Detective in the Red Chamber

Gulou Hutong is located in the northwest of the outer city. The location is relatively remote, and the terrain is high and uneven, so there are not many residents. Most of them are local dilapidated households. Last year, some Hebei disaster victims with small properties moved in.

Naturally, the law and order in this kind of place is not very good, and everyone is used to sweeping the snow in front of the door, and rarely pays attention to the unrelated people.

Therefore, last spring, there was a tragedy in which an old man living alone drowned in his own water tank, but was not discovered until midsummer.

And this case, the reason why the report was received early in the morning was because someone wrote the six bloody words 'I can't live my own crime' on the gate of the murder scene.

"My lord, because I didn't know in advance that you were going to handle this case personally, so after inspecting the scene, I ordered someone to carry the body... Your lord?"

While leading the way, Master Qi introduced the situation carefully, but when he got to the yard, he turned around and saw Sun Shaozong's figure.

He quickly turned back and saw Sun Shaozong outside, staring at the blood on the door panel.

"grown ups."

Master Qi hurriedly explained, "I have carefully observed that these blood characters are all written with non-dominant hands. It may not be easy to find out the real murderer by relying on the handwriting - the only thing that can be determined right now is that This murderer has a certain background."

These words coincided with Sun Shaozong's previous speculation.

Sun Shaozong nodded, but still looked at it carefully, and then followed Master Qi into the yard.

As soon as he entered the gate, he saw three corpses lying in a row under the dilapidated west wall, one of them was covered with a white cloth, and the other two were exposed.

The reason for this difference is naturally the identities of the three - as a son of an official, even if Ma Yingjue is dead, he will be treated differently from the two servants.

But at first glance, there seems to be little resemblance between the two young servants and the portrait painted by Ma Chunfeng during his lifetime.

This is mainly because the two corpses died of poisoning, their faces were black and blue, their facial features were hideously distorted, and they were swollen to a certain extent. It may be an exaggeration to say that they are beyond recognition, but ordinary people want to distinguish their original appearances. But it is extremely difficult.

Only the old criminal name who is proficient in on-site investigation and knows how to use the facial contour and the proportion of the partial distance of the facial features to restore the basic appearance of the deceased can see the relationship between the two.

From this, it can be seen that Master Qi's professional level is quite good.

"grown ups."

Master Qi led the crowd to the corpse, lifted the white cloth first, pointed to the young dead man on the stretcher with wide-eyed eyes and opened his mouth, and introduced, "This is Mr. Ma——check his corpse next." When I was there, I found that the boots were marked with the words of Changlong’s old brand and the date of shipment, so I followed the clues and found out his identity.”

As he spoke, he bent down and carefully peeled off Ma Yingjue's neckline, pointed to the purple fingerprints on it, and said, "According to the investigation, Mr. Ma should have died of suffocation caused by choking."

"Because when we arrived, his body was still tied to a grand master's chair, and a soft cloth was stuffed in his throat, so there was no trace of struggle and resistance left."

"Based on the features on the surface of the corpse, it is speculated that the time of his death should be between yesterday afternoon and evening."

Speaking of this, Master Qi turned his head and pointed at the two young servants who were poisoned to death, "The fingerprints of these two people have been compared below, and they do not match the marks on Mr. Ma's neck. They can basically be ruled out." The possibility of the two being poisoned to death after killing someone."

When investigating cases these years, it is not that fingerprints are not ignored, but the means of extracting fingerprints are limited. Unless the fingerprints are clearly printed on the neck of the corpse like now, it is difficult to make a careful comparison.

Master Qi obviously had intentions and wanted to show his skills in front of Sun Shaozong. As soon as he finished analyzing the fingerprints, he began to analyze the cause of death of the two servants.

"There are three cups on the square table inside, two of them seem to have some tiny white powder stuck to the bottom of the quilt, but there is no similar residue in the jug, so I infer that the poison should have been smeared on the cups in advance of."

Speaking of this, Master Qi stepped in and said, "Master, do you want to go in and have a look?"

"For the time being."

Unexpectedly, Sun Shaozong shook his head, and said firmly, "If my deduction just now is correct, it should not be difficult to find the murderer."

"Not difficult?!"

Master Qi was taken aback. The murderer seemed to have left fingerprints carelessly, but in fact he didn't reveal too much information.

Therefore, Master Qi analyzed all the details of the scene, but couldn't find many clues about the murderer, and how could it be possible that Sun Shaozong just arrived at the scene...

Could it be that he deliberately spoke big words in front of himself?

Thinking of this possibility, Master Qi couldn't help questioning, "However, I don't know where my lord is going to start to catch the real culprit?"

"Is this - Qiu Yunfei, Zhao Wuwei!"

"The villain is here."

"Immediately go to the government office to recruit people, search all the shops that sell pens, inks, papers and inkstones around the Gulou Hutong, and ask them if they have any regular customers yesterday. They used to use the cheapest low-quality pens, inks and papers, but suddenly they bought high-end ones!"

Qiu Yunfei and Zhao Wuwei agreed and took orders to go.

Master Qi was at the side, but he frowned, hesitating again and again, but he still couldn't help questioning, "My lord, do you think that the murderer bought a new writing brush separately just to write those words?"

Seeing that although he was trying to control himself, he still couldn't help showing the expression of 'are you kidding me'.

Sun Shaozong took out the note from his sleeve and handed it to Master Qi, "This is the blackmail letter sent to Ma's house by the murderer on the night of 25."

After Master Qi took a few glances, he explained, "It can be clearly seen on this note that there are signs of curly hairs on the tip of the pen, which shows that it is an old brush."

"Furthermore, according to the analysis of paper and ink, the quality of this brush will not be that strong."

"And the door panel is rotten and mottled, the surface is extremely rough, and the difficulty of writing should be more than that of inferior rough paper - but this official has only carefully observed, and the traces of mess are obviously less than the former, and there is almost no hair loss. .”

"This is clearly a new pen, and a new pen of excellent quality!"

"Considering the murderer's attainments in calligraphy and the long-term use of inferior four treasures of the study, it is reasonable to have a strong urgency for these things."

Master Qi held the note, and after listening to Sun Shaozong's analysis of this wave, he couldn't help but secretly sighed that his observations were really meticulous, but...

"My lord, even if that's the case, you can't be sure that he bought the Four Treasures of the Study in a shop you are familiar with, right?" Master Qi questioned, "If he just randomly chooses an irrelevant shop, wouldn't our work be in vain?"

Sun Shaozong smiled and said, "The reason why I judge like this is because of those six blood characters."

As he said that, he turned around and pointed to the gate, and asked, "What was your first impression when you saw those six words in blood?"

"Arrogant!"

Master Qi blurted out, "The murderer is clearly provoking the government!"

"Yes."

Sun Shaozong nodded and said, "If there are no these six characters, the neighbors may not find out until the corpse is highly decomposed, and there will naturally be much less useful information at that time."

"But the murderer chose to take the risk of writing six bloody characters on the door, so that the government would know in the first place that three people died, and the three deserved it!"

"This is both arrogance and showing off!"

"Such a person who is arrogant and likes to show off, but has been depressed for a long time; he is proud of his calligraphy, but he can only afford the cheapest pen, ink, paper and inkstone!"

"Perhaps sometimes he is too short-sighted to pay for stationery—even if the store didn't sneer at him because of this, he might have accumulated a lot of resentment in his heart."

"When he suddenly got a huge windfall and couldn't wait to get revenge on his past life, do you think he would choose Jinyi Night Walk and find an unfamiliar shop on purpose?"

"So my inference should be about [-]% sure!"

Chapter 291 What is the culprit? !

The horse pulling the cart let out a groan, then took a few steps forward, and then stopped firmly outside the gate of Huichun Tower.

Sun Shaozong got out of the car, his footing was not stable, and the old bustard who had smeared an unknown amount of powder on his face immediately came out in a hurry, opened his bloody mouth, and exaggeratedly shouted, "Hey, this man is so majestic. mighty!"

As she said that, she covered half of her face with a round fan, pretending to be mysterious and said with a smile, "I'm dissatisfied with you, we cherish such a majestic big..."

Before she finished speaking, Sun Shaozong suddenly threw a shiny golden object over.

The old bustard grasped the thing in his hands and glanced at it happily, but the eyeballs almost jumped out of their sockets, and the mouth grew bigger and bigger, and it was about to spit out its throat when it saw a scream.

"You'd better not shout."

Sun Shaozong said indifferently, "I'm here to find a man, but if that man is run away by you, I don't mind taking all the women here back."

"Big... big big..."

The old bustard trembled, and returned the thing with both hands, and finally uttered a whole sentence, "Lord Qianhu, don't worry, I will definitely not yell, I will definitely not yell!"

When not wearing official robes, it is more convenient to wear the waist badge of Qianhu, the Dragon Guard.

Sun Shaozong kicked the waist card casually into his arms, and then ordered with a blank expression, "Qin Rushuang, what I'm looking for is the guest in her room, please lead the way."

The bustard quickly agreed, and carefully led Sun Shaozong into the living room.

After entering the door, I felt a wave of heat mixed with makeup and powder coming towards my face, because it was only in the afternoon, and it was not yet the peak period for the brothel's business, there were only a few tables of guests sitting scattered in the lobby, with some ordinary-looking women in their arms, There are jokes and chats.

Although Qin Rushuang could not be considered the top brand of Huichun Building, he was not comparable to these vulgar fans, so naturally he would not pick up guests here.

So the bustard led Sun Shaozong up to the second floor, and vaguely heard someone singing a poem loudly in a room on the west side, "When Wang Chen used to have a feast of banquets, he would fight for a thousand wines and have fun! What did the master say..."

It seems to be Li Bai's "Will Enter the Wine".

Sun Shaozong pointed to that room and said, "But this one."

The bustard nodded vigorously.

Sun Shaozong strode forward, waited for a while, and waited for the man to finish the last sentence, "Sell the eternal sorrow with me", and then opened the door and barged in.

I saw a man and a woman surrounded by a round table in the center of the room. The man looked like a man in his early thirties, dressed as a scholar, his eyebrows were wild but slightly vicissitudes.

woman……

Uh, Sun Shaozong didn't come to look for her anyway, it doesn't matter whether you say it or not.

Seeing that the man was holding a brush in his hand, and there was a piece of rice paper dripping with ink in front of him, it was obvious that he was not reciting poems just now, but practicing calligraphy.

Probably he got a very satisfactory work, the man was full of complacency, but the moment he saw Sun Shaozong barging in, that complacency turned into endless consternation and fear.

"Looks like he recognized me."

The corner of Sun Shaozong's mouth curled up slightly, and he walked up to the round table with his hands behind his back, and first carefully sized up the ink-drenched song "Will Enter the Wine".

Leaving aside the other things, the unrestrained spirit of who else is it really seems to come out through the paper.

Even if Sun Shaozong is not an expert, he can tell that this word has definitely entered the room.

tsk~

He smacked his lips, and said regretfully, "You said you have this skill, if you go to write a plaque for someone or something, wouldn't you be able to earn a lot of money?"

The scholar's complexion changed, and finally he smiled bitterly and said, "To tell you the truth, the student has practiced calligraphy for more than ten years, but he has always been ineffective. It wasn't until he scribbled a few words on the door yesterday that he suddenly realized."

As he said that, he threw away the brush in his hand, pointed to the "Will Enter the Wine" and said, "This writing is the masterpiece of the student's life, and I'm afraid it will be the last writing in this life. Unwilling—how about giving it to Your Excellency?"

As the saying goes, don't scold a bald man in front of a monk, and Qin Rushuang is also known as a famous prostitute in Huichunlou. Hearing what he said, she couldn't help pouting and wanted to complain twice.

"go out."

However, Sun Shaozong glanced at her, and said two words lightly, and blocked Qin Rushuang's coquettish anger back to his lips.

Frightened by this look, she didn't even have the slightest intention of resisting, so she hurriedly retreated, and obediently closed the door behind her.

After driving away Qin Rushuang, Sun Shaozong sat down on Xiudun with a big horse and said, "I accept the words, how did you kidnap Ma Yingjue, and how did you kill him together with his accomplices? Should I explain it?"

"Ah~"

The man let out a long sigh, and sat heavily on the pier, and said faintly, "A single misstep is an eternal hatred, and looking back, it has been a hundred years! Li was a scholar when he was young, and he was reckless and frivolous for a few years. Who would have thought that the next five consecutive autumns would come back in defeat, and even the family property passed down by my ancestors would be ruined by me early in the morning."

"That day I had a drink with two friends, and when the wine was full, the two of them suddenly revealed a secret, but it turned out that they had both been the servants of that Ma Yingjue, and even had a relationship with that Ma Yingjue. It's an outrageous thing!"

"That was three years ago, Ma Yingjue Chunwei..."

"The case three years ago, I have already found out." Sun Shaozong interrupted, "You only said this case."

"Your Excellency is indeed worthy of God's Judgment."

Li Xiucai gave a wry smile, and continued, "After I learned about this, I originally wanted to go to the government to report the case, but the two thieves quickly came to their senses, and even had the idea of ​​killing people to silence them."

"In desperation, I had no choice but to pretend to be a snake. I persuaded them to trick Ma Yingjue out of the city, tied him up and blackmailed a big ticket, and comforted them by saying that Ma Yingjue had something in his heart anyway, so he would never dare to report the incident to the authorities."

"Those two thieves were really thinking about it, so they followed my plan, pretending to help Ma Yingjue harm another woman from a good family for fun, and tricked him out of the city to tie him up."

"It's just that they didn't expect that I had already thought about sending these three shameless thieves to the west together!"

"So I suggested again last night that before letting Ma Yingjue go, we should have a good celebration, then secretly poisoned the wine glass, killed the two thieves, and strangled Ma Yingjue to death!"

Speaking of this, he couldn't help sighing again, and said helplessly, "Although I also thought that my lord might find out the truth, I didn't expect you to come so quickly."

After hearing what he said, Sun Shaozong smiled slightly, raised his hands and clapped slowly, and exclaimed loudly in his mouth, "Good story, really good story, seven points of truth are mixed with three points of falsehood, as expected It's the essence of storytelling!"

story?

Then Li Xiucai finally showed some panic, and smiled stiffly, "Why did your lord say that? Students are going to a dead end, so why lie to your lord?"

"Two words."

Sun Shaozong sneered and said, "Cover! You want to cover up your fellow party members, or you want to cover up the mastermind of this case!"

"What you just said seems very reasonable, but there are two fatal loopholes in it!"

"First of all, I have had someone investigate. You usually live in seclusion and rarely socialize with others, especially the vulgar rascals who hang out on the street!"

"If that's the case, how could you hang out with those two people and just happen to hear their biggest secret?"

"As for the other loophole, I started to suspect that there are other loopholes behind the culprit, and that is the poison you used to kill the two boys!"