Placid Chang'an

As soon as Ning San made the call, everyone was stunned. They were still alive when they were buried in the soil, so wouldn't they be buried alive? !

Su Cen frowned: "How do you say?"

"Look at this bone." Ning Santong handed the triangular pyramid-shaped bone to Su Cen. "This bone is called the petrous part of the temporal bone, which is a part of the temporal bone. It is located at the base of the skull, between the occipital bone and the sphenoid bone. Contains part of the inner ear."

Su Cen took the bone and looked at it for a while, then looked at Ning Santong with some puzzlement: "What does this mean?"

Ning Santong smiled slyly at Su Cen: "Brother Su, stop guessing?"

Su Cen rolled his eyes back, Ning Santong is fine, so when will his faults be corrected?

"My master once said that if a person is strangled, strangled, strangled, crushed, etc., due to the suppression of breathing, blood stasis, and increased intracranial pressure, a certain amount of intracranial hemorrhage will be caused, and the blood will flow out through the inner ear. , look here—” Ning Santong pointed to a brown mark on the temporal bone, the color deepened over time, and it was almost regarded as mud. evidence."

"Could it be asthma?" Su Cen said after a moment of silence, "Mr. Chen once said that Tian Pingzhi suffered from asthma, but he had a lot of hazelnut powder in his stomach. Asthma can also cause respiratory obstruction. Could it be Bleeding from asthma?"

Ning Santong pursed his lips, and shook his head lightly. He knew what Su Cen thought, that a talented person from heaven should not end up like this.

But there is a difference between internal cause and external force. If it is suffocation caused by one's own illness, no bleeding point will be left here.

"Take the body back first." Ning Santong patted Su Cen on the shoulder, "I'll search carefully, maybe there are other clues."

When rushing back to the temple, they happened to meet Zhang Jun again. Su Cen was still worried that their hoes and hammers would inevitably be criticized by Zhang Jun. He never thought that it would be better to catch up sooner than later, and Zhang Jun was going in without squinting Jin, with murderous rage on his face, his stomach was full of rage.

"What's the matter?" Su Cen stopped Xiao Sun who had finished watching the excitement, "Didn't you say that you went to some high official's house to catch an assassin?"

"He went to catch the assassin, but who do you think the assassin is?" Xiao Sun winked his eyebrows and said, "It's two big mice!"

Ning Santong couldn't help laughing: "He actually asked Dali Temple to help him catch mice?!"

Su Cen frowned: "Who is this high official?"

"This time I found out clearly." Xiao Sun covered his mouth with his hand and said in a low voice, "It is Master Zhang Hezhang, Doctor Guanglu."

Ning Santong curled his lips after hearing this, "That's not a big official."

Everyone couldn't help but feel ashamed when they heard this. You have a Taifu in your family who has been in the official residence for four dynasties, so naturally you don't take other people seriously.This doctor Guanglu is just a casual official with no job, but his official rank is from the second rank. This Mr. Zhang He was even the minister of the Ministry of Rites. , so that he was allowed to retire and entrusted with the idle position of Doctor Guanglu, in fact, it was also for people to stay in Chang'an City for the elderly.

No wonder Mr. Zhang Jun, who is usually gentle, respectful and frugal, is so angry. This is obviously because he was treated like a cat and took a mouse all afternoon and dared not speak out. Who made this Mr. Zhang be an unofficial honor in Chang'an City? .

When we returned to Dali Temple, it was already time to go down to the Yamen. When everyone in the temple had left, Su Cen followed Ning Santong into the morgue, and under Ning Santong's command, he restored all the bones in a sack.

After more than a year, he finally met the rumored Mr. Tian.Whether it is the clever and filial son that old man Tian said, or the enviable talent in the eyes of others, after more than ten years of long buried in the ground, peeling off his flesh and blood, now he has turned into a pair of dry bones. , Spy on what happened at the beginning.

Ning Santong checked every bone one by one. The body is still intact. Although the body is no longer there, some cartilage is inevitably lost, and the main bones are basically there.Ning Santong's complexion became heavier the more he looked at it, "The throat bone is intact, the hyoid bone is also intact, the skull is intact, and there is no obvious damage to other parts..."

Su Cen frowned slowly as Ning Santong said. The integrity of the larynx and hyoid bone proved that he was not hanged, strangled, or strangled. The complete skull showed that he had not suffered a heavy blow. was buried alive.

"A person was buried alive in the examination room behind the tribute courtyard. It is impossible for such a big movement to avoid everyone's eyes and ears, and it may even be instructed by someone." Su Cen frowned in thought, then suddenly raised her head and asked, "Who is the chief examiner for that examination?" ?”

"Who's here?" Ning Santong also thought about it, always feeling a name lingering in his mouth, but he just couldn't remember it for a while.

In fact, when they went to the Ministry of Rites to check the test papers that day, they had seen the name of the chief examiner, but at that time the focus was on the official, and they didn't pay much attention to an extra name.

After a while, Su Cen said softly, "It's Zhang He."

Ning Santong suddenly realized, and slapped his thigh as if enlightened, "It's Zhang He!"

The name that will appear on every candidate's test paper is Zhang He, who was then Minister of Rites and presided over the chief examiner of the imperial examination!

Su Cen narrowed her eyes slightly, "Tomorrow, let's go and see Mrs. Zhang who is making a fuss at home."

That night when Li Shi was kneading his shoulders and neck, he lost his mind again and pulled a strand of hair. Li Shi frowned slightly, but he didn't say a word.

It wasn't until he finally withdrew his hand that Su Cen suddenly realized that there was a lock of hair under his hand, stuck to the palm of his hand, trapped in the palm lines, a few black strands, tangled and tangled, as if he couldn't stop straightening.

"What are you thinking about?" Li Shi pulled him back into his arms.

Su Cen moved his lips. He was thinking about Tian Pingzhi's death, Feng Yiming's words, and whether his investigation would involve Li Shi.

He used to be an official the size of a sesame seed, and he was rampant, and he looked like no one would pay attention to him. Now that the official has become bigger, why is he looking forward and backward.

The words came to my lips, but what came out of my mouth was: "I wonder when you will be well, I am alone at night, and I can't sleep well."

With a bit of tenderness and a bit of grievance, he completely dispelled Li Shi's doubts, laughed loudly, and hugged him tighter: "I won't leave tonight."

Su Cen refused, and raised his head to stare at him, "That's not all previous work wasted, isn't it all in vain for me to endure it for so many days?"

"Oh?" Li Shi's palms were burning hot, and he poked in along the hem of his clothes, "Tell me, Zixu, how did you bear it?"

Su Cen: "..."

In the end, it was Su Cen who hugged his clothes tightly and fled, followed by Li Shi's undisguised playful laughter.

Maybe it was really thinking day by day and dreaming at night. At midnight, Old Man Tian fell into a dream. He was still dressed in the same clothes before he died. He wandered around the sugar water shop in front of the Gongyuan Gate and asked him if he wanted a bowl of sugar water.

It was Tian Pingzhi who brought him the sugar water, smiling at Yan Yan, polite and polite, and placed the bowl in front of him, slightly rippling, reflecting the amber luster.

When he picked up the bowl and put it to his mouth, the liquid in the bowl suddenly turned red and thickened, and the temperature of his fingertips was still there, like a bowl of uncooled blood.

Turning around, Old Man Tian was gone, and Tian Pingzhi was gone. He was lying on his back in the darkness, his hands and feet were bound and he couldn't move.

Su Cen woke up suddenly, gasping for breath, as if the suffocation of being buried alive was still there, and he would be suffocated to death in a dream if he couldn't breathe.It took a while for Su Cen to come back to his senses, and looked around in the dark, only to realize that he forgot to close the window before going to bed, it was cold and rainy outside, he was covered in cold sweat, and his bedding was cold.

The scene in the dream had lingering fears, and he could not fall asleep. Su Cen stared at the complicated bed curtain at the head of the bed in the dark, wondering whether he had procrastinated for too long. Old man Tian blamed him, so he asked the dream to warn him .

After thinking about it, he couldn't help laughing again, if Old Man Tian really has a spirit in heaven, wouldn't it be better to tell him who is the real murderer of Tian Pingzhi.

After all, he was bound by himself, and couldn't get past the hurdle in his heart.

At the same time, in the inner courtyard of the deep palace under heavy palace confinement, the Empress Dowager Chu retreated the crowd, and said to the empty bedroom, "Come out."

Steady footsteps sounded from the corner where the light could not reach, and a black figure emerged from the darkness, elongated by the faint candlelight, and as the person stepped forward, the shadow actually covered half of the dormitory.

Empress Dowager Chu supported Feng's forehead and raised her head slightly, "You think you can help the Ai family deal with Li Shi?"

The person who came was wearing a black hood, his eyes were as sharp as eagles under the cover of the hood, he did not salute when he saw the Empress Dowager Chu, and his attitude was not at all condescending.Raising the corner of his lips lightly: "Could it be that you can't even trust the late emperor?"

As soon as "the first emperor" was mentioned, Empress Dowager Chu immediately softened her expression and asked, "What are you going to do?"

"I have my own plan, and when the time comes, I will naturally make Li Shi irreversible." The corner of the hooded man's lips curled up coldly, "It's just that there is one person, I'm afraid I won't be able to keep it."

"After all, he has been with the Ai family for many years." The Empress Dowager Chu pursed her thin lips, as if hesitating, but in the blink of an eye, her eyes turned hard, "He died well, so he is loyal."