Chapter 53: Unreasonable

Meng Lanxi's face suddenly turned sad and angry when she saw the handwriting. She said quickly, "If I were the murderer and couldn't erase this word, why didn't I use the inkstone and the wet ink on my hands to smear it on the words, completely destroying the last message left by the deceased?"

"Yes, if Meng Lanxi was the murderer, he would never have left this word behind. He would have covered it with the body, and then stood in front of the body with the murder weapon in hand. We all witnessed and arrested him."

Shang Luo's voice trembled as he asked softly, "Could it be... that the real murderer set a trap, lured Brother Lanxi in, and then framed him for the crime?"

"Could there be another possibility..." Jian Anting, who had been standing silently behind the crowd, finally spoke up and asked, "Meng Lanxi was so panicked at the time that she didn't think of erasing the writing?"

Meng Lanxi opened her mouth, wanting to argue with him, but changed her mind and chose to look at Qiandeng.

Qian Deng nodded at him, his eyes fixed on Jian Anting, and he said in a calm voice, "It seems that Master Jian has determined that Meng Lanxi is the murderer of Yu Guangling and Zheng Junshan?"

"I dare not say that. But Guangling is my best friend, so I am naturally more concerned about him than anyone else. I hope the murderer can be brought to justice as soon as possible, so that Guangling will not rest in peace in the afterlife."

"Oh..." Qian Deng remained noncommittal and continued, "What Mr. Jian said is also a possibility. Then let's compare it with Zheng Junshan's past homework and look at the character 'Lan'."

The character "Lan" is commonly used, so Qiandeng quickly flipped to those pages and showed them to everyone: "As you can see, Zheng Junshan's homework, if you look closely, the handwriting is close to Yan style. The grass head at the top is separated, forming two crosses on the left and right. The door frame at the bottom is neat, and the character "Cambodia" in the middle is straight."

She flipped through a few pages and showed another character for "Lan" written by Zheng Junshan: "If it's written more sloppily, it has two dots and a horizontal stroke at the top, and the character for "men" below is shortened to a stroke and a hook. The character for "jian" below is shortened to something resembling the cursive character for "dong."

As she spoke, she squatted down and compared the words in her hand with those on the ground. "But strangely, the character 'Lan' he left behind before his death has two characteristics—the top is a sloppy handwriting, while the bottom is the complete stroke of the character 'Cambodia'. How could Zheng Junshan, knowing that he had run out of energy, abandon his quick cursive writing after writing the first half and write the second half in a more orderly manner?"

Everyone looked at the two halves of the handwriting that did not make sense and fell into deep thought.

Cui Fufeng replied, "Because, what Zheng Junshan wrote before his death was not the character 'Lan', but a character that was very similar to 'Lan', and could be completely transformed with just one or two strokes."

Qian Deng nodded, picked up his brush, dipped it in ink, and wrote on the white paper beside him while saying, "That character's structure should be similar to the character for orchid, with a grass head—or perhaps a bamboo head—and a door frame underneath. But in the middle, it seems like there should have been a mouth structure that doesn't belong to orchid, or perhaps... a sun character?"

A grass or bamboo head, with a door frame at the bottom and a sun character inside...

As her handwriting appeared on the paper, everyone's eyes immediately saw that it was obviously the word "简".

Then, Qiandeng made another stroke, wiping it horizontally across the top of the character "简", and at the same time added a vertical stroke, a left stroke, and a right stroke below. The sloppy character "简" suddenly became the character "蘭".

Everyone's disbelieving gazes fell on Jian Anting who was standing behind the crowd.

"If the character Zheng Junshan left behind before his death was "jian" (simple) instead of "lan" (or "Lan"), it would explain two things: first, why did he leave behind two versions of the same character? Second, why didn't the deceased write "Meng"? As far as I know, another person with the surname Meng in the Imperial College was Meng Lanxi's cousin. Everyone knows that he was recuperating at home due to a leg injury. And writing "Meng" is much simpler than "lan" (or "Lan").

Jian Anting looked stunned, looking at Qian Deng with anxious defense in his eyes. "County Lady, you're making such an unfounded assumption, and it's truly unfair to me. There's irrefutable evidence that Meng Lanxi committed murder. Just because my last name resembles the character 'Lan' (Lan) in his name, can you pin the crime on me? I... I had no motive, no opportunity. How could I have killed Zheng Junshan?"

"Who said you had no motive, no opportunity?" Qian Deng looked him straight in the eye and asked, "That day when we entered and saw Meng Lanxi, Jin Baoyi immediately shouted loudly, and the students rushed into the house to investigate. Were you one of them?"

"Yes, but I'm a student of the Imperial Academy. I heard something was happening here, so I followed the crowd to check it out. What's so strange about that? When I followed the crowd to see what was happening, Zheng Junshan had already died, and Meng Lanxi had been caught on the spot."

"No, you were actually already in this dormitory before that. You didn't come in with the crowd, but hid inside. Taking advantage of the chaos caused by the students' influx, you emerged from your hiding place, pretending to watch the fun. And because everyone's attention was on the corpse and the murderer, no one noticed you quietly appearing and blending into the crowd!"

"Your Highness, what you said is unbelievable. I thought you were sensible and knowledgeable, but I never imagined you would make groundless accusations and smear campaigns against innocent people!" Jian Anting shook his head in disappointment. "Please tell me, Your Highness, this room is so simply furnished, with only a table, a chair, a bed, and a cabinet. Did I crawl out from under the bed, or out of the cabinet? Even in such a chaotic situation, how could such a commotion be hidden from everyone's eyes?"

His words were clearly echoed by everyone. Ji Linyou leaned over to look under the bed, only to see the narrow space filled with dusty rattan boxes and miscellaneous items. He opened the cabinet door again, shook his head awkwardly at Qiandeng, and said, "County Lady, I was here that day. I trust my observation skills. It's impossible for someone to open the cabinet door or crawl out from under the bed without noticing."

"Of course, his hiding place isn't in these two places." Qian Deng was confident and asked, "Do you remember that day here, I thought Jian Anting's clothes were a little strange?"

Ji Linyou suddenly remembered and said immediately, "Yes, the county lady pointed out Jian Anting's clothes to me that day. It was indeed a bit strange. It didn't rain that day, and there was even some sunshine, but Jian Anting's clothes were wet below the waist."

"Yes, it was damp. Not the kind that drips from being soaked in water, but rather the condition of standing against something damp for a long time—and only your lower body felt damp, while your upper body was dry." Her gaze swept around the room and landed on Jian Anting again. "At the time, I couldn't understand why you felt like that, but after re-searching the room and combining it with Meng Lanxi's confession, I suddenly realized. It turns out that the place you were hiding was..."

As she spoke, she strode towards the door, grabbed it and closed it.

The narrow space behind the door and the cabinet could not accommodate any miscellaneous items. There was only a straw raincoat hanging high on the wall, with a bamboo hat hanging on it.

"This..." Everyone looked at the straw raincoat in astonishment. They vaguely guessed what she meant and were speechless for a moment.

"That's right, Meng Lanxi said that the murderer placed the inkstone on the half-open door, so when he pushed the door, the inkstone fell into his arms. But Ji Linyou carefully checked the top of the door frame at that time and did not find any traces of blood or ink." Qian Deng raised his hand and pointed to the straw raincoat hanging high on the wall, and said clearly, "But if someone got into this wide straw raincoat, covered his face with a straw hat, grabbed the wooden stake on the wall where the straw raincoat was hung with one hand, bent his knees and stepped on the uneven wall tiles, he could shrink his body and hide in the straw raincoat. Moreover, at the moment when someone pushed the door open, he only needed to raise his hand, and the bloody inkstone would fall from the top of the door, just like the way the naughty boys in the classroom often played tricks on the teacher, and accurately hit the person pushing the door.

"Meng Lanxi was caught off guard by the blood inkstone. Looking up, he saw the corpse and blood before him. How could he immediately think of checking behind the door and looking at the raincoat hanging high on the wall? We rushed over immediately, attracted by him, and only had enough time for him to be stunned for a moment before he was captured on the spot.

"When the students hear the noise and rush in, you can exit from behind the door and blend in as if nothing happened. You can even take advantage of a student's slip and shake their stained hand. That way, even if others notice blood and ink on your hands, you can simply say they got dirty while pulling someone in, and you can wash them clean without any fuss.

"You did everything perfectly, except for one thing, which you couldn't do or hide—"

As Qian Deng spoke, he pulled up the collar of his raincoat and displayed a few strands of palm fiber stained with blood and ink in front of Jian Anting.