Cake Fragrance (Thirteen)
Thanks to Gao Hui's guidance, the prefect successfully found Gao Chang's secret silver hiding place and captured Liu Tao and his party.
With the evidence in hand and Liu Tao and his gang forced to confess, they finally came clean, thus convicting Gao Chang of corruption.
The innocent county magistrate Rong Ye was also promptly acquitted.
The clouds that had been gloomy and rainy for many days finally regained their brightness and illuminated the earth.
When a termite was caught, the people were all overjoyed, but amid the joyful shouts of the crowd, Gao Hui could not keep a smile on her face.
"Girl, you've done a great deed this time!" The governor patted Gao Hui on the shoulder, but Gao Hui couldn't smile. "Your sister..."
"My Lord, I understand. Sister Qing won't be coming back." Gao Hui frowned, wiped the tears from her eyes, and raised her head. "But I still want to discuss a case with you."
The prefect was very surprised. He slowly sat down and motioned Gao Hui to continue speaking.
"I'll go get some evidence first. Your Excellency, please summon a few witnesses."
"Just say it."
"I need you to summon my father, the coroner, and my maid."
Although the prefect didn't know what she was going to do, he still waved his sleeves and gave the order.
After saying that, Gao Hui bowed and turned to leave.
Following Gao Qing's instructions, Gao Hui went to the haystack in the hut where she had stayed and took out a bundle which contained all the evidence.
Holding the rag bundle, Gao Hui felt a sore throat and tears filled her eyes.
The bundle was even wrapped with Gao Qing's rags, and it looked dirty and tattered.
But every breath coming from above belonged to Gao Qing.
Guilt and longing were intertwined in her heart.
The image of Gao Qing lying in a pool of blood flashed through her mind. She began to back out and fell to her knees with a thud.
How could this happen? How did it become like this?
Why did she have to lose all her loved ones? Could it be that Gao Hui has been a nemesis since she was a child?
She was still as cowardly as ever, and she still couldn't stand up straight like Gao Qing and do everything she could to realize the justice in her heart.
Since she couldn't achieve her expectations, she would use her hand to complete Gao Qing's final plan.
Gao Hui suppressed her sadness, sniffed, and resolutely returned to the prefect's residence.
I want to speak for Sister Qing and make the truth known.
When Gao Hui returned with the evidence, all the witnesses were already there, just to hear her make the truth they had found public.
Xiao Lin came here with Chu Mo and Mu You.
In fact, witnessing Gao Qing's near-salvation with her own eyes was the greatest punishment that the gods could bestow upon Xiao Lin.
In the past few days, she kept having the same dream - in the dream, she did not leave, but followed Gao Qing and brought her back to the court.
However, every time Gao Qing in her dream was about to speak, she woke up again.
This went on for several days, and she finally became haggard.
Ran Mu You noticed the sleepiness in his eyes, and although he was always carefree, he couldn't help but feel a little distressed and apologetic.
It's all my fault, I wish I had gone with her, he thought.
In fact, Xiao Lin herself couldn't tell whether the regret in her heart was the regret for not being able to protect Gao Qing, or the fear that she and Mu You failed to complete the mission.
Perhaps, Xiao Lin's heart had already gone with her when she turned around and left Gao Qing.
In a blink of an eye, the suspects all knelt on the ground in the county government office, the prefect sat high in the courtroom, and with a clatter of the chopping board, the trial officially began.
Gao Hui, the main witness, did not even look at her father when she passed by the disheveled Gao Chang. Fortunately, Gao Chang deliberately shook his messy hair away, just to ask his soft-hearted daughter to save his life.
But she walked straight past him, walked up to the prefect, and repeated every word Gao Qing said to her.
"Everyone thinks that it was my father who killed my mother, but he is innocent in this matter." Gao Hui was the first to put forward the conclusion.
"What do you mean?" asked the prefect.
"Indeed, my parents had an argument the day before my mother died, but that was definitely not the time of her death." Gao Hui walked up to Gao Chang, her eyes sharp. "Because that night, my father went to Zuihonglou to drink and have fun."
"Is there any evidence?"
"Of course there are. I went to Zuihonglou during the day, and the madam there said that they opened four days ago, and were preparing to close on the fifth day. However, my father couldn't wait, so he relied on his official status and went to Zuihonglou on the night of the fifth day to enjoy himself first." Gao Hui replied.
The prefect was intrigued by this story and continued to ask, "Perhaps the madam of the Zuihonglou saw that he was an official and made a false testimony for him."
"No, when I went to Zuihonglou this morning, I smelled an unusual fragrance. The madam explained that the perfume they use is special and that it would take six or seven days for the scent to dissipate. Furthermore, after my mother passed away, the Gao family was sealed off and Zuihonglou closed. My father will never have the chance to visit Zuihonglou again. Your Excellency, please take a look at this dress."
After Gao Hui finished speaking, she casually handed over the clothes she had packed earlier.
The prefect immediately sent someone to bring the clothes and put them to his nose to sniff. Sure enough, a faint scent of powder, almost fading away, invaded his nostrils.
Then, he handed the dress to his men and turned to Gao Hui, asking, "So, who is the murderer?"
Gao Hui took a deep breath and slowly uttered a few words:
"The murderer is Aunt Ma who is lying in the morgue."
Not only the prefect, but everyone present was shocked by these words.
Gao Hui clenched her fists, opened the bundle she had brought, and displayed the evidence inside in front of everyone. She continued her speech, "My mother's cause of death is obvious—poisoning. The black veins on her neck are proof of that. If the poison was in the porridge, Gao Qing, who delivered it, didn't know which bowl was poisoned, and she couldn't have accurately delivered the poisoned porridge to my mother's room. Therefore, the porridge is not poisonous."
"Then according to you, how did Madam Gao get poisoned?"
"It's an ice needle."
Gao Hui kicked the wooden basin that she had found in Aunt Ma's room forward and took out a piece of paper from her arms.
"Look, sir. We found this wooden basin in Aunt Ma's room. The milky white liquid in the cracks is the rare Western poison, the deadly poison. We recently encountered a Western merchant who sold this very poison, and this is the receipt Aunt Ma used to buy it."
"It's winter now. If you want to kill someone without them noticing, the best method is naturally an ice needle. The murderer took advantage of this harsh winter. She mixed poison with clean water, placed it in a river outside the city, and used the most common ice-making method to freeze it. Finally, she made an ice needle of the perfect size and shot it into the victim's chest, thus achieving the murder without them noticing."
They never expected that the murderer was a dead person. It was also true that they had been focusing on the living during this period, thus missing out on other flaws.
But this is just Gao Hui's guess and there is no solid evidence.
There are still some errors and omissions here.
Suddenly, a maid from the Gao residence stood up to defend herself: "But Aunt Ma was with me that night. How could she have killed someone in front of me?"
"Have you never been apart from her for a moment?" Gao Hui asked in return.
The maid was slightly flustered when asked this question. She rolled her eyes and suddenly remembered: "Except for the time when Aunt Ma went to the toilet, she was with me the rest of the time."
"But did you know she didn't go to the toilet?"
Gao Hui's words choked the maid, who was speechless.
Gao Hui ignored her and continued, "It was a rainy night, and there was wet mud in front of the toilet, a red mud that was hard to wash off. However, Aunt Ma, who only had a few pairs of cloth shoes, didn't find a single stain on any of them. Isn't that strange? This also means that she didn't go to the toilet that night, but turned around and went to my mother's room and killed her!"
"Even though these are reasonable, they are just your speculations. Do you have any other evidence?" The prefect slowly stood up and walked up to Gao Hui.
Gao Hui sighed softly, picked up a cloth button and a piece of clothing on the ground, and presented them to the governor. She explained, "This is irrefutable evidence! This is the cloth button my mother was holding tightly in her hand, and it matches the missing button on Aunt Ma's clothing. This shows that when my mother was poisoned, she discovered Aunt Ma and fought with her. However, the drug took effect too quickly, and my mother only grabbed her collar and quickly fell to the ground. But it was this pull that ripped off her button!"
Gao Hui's inference was enough to leave everyone speechless. Everyone present looked at each other and lowered their heads silently.
The prefect came down and personally picked up the cloth button for comparison.
Indeed, the button had been torn off, and there were still some broken threads left on the clothes.
Previously, the coroner had also presented documents when performing an autopsy on Mrs. Gao, saying that there were many tiny red marks between Mrs. Gao's fingers. If the other servants in their family were wearing expensive clothes, there would definitely not be such crude friction marks.
The only thing that could cut Mrs. Gao's fingers was the coarse cloth shirt on Aunt Ma.
The evidence matched one by one, and everyone knew the outcome of the matter.
Afterwards, the prefect straightened his official uniform and asked Gao Hui again, "You little girl, you are quite capable, but I want to ask you, even though Aunt Ma is the murderer of your mother, your father also killed Aunt Ma..."
Before the governor could finish, Gao Hui interrupted him: "My father was only guilty of corruption, not murder."
"Um?"
"What we all saw was that Aunt Ma was accidentally pushed by my father and her right abdomen hit the corner of the table, causing internal injuries and death, right?"
Everyone nodded.
"But after the coroner's examination, Aunt Ma did die of liver hemorrhage!" Gao Hui suddenly raised her voice, but still couldn't hide her trembling voice.
The governor turned to look at the coroner standing nearby and asked, "Coroner?"
"Sir, everything this woman said is true. After my autopsy, I found that the deceased died of a ruptured liver." The coroner saluted the prefect and told the truth.
The truth behind all this gradually becomes clear, and Aunt Ma's scapegoat status is about to be confirmed.
"Everyone should know that the liver is located on the left side of the abdomen, but Aunt Ma was hit on the right side. This is obviously inconsistent. Moreover, everyone who knows Aunt Ma knows that she has always been mentally handicapped. She can't tell left from right. She even has to lead an old dog when she goes out to buy groceries..."
"And all of this is telling the same truth. Aunt Ma wasn't murdered, but committed suicide! She used her internal energy to kill herself while being pushed down by my father, so she could pin the blame on my father in front of everyone!"
Everyone present was shocked by what Gao Hui said. The whole truth was like a bolt from the blue, coming too suddenly.
Xiao Lin was also frightened by Gao Hui's series of reasonings. Only at this moment did she temporarily put her grief behind her.
"We should have noticed long ago that Aunt Ma was skilled in martial arts," Gao Hui continued. "It's easy to tell from her daily behavior. Although she's old, she walks with an unusually agile gait, and her physique is far from what one would expect at her age. Plus, the calluses on her palms must be from practicing martial arts and swordsmanship, and they're all evidence of her years of martial arts training."
Gao Hui told Gao Qing the whole story, but then changed the subject: "But why would someone with such martial arts skills like her be willing to work as a cook in the Gao Mansion? As for her motive for murder, we can only ask my father."
In an instant, her eyes became sharp, and the eyes of the others followed hers and focused on Gao Chang.
When death was imminent, Gao Chang was still mumbling and refusing to admit his guilt.
"If you don't tell me everything, I will report this to His Majesty. Don't blame me if you and your entire family are executed!"
The prefect's powerful voice rang out, and every word he said touched Gao Chang's heart.
Seeing that Gao Chang showed no sign of repentance, Gao Hui was completely disappointed.
She had wanted to save his face out of the old relationship between father and daughter, but since he was so shameless, she could not hide it for him anymore.
At that moment, Gao Hui once again dug out a certificate from under the pile of evidence - yes, it was Gao Chang's certificate, the one that could not be more fake.
She held the certificate in both hands and presented it to the governor: "Sir, this is the certificate of the prisoner Gao Chang. This certificate is false. His official position is a fraud."
What? Impersonation? Beneath these mysteries, there's actually a secret that's been buried for over a decade or two?
For a moment, everyone in the court turned their attention to Gao Chang.
Unable to bear such a stare, and seeing that there was no way back, Gao Chang bit his lip and let go, telling everyone what had happened that year.
"Fifteen years ago, I was a refugee fleeing famine. On my way, I met Mr. Gao, who was on his way to take up his post here. I happened to hear the sedan chair carrier say that Mr. Gao seemed to have something wrong with his face recently, and he always covered his face and was not seen..."
"So, I hatched a plan. If I fled here, I'd either starve to death or be discovered and executed. I might as well impersonate this Mr. Gao, whose face no one has ever seen. At least I could enjoy a peaceful life! With evil intentions in mind, I murdered him under cover of darkness and dumped his body in the wilderness. I stole his fish token and imperial certificate, forged a certificate of appointment, and naturally came here to take up my post, becoming the current Mr. Gao."
"Fortunately, although this place is not far from the capital, the civil and military officials never seem to set their sights on this small town. Therefore, in order to prevent my identity from being revealed, I have never met the emperor or entered the capital. This is why I have kept my identity secret for over ten years."
Gao Chang confessed all the evil deeds that night in detail. Suddenly, he became emotional again: "But I never thought! This Aunt Ma, she is actually Mr. Gao's sister! She found me! She also took her hatred towards my whole family!"
"Then who am I! Who am I? If I am really your biological daughter, why didn't you come to look for me after I got lost? Do you know that if it weren't for Gao Qing, I would have starved to death on the streets!" Gao Qing's emotions became complicated, with bitterness blocking her throat, and her words became increasingly unclear.
Gao Chang said nothing, just staring at Gao Hui's flashing eyes and pursed lips.
"Who am I? Who is Gao Qing? Why do we look so alike? Speak!"
"I have no idea!"
Gao Chang's roar suppressed Gao Hui's resentment. Her tight throat relaxed in an instant, and her face was full of confusion.
Gao Chang then continued to explain, "You are an orphan I picked up on the street. In order to win over people's hearts, I made this substitute official look more convincing. I raised a child to pretend to be the real Gao, so that I could better dispel other people's doubts."
As he spoke, Gao Chang raised his head, took one last look at Gao Hui, and chuckled, "When I first saw Gao Qing, I was stunned. You two look exactly alike! Then, you said she was an orphan who had been wandering for years. So I couldn't help but think, maybe you two are sisters?"
Gao Hui's heart trembled, and her breathing became more rapid.
"But, you who are standing here accusing me, you must be very regretful, right? Initially, I only intended to pin the blame for your mother's sudden death on Gao Qing to avoid attracting attention. In the end, you actually let her escape? But she was also stubborn. She ran away and she ran away. You had to pretend to be noble to find out the truth..."
Gradually, Gao Chang's mental state began to become abnormal.
After a burst of self-deprecating laughter, his eyes were bloodshot and he looked like a madman. He struggled desperately with the chains with his hands, making a harsh clanging sound.
Facing Gao Hui, who had already been devastated and was crying, he finally tore off his previous mask, shouting at the top of his lungs, spitting everywhere.
Those eyes filled with hatred seemed to be spewing fire, and the corners of his mouth were twisted, revealing a ferocious posture that was almost like a beast.
"It was you! You dragged her in here with your own hands! It was you! Your incompetence put her in danger! It was you! You killed your own sister by not starving to death on the streets earlier! Hahahahaha..."
Every laugh from Gao Chang was like an ice needle piercing Gao Hui's heart, and the fortitude she had pretended with great difficulty was shattered at this moment.
Seeing that the situation was not good, the prefect hurriedly ordered his men to take the extremely crazy Gao Chang out.
"Gao Qing's death was tragic! You should have gone with her! Hahahahaha..."
According to the law, he should be executed.
This farce in a remote county town should end with his head falling off.
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