A gentleman is not a group

After being idle for a long time, a big event happened today.

As soon as Zhou Chi and Xie Jianmian entered the government office, they heard that the imperial court had sent imperial envoys to Jinzhou for inspection. If something goes wrong, even the magistrate can't afford it, but on the other hand, there is nothing to tell, and there is no need to mess up.

That being said, everyone cheered up and made arrangements to wait for the arrival of the imperial envoy.

Early in the morning, for this matter, Zhang Zeyuan called Zhou Chi into the study, and told him: "Zhou Chi, I think you know about the Imperial Envoy, you must keep the city safe these few days, and don't make any mistakes. , the lord will be here in three to five days."

"Yes, don't worry, my lord. I will personally lead my brothers to step up patrols these days." Zhou Chi replied respectfully, and after thinking about it, he couldn't hold back his curiosity, and asked, "Does your lord know who is here?"

Zhang Zeyuan looked at Zhou Chi mysteriously: "You should know this person, he was also the magistrate in Jinzhou, according to his seniority, he is my predecessor."

From Zhou Chi's birth to the present, Jinzhou has had three magistrates. According to Zhang Zeyuan, this person must be the first magistrate he knew - Chai Xin.

Thinking of Chai Xin, Zhou Chi's heart suddenly became complicated. There is no other reason, because Chai Xin was not only the first prefect he heard of after he was born, but also the current prefect when the incident happened 17 years ago.

Because of the unsolved case, Zhou Chi has always had a knot in his heart. He knows in his heart that he can't blame Chai Xin for the result. He didn't dare to show up at the beginning, so he could only ask secretly every day, and heard a lot about how Chai Xin ran around, The matter of entrusting someone to investigate the case, but even so, until Chai Xin was promoted and transferred, there was no result.

In his memory, Chai Xin was a good official who was loved by the people, and his promotion was a matter of course.

"It's Master Chai Xin Chai."

"Yes." Zhang Zeyuan nodded, "I was not a few years older than you at the time, and I also heard about Mr. Chai. I heard that he has been promoted all the way after being transferred, and now he is entrusted with important tasks by the court. It can be regarded as revisiting the old place."

Zhou Chi took a deep breath, not wanting to affect other people with his private emotions, and replied again: "In this case, please rest assured, sir, there will be absolutely no trouble."

The imperial envoy didn't arrive, but the prestige came first, everyone swept away their leisure state, and got busy inside and out.

No one expected that the accident would happen so quickly.

Zhou Chi had just arrived at the government office that day, and before he got close, he saw a group of people pointing around the gate, talking loudly and not knowing what they were talking about.

Zhou Chi's heart tightened, and he stepped forward quickly. When he saw the scene in front of the door, he couldn't help taking a deep breath. He pushed aside the crowd and squeezed in: "Let me go, please let me go."

There is a person hanging at the gate of the government office, to be precise, it is a corpse.

The yamen servant who came earlier was putting the corpse down, Zhou Chi hurried forward to help him and carried him into the morgue.

Before Xu Jia came, Zhou Chi had to take the first look at it himself. It was a male corpse, about 60 years old. It's very fresh.

Zhou Chi sighed, and caught up with such a situation in a day without telling the big words, the magistrate might be pissed to death.

"I heard that something happened?" Xu Jiashan came late and asked as soon as he entered the door.

"Yeah, I saw this early in the morning." Zhou Chi pointed to the lying corpse, "Look at what's going on."

Xu Jia squatted down, looked carefully at the neck of the deceased, then parted her tight lips to look at the mouth, and shook her head for a while: "He was hung up after his death."

Zhou Chi frowned, realizing that it was not that simple: "Let's look at the cause of death first."

Xu Jia searched back and forth for a long time, but found no trauma on his body, and there was basically only one possibility for the rest.

Xu Jia took out a silver hairpin from the wooden drawer next to it, and carefully scrubbed it with saponin water to ensure that the silver hairpin was completely soaked in the saponin water, then inserted the silver hairpin into the dead man's throat, and took paper to seal the mouth .

Zhou Chi watched Xu Jia's movements curiously, knowing that it was the most inappropriate time for him to be disturbed, so he didn't ask any more questions.

After a while, Xu Jia took out the silver hairpin from the mouth of the deceased. The body of the hairpin, which was silvery white just now, was now black and black, and it did not fade even after being soaked in saponin water.

"That's right." Xu Jia handed the silver hairpin to Zhou Chi, motioning Zhou Chi to look at it, "He died of poisoning."

"When did you die?"

Xu Jia decided to look over, with a trace of solemnity in his eyes: "After the child's hour."

This is amazing, the time chosen by the murderer is very clever, not too early or too late, it is almost guaranteed that everything can be completed before the government officials come, and it is guaranteed that enough people can see this scene clearly.

Moreover, people were not hanged, they were poisoned first and then hung up. The murderer did such an unnecessary thing and chose the location at the gate of the government office. There is only one reason to explain it, the murderer was provoking.

Provoking the government office, or provoking Zhou Chi.

But he really couldn't think of who he could offend, and he didn't think so. People in his profession can indeed have many enemies.

There are only a few days left before the arrival of the imperial envoy, Chai Xin, and this matter must be settled before he arrives, otherwise it will be difficult for him, and it will be even more difficult for Zhang Zeyuan to explain.

Thinking of this, Zhou Chi pressed his forehead, called Qi Fei and He Si in, and ordered them to find out the identity of the deceased as soon as possible after they saw the appearance of the corpse.

When Xie Jianmian came in, Zhou Chi was squatting beside the corpse in a daze. He didn't realize it until he came to him. He looked up and saw that it was Xie Jianmian. Then he breathed a sigh of relief, stood up and said, "You're here..."

"Hmm." Xie Jianmian frowned and looked at the haggard corpse, and asked, "Any clues?"

Zhou Chi shook his head, and sat down on a chair beside him. His expression was extremely bad, and he must be really anxious.

Xie Jianmian knew what Zhou Chi was worried about. This incident did not happen by accident. The murderer had calculated the time and location. It is very likely that there will be another move. It happens to be stuck at this juncture. It is hard for people not to think about it. .

A bit of heartache lingered in his heart, and was forcibly withdrawn at the moment when he broke through the skin and wrapped himself around the person in front of him. Xie Jianmian lowered his eyes, his thick eyelashes covered the heartache, walked behind Zhou Chi, stopped his temples with knuckle fingers, and Click to move.

Zhou Chi didn't expect Xie Jianmian to do this, he was really surprised, he looked up, and Xie Jianmian pressed him down: "Don't move, I'll rub it for you."

"it is good……"

The pleasant smell of the pine forest lingers on the tip of the nose, and the warm and soft touch of the fingers on both sides of the forehead. The chaotic mood just calmed down strangely. Zhou Chi took a deep breath, wanting to hold these hands into his palms, so he did so .

His hands were bigger than Xie Jianmian's, and he wrapped them in easily, fingertips rubbing fingertips, knuckles rubbing knuckles, and even the temperature was transmitted to each other, but they couldn't tell the difference after a while.

Xie Jianmian froze in place, obviously he was massaging Zhou Chi without distraction, why did things turn out like this all of a sudden, why did Zhou Chi ask to grab his hand to keep warm?But this action is too ambiguous, as if something is wrong.

Xie Jianmian rolled his Adam's apple up and down, trying to pull his hand out.

Sensing the resistance from the people behind him, Zhou Chi let go of his hand, and looked over inexplicably: "What's wrong?"

"No...it's nothing." Xie Jianmian withdrew his hand all of a sudden, but his eyes were fixed on it in a daze. When he saw a slight redness somewhere, his ears also turned red immediately.

"Then why don't you let me touch it?"

"Ah?" Xie Jianmian didn't understand at all, why Zhou Chi...why got involved in such nonsense, Zhou Chi's personality couldn't have said such things for no reason, but he really couldn't remember when their relationship had changed.

Xie Jianmian asked without shame, "Why do you want to touch?"

It was only then that Zhou Chi realized that something was wrong. That night he thought that they had already spoken clearly, and besides that kiss, the relationship between the two of them should be self-evident.

But Xie Jianmian didn't seem to show much intimacy since then, even a little colder than before, and the pretentious hooking up is gone. Could it be that Mr. Xie regretted it and wanted to turn his back on him?

Zhou Chi thinks this is absolutely impossible.

After thinking about it, I still have to ask what should be asked, and I can make up for it if I find out where the problem is, otherwise he will have no place to look for it when the person really runs away. Zhou Chi looked over hesitantly and asked: "Do you think we are ..."

"Boss! Found out!"

Qi Fei and He Si broke into the room suddenly, the interrupted conversation could no longer continue, Zhou Chi cursed the two inwardly, but on the surface he could only cough lightly to cover up: "Well, who is it?"

"The villager in the east village, his son just came to claim it. He said that the old man is old and his brain is not very good. He didn't go back when he went out yesterday. The family looked for him overnight. Hearing the news of the government office this morning, he followed him. When I came here, I found out that the body was his."

Zhou Chi looked towards the door and said in a deep voice, "Let his son come over."

The person who came called himself Li You, and when he saw the corpse, he cried and rushed up, but Zhou Chi grabbed him: "The corpse is still untouchable, sorry for you."

Li You cried with snot and tears, and he choked and said intermittently: "Catcher...Catcher, my father...how did my father die...he died, who is so mad, yes...to attack an old man !"

"This requires you to provide some clues. Do you know who your father has offended?"

"Catcher, how can you say that!" Li You became anxious, "Before my father got sick, he was known as a good man, and after he got sick, he didn't go out much, how could he offend anyone!"

"Don't get excited." Zhou Chi patted Li You on the shoulder, trying to calm his emotions, "Think about it carefully, forget it if you don't have one, but if there are any, it may be a clue. If you catch the murderer, give your father justice."