Detective in the Red Chamber

Zhao Wuwei continued, "Wei Shougen was surrounded by a few pieces of clothes and an open rattan box—according to the inspection of the foreman, Lao Xu, he should have been bitten to death by some kind of poisonous insect hidden in the box."

"Old Xu?"

Sun Shaozong paused and said in surprise, "Isn't he not used to appearing on the scene?"

Zhao Wuwei smiled and said, "After being coerced and lured a few times by the judge, I became used to it."

Sun Shaozong could still trust Lao Xu's post-mortem skills, which saved him a lot of trouble.

A group of people rushed into the courtyard, and saw that the surroundings were empty and there were no decorations.

Sun Shaozong took advantage of the situation and asked, "Who is the owner of the house, have you checked it out?"

"I found out, but the owner of the house moved to Jinmen Mansion with his family a few months ago. We only know that he rented the old house to someone else before he left, but no one knows who rented it. .”

Rented out a few months ago?

At that time, Zhang Biao was doing well, and there was no sign that the matter would be exposed—it seemed that the yard should have been used for other purposes.

Thinking like this, he has already entered the main room.

But he saw that the room was also unobstructed, and the old Xu was wiping the equipment in front of a distorted corpse with a blank expression.

Seeing Sun Shaozong coming in from the outside, he squeezed out a smile and bowed to salute.

Sun Shaozong waved his hand, "Stop talking nonsense, let's talk about the results of the autopsy first."

Such straight-forward ones are the most to Lao Xu's appetite. He immediately restrained his smile, pointed to the corpse on the ground and explained, "Please look, my lord, the right hand of the corpse is obviously swollen, and there is a papule-like red spot on the back of the hand, near the middle finger. Some parts of the skin looked like unhealed burns, but no obvious wounds could be found."

"My subordinates deduce that the deceased should have been pierced into the root of the middle finger by a needle-like object, and injected with venom, and then contracted due to the twitching of the flesh, completely covering the wound—and the suffocation caused by the venom should be his death main reason."

"Because there are no traces of snakes around, I deduce that the thing hidden in the box may be some kind of poisonous insect."

Wei Shougen's corpse was bent into an S-shape, lying on its side on the ground, with his left hand tightly clutching the forearm of his right hand, probably trying to stop the spread of the poison, but in the end it was futile.

While listening to Lao Xu's explanation, Sun Shaozong leaned down to look at the erythema and dead skin on the back of Wei Shougen's hands, and inadvertently met Wei Shougen's face, and couldn't help but subconsciously let out a 'huh'.

Of course he didn't forget the 'daring ghost' he ran into at the Daxing County Government that day...

wrong!

Thinking about it now, it is not difficult to infer that Wei Shougen made the assumption on purpose; and Wang Qian's overly arrogant response may have something to do with this fellow.

So what is his purpose?

Could it be that he thought that Zhang Biao's death was related to their private activities, so he was afraid of meddling himself?

"Besides, there are some relatively fresh burns on the deceased's back."

Old Xu was still explaining, but took advantage of the situation and handed Sun Shaozong two silver chopsticks.

Sun Shaozong didn't ask him how to use it, he slid the chopsticks on the dead man's back a few times with ease, and then lifted off the inner and outer four layers of clothes, exposing the flesh of the back.

But it turned out that the center of the dead man's back had already been cut with scissors.

"These burns..."

Sun Shaozong looked at the scald marks on Wei Shougen's back that looked like plum blossoms, and muttered, "It seems to be the marks left by some kind of ritual."

"That's right, the villain thinks so too."

Old Xu nodded, but Liu Xianglian, Wang Zhen and the others beside him were a little puzzled. Plum blossom-shaped iron utensils are not uncommon nowadays, so how could it be concluded that they were performing a ceremony?

It's not easy for others to interrupt, but Liu Xianglian doesn't have much taboo, "Second brother, how can you be sure that this is left by some kind of ritual?"

"It's very simple."

Sun Shaozong pointed to the marks of plum blossoms and said, "Look carefully, these marks are actually not deep, but they look very uniform. If it was involuntary, it would definitely not be like this."

"Why is that?"

Liu Xianglian still didn't understand why, and was even more confused.

Sun Shaozong sighed helplessly, begged Zhao Wuwei who was beside him for a fire discount, and blew it on Liu Xianglian's face slowly.

Liu Xianglian hurriedly dodged and shouted, "Second brother, what are you doing?!"

"You know how to dodge, doesn't he know?"

Sun Shaozong pointed at Wei Shougen, "It's okay if you brand it with force. Such a shallow layer will be blurred with a little struggle. Now it's so clear, it must be voluntary."

"And if it's just to make a mark, it's not necessary to burn so many at once—so I deduce that this must be the trace of some kind of ritual performed by Wei Shougen voluntarily."

Chapter 657

The moon is dark and the wind is high.

Dim and obscure lights slowly moved in the corridor, and under the radiance of the dim lights, the red beams and columns on both sides could not help restraining their festivities, and cast a layer of melancholy.

At the same time, there were murmurs like whispers, humming intermittently amidst the swaying wind——

"Dead... Injustice... Corpse... Dead... Before life... That's right!"

The light suddenly stopped, and when it was held up a little, a majestic and mighty man was reflected, but it wasn't Second Master Sun who had just returned from the scene of the crime, who else could it be?

I saw him turn around and leave the corridor, rushing to the lower courtyard near the left. When he got close, he didn't bother to raise his hand to knock on the door, and only raised his voice to call inside, "Zhao Nan! Zhao Nan!"

But it turned out that he was deducing the case while walking, and suddenly remembered the promise to Liu Xianglian, so he turned here to explain it first, so as not to delay it.

After shouting two or three times, Zhao Nan answered in a panic, followed by the soles of his feet to slap the bluestone slab, but he didn't even care about putting on his shoes, so he rushed out to meet him.

Seeing Zhao Nan rushing out with disheveled clothes, Sun Shaozong's expression darkened, and he scolded, "Why are you so frizzy? If there are female relatives present, how can you do it?"

"Damn the villain!"

Then Zhao Nan knelt down in front of the door with a thud, walked a few steps closer to him, grabbed his head and said, "Please punish me, master."

"Stop pretending to be pitiful to me."

Sun Shaozong raised his foot and gave him a hook on his shoulder, helped the fellow straighten his back, and said straight to the point, "Tomorrow, you go directly to Dali Temple to find Mr. Liu, and then he will arrange errands for you."

These days, Zhao Nan, apart from helping to roast venison, has no other serious errands. He was flustered in his spare time. Hearing this, he couldn't help but kowtowed repeatedly, "Thank you for your kindness, sir. Uplift!"

"Go back and sleep."

But Sun Shaozong flicked his sleeves and walked away without saying a word.

Zhao Nan continued to kowtow until the light disappeared around the corner, then he ran from the ground and returned to the house trembling like flying.

In the dark, he leaned against the wall to reach the north end of the Datong Kang, and was about to scrub off the dirt on the soles of his feet before getting into the hot bed, when someone next to him suddenly asked, "Manzi, why did the second master call you just now?"

Hearing the word 'manzi', Zhao Nan was very displeased, but put on a silly smile, and said incongruously, "It's nothing, the master saw that I could still read a few words, so he ordered me to be Mr. Liu in the yamen. help."

The person who asked the question immediately fell silent.

But when Zhao Nan snuggled into the bed, someone on the Datong bunk cursed, "Ms. Rit, even a savage crawled on top of us..."

Not long after, the cursing stopped abruptly.

Shadowy, I heard someone scolding "Second Master's order... don't get involved if you don't want to live..."

Zhao Nan covered his head in the quilt, sneered a few times in disdain, turned his face but muttered something silently, "The barbarian and the Chinese are the Chinese", and carefully arranged the collar to look like the right lapel.

…………

But it is said that Sun Shaozong left the residence of his servants, but he did not return to his small courtyard, but went to the study alone to rest.

Not to mention touching a dead person just now, after all, it is a bit unlucky. From the perspective of hygiene, you should wash up first before touching your own wife, concubine and children.

After fetching well water and rubbing his hands and face repeatedly with fragrant soap, he couldn't help but feel refreshed.

It was difficult to sleep alone, and the ion night was still some distance away, so Sun Shaozong simply lit two arm-thick butter candles, spread out the four treasures of the study, and continued to deliberate on the two poisoning cases that happened today.

There are many similarities between these two cases, but there are also many differences.

In the same way, Wang Baochang, like Bantou Wei, died in a remote rented house, and the method of death was almost the same as that of Bantou Wei, being bitten to death by poisonous insects placed in a box in advance.

The difference is that the poison in Chief Wang Bao is very different from Wei Bantou, it is almost impossible to come from the same poisonous insect.

In addition, Wang Baochang did not have any burn marks left by the ceremony.

And then there is...

After transcribing the similarities and differences between the two parties on paper, the next step is to confirm the doubts and clues in the known information.

First of all, the two yards were rented a few months ago, but according to the confessions of the neighbors, they have always been vacant, and no one has ever been seen coming in or out.

At the same time, two courtyards were rented, and both of them were vacant for several months. Could it be that they are preparing to kill people?

Sun Shaozong had already brought up this strange point.

So Zhao Wuwei, Governor Qi and others are now working overtime to search the two houses to see if there are other clues.

Another doubtful point is how the two died.

It is now the third day of October in the lunar calendar, and there are still three days before the official beginning of winter. However, because of the heavy snowfall a few days ago, the temperature in the capital has actually entered winter ahead of schedule.

In this kind of weather, even if the bugs didn't hibernate, they should have been completely frozen. It would be extremely difficult to make them temporarily as a murder trap.

And there are many ways to kill people, why do they have to use poisonous insects?

The only reasonable explanation is that the murderer has been keeping this thing, even resorting to geothermal heat to maintain the activities of the poisonous insects in winter.

As for the purpose of doing this...

Perhaps it has similarities with a certain Wang surnamed master in later generations.

However, Master Wang is only looking for money, and now this master who breeds poisonous insects is looking for money and death without delay.

And then there is...

knock knock knock

Sun Shaozong was deliberating over and over again, when he heard a knock on the door outside, he couldn't help frowning.

At the beginning, in order to carry out the six disturbances in southern Xinjiang, he had explained to the servants in the mansion that the study room was a place for dealing with important official duties, and other than Big Brother Cheap, no one else was allowed to approach at will without instructions.

But which blind and broken rule is this?

Sun Shaozong got up unhappily and went to the outside room, and asked through the door, but Zhao Zhongji said cautiously, "I didn't dare to disturb the second master, but suddenly a letter from the north was sent, and the younger one was afraid that the business would be delayed. talent……"

crunch~

Before he could finish speaking, Sun Shaozong opened the courtyard door, spread his hands and said, "Where is the letter? Show me!"

According to the original plan, in a few days, the Shenji Battalion led by Sun Shaozu should complete the drill and return to the capital.

At this time, a letter came suddenly from home, could it be that there is something wrong?

Thinking in this way, Sun Shaozong didn't even care about opening the mud, he tore off the cover directly, shook off the letter paper, ordered Zhao Zhongji to pick up the lantern, and first glanced at the ten lines to make an overview, which was a sigh of relief.

It turned out that Sun Shaozu said in the letter that because of the heavy snow a few days ago, the Heishui Mohe was hit, so he sent people to plunder the territory of Dazhou.

Because those Mohe people were very brave in field battles, the generals of the Great Zhou Dynasty mostly guarded their gates.

Only Sun Shaozu was delighted to see Lie Xin, and led hundreds of people from his troops to set up an ambush in a narrow place, severely injuring a barbarian team, and even captured the grandson of a certain tribe's leader alive.

Afterwards, Sun Shaozu led his team back into Shanhaiguan, and at the same time sent people to the capital to report victory—to be precise, he requested to send a few more teams of Shenji Battalion soldiers and horses, so as to continue the anti-sweeping campaign.

See what this means, Big Brother Cheap, I'm afraid he won't return to Beijing before next spring.

Of course, these are mainly for the imperial court to read, and they are written in the family letter only as a passing mention.

The real point of the family letter is to imply that Sun Shaozong should take it easy, at least wait until he comes back, and then continue to work hard with Jia Yingchun for reproduction, so as not to be seen by others.

After reading the family letter, Sun Shaozong was quite speechless, gathered it in his sleeves, and ordered Zhao Zhongji to prepare some meals and send them to the study. Just half full.

When I first returned home, I didn't feel any better, but now I am really hungry.

Back in the room, Sun Shaozong took out the family book and re-scanned it twice under the lamp. After confirming that there was no useful information missing, he directly lit a fire and burned it into a pile of fly ash.

As soon as the pile of ashes was disposed of, there was another knock on the door outside.

"Come in, the door is unlocked!"

Sun Shaozong responded with his probe, and saw that the courtyard gate was divided to the left and right, two little maids were walking in front with lanterns, and a tall and plump Meijiao Niang was carrying a food box in her hand, but it was the second sister You who had a leg injury.

She hastened a few steps to the front, first bowed to Sun Shaozong and said Wanfu, then turned around and ordered the two maids to stay outside, and then carried the food box inside.

Seeing Second Sister You put the food box on the round table, and then began to cook the dishes, Sun Shaozong couldn't help but wondered, "I asked Zhao Zhongji to pass on the food, but how did it get to you?"

"Sister Rong had already prepared the small kitchen for the Lord, but I just borrowed flowers to present Buddha, and took the opportunity to ask the Lord for some housework."

Second Sister You said, first offered a pair of ivory chopsticks with both hands, and poured a glass of 30-year-old shochu, and placed it in front of Sun Shaozong.

Sun Shaozong first picked up the hot and sour dried bamboo shoots, took a sip of the soju, and then asked with a smile, "Is there any housework that your sister Rong can't handle, and you have to talk to me at night?"