Qingyu Case: Female Minister of Dali Temple

Zhang Boshan and the soldiers from various Caos immediately got busy.

Soon, the personnel were divided into groups.

Chen Shao said: "Write me the names of the members of each group, and we will set off immediately after writing it."

With her watching, Zhang Boshan led his men away swiftly after writing the list, and the same went for the military officers from various Caos.

Normally, these people would be flattered when they went out. But now, they were asked to guard the city gates like ordinary servants and go door to door to register the names of people who were not in Hongyuan County. Chen Shao naturally did not believe that they could lower their status. After Li Tianliu assigned a Yulin Army to supervise each group, she also left the prefectural government and appeared in a random manner to check a group at any time.

After a day of such a thorough search, Zhao Qiang came to the prefectural government the next day with a list of shoe sizes.

Zhao Qiang is a man who is efficient and meticulous. He not only marked out everyone's shoe size, but also made statistics on the same shoe size.

Chen Shao looked at the statistics he made and said, "There are 63 people whose shoes are 7.8 inches long."

Zhao Qiang nodded.

Chen Shao looked at the names of the sixty-three people one by one, then looked up and asked him, "Do you know all these people?"

Zhao Qiang replied: "I guess we know each other."

Chen Shao asked: "What does it mean to be acquainted?"

Zhao Qiang replied, "Many of the people on this list were people I knew before, but they didn't know me, and I had never dealt with them. It was only recently that I got the chance to talk to them after working with the adults."

Chen Shao nodded in understanding, and asked Chan Yi to take out the pen and ink and hand it to him. He then handed over the list and said, "You can estimate the height and weight of these sixty-three people and write it down."

Zhao Qiang had heard a lot of rumors about her and the murderer in recent days. He knew that she was determined to catch the murderer. Although he suspected that she was trying to save the decline of Chen Guogong Mansion, he was inevitably moved when he thought that the murderer was also the enemy who killed Sanwa. He wrote while thinking with a pen. When he finished writing and handed it over, Zhao Qiang said, "Among these people, only five of them married second wives after their wives passed away for various reasons. The rest of them took concubines at most. I haven't heard of anyone divorcing their wives and marrying another."

Chen Shao took back the hand that was holding the list and asked him to circle out the people who had married second wives. When he looked at the list later, he asked about the personalities of each person on the list.

Zhao Qiang told everything he knew.

After Chen Shao picked out the key points and wrote them down, he was just about to tell him that he was thankful for his hard work and that he would be busy again when he saw him take out several visiting cards.

Facing her inquiring gaze, Zhao Qiang sighed and said, "I have also told them that the master has been concentrating on investigating the case recently and will not participate in these banquets. But these people have always been smooth and treacherous. If I don't accept their visiting cards, it will be more difficult than climbing to the sky to get information from them. In order not to delay the master's important business, I have no choice but to accept them all."

"I see." Chen Shao glanced at the visiting cards, "Things are almost over now. Thank you for your hard work these days."

After motioning Chan Yi to hand him the thirty taels of silver that he had prepared in advance, he continued, "Take it. I don't have anything else to do for now. I'll come to you when I have something else to do."

Zhao Qiang looked at the silver that Chan Yi handed over, but did not take it immediately. If he took the silver, then they would discuss the matter, not the personal relationship. He quickly reviewed his recent actions and asked himself if he had done everything she asked him to do properly, and had not acted in a presumptuous manner, so why did she...

Zhao Qiang couldn't figure it out, so he had to keep smiling as he took the money. He thanked her politely before leaving.

After returning to Fulai Commercial Bank, Zhao Qiang still felt uneasy after thinking it over. After greeting Manager Xu, he pulled Zhao Liangzhu to a deserted corner and explained the whole story to him. Then he took out the thirty taels of silver and said, "Uncle Liangzhu, please check my pulse. At the beginning, Lord Chen was very nice to me and seemed to be planning to use me. How come he suddenly..."

Zhao Liangzhu sighed twice, shook his head, patted his shoulder and asked, "Think about it carefully, did Lord Chen's change of attitude towards you start from the time you helped someone deliver the visiting card?"

After Zhao Qiang recalled for a while, his face changed rapidly.

Zhao Liangzhu looked at the thirty taels of silver in his hand and said with regret, "Think about it again. Who are these people? If they want to send a visiting card to Master Chen, they can obviously come to the door in person, or find Master Zhang, Master Ding and others. Why don't they find the right people, but find you?"

Zhao Qiang looked unhappy. Although he had guessed the answer, he still asked unwillingly, "Why?"

Zhao Liangzhu patted his shoulder again: "Why do you say that?"

Of course, they knew that Chen Shao’s top priority was to investigate the case, but they didn’t want to miss the opportunity to get close to her, so they used him as a pathfinder.

Seeing his dejected look, Zhao Liangzhu said earnestly, "Don't blame them. You should know that you helped them deliver the visiting cards because you wanted to make friends with them. It's just... you lost the big picture for the small."

Zhao Qiang regretted his decision and said, "Yes, I did have some selfish motives, but..."

But he never expected that such a little selfishness would make Chen Shao look down on him. Zhao Liangzhu comforted him: "Okay, since it has already happened, let's take it as a lesson. Besides, Lord Chen also gave you thirty taels of silver, which shows that he still has high hopes for your ability to do things."

Zhao Qiang tightly held the cloth bag containing thirty taels of silver. He didn't want these thirty taels of silver!

The prefect's mansion, Chengfengyuan.

After sorting out the information Zhao Qiang brought back, Chen Shao looked up at the visiting cards. After asking Chan Yi to bring them over, she picked up one at random, and after reading the compliments and invitations to a banquet in the visiting card, Chen Shao threw it aside expressionlessly and picked up another one.

The content of each one is similar.

Chen Shao sneered twice and said to Li Tianliu: "Tomorrow you will personally lead people to search for the people on this list. I want to see if they dare to send you a visiting card!"

Li Tianliu came over, picked up the two visiting cards she had thrown, looked at them for a while, then glanced at her again, nodded and said, "Why wait until tomorrow? I'll go meet them now."

It took Li Tianliu three days to meet all sixty-three people on the list.

The result was naturally not satisfactory: among the sixty-three people, still not one of them was the murderer.

Furthermore, searches at the city gates and door to door yielded no results.

There are so many clues.

The direction of the search was not wrong.

Why can't the murderer be found?

Where is the murderer?

Chen Shao knew that the house-to-house search was not over yet, and she couldn't conclude so quickly that the murderer had not been found. She also knew that it was useless to worry, but she was still unwilling to just "sit and wait for death". This was not her character.

Since the murderer has not been caught yet, it proves that the clues are not solid enough or that no breakthrough has been found! Standing up, Chen Shao told Fu Jiu: "Prepare the carriage and go to Daqiao Town!"