Upon hearing this, Magistrate Fan Hutu examined the silver ingot carefully, looking at it from left to right, from top to bottom, and then turned it over. He saw that the words "Great Official Silver" were indeed engraved on the bottom.
There is also a string of small characters "丁丙戊戌甲丁丁丁丁", which is a unique serial number for large denomination silver coins. Each ingot has a different serial number, which can be considered a kind of anti-counterfeiting mark.
"Well, Qian Que, how dare you deceive this official!"
Fan Hutu slammed his gavel down, his goatee flaring to either side of his mouth, and shouted:
"Come on! Give Qian Que twenty heavy lashes! And give Mei Qianzhong ten heavy lashes!"
"I hereby sentence these two to six months in prison for 'false accusation'!"
"My lord, spare my life!"
"My lord, I have an elderly mother in her seventies and children to raise, please spare me!"
Qian Que and Mei Qian wept bitterly and knelt down, begging for mercy.
However, Fan Hutu did not let them off the hook.
After beating the two men and imprisoning them, Fan Hutu handed the silver ingot to Su Ruyan with both hands: "Miss Su, this ten taels of silver is returned to its rightful owner."
He was convinced that the silver belonged to Su Ruyan because, given Su Ruyan's status, it was possible for her to obtain such a large ingot of official silver, while Qin Chuan had no such possibility.
Although he didn't know what exactly happened between Su Ruyan and Qin Chuan, how the money ended up in Qin Chuan's hands, and how this false accusation case came about, since Miss Su didn't pursue the matter with Qin Chuan, he naturally wouldn't say anything more.
Su Ruyan opened her mouth slightly, as if she wanted to say something, but under Qin Chuan's constant winks, she silently accepted the silver.
...
As they walked out of the county government office, Su Ruyan followed behind Qin Chuan and called out to him, "Qin Chuan, is the rumor true?"
"What rumor?"
Su Ruyan sighed softly, her words seemingly filled with deep regret:
"I once heard of a child prodigy named Qin who composed a poem at the age of six and became famous throughout Jiangnan. Unfortunately, his father only cared about immediate gains and neglected to nurture the prodigy, resulting in the child becoming illiterate at the age of eleven and increasingly mentally challenged. Is this child prodigy you?"
"Isn't this the story of Fang Zhongyong..." Qin Chuan thought to himself.
"My lady, you may have misunderstood. I'm probably not some kind of child prodigy." Qin Chuan didn't have any memories of the original owner in this regard. Perhaps the original owner's intelligence had truly deteriorated, and she had forgotten her childhood.
"Can you write poetry?" Su Ruyan asked Qin Chuan as she caught up with him, her beautiful eyes filled with eager anticipation.
"Yes," Qin Chuan chanted, his hands behind his back, "One piece, two pieces, three or four pieces, five pieces, six pieces, seven or eight pieces..."
"What kind of poetry is this?"
Su Ruyan was immediately disappointed.
It seems it wasn't him...
Seeing that her expression had changed, Qin Chuan stopped reading.
At this moment, a group of villagers from Tongli also came out of the county government office.
The villagers were quite welcoming to Qin Chuan.
"Qin the Fool, are you not a fool anymore?"
"Qin Chuan, you weren't always so stupid. Are you alright now?"
“That’s right. When your father brought you to the distillery, you were quite clever and eloquent. But you became more and more foolish later on… It seems you’ve recovered!”
"Great news, Qin Chuan!"
Hearing this, Qin Chuan couldn't help but doubt his original body's memories of his past. Could it be that "I" was really a child prodigy before?
But none of that matters right now. Getting rid of the "idiot" label is the best thing to do, so he said, "Of course I'm not an idiot anymore. If anyone ever mentions 'Qin the Idiot' again, I'll fight them!"
"Yes, yes, if anyone calls you Qin the Fool again, we'll teach them a lesson!"
"That's right, from now on no one can call you Qin the Fool!"
"Anyone who dares to call you Qin the Fool, I guarantee I'll beat them up!"
The villagers were completely oblivious to Qin Chuan's increasingly dark face, and one or two of them were excitedly shouting.
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