Rebirth: From being expelled from the imperial court to becoming a high-ranking official

Zhuzi returned to the veranda and saw his son writing again. It seemed that he had been back for a while.

Zhuzi frowned slightly: "Why did you come back so early?"

"I came back only after the master went back to the inner house." Zhao Ping didn't look up and was still writing seriously.

He just learned a few new words from someone today.

Zhuzi originally wanted to say a few more words, but seeing his son was so focused, he didn't say anything else.

He saw Zhao Ping copying words from one piece of written paper onto another.

"What are you copying?"

"I just learned this character today. I copied all the characters I've learned together so you can look at them when you have time."

Zhuzi sighed softly and got up to prepare dinner.

After dealing with the Ma Qianwen murder case, Qin Yunhe had some free time again. Every day he would teach Yu Ge'er or spend time with his wife and children according to the original plan.

A few days passed in a flash, and news came from Linyuan County about new progress in Ma Qianwen's case.

Although it is said to be a new development, there is actually no new development in the murder case, only new development on whether Ma Qianwen is the suspect.

It is said that the neighbor who was a hanger-on of the fast-track team leader and accidentally heard about the incident in which Ma Qianwen broke out of Fu Hu's house early in the morning seemed to be quite disdainful of Ma Qianwen and had expressed his dissatisfaction in private many times.

In fact, his dissatisfaction does not prove that he has definitely falsely accused Ma Qianwen, it just reduces the credibility of his testimony a little.

Another thing is that a nearby villager said that when he went to the fields to check on the crops that morning, he saw a man staggering towards Tanglin Town.

I didn’t pay much attention to it at the time, but thinking about it later, that person seemed to be Ma Qianwen.

If the person the villager saw in the morning was Ma Qianwen, then it should not be him who killed the rich man.

Qin Yunhe thought about it, and asked Hesheng to go to the case room to get the previous case files, wanting to take a look at the detailed confession again.

He Sheng came back after a long while and said hesitantly, "The case office said that the clerk is not here. If you want to see the case file, you have to wait for him to come back."

Qin Yunhe frowned but didn't say anything. Let's do it later.

Qin Yunhe continued to review the case files sent by the county below, and after more than an hour he had finally finished processing them.

He Sheng quickly poured a cup of tea. Qin Yunhe took a sip of water and let out a sigh. He stood up and planned to take a walk, but suddenly remembered.

"Has Ma Qianwen's case file not been delivered yet?"

He Sheng just then remembered that the clerk had not yet delivered the case file.

"Maybe the other clerks forgot to tell him. I'll go and ask again."

He Sheng left in a hurry, and soon came back in a hurry with the case files.

Qin Yunhe took the case file and read it bit by bit.

Ma Qing's petition to plead his brother's innocence, the coroner's report, the corpse, the witnesses' testimonies...

"Hey..." Qin Yunhe suddenly felt something was wrong.

He twisted the testimony in his hand slightly, then picked up another page of the same testimony and twisted it.

wrong.

Qin Yunhe likes calligraphy and writing, so he is very sensitive to the subtle differences between paper, pen, ink and inkstone.

The papers in his hand seemed to look the same, but he just felt some difference.

Looking more closely at the strokes, Qin Yunhe was even more certain that this page had been altered.

Although the fonts were very similar, Qin Yunhe had some knowledge of characters, and he could still see the trick even with slight differences.

What made him even more certain that there was something wrong with this page was that a certain word in the lower left corner was scratched a little bit.

It's not very noticeable, but you can't miss it if you look closely. It looks like the ink was accidentally rubbed when it was not completely dry.

Such shallow scratches would not attract anyone's attention.

However, Qin Yunhe had seen this testimony before, and there was no sign of it being rubbed.

"Which clerk compiled this case file?"

"It's the clerk Song."

Qin Yunhe thought for a moment and said, "Go and invite Liu Dianshi over."

Soon, Liu Dianshi was invited to the study.

"My Lord, do you have any instructions?"

"Liu Dianshi, you are also an old man in the hall, so you are more familiar with the situation. Is there any malpractice in the storage of case files in the hall? Is the situation serious?"

Qin Yunhe had heard of some of the evils of clerks.

However, he always felt that most of those happened in the county government office. After all, the county government office kept all kinds of deeds and books such as household registration, marriage records, taxes, land, etc. for the entire county. It was too easy for problems to arise and too easy for tampering to occur.

Most of the things in the halls and yamen are case files. Not to mention that normally few people would want to tamper with the case files, even if there were, most of the case files are related to the law, so no one would dare to do it.

But I didn't expect that someone would dare to touch the case files.

When Liu Dianshi heard Qin Yunhe's question, his expression became a little unnatural.

Of course he knew that the hall had these problems, and almost all government offices had these problems.

But before this, he always thought that the judge knew the ins and outs and just turned a blind eye.

"Sir, I don't really know much about it, but I have only heard about it vaguely. The income of clerks is meager, and some clerks in the halls and yamen may be able to give some convenience... However, in my opinion, they should at most let people take a look at the case files, and they probably dare not do anything..."

Qin Yunhe understood immediately after hearing this. Liu Dianshi probably knew all the little tricks of the clerks, and even understood them very well. However, this matter was not easy to deal with because it was a long-standing problem and the clerks were passed down from generation to generation.

Even though Liu Dianshi was an official, he didn't want to get into trouble.

Yes, if Liu Dianshi was a nosy person, how could everyone in the hall believe in and respect him so much?

If he really just wanted to show the case file to people, Qin Yunhe might be able to pretend to be confused.

But this time the case file was affected by such an obvious incident, how could he pretend not to see it?

Qin Yunhe handed the testimony to Liu Dianshi.

"I read this testimony before the last hearing. There was no such thing then..."

Qin Yunhe pointed at the traces of rubbing.

Liu Dianshi was startled and took it to look at it: "Are you sure there was no such mark before?"

Qin Yunhe said seriously: "Absolutely not. I don't know if the content is 100% unchanged, but there is definitely no trace of this."

Regardless of whether it has been tampered with, at least this testimony is definitely not the original.

Liu Dianshi's expression also turned serious.

If the testimony is directly tampered with, then the problem is indeed serious.

"Sir, leave this matter to me. I will make sure to get to the bottom of it."

"The person in charge of this case is Scrivener Song."

"Okay, I'll check it out right away."

Qin Yunhe looked at the testimony file in his hand. This file has now become evidence of another person's guilt.

"He Sheng, keep this case file. You don't need to send it back to the case room yet."

He Sheng also understood what was said and knew that there was a big problem with the case file, so he quickly and carefully put the case file into a bookcase.

Liu Dianshi acted quickly and found out the whole story the next day and reported to Qin Yunhe.

"…According to Scrivener Song, someone did come to him to see the testimony. He didn't expect that after he showed it to that person, he would ask him to make some minor changes. He thought the changes were minor and would not affect the result, so he agreed..."

"What has been changed?"

“It’s just that the time has been slightly modified.”

"How much silver did you receive?"

Liu Dianshi hesitated for a moment and said, "Five taels of silver."

Qin Yunhe was so angry that he laughed: "You changed your testimony just for five taels of silver?"

Liu Dianshi also looked a little unhappy, and said: "Your Excellency doesn't know. The income of clerks is really meager, and clerks in the halls and yamen usually don't have other income, so..."

"Did the person who issued this testimony ask someone to change it?"

If so, then the person who gave the testimony is highly suspected of making a false accusation.

"Song Shuli doesn't know if that person is the witness. I have asked Wu Bantou to go find that person."

The case file is not only kept by the provincial government, but also by the county government. Why would this person want to change his testimony?

Even if the county government changes its decision here, it won’t change, and the witness’ testimony won’t change either.

Or……

"Liu Dianshi, please send a written petition to Lin Yuan County to inform them that the testimony here has been tampered with. Ask Lin Yuan County to check if there are any traces of changes in the archives there.

Also find a witness to check his statement and see if there is any change. If there is any change, detain the witness and interrogate him carefully; he may know something. "

"Yes." Liu Dianshi agreed, then hesitantly asked, "Sir, Song Shuli..."

"Let's wait until this case is over."

"Yes."