Daming's Bizarre Story: Painted Skin

"Go on!" The magistrate waved his hand.

Chief Fan She swallowed his saliva and said: "Miss Meng said: "Even if Yinniang's father died in the Meng Mansion, it was only a matter of years ago. How could my father treat his wife and children because of a servant? Take extra care, the real reason is that Yinniang is my father's illegitimate daughter. ""

What he said vividly imitated Miss Meng's calm and cold tone of speaking.

Zhao Ran asked: "Master She, why did Ms. Meng tell Hengsheng about her illegitimate daughter? Presumably she also told the reason?"

Chief Fan She moved his head when he said that, but in fact he knew that he couldn't hide the truth: "Yin, because that Yinniang was entangled all the time, but she and Miss Meng fell in love with each other."

When he heard this, it was as if he saw an invisible golden mountain.Although his family is poor and ugly, he is still half a scholar and works in the academy. Although Yinniang is the daughter of Zhang Meng, she was born illegitimately.He thought about it carefully, thinking that if he seduced Yinniang, Yinniang would definitely be flattered. As for the Meng Mansion, Miss Meng would definitely support it, and Miss Meng would not object if she supported Mrs. Meng. He married Yinniang, and Chief Meng Shan would definitely treat him preferentially in secret. The wealth of Meng's family is incomparable to that of a country, and if he leaks a little from his fingers, it will be enough for him to be rich for the rest of his life.

At that time, Chief Fan She consciously played a big game of chess. He never thought that Yinniang was a person with a higher heart than the sky. Not only could she not be used by him, but she also wanted to use her in reverse, and she even wanted to win the name of the official Miss Mengfu. share.

Hengsheng had already been lifted down in a coma, did he really have to interrogate Meng Qingwan?The county magistrate seemed to see an abyss under his feet, and he was slowly sliding down.

Jiu Ru said: "It's better to send Yinniang's mother to come and ask questions first."

The county magistrate seemed to have grasped at a life-saving straw, and quickly ordered the yamen servant to send Zhu Ziniang to come up to the court.

Zhu Ziniang has been bedridden since Yinniang's accident. She barely coughed or coughed twice when she came to the court for questioning. Before she confessed, she believed it [-]% in her heart.

"Your Excellency wants to ask me about my affair with the master of the Meng Mansion?" Zhu Ziniang showed grief and indignation on her face, "I have been a widow for half my life, why should your lord use any evidence to stain my innocence?"

The county magistrate has been an official for many years. Although more than half of them are in this calm book city, he also knows that widows in the Ming Dynasty are not easy to mess with, especially widows who have been widowed for many years. This is the end of the future for the rest of my life.

Jiuru said: "Your Excellency is also for Yinniang's case. If Madam is innocent, no one can destroy her. If Madam knows something, she can say something so that Your Excellency can complain for Yinniang."

Only then did Zhu Ziniang calm down, she wiped her tears and said: "My husband, Ah Tian, ​​is the entourage of the master of the Meng Mansion. He was burned to death in the fire of the Meng Mansion. For so many years, I have always regarded it as an accident. After the death of my husband, Yinniang and I, two orphans and widowed mothers, depended on each other, and later adopted Zhuzi. The Meng family sympathized with the difficulty of raising two children, so they asked Yinniang to work in the mansion, and I readily agreed, in order to prevent Yinniang Something happened, I didn’t tell Yinniang about the death of my husband A Tian. But a while ago, Yinniang was always insinuating in private, interrogating the past of A Tian’s death, and saying that A Tian didn’t die by accident, but was called People set fire to them and burned them to death."

The county magistrate asked, "Did Yinniang tell you who was the person who set fire to your husband?"

Zhu Ziniang shook her head: "One day, she brought a painting to me and asked if the person in the painting was A Tian. I asked her where she got the painting, but she refused to tell the truth."

The magistrate asked, "Is this painting still there?"

"Yinniang took it back again, but the painting was indeed A Tian." Zhuziniang said with tears in her eyes, "Not long after that, there was a thief at home, and later Yinniang called People were murdered, now that I think about it, there is something strange about it, or as Yinniang said, Ah Tian was murdered, Yinniang noticed something, and then she was murdered again."

Zhaoran said: "Mother Zhuzi, do you already have doubts in your heart when you say that?"

Zhuzi Niang knew it clearly, knowing that he hired Zhuzi to work and also subsidized their family a lot of money, so she nodded kindly, hesitated for a while, then gritted her teeth: "I doubt Mrs. Meng!"

The county magistrate repeatedly said: "Stop talking nonsense, Mrs. Meng is just a girl, and she is old and frail. Yinniang is a seventeen or eighteen-year-old girl. How can the old lady strangle her to death?"

Jiu Ru asked, "Why Mrs. Meng?"

Zhu Ziniang said: "Before Ah Tian died, he told me that we should be careful of Mrs. Meng, who is also Baimei. I asked him why he should be careful of Baimei. Ah Tian only sighed. Later, I went to Meng's mansion to pick up work. People say that Mrs. Meng's ancestors were able men and strangers. Although the old lady is a woman, her strength is no less than that of a man in her prime. She was picked up by the old lady and raised at home, and he can defend it desperately. Who else can the old lady have?"

The county magistrate only felt the darkness in front of his eyes, and turned around dizzily. He glanced left and right, feeling a little regretful in his heart that he shouldn't have involved the little saint by doing these superficial things. If there was no little saint, wouldn't he be able to think of a way first? Perfunctory Zhu Ziniang, another good plan?

He was whistling in his head, when a yamen servant came in with a panicked face outside the door: "My lord, Yangxianju is haunted by ghosts, old, the old lady called the ghosts to suck away the yang energy..."

"Don't talk nonsense!" The magistrate slapped the gavel.

"How is the old lady?" Jiu Ru asked.

The yamen servant said: "The people who came said that the old lady died, and the Yangxianju was in a mess. They have already sent people to report to the head of the mountain."

Zhaoran pulled Jiuru's sleeves, Jiuru got up and said, "There may be something strange here, why don't we go to Yangxianju to have a look."

The county magistrate touched his black gauze hat and nodded with a sigh.

----

Yangxianju is a teahouse opened by the Meng Mansion, and it usually receives elegant people from the city.

The county magistrate had just left Demeng's mansion, and now he was going back under the stars and moon. He was exhausted at first, but when he saw Mrs. Meng's death, he suddenly felt sober.

Yangxianju is divided into two floors, the downstairs is the lobby, where tea is sold and tasted, and the upstairs is a private room for guests to taste tea and talk about things. Private rooms used by people in the government.

Old Mrs. Meng was leaning halfway on the chair, with her mouth wide open, her eyes were wide open, and her eyeballs seemed to pop out of her sockets. There were a few strings of blood prints under her feet. The footprints did not look like they were left by someone, but rather like It was a skeleton of dead and rotting flesh passing by, and the bloodstains spread all the way to the door, but they disappeared. The county magistrate only felt a chill on his back.

The shopkeeper of Yangxianju wiped his sweat and said: "The old lady ordered a pot of salt and ginger tea, so she told us not to disturb her. A batch of new tea came today, and there were so many customers trying the tea, we didn't notice it. The situation on the second floor, after seeing off the guests, I realized that I don’t know if the old lady has left, so I went upstairs and called the old lady through the curtain, but I didn’t hear the old lady’s reply after calling a few times, so I had to open the curtain Take a look, old lady, old lady already..." He chattered his teeth as he spoke, showing that he was quite frightened at the time.

The county magistrate insisted: "Although there are many capable people and strange men in this dynasty, we must not confuse the public with gossip. Here... the ins and outs, I will find out clearly!"

Zhaoran looked at Mrs. Meng's eyes straight and asked, "What's outside the window?"

"Outside the window is the courtyard of this fairy house, which is used for drying tea on weekdays." The shopkeeper looked down at Zhao Ran, and answered his question anyway.

Zhao Ran glanced at the window and said, "What a tall tea stand!"

Everyone walked to the window, and sure enough, there was a wooden tea stand under the window. The shopkeeper said, "To tell the truth, my lords, more than half of the tea used by young and old in this city comes from this fairy house, and there are a lot of goods in the warehouse. , some new teas have high humidity, so they need to be taken out to dry.”

"Doesn't the old lady often come to Yangxianju? She must not know that there is such a high shelf for drying tea in the courtyard on the second floor." Zhao Ran said again.

The shopkeeper nodded: "Although the old lady has been here before, she usually comes with the young master and miss, and it is true that she rarely comes alone."

The county magistrate said impatiently: "It's rare for the old lady to come to your tea shop, and she died in the shop. You don't know anything?"

The shopkeeper was startled, waved his hands again and again and said: "It's really busy today, everyone in the small shop is in the lobby, many customers can testify."

The county magistrate felt depressed, this monster is more difficult to write than the court report on the murder case in the house of the head of the academy mountain, he sneered: "Whether this is true or not will not be known until after the investigation."

The shopkeeper was full of frustration, so he had to honestly follow the yamen master back to make notes, and when he left, the county magistrate hurriedly said: "Everyone is tired today, why not go back to rest first, and wait for the conclusion of the autopsy done by you, we will discuss it separately .”

When he said that, he felt a little uneasy, and sure enough, the little skeleton shook his head: "No matter who left this bloody footprint, he needs to know exactly when Mrs. Meng will come to this private room alone. Since the old lady doesn't often come to Yangxianju, then this murderer is not an outsider, but probably a member of the Meng family."

The county magistrate looked at Jiu Ru with a bitter face, Jiu Ru held Zhao Ran's hand and said calmly, "Then let's go to Meng Mansion again."

----

After several twists and turns, when we arrived at the Meng Mansion, it was already Chen's time. The stars and the moon in the sky were boundless, covering the book city like an upside-down dome, and flying flowers fell from the top of the mountain to people's shoulders from time to time. He never worked day and night for the sake of his future, but now he needs to work so hard to do things that destroy his future.

With a long sigh, he entered the Meng residence, and after a while, Chief Meng Shan arrived.

Zhaoran returned to this time for the first time, and what he heard was the conversation between Chief Meng and other people. In his impression, Chief Meng was a little soft, but generally he was a fair and strict person.

He was tall and tall, with a black beard on his chin, his face was a little haggard, and his brows were slightly wrinkled, but his facial features were still tough and he was still a handsome man.

"Your Majesty Lao County." He made a bow, and the county magistrate hurriedly stood up from his chair and said in a salute, "You are welcome, Mr. Shan, please mourn for Madam's matter."

Chang Meng then turned to Jiuru and said politely: "The little sage also seems to be troubled."

Jiuru saluted shallowly: "It's a matter of course."

Meng Shan said: "I heard from Cheng Tian that the magistrate of the county had already come to the mansion to inquire earlier, if he came back today, did he discover anything new?"

The county magistrate glanced at Jiu Ru anxiously, and coughed dryly: "I asked Yinniang this morning, but now that the old lady passed away suddenly, some routine questions have to be asked again."

Chief Meng Shan nodded, stretched out his hand and said, "It's a matter of course, my lord will drink tea first, and I'll call everyone in the house over."

The county magistrate was relieved to see that Chief Meng Shan was so reasonable, and he took a sip of tea from the teacup when he heard Zhao Ran say: "It's better not to eat the food in this house, this murderer killed Yinniang first, Even Mrs. Meng dares to kill us now, so she may not dare to kill us! Maybe this tea has a huge poison like Crane's Crown Red, which looks like weeds."

"Pfft!" The county magistrate spit out all the tea in his mouth. He only felt that among the children he had ever seen in his life, there was no child more annoying than this little skeleton, but when he thought about it, the tea was indeed I dare not drink any more.

All the men, women and children in Meng's mansion arrived soon without missing a beat. Only then did Chief Meng Shan come in and said, "I have called all the people in the mansion. Which one do you want to ask first?"

The county magistrate glanced at the shadowy human heads in the yard, thinking of the footprints of skeletons walking away from Mrs. Meng, he couldn't help swallowing: "We want to..."

"We want to ask Sufen first." Zhaoran interrupted suddenly.