Qingyu Case: Female Minister of Dali Temple

Chen Shao used his eyes to signal Chan Yi to invite him in, and then he slowly drank half a cup of tea. After Zhao Qiang came in and asked him to sit down first, he put down the teacup and asked, "Did you find any clues?"

Zhao Qiang pulled out a list from his sleeve and handed it to her: "I asked every shoe store. These are the repeat customers they can remember. It's not complete, but it's almost the same."

Chen Shao took a look and saw that there were more than 400 people scattered around.

Among them, thirty or forty were people from the prefectural government or their family members, and the rest, nine were from the Imperial College, followed by the gentry, noble families, and large and small merchants in the county town.

After a quick glance, Chen Shao saw Zhao Qiang's name on the list. He instinctively raised his eyelids to look at him. He was wearing exactly such shoes, but the size was around eight inches.

Perhaps noticing her gaze, Zhao Qiang said, "These shoes are a bit expensive, but they are soft and durable. Running around outside all year round, you rely on your legs. Wearing a pair of good shoes can save a lot of effort."

Chen Shao nodded in agreement and returned the list to him. "Please check again what size shoes these people wear."

Zhao Qiang had dealt with her at least ten times and knew that as long as he did his job well, she would not put on airs. She was not only gentle, but also approachable. So after receiving the list, he joked, "I have been pestering the shop owners of various shoe stores to ask for the names of these regular customers these days, which has already made them unhappy. If I check the shoe sizes of each of them one by one, I wonder if they will beat me up and scold me."

Chen Shao cooperated and said, "If they dare to beat or scold you, just come to me and I will vent your anger for you."

Zhao Qiang said: "With your words, I can go with peace of mind."

He said that, but he didn't leave.

Seeing his hesitation, Chen Shao smiled and said, "Just tell me what you want to say. Since you are working for me, I will not sit idly by as long as it does not involve issues of principle."

"It's not a big deal," Zhao Qiang took out a few visiting cards from his arms and said half-truthfully, "I've been working with you these days, and the people in the county have mistakenly thought that I've become a high-ranking official. They've been stuffing visiting cards at me, asking me to say a few good words for them in front of you. I couldn't refuse, so I had to accept it. I don't ask you to accept the visiting card, just think of it as returning their favor by saying this."

Chen Shao's smile remained unchanged. "Just leave it there."

Zhao Qiang was a smart man, and he knew that knowing when to stop was the best way to communicate. He stood up, bowed to her, and turned away. But no matter how smart he was, he could never have imagined that Chen Shao had planned to entrust him with an important task after the case was investigated. But this time, the important task was gone.

Because when he is entrusted with an important task, the thing he fears most is that he will rely on personal connections.

Once people start to value personal connections, many things will not be handled fairly.

Looking at his back, Chen Shao slowly put away his smile, glanced at the several visiting cards he had placed on the coffee table, and said calmly, "Put them away."

Just as Chan Yi put away the visiting card, Xu Guang arrived.

"Sit down and talk." Chen Shao ordered before he could open his mouth.

After Xu Guang sat down, Chen Shao asked Chan Yi to pour him some tea.

Unable to refuse, Xu Guang respectfully took the tea, took two sips and said hurriedly: "These few days, while the adults were away, I also visited the villages involved in the case. From the sixth year of Yuanhe, the thirteenth year of Yuanhe to this year, a total of twenty-three cases occurred. I asked around again about the twenty-three victims. This is what I found out."

Xu Guang handed over a stack of yellowed and extremely rough papers.

While Chen Shao was looking through the papers, Xu Guang continued, "I only did a simple investigation on the eight people, including Li Lan, Zhao Sanwa, and Ma Ni, who were carefully investigated by the adults before. I didn't go into more depth. As for the other fifteen people, I carefully investigated each of them."

Chen Shao saw that he was speaking very quickly, so he said to him in a soothing tone: "Take your time, there's no rush."

Seeing him subconsciously looking at the sky, Chen Shao ordered Chan Yi: "Go and tell Lord Zhang to prepare one more meal at Chengfeng Courtyard in the evening."

"Villain..."

Chen Shao interrupted him, "Go on."

Xu Guang suppressed the emotion in his heart and tried his best to calm himself down before he slowly said, "Among the fifteen victims, I will talk about Tian from Daye Village. Tian was fifty-nine years old when she was murdered. She had two sons and four daughters. Logically, if she only liked her sons, she should have liked both sons. But she didn't. She only liked her youngest son. She lived in her eldest son's house, and her food and clothing had to be taken care of by her eldest son and his wife. If they didn't take good care of her, she would go around saying that they were mistreating her. In addition, all the money she earned from selling the chickens and ducks she raised was given to her youngest son without leaving a single cent."

Chen Shao interrupted, "She can even raise chickens and ducks to sell, which means she is in good health and doesn't need her eldest son and daughter-in-law to take care of her?"

Xu Guang nodded. "Yes, many people in the village said that when she was scolding her eldest son and daughter-in-law for being unfilial, she would always jump up and down, and her health was better than many young people."

Chen Shao: "I understand. Please continue."

Xu Guang then said, "Not only did she give all the money from the sale of the chickens and ducks she raised to her youngest son, she also secretly took all the delicious food and drinks from her eldest son's home and gave them to her youngest son. I heard from the villagers that she even stole the money that her eldest daughter-in-law borrowed from her parents' home to pay for her grandson's education and gave it to her youngest son. In addition to her eldest son, she also did the same to her daughters. Every three to five days, she would always go to her daughters' homes, and no matter whether her daughters were willing or not, she would move all the chickens, ducks, good clothes, good meat, etc. to her youngest son's home.

"If she wasn't allowed to move, she would lie down at the door of her daughter's house, rolling around and cursing, or simply hang herself with a rope and threaten to commit suicide. I heard that she learned all these from Zhou Lan, and then Zhou Lan was murdered. She stayed quiet for almost a year, but then she relapsed into her old ways."

Chen Shao found out Zhou Lan's information.

Zhou Lan and Tian both belong to Daye Village.

Zhou Lan was the first victim, and Tian was the seventeenth and last victim of the second serial murder case.

Xu Guang deliberately waited for a while, until she had seen enough, and then continued, "Zhao Ping from Changhe Village and Liang Simei from Yunhe Town are similar to them. One always despises his son-in-law for being useless, but often goes to his house to ask for food and drink, while the other simply lives in his house and moves his things to his son's house. These people are all shameless and good at throwing tantrums."

This summary is interesting.

Chen Shao followed his narration and looked at the corresponding information.

After talking about the older children, Xu Guang started talking about the boys who were killed. "Wang Xiaowa and other children who were killed were similar to Zhao Sanwa and Li Ba Wa. They were spoiled by their families and became lawless. They acted tyrannically and bullied other children. They either bullied their sisters or their mothers and grandmothers."

After taking out the information of several murdered boys and casually flipping through it, Chen Shao silently commented: They are all what modern people often call naughty kids.

I added silently: Behind every naughty child, there is one or even several naughty parents.