courtyards one by one.

The yard was very clean, with nothing there except some droppings left by wild rabbits and pheasants.

Chen Shao walked around the thatched hut again, and the area around it was also very clean: this was just the murderer's killing site.

How did the murderer find this place?

Chen Shao looked at the village across the mountain bend.

The murderer must be very familiar with Pinggao Township.

How did he become so familiar with Pinggao Township and even the villages and towns in the northwest?

Chen Shao couldn't think of anything and had no clue. Just as he was about to walk around to see if he could find any clues or inspiration, one of the women cleaning the maggots suddenly said, "This stone looks like it's used for sharpening knives. Ask them if they want it later. If they don't want it, I'll take it back."

Another woman said, "This is a place where people are killed. How dare you take it?"

The woman who spoke first was about to say, "What's the big deal? Who hasn't killed a pig or a sheep before?" Before she could finish her words, another woman said, "This is something from the haunted house. If you're not afraid that Grandma Sun will come and nag you in the middle of the night, take it."

The woman who spoke first immediately shut up.

Chen Shao returned to the thatched cottage and walked along the path they had cleared to the grindstone. Looking at the relatively fresh marks left by the sharpening, he asked the cleaning woman, "Look at the marks left by the sharpening. This knife is narrow, long and thick. I wonder if any of you ladies know what kind of knife this is?"

Several women gathered around and after looking at the grindstone for a while, one of them said, "There are many narrow and long knives. I wonder which one you are referring to?"

After carefully studying the marks, Chen Shao estimated, "It's probably a sharp knife, about 10.8 inches long."

One of the women immediately said, "A knife this long must be a butcher knife."

The other women echoed: "It looks like a butcher knife to me."

"Is it a butcher knife?" another woman said. "Isn't Cheng Lao Er a butcher? Let him bring the knife over and we'll know for sure."

Chen Shao immediately said to Fu Jiu who was standing at the door, "Go get Cheng Lao Er's butcher knife."