Suspect in Jinling

With a creak, the carriages and horses rumbled to a halt on the pontoon bridge and in front of the Pangfu gate on Wangfu Street.

The Chinese Army’s Governor’s Mansion, the Garrison’s Yamen, and the Wucheng Bingmasi’s soldiers all have higher hearts than the sky, but looking at the water plate on the cart and the color of the horse’s bridle, there is no one in the long street. People dared to step forward to block them, but when they reached the gate of the Pang Mansion, an old man with white hair and a healthy body lifted the small dark green curtain. Marquis of Fengcheng!"

"To pass through this way, this way..."

The index finger and thumb of Sha Xiangyue's left hand tapped firmly on two heavy wooden blocks, and her right hand held a cylindrical lock cylinder to demonstrate.

His eyes are kind and focused. His hands look extremely stable, extremely hard, and extremely powerful. His arms stretch out a clear and beautiful arc because of the force. The fingers, the back of the hand, the wrist bone to the forearm are hard, cold, and slender, as if on the bones. Wrapped in a thin and delicate skin, showing the paleness of stone carvings without temperature.

"Although this lock is defective, these cut corners will not affect its use, but will only make its knock force smaller, making it easier to lock and knock. At this time, only a thread and a heavy object can be used to lock the door. Buckled from the inside, the weight can be completed with only about a catty."

Kuang Jian frowned and questioned him: "It's impossible, a weight of about one catty is too obvious, and it's impossible for someone at the crime scene not to notice it."

Sha Xiangyue: "Maybe it was taken away by the murderer, or maybe it was originally something in the house."

"what?"

Sha Xiangyue frowned and shook her head.

Kuang Jian asked again: "Then who do you think the murderer is?"

Sha Xiangyue tilted her head and gave him a cat-like look, her eyes seemed to be blaming him for asking herself such a stupid question: "You can go in and out of the study room freely, understand the construction progress of the building, and be able to tamper with the construction manuscript, so obvious, Who else could it be?" After speaking, his thoughts turned, and he suddenly asked, "Did you see a Luban ruler in the room?"

Kuang Jian knew what he was thinking of, and immediately asked: "What is that? Is it placed near the door?"

"Yes, I let someone put it there!" Sha Xiangyue sped up her speech, and compared the size with a serious face, "About five inches long, one inch wide, brass-colored. Luban ruler, Luguan ruler, It is the same as the 'cash shaker' to promote luck, and it should be placed near the door to help you get promoted."

Kuang Jian thought to herself that you have paid so much attention to building a house, and it really opened the door for murderers.

But he still answered with a serious face: "No."

Sha Xiangyue frowned distrustfully: "Are you sure?"

Kuang Jian lowered her brows and said in a calm voice, "I'm not mistaken, I haven't seen that Luban ruler."

Sha Xiangyue spread her hands, indicating that she didn't run away, the murderer must have used this method to knock the door lock from the outside.Kuang Jian pinched the bridge of her nose in distress, feeling that it was as impossible to find as the shoe prints of that Jin Yiwei, so she couldn't help frowning and asked, "Do you have anything like a Luban ruler at home?"

The location of Yingtianfu Yamen is unique in Jinling. It faces Dabaoen Temple with the most incense in the east, Qinhuai River is half a square away from the south, and it is connected to the gate of the rich and noble family in the north. The Yamen has three front and back entrances. Hall, four rooms on the left and right are straight office rooms, the main hall and ear rooms in the middle, six rooms on the left and right for the police to relax, three rooms in the back hall, six rooms in the left and right corridors, and seven rooms in the gate room, which are miscellaneous purposes such as interrogation and detention. .

Sha Xiangyue had never been to the Yamen of Yingtian Mansion before. The gate of the Yamen had ferocious beast heads. He followed Kuang Jian's footsteps and stepped into the threshold cautiously. Unexpectedly, the scene in the Yamen was unimaginable. , The guards ran quickly with cards and rulers, the people coming and going were as lively as a market, and the nearby Dabaoen Temple happened to ring the bell, and the majestic morning bell rang emptily above the yamen, which could not cover the hustle and bustle of the yamen. There was a lot of noise.

One of them is particularly conspicuous in the auditorium. He is dressed in elegant Tsing Yi, tall and slender, holding a small teapot, leaning on the porch, sucking and watching the crowds. When he caught sight of Kuang Jian, he immediately raised his voice and shouted. One voice: "Hey, are you back? Did you bring someone back?"

Kuang Jian kept walking and didn't respond, but this was obviously not an ordinary person. Sha Xiangyue stomped her feet slowly and asked Kuang Jian for help: "This is...?"

The man in Tsing Yi smiled and said, "Call me Fourth Master, everyone in the house calls me that."

The fourth master, Ying Tianfu promoted officials, the official position was sixth rank, and the supervisor in the mansion sat in the hall to handle cases, he was the brains of Ying Tianfu.

Before Sha Xiangyue could say hello, Kuang Jian looked back at Sha Xiangyue and said, "There are a lot of people here. You go to the middle courtyard and sit in the courtyard. I'll do the work first." Then she ignored him and dragged him away. Fourth Master turned into Zhishe on the left, leaving Sha Xiangyue standing alone in the neighborhood disputes, looking around in a daze——

"Qian Jin told me everything, and I guessed who you were suspecting right away, and everything was prepared for you."

After closing the door, Fourth Master threw two stacks of copybooks to Kuang Jian from his desk.

Kuang Jian saw the names of two people: Sha Xiangyue and Qiu Deze.

The résumés transferred in the morning were all in a hurry, and Pangfu was in a hurry, and the police checks were very rough, so these two copies are considered to be alike.Kuang Jian thanked her, took a piece of clove incense and sat down, and looked at the copy of Sha Xiangyue on the desk. The fourth master held his teapot generously, and sat down on the other side of his desk: "Pang Mansion The matter is quite big, and now the outside news is sealed, if Qian Jin hadn't come back and told me, I wouldn't have expected it."

Kuang Jian gave a muffled "Yes", and quickly threw out the share in his hand, "He is no longer suspected, just burn it."

The fourth master took it, tore it up casually, and threw it into the big-bellied incense burner at his feet, "Then this Qiu Weng is left?" He raised his eyebrows: "What is his origin, to do such a big thing?"

"Qiu Weng, Qiu Deze, people from Jixi County, Huizhou Prefecture. In the autumn of the second year of Zhengtong, Najixi County was among the relocated households. In the spring of the third year of Zhengtong, he joined the Pang Mansion as a slave." Kuang Jian propped up his cheekbones with one hand, and said lightly: "From time to guess , he should be a relocated household in the north, in order to avoid corvee labor and avoid emigration, he voluntarily joined Pang Zhengying's family..." He turned a page: "Huh?" Kuang Jian shrank his pupils, looked at the handwriting, and said in surprise : "He didn't sign a long-term contract, but a three-year contract."

The sale of slaves must be recorded in Yingtian Mansion, and one form should be stamped with the seal of Yingtian Mansion to be kept by the owner’s family, and the other form should be kept in the records of Yingtian Mansion. Kuang Jian was a little shocked when she saw the original document of selling herself and signing the contract: "This contract was signed in the sixth year of orthodoxy. When it expired, he neither renewed the term with the Pang Mansion nor left?"

The fourth master is not surprised: "This is very common. It may have been renewed privately, but it has not come to Tianfu for filing, or it may have expired. The servant did not take the initiative to mention it, and the master forgot. Pang Zhengying has been so prosperous in the past ten years , Qiu Weng took advantage of this, why did he leave?"

Kuang Jian: "Then I can't think of his motives. What I asked about was that he had been unknown in Pang Mansion for so many years, but he suddenly got the master's favor last year, and was given the opportunity to undertake the construction of the building. Since I'm already proud, why do you want to kill the master so deliberately? Can you get any benefits?"

"Do you suspect that someone ordered him?" Fourth master thought for a moment: "Pang Yuan? The little Mr. Pang who killed the younger brother?"

Kuang Jian didn't even raise his head: "If he had the brains to think of using shoe prints in the cubicle to confuse the public, he would have passed the provincial examination a long time ago."

It was rare for Fourth Master to see Kuang Jian sarcasm in such a serious manner, so he couldn't help laughing, "Then Qin?"

Kuang Jian: "The person next to her pillow doesn't need to pretend to be another person if she wants to. If her city government really wanted to kill Pang Zhengying, Pang Zhengying would have died long ago."

Fourth master: "Then Ruan Yuankui?"

Kuang Jian: "This person doesn't even know what Jin Yiwei did that night, and he is still in a fog. What kind of plans can he have?"

Fourth master: "Qian Jin is very suspicious of him, saying that he cares too much about Sha Xiangyue's lock."

Kuang Jian snorted lightly: "Ruan Yuankui was looking for Sha Xiangyue Tu because of his feng shui fortune. Pang Zhengying had such a big incident, so he shouldn't care about it."

"Then Chu Ji has no motive. Pang Zhengying died, and his position is in jeopardy." The fourth master clicked his tongue, "But why must someone order it? Maybe Qiu Weng himself wants to kill him?"

"Using a slave to harm the master is Ling Chi's crime, why would he take such a risk?"

Kuang Jian shook the contract in his hand, and insisted: "If there is really a grievance, he can leave. If you can't see it, your heart is pure. Why doesn't he leave?"

The fourth master couldn't answer Kuang Jian's question, he pouted, and took another stack of papers from the desk next to him, "...Maybe you can look at this, when I was checking him, I also checked his Son. During the tenth year of Zhengtong, Qiu Weng donated his son as a supervisor in the Ministry of Industry, but the good times didn’t last long. His son’s crime of impersonating an official was revealed. What I do is to assist Ting to purchase stone and wood, and escort various materials. Originally, this young man was supposed to come back last winter, but who knew that in summer, he died of exhaustion on the road."

Kuang Jian was silent again, looking at the submission, undecided.

After a long time, he raised his head and said to fourth master: "I know the facts of the case are clear up to now, but I always feel that there are doubts in this case, the kind of doubts that cannot be explained clearly."

The fourth master patted him on the shoulder in relief, and said in a gentle voice: "It's okay, what we are doing is a matter of human life and death, and we can't be too cautious--I just found a case when I was doing research. I don't want to mention such a complicated matter to you, for fear of disturbing your thoughts, now it seems that it is still necessary to tell you."

"What case?"

Fourth master raised his eyebrows: "Three years of orthodoxy, the Yang Ji case."

In the entrance hall of Ying Tian Mansion, the huge wooden monster made a slow creaking sound.

Sha Xiangyue found a place to sit, watched curiously as the guard pulled out the shaken papers, and then strode away.The yamen was very busy early in the morning. People were sent in and out of the water room, sometimes alone, sometimes in pairs. Some people complained that so-and-so had entered the boundary of Jinling again. The informants came to report, and now they have to send people to monitor It is estimated that Jiangyang robbers fled in, and some people came to claim the lost property. While proofreading the stolen goods searched and suppressed a few days ago, they read the owner's previous report, and felt that the owner was really rich. It is surprising that Ying Tianfu's copywriting archives So meticulous...Sha Xiangyue often dealt with the deputy secretary of Yingtianfu in the west of the city. busy outside.

Qian Jincong came out from the backyard, saw Sha Xiangyue, and enthusiastically served him food, saying that Zhu Shi was locked up in the back hall, and that he was not executed, but that he wanted to teach him a lesson for disrupting his official business.Qian Jin had just assisted the fourth master to obtain the detailed copy of Shaxiangyue. After reading it, he became more aware of his ability to create, and couldn't help but respect him even more. Seeing that he was so interested in the "official document library", he took the initiative to Explained to him, and was talking, only to hear the noise outside suddenly became much louder, as if some extraordinary person had entered the mansion, Qian Jin frowned, straightened up like a rabbit, and looked vigilantly at the front hall ——