22. Revenge is coming
Until Fan Changyu left the room, the man sitting at the desk writing something did not look up, but just pursed his lips a little tighter.
Listening to the footsteps fading away, he put down his pen, leaned back in his chair, and his dark eyes were filled with gloom.
Come when called and go when waved away?
She dares.
-
After Fan Changyu told his sister not to run around at home, he said hello to his neighbor Aunt Zhao and prepared to go to the county government.
Aunt Zhao said, "Your uncle and I will go with you. It's a scary place. I heard that if you're not careful, you'll be beaten with a club. Wouldn't your skin be torn to pieces after being hit with dozens of boards? Your uncle and I will be here, and if anything goes wrong, we can help you find a solution."
It is said that the people should not fight against the officials. Fan Da got in touch with the teacher who had a grudge against Fan Changyu's family. In the past few days, the old couple of the Zhao family were worried about Fan Changyu and couldn't sleep.
Although Fan Changyu was skilled in martial arts, this was the first time in more than ten years that he had gone to court. After a little thought, he agreed.
The three of them took an ox cart to the county government office. It was still early when they arrived, but the gate was already crowded with people who wanted to watch the excitement.
Fan Changyu knew the process of the interrogation. After the county magistrate came to the court, he would summon her and Fan Da first and ask Fan Da again what he had complained about. The chief clerk at the side would record the interrogation statement. If there was any rebuttal, witnesses would be called if necessary.
The witnesses that Fan Changyu was looking for were the neighbors who lived near the old Fan family house. Most people would definitely not want to get involved in this mess, but Fan Da's family were really bad people, and quite a few of their neighbors were on bad terms with them. When Fan Changyu went to visit them, many of the families disliked Fan Da's behavior and were willing to come forward to testify on his behalf that Fan Da was a gambler.
As time went by, more and more people gathered at the entrance of the county government office to watch the excitement. Some yamen runners had already placed the bucket of lots and the wooden stick on the table above the court, but there was still no sign of the plaintiff Fan Da. Fan Changyu couldn't help but feel confused.
If you are late for the court session, you will be punished with a beating. How could Fan Da forget that he had to go to court today? Did he oversleep?
Aunt Zhao looked around and whispered, "Why can't I see Mr. Fan?"
Fan Changyu thought at an inopportune moment, could it be that he had been too tired from reciting the laws these past two days, and that his resentment was so great that he sleepwalked last night and kidnapped Fan Da?
As the three drums sounded, her scattered thoughts were instantly gathered.
The three squads of yamen runners entered the hall first, and lined up on both sides in a goose shape, holding a stick nearly as tall as a person in their hands, and all of them had ferocious looks on their faces.
When the people watching outside the court saw these yamen runners, they burst into a lot of discussions and were obviously afraid of them.
Fan Changyu also found that these yamen runners were all unfamiliar. None of the constables under Captain Wang were there. She wondered if her master had done anything, and her heart was a little hanging.
The county magistrate, wearing his official robes, walked up to the hall from the side door and sat behind the desk. He glanced at the bottom of the court with his fat eyes, picked up the alarm stick and slammed it hard, shouting, "Open the court!"
The bailiffs pounded their sticks on the ground and shouted, "Mighty!"
The sound of the punishment stick hitting the ground almost blended with the heartbeats of the people outside the venue.
The master with a mustache shouted: "Bring the plaintiff and the defendant to the court!"
Although Fan Changyu was afraid in his heart, when he was brought to the court by the bailiffs, he still gave Aunt Zhao and her husband a reassuring look.
But until this moment, Fan Da still hadn't come, and she, the defendant, was the only one kneeling alone in the court.
It was obviously the first time that the fat county magistrate had encountered such a situation. He turned his head and looked at his master, neither of them understanding what was going on.
The people outside the venue were also talking about it.
It was not a good idea to remain in a stalemate like this, so the county magistrate finally asked Fan Changyu, "Who is kneeling in the hall?"
Fan Changyu replied: "I am Fan Changyu."
The county magistrate squinted his eyes and looked at the complaint, and shouted, "Where is the plaintiff Fan Daniu?"
No one responded, either inside or outside the venue.
In the silence, the deliberately suppressed discussions of the people outside seemed particularly abrupt.
The fat county magistrate knocked hard on the wooden chair and said, "How can this be possible! I have been judging cases for many years, but this is the first time I have encountered a plaintiff who simply refused to come to the court. This is simply a disregard for the law!"
The thin master beside him glanced at Fan Changyu and advised: "Sir, calm down. Fan Daniu is just a commoner. He would not dare to come to the court late. I am afraid there is something wrong. It is better to send a bailiff to his home to ask him a question to show that you are very observant!"
The fat county commander hesitated for a moment and said, "Okay!"
Soon, bailiffs went to Fan's house to look for him. The county magistrate ordered the trial to be suspended midway, so Fan Changyu no longer had to kneel in the court.
Despite this incident, the onlookers did not disperse. Instead, they became more curious about why Fan Da did not come to the court today and crowded at the door, refusing to leave.
Fan Changyu was sitting on a small stool rubbing her knees when suddenly a clerk came over and called her: "Captain Wang, please call Miss Fan over."
Fan Changyu thought Captain Wang wanted to tell him something, so he followed the clerk out of the side door and went to the duty room at the back of the county government office.
The clerk must be Captain Wang's confidant. After Fan Changyu went in, he had been keeping watch at the door.
Captain Wang didn't waste time talking to Fan Changyu. He asked directly, "Did you kidnap your uncle?"
Fan Changyu thought to herself that she had thought about this at first, but later she had other ideas and she never thought about it again. She immediately shook her head and said, "How could I do such a stupid thing?"
Captain Wang breathed a sigh of relief: "That's good."
He also remembered that Fan Changyu had asked him before what would happen if Fan Da did not show up in court, so he asked her this question in private.
He lowered his voice and said, "Fan Da followed Master He's advice. Even if you use this method, he will bite you back later. He will accuse you of being lawless and may even send you to jail."
Fan Changyu said, "I know."
The government sent people to look for Fan Da, but none of them used Captain Wang's men. The implication was very obvious: Captain Wang could not help at all in this matter.
After leaving the duty room, Fan Changyu went back to the court to wait, but half an hour had passed and the runner who went to look for Fan Da still hadn't returned.
The county magistrate could not wait any longer and ordered his men to hurry up. Half an hour later, the bailiffs finally returned carrying a man covered with a white cloth on a stretcher.
Fan's eldest daughter-in-law Liu and the two elders of the Fan family followed all the way, crying loudly.
Obviously the person covered with white cloth was Fan Da.
Fan Changyu was shocked. Is Fan Da dead?
The people gathered at the county government office were also talking a lot, their eyes constantly cast towards Fan Changyu.
Fan Da wanted to steal her family property, but he died at this critical moment. Anyone could not help but think too much about it.
"Why did he die on the day of the court case?"
"Fan Da is as strong as an ox. It would be difficult for ordinary people to kill him..."
Fan Changyu felt the various gazes falling on him, pursed his lips slightly, and was also filled with suspicion.
Who killed Fan Da?
The thought of Yan Zheng's words a few days ago about finishing off Fan Da flashed through her mind, but she quickly denied it.
Not to mention that Yan Zheng's injuries were getting worse and he had rarely left the house in the past few days. He had already taught her to memorize all the laws that might be used in court, so it was impossible for her to attack Fan Da.
Besides, he was just pretending to be a traitor to himself and had no grudge against Fan Da, so there was no reason to kill him.
When the county magistrate heard that the plaintiff Fan Da was dead, he hurried out of the side room without even putting on his official hat. His eyes, which were so fat that only a slit was left, showed shock. It seemed that he had not expected that a case of dividing family property could turn into a murder case. "This...what is going on? Is there still law?"
A constable who went to look for Fan Da replied respectfully: "Your Excellency, when we found Fan Daniu, he had already died a long time ago, with many sword wounds on his body."
The county magistrate ordered someone to lift the white cloth covering Fan Da's body. He was so frightened at the sight that the fat on his face trembled, and hurriedly said, "Call the coroner!"
Fan Da's wife Liu almost fainted from crying beside Fan Da's body. When she saw Fan Changyu, she rushed over to her and demanded her life: "Did you kill him? Was it you?"
Fan Changyu took a step back and said coldly, "Aunt, please stop spitting blood at me. My uncle owes a lot of gambling debts outside. Who knows, he might have fallen into the hands of a debt collector and got into trouble. What does it have to do with me?"
Mrs. Liu and Mrs. Fan continued to cry, and the county magistrate was annoyed by their noise, so he asked the bailiffs to take them away first.
Before Old Man Fan left, he looked at Fan Changyu, who seemed to be hesitant to speak, and his lips turned pale, as if he had remembered something terrible.
Fan Changyu was involved in a lawsuit with Fan Dayou, and was inevitably forced to stay.
The coroner gave the result after the autopsy. It was said that Fan Da should have died on the way to the county government office this morning. There were eleven wounds on his body, but the only one that was truly fatal was the sword that pierced his heart.
The coroner said, "The ten cuts in the front were made very ruthlessly, but the cuts avoided the vital parts. The murderer must be someone who has been using swords for many years. If these cuts were not for revenge, they would look like an interrogation."
This answer made Fan Changyu frown.
Interrogation?
What can be interrogated about Fan Da?
Force him to pay back the money?
But if the purpose is to force him to pay back the money, then it is impossible to kill him.
For a moment, Fan Changyu felt his heart was filled with confusion.
However, since Fan Da was killed on the way to the county town, Fan Changyu can be cleared of suspicion. She was also on her way at that time, and the old couple of the Zhao family and the owner of the ox cart can all testify to this.
However, the master did not intend to let Fan Changyu go, and said to the county magistrate: "Sir, although Miss Fan has evidence of her absence, what if...she hired a killer to commit the murder? I heard that she was close to the gang of Jin Laosan, a street thug in Lin'an Town. Just in case, why don't we send someone to search her house?"
A murder case suddenly occurred during the Chinese New Year. The county magistrate felt that it was unlucky. Since this matter involved a murder case, he could not care about the little tricks in his mind. He pointed to the captain Wang who had many years of experience in handling cases and said, "Take people to search!"
Fan Changyu was upright and had no fear of being slanted by others' shadows. Moreover, the person who was going there was Captain Wang. She met the weasel-like gaze of her master and was not afraid at all.
-
A group of yamen runners arrived at the Minxiang Lane in the west of the town. The north wind was blowing hard at the moment. One of the yamen runners sniffed hard and said, "Did someone kill a pig? There's a strong smell of blood."
Captain Wang also smelled it, but Fan Changyu lived right here and she made a living by killing pigs, so for a moment he didn't think of looking elsewhere.
When they opened the gate of Fan's courtyard and saw the dead bodies everywhere, even the detectives in the capital who had dealt with various murder cases all changed their expressions.
There were dead bodies all over the ground, and the blood had dyed the snow in the yard red, which had not yet been cleared.
Captain Wang was an old friend of Fan Changyu's father. He knew that Fan Changyu had a younger sister. When he found the child's body in the yard, he rushed into the house to check.
When I stepped onto the stairs, I saw a person lying on his back at the door of the main hall with his neck broken by some claws. There were a few goose-feather-sized feathers on the ground, and there were also traces of swords and knives on the door.
Captain Wang's heart skipped a beat and he walked towards the inner room. There was a dead man lying on the floor of the north room with a kitchen knife stuck in his back.
Judging from the position of the cut, it should have hit the spine right away, but the knife barely went past two-thirds of the blade and was clearly stabbed directly into the spine. It is hard to imagine how strong the person who threw the knife was.
Captain Wang searched all the rooms with great concern, but couldn't find the little daughter of the Fan family and the wealthy son-in-law. For a moment, he didn't know whether to be happy or worried.
He said in a deep voice: "I'm afraid someone is here to seek revenge on the Fan family. Hurry back to the county government and report the news!"
-
The sky was grey and heavy snow was falling like goose feathers. The snow accumulated on the pine needles occasionally shook off some snow foam.
The collar of Xie Zheng's shirt was completely soaked with blood. In the dense forest behind him, crows started to fly up, and the sound of their footsteps on the snow was tightening towards him like a net, but he seemed not to hear them. He leaned against a conifer tree, with his bloody sword inserted three inches into the snow, and bandaged the wound on his hand with a torn cloth strip.
There were a few blood stains on his pale chin, and his mouth was pursed, as if he was in a very bad mood.
Chang Ning and the Saker Falcon, which had turned two shades grayer, were huddled not far from him. There was still a bit of light pink flesh hanging from one of the Saker Falcon's paws. Chang Ning was sobbing intermittently, his little face pale with fear.
He raised his eyes coldly: "Don't cry."
Chang Ning didn't even dare to sob, but tears kept falling down.
"Who did you, the Fan family, offend?"
The child in front of him, who was almost frightened silly, could not possibly answer him. Xie Zheng's words sounded more like his own mumbling.
When the chaotic footsteps finally approached, he tilted his head and bit one end of the cloth belt to tie a knot. The blood melted on the tip of his tongue and had a faint taste of rust.
In the fierce and resolute phoenix eyes, there was a reflection of a group of masked men holding swords and sabers approaching from the other side of the pine forest.
The author has something to say:
Mini-theater:
Lord Xie: You come when I’m called and go when I’m dismissed. What do you think of me?
The bad guys are coming...
Xie Hou: Hurry up and take her younger sister and stupid bird away!
This article will be V from tomorrow (Saturday). On the day of becoming V, 10,000 words will be updated~ There will be a full subscription lucky draw. Thank you for your continued support~
Here’s a preview of “My Ex Who Dumped Me Becomes the King”:
Copywriter:
Wen Yu was once the most noble lady in Dongwu. After her father lost the battle for supremacy, she fled with her confidants and was separated from them. She was captured by human traffickers and taken to a remote place.
In order to protect herself, she scratched her face. No one wanted to buy her, so the human traffickers used her as collateral for the debt and dumped her at the doorstep of the creditor's house and ran away.
Xiao Li is a bully in Pingyang Town. He is usually silent and fierce. It is said that he can fight a wild bull with one hand. People in ten or eight villages are afraid of him.
Wen Yu was also afraid, but he didn't seem as bad as the rumors said.
He initially took her in to use her as a servant, but later found out that she couldn't do anything, such as washing clothes or cooking, so he took care of everything himself with a gloomy face, and Wen Yu became the one who ate idle meals.
His mother was seriously ill and wanted to see him get married before she died, and Wen Yu agreed.
Soon after the marriage, an old subordinate found Wen Yu with the news of the death of their father and brother. In order to avenge her father and brother, she left with a large sum of money and married far away in Nanchen.
Xiao Li stopped the car and begged her to stay. Behind the car curtain, Wen Yu's eyes were red and she said cruelly: "I am the most noble lady in Dongwu. Do you deserve to marry me?"
Later, foreign armies of the Northern Wei Dynasty emerged and swept across the Central Plains. When they marched south, Prince Chen surrendered, and she was presented to the Emperor of Wei as a gift.
That night, the sky was filled with flames and the Chen Palace was flooded with blood.
The man who was now the Emperor of Wei stepped over the corpse of King Chen, raised her chin with the tip of his bloody sword, and sneered with a fierce look on his face: "Wen Yu, what did you marry?"
***
People all say that the Emperor of Wei hated the noblewoman from Dongwu who abandoned him when he was in obscurity, and secretly guessed that Wen Yu would suffer endless torture now that she fell into his hands.
Wen Yu had indeed suffered a lot from him, but it was torture in another sense.
That night, candles were lit brightly.
He held her in his arms and sat on the dragon chair, ignoring her sweaty clothes. He pressed her spine to make her press closer to him, and asked her against her sweaty forehead, "Am I worthy of you now?"
The cold-hearted noblewoman VS the peasant who turned from a loyal dog into a wolfdog
1V1, (It may be a little hard to believe, but this article is a double c article, if you can't accept it, just ignore it, don't be a ginseng rooster, kowtow)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com