Detective in the Red Chamber

It was rare for her to take the initiative to keep a guest, so Wang Xifeng declined a few words, but seeing that the sister-in-law was persistent, she readily agreed.

"Then it's settled! Sister-in-law, wait here for a while, let me make the arrangements, and invite sister-in-law to taste the specialties of our house tonight."

As Jia Yingchun said, she got up and took Yuanyang to the corner, but she didn't say a word about the dinner.

Only asked seriously: "Tell me the truth, just now at the door of the warehouse, you and your sister-in-law were talking about rats and rats, what exactly were you talking about?"

But it turned out that she had listened to people talk about mice twice, no matter how dull she was, she would inevitably have doubts in her heart, so she specially sought out mandarin ducks to clarify her doubts.

The mandarin ducks were quite far away just now, how could they know that there would be a follow-up to this matter?

Knowing the actual relationship between Jia Yingchun and Sun Shaozong, she felt that there was nothing to avoid, so she explained it in a roundabout way with a blushing face.

Jia Yingchun was dumbfounded when he heard this, and then all emotions and desires turned up on his usual dull face, as if he had opened a grocery store.

After a long time, she clenched her two rows of white teeth, but seemed to have made some difficult decision...

Chapter 918 The Walking Dead

【Finish, eat】

No wonder it is said that it is urgent, it really is another big thing!

Not long after noon, Dali Temple suddenly received a report, saying that Lin Qisheng, the censor of Zuodu who had just retired, died of poisoning in his study.

Although in principle, Dali Temple does not accept direct reports, but is responsible for handling difficult and miscellaneous cases submitted by local governments, or projects assigned by the imperial court.

But the one who died was a dignified second rank after all, and he was also the leader of the Kodao speaker!

No matter how unruly it is, how dare everyone in Dali Temple shirk it?

Therefore, after receiving the report, Temple Prime Minister Yang Zhiming hurriedly brought together his men and horses, and rushed to Lin's residence to investigate the case.

Just as the reporter said, Lin Qisheng died of poison, on the soft floor in the study room—but the strange thing is that Lin Qisheng's body has already started to rot!

At first Yang Zhiming thought it was due to the onset of toxicity, but after repeated inspections by the two foremen, they believed that Lin Qisheng had been dead for at least three days.

So Yang Zhiming decided that it was the Lin family who deliberately deceived him, so he sent someone to the government to report the case long after Lin Qisheng died.

And this person who insists on deceiving is very likely to be the murderer!

However, his inference was quickly overturned.

Because there are at least two digits of people who can testify that Lin Qisheng has been doing well for the past few days. It was not until noon today that he was found dead in the study.

The case became complicated and confusing.

Yang Zhiming was also a little dazed, reasoning randomly about several possibilities, not only failed to clear up the fog, but because it was too absurd and bizarre, Lin Qisheng's family was annoyed and almost clashed.

In desperation, he had no choice but to come to the Sun Mansion to ask for help.

In fact, the Lin family went directly to Dali Temple to report the crime, originally for Sun Shaozong.

So when Sun Shaozong led the people from Dali Temple to the door for the second time, the Lin family not only did not repel them because of the previous conflict, but even doubled their grand reception.

This made Yang Zhiming quite disappointed.

But who cares about the whine of the powerless?

After being welcomed into the study by the Lin family, Sun Shaozong mercilessly ordered to block the entire Lin family from the door, and then led Yang Zhiming and others into the crime scene.

As soon as he entered the door, Sun Shaozong smelled the stench of corpses coming from the inside. Judging from the strong and irritating smell alone, it is absolutely impossible for it to be something new.

But just now on the road, Sun Shaozong had repeatedly confirmed that Lin Qisheng had appeared alive in front of people until this morning.

"Master Shaoqing."

Seeing Sun Shaozong's nose twitching, and then showing suspicion, Yang Zhiming, who was covering his nose, couldn't help but make a high-level comment: "I have heard that in ancient times, some alchemists used the wrong prescription and died of poison immediately after taking the medicine. People are not completely dead, they still walk freely like a living person, and they don’t rest until a few days later, this is called a living corpse.”

As he spoke, he pointed to the dead body on the bed: "Master Lin is probably the same."

Sun Shaozong glanced at him sideways, went to the soft cave in the inner room, and began to examine Lin Qicheng's body.

Lin Qisheng is 69 years old, and he took good care of himself during his lifetime. Although he can't be called a child with white hair, he still has the demeanor of an upright elder.

But now his complexion is black and blue, bleeding from seven holes, and stinking from the inside out, no matter how upright his appearance is, it can only be described as horrible at this time.

Sun Shaozong first checked the stiffness of the corpse's muscles, and then lifted Lin Qicheng's eyelids to examine his pupils.

puff~

Although he had tried his best to restrain his strength, when the eyelid of his left eye was lifted, a sticky white liquid still overflowed the eye socket like a spring.

vomit!

Yang Zhiming was trying his best to endure, seeing the cloudy white mucus, mixed with the original purple-black poisonous blood, spreading on the face of the corpse, so he contributed his lunch on the spot.

Sun Shaozong turned his head and gave him a sideways glance, and said calmly: "Master Yang, please take care of yourself."

As he said that, he patted Yang Zhiming's back lightly, and wiped all the rancid pupils stained with his fingertips on his official robe.

vomit~

Yang Zhiming immediately vomited even more.

The cat bent its waist, raised its hands, swayed wildly a few times, and then stumbled out of the study.

Tch~

This kind of thing is ashamed to serve in Dali Temple!

Sun Shaozong didn't bother to care about him anymore, and opened the mouth of the corpse like a normal person to check the corruption and damage in the mouth of the corpse.

After checking all the facial features, he roughly came to a conclusion: Lin Qisheng had indeed been dead for three to six days.

The reason why the time span is so large is that firstly, it has not been fully inspected; secondly, it is because the corpse has been stored in other places for a long time before being moved to the study room. , it is naturally impossible to accurately determine the time of death.

As for Sun Shaozong's judgment that 'the murderer had moved the corpse', it was based on the abnormal indentation on the side and back of the corpse's head, and the corpse spot on the oblique upper left arm and wrist.

Such things as corpse spots will only appear on the 'lower' parts of the corpse, and it is basically impossible to appear on the upward parts.

Not to mention the indentation on the side and back of the head. The softness is very flat and soft, and no hard objects are found around it. The irregular cone-shaped indentation must not have appeared out of thin air, right?

After examining the head, it was the turn of the victim's limbs.

Rigid, hard, corrupt...

In addition, there are muscle groups that are not commensurate with age.

At nearly 70 years old, it is really not easy to maintain such a strong body.

but……

Since he is in very good health and his official career is in full swing, why would he suddenly want to retire and return home?

And is there any connection between this and his death?

Guessing in his heart, Sun Shaozong reached into the sleeve of the corpse again, and first touched some hard and heavy small objects, probably metal objects such as private seals and letters.

Then I poked my fingers in along the gap, but there were mostly fluffy silk underneath.

After a while, he took out those things, and as expected, they were two heavy copper seals and a soft and large juan handkerchief.

"Chen Jingde."

Sun Shaozong suddenly turned his head and asked, "During the autopsy, did you ever touch the sleeves of the dead body?"

"This one……"

Chen Jingde faltered, and subconsciously looked at Huang Bin who was at the side - obviously this fellow did not personally observe the autopsy process at that time.

"Return to your lord."

Huang Bin had no choice but to stand up and report: "At that time, the two foremen were only ordered to examine the degree of corruption of the corpse, and did not search for other clues."

In this way, the things in the sleeves were probably put in by the murderer.

Because according to the pattern of those things in the sleeve bag, as long as the victim's arms have drooped, the two heavy seals will sink deeper into the silk, instead of maintaining delicate contact and balance like now .

Based on this inference, there is a high probability that the victim was put into those items after his death, so these things will always maintain the state when they were put in.

As for these things, they were originally in the sleeves, and after being taken out by the murderer to look through, borrowed, and stuffed back again.

Whether the murderer deliberately found it from other places for some purpose and put it in the sleeve of the corpse is still unknown for a while.

But one thing is very clear, that is, there were at least two murderers involved in this case—otherwise, it would be difficult to keep the corpse in a horizontal state during the process of moving the corpse!

Chapter 919

[There seems to be a bug at the end of the last chapter, but I can’t figure out how to solve it for a while——I can only ignore it first, and I will study it tonight and make a patch tomorrow. 】

Although some information was obtained on the corpse, there was no evidence of directivity in it—at least until more information was obtained, it was impossible to determine its directivity.

So after the inspection, Sun Shaozong requisitioned the Flower Hall of the Lin Mansion, and began to search for the connections between people in the Lin Mansion.

Because according to the Lin family, since Lin Qisheng resigned, he has been thanking guests behind closed doors, and he will move back to his hometown in Shanxi at the end of the month.

Since he has never been out of the house, and has never seen any outsiders, the people who are most suspected at present are naturally the people around Lin Qicheng.

It's just that when the whole mansion was gathered together, Sun Shaozong discovered another strange thing: there are more masters in the Lin mansion than servants.

"Master Sun doesn't know something."

Faced with Sun Shaozong's doubts, Lin Qisheng's eldest son, Lin Xiuyuan, took the initiative to explain: "Most of the servants hired by our family are from good families near Gyeonggi."

"As the so-called homeland is hard to leave, those who are willing to follow my father back to his hometown in Shanxi to support his life, after all, only account for a very small part-so after my father made a plan, he simply dismissed all these people."

That's what happened.

In fact, this is also a common practice. After all, not everyone is like Rong Guo, who has already taken root in the capital, and the family has changed after another.

Nodding his head, Sun Shaozong glanced under the south wall unconsciously, and then said sternly: "Since there are not many people left, in order to facilitate the investigation, can I trouble Mr. Lin to briefly introduce their identities and names one by one first?" introduce?"

At the beginning, it was Lin Xiuyuan who strongly advocated going to Dali Temple to report the case. Now, when faced with Sun Shaozong's request, he did not shirk it.

At present, according to the order of seniority and inferiority in the mansion, point out the members of the Lin family to Sun Shaozong one by one.

Lin Qisheng lost his wife in middle age, and the main room at home has been left empty ever since.

He has five sons and two daughters under his knees, and the two daughters have been married for many years, so naturally they are not in the mansion right now.

Among the five sons, only two are by his side, and the rest are officials in other places.

The eldest son, Lin Xiuyuan, is 46 years old. He married his wife Zhou and his concubine Liang.

The two sons and one daughter are all descendants, and the daughter is also married. The eldest son died young, leaving a widow.

As for the second son, he was ordered to return to his hometown in Shanxi a month ago to prepare for the family's relocation.

Lin Zhiyuan, Lin Qicheng's old son, a concubine, is now 21 years old, a concubine, he doesn't seem to be liked by his father very much, and he is still alone until now.

After introducing these family members, Lin Xiuyuan finally turned his attention to the bottom of the south wall, where a dozen or so women were lined up in a row.

"These are my father's concubines."

It was only one sentence, but there was an unspeakable embarrassment.

Gein, these women are not only extremely numerous, but also have a surprisingly large age span.

From a gray-haired old woman to a [-]-year-old girl, it is simply a history of a woman's evolution from adulthood to dying.

Of course, it also faithfully recorded Lin Qisheng's taste changes over the years.

When I was young, I liked to be slender, but when I was middle-aged, I liked plump most. When I got old, I couldn't do what I wanted, so I deliberately picked up the weak ones to 'bully' them.

Speaking of...

This number has already surpassed my eldest brother, right?

It's also a widow with a disease, and my elder brother's life is far away, but Mr. Lin is a well-known moral model-no wonder he can be the helm of the science and the leader of the Qingliu. This level of controlling public opinion is hard to come by!

"Sixteen in total."

Sun Shaozong was scanning and measuring, when Chen Jingde beside him gave the exact figure, and taking advantage of Lin Xiuyuan's distance, he quietly added: "There are a few people with a slightly different age, they probably died on the way. a few."

this guy...

I don't care about other things, but I am proficient in this aspect!

Of course, Sun Shaozong, who was going to be included in the fourth and fifth concubines before he got married, seemed to have no right to despise others.

"cough."

So he cleared his throat, and said seriously: "It's getting dark now, let's ask a few questions one by one—let's start with Mr. Lin, and everyone else, please go to the next door and wait for a while."