The Death of Yuhuan (Part 9)
Midnight, West Wing.
Two white candles were placed upright on the round red cloth table, the flames flickering and swaying. The dim candlelight made the shadows of the people sitting around the table appear large and blurry.
"Lihua killed the Second Madam?!"
Li Shaodong stood up suddenly, unable to control the tone of his voice.
Zhang Yuan quickly stood up and covered his mouth, looking towards the next room cautiously: "Speak softly, don't wake him up!"
Li Shaodong covered his mouth and nodded repeatedly.
"That's what Madam Fourteen said, but she wasn't quite sure. I'm skeptical," Xu Wei lifted the lid of the pot in front of him, sniffed it, and poured himself a cup of new tea. "After all, we haven't found her motive yet."
Lihua and the Second Lady seemed to have no other conflicts except the one over the division of housekeeper power.
It would be a stretch to say that he killed someone impulsively for power.
After the second wife dies, a new wife will take the throne and compete for it, and their statuses are not equal at all - the former is a servant and the latter is the master, and the highest position a servant can reach is only a housekeeper, while the second wife can easily influence the master's opinion by just whispering in his ear.
Killing the love of your boss because of a momentary power struggle is a high risk with low returns.
But Lihua was no ordinary person. It took her less than two years to rise from a maid to the position of housekeeper.
This is what Xu Wei found out when he left the corpse-hiding well in the afternoon.
The servant compared the old housekeeper to Lihua and praised her highly, which was a good opportunity to bring up the question.
Since coming to this dungeon, there is a large amount of redundant information waiting for players to check every day. Many of the information seem to be related, but can only be combined into one clue.
Just as Xu Wei and Lu Fan Ye had learned yesterday when they went to other ladies' courtyards to inquire, it was both troublesome and brain-consuming to condense the information collected in the afternoon into two points.
Recently, Xu Wei also summarized another method.
That is divergent thinking, and I always ask like that - when following the plot, I asked Taoist Jiang's master, and found out that people in Du Xingye's courtyard were talking about the beautiful little building, and someone praised the pear blossoms, so I just asked about it.
Although the information obtained in this way may not necessarily be the key, it does expand a lot of ideas.
The servant Yan Lihua entered the mansion at the age of twelve and worked as a menial servant for nearly seven years. It was not until he was nineteen that he finally came to his senses. Within a year or so, he climbed up the career ladder step by step.
Nineteen years old is the beginning of transformation.
It’s not that Xu Wei doesn’t believe that a person may suddenly become enlightened, but it’s just a coincidence - Du Qiong died two years ago.
"Liu Xu refused to speak! When she heard these two words, she turned and ran away, as if she had seen a ghost. I think she was guilty of her crime," Li Shaodong was angry at first, but then he leaned back in his chair with some pride. "Luckily, I caught a servant who used to work in Du Qiong's courtyard, and he started talking with two silver ingots."
"Du Qiong was adopted by Du Xingye. He raised her from the age of ten to eighteen. She had already started working for the office before her death," Zhang Yuan said, holding the teacup and gently scratching the pattern on the wall with his thumb. "She was a very good child."
"His parents passed away, and he grew up eating at other people's houses. After coming to the Du Mansion, he was sensible and polite, never overstepping his boundaries, and was very smart and studious. Within half a year, his grades were promoted to excellent. He is energetic and kind to everyone around him. Even Du Xingye has never criticized him in his business."
"Yes, yes. The servant looked nostalgic when he talked about him, saying that he was the best master he had ever met," Li Shaodong said with a look of regret. "He was fine, how could he be gone?"
Xu Wei asked: "Why is he gone? Are you sick?"
Zhang Yuan: "He committed suicide by taking poison. His suicide note was circulated in the mansion, saying that he was possessed by a ghost and leaked the secrets of the office. He felt guilty and could not face the master."
Xu Wei looked at the tea foam in the cup and chuckled: "Do you believe it?"
"Of course I don't believe it! Whoever believes it is a dog!" Li Shaodong glared with a look of disdain on his face, as if whoever believes it is the smart one.
"What a pity, they must have believed it." Zhang Yuan sighed, as if he felt sorry for the child.
He committed suicide by taking poison, leaving behind a suicide note. He was hastily buried and no further news came out about him. As time went by, even those who missed him much gradually forgot about him.
Even if they suspected something was fishy, what could they do? Du Xingye didn't investigate further, and no one dared to touch this bad luck.
The person is gone, but the living must live on.
"It's the second time. He did this to Du Qiong and also to the Second Madam. His attitude is really weird." Thinking of this, Xu Wei scratched his head irritably and took another sip of tea.
One was the heir whom he personally raised, and the other was his wife whom he had loved for many years. He held her in his hands when she was alive and let her go gently when she died.
Even the wind is not as free and easy as him.
"But to be honest, I think he is that kind of person," Li Shaodong analyzed with his clever little brain, "He brings the tactics he uses at work into his life. When he loves someone, he loves them madly and praises them to the sky. But when he stops loving them or they die, he won't miss them and will immediately switch to the next one."
Seeing that everyone was listening, he was very satisfied and continued: "Think about it, didn't we discuss this morning that he and the first wife had a wonderful time, sweet and happy, even better than he was with the second wife a few days ago, but then suddenly the relationship faded, and he turned around and married a new wife. In the past ten years, from young adulthood to now, one wife after another has been brought in, and no matter how good the relationship with each wife is, it will not prevent him from taking concubines."
"I guess that with his intelligence and means, it is impossible for him not to find out who was behind the deaths of Du Qiong and the Second Madam, but he either doesn't want to find out, or he already knows who it is but doesn't pursue it."
As soon as he finished speaking, Zhang Yuan patted his shoulder with relief: "Not bad, you have grown up."
The latter snorted and tried to lift its tail up to the sky.
"So," Xu Wei first gave Li Shaodong a thumbs up, then hissed, "Did Du Xingye really never have any children? Not even an illegitimate child?"
"It has come to the point of adoption, it seems to be true. I initially thought he was infertile, but the second wife is pregnant again—" Zhang Yuan obviously had not seen much of this kind of situation, so he said with embarrassment.
There was a click in Xu Wei's brain, as if something was connected.
If what the Fourteenth Madam said about the pear blossom causing the Second Madam's death was true, then the first baby born in the Du family in decades was indirectly killed by the pear blossom.
She immediately turned around and asked Li Shaodong: "When did Lihua get promoted from a servant to Du Xingye's courtyard?"
Li Shaodong groaned twice and said hesitantly, "A year ago? Or about a year ago? About that. What did you think of?"
Xu Wei was about to speak, but a smile spread across his face first, and he said with a faint excitement: "A guess."
"Du Qiong died two years ago. After that, the servant girl Lihua seemed to have found her way up from doing rough work to working in the master's courtyard. Then, the old butler, who had the second wife as his backer, was found to have embezzled money and disappeared after leaving office. His body was found in an uninhabited courtyard today."
"Before that, the second wife was pregnant, and the courtyard began to be haunted."
"It's revenge."
"She wants all those who killed Du Qiong to pay with blood."
Li Shaodong shook his body, hugged himself, and said horribly: "You, you mean she killed the housekeeper too? She is the evil spirit?"
Xu Wei tilted his head and thought for a while, then frowned and said, "She might have killed the person, or maybe the old housekeeper was a bully and was sought after after he left office. Rather than murder, I think she reported the old housekeeper for embezzling money."
"As for whether it is a ghost, I'm not sure."
This copy world does not worship ghosts and gods, and it is impossible for a person seeking revenge to make a vague plan to turn into a ghost and kill people.
Her revenge is also within human power.
As for the truth behind the haunting that the player wants to find out, after ruling out the Second Lady as the cause, the only thing left is the evil ghost that Taoist Jiang said was hovering over the Du Mansion with resentment and was about to cause a disaster.
We need to sort out the series of events involving the deaths of Lihua, the Second Madam, Du Qiong and even the old housekeeper to narrow down the scope of suspicion.
Zhang Yuan understood at this time and said: "So Du Qiong was murdered by the Second Madam and the old housekeeper, which is why Liu Xu said that the Second Madam felt guilty."
Xu Wei nodded and refilled the empty cup of tea in his hand: "The Second Madam must be the culprit who murdered Du Qiong. As for the old housekeeper, he may be the direct murderer who was instructed, or he may just be the housekeeper and collude with the Second Madam, just in the way of Lihua."
"Why are they doing this?" Lu Fanye raised his hand to block her hand from raising the glass again.
"Strong tea refreshes me. I won't be able to sleep for a while."
He took the teacup from Xu Wei, gently placed it on the table, and said, "Your guess is consistent with the time logic of the facts, but evidence is needed."
"You have to prove why the Second Madam killed Du Qiong, and why Lihua, who had no relationship with Du Qiong, avenged him."
Xu Wei's hands were empty. He rubbed his fingers uncomfortably before continuing, "There is no evidence yet, so I also said that this is just a guess. In my case, the logic is like this—"
"Lihua entered the mansion at the age of twelve, one year after Duqiong. Duqiong was a very friendly person, and was very kind to the people around him. This "people around him" should also include the servants. Perhaps his kindness was not only that, but also included the rare respect and care that the master showed to the servants. Otherwise, the servant would not have missed him when he mentioned him."
Xu Wei thought and clarified his logic, and his words became smoother and smoother: "Lihua is one of the people he respects and loves. When the girl was Mu Shaoai's age, she met a gentle, friendly, excellent and cheerful boy - of course, it was not necessarily love, but perhaps admiration and gratitude. In short, she had a special feeling for Du Qiong."
"And the second lady wanted to kill Du Qiong simply because she felt that Du Qiong was blocking her way."
"She entered the mansion after Du Qiong and was originally the tenth concubine, but she was ambitious. After consolidating her favor, she persuaded the old lady to take the position of the second wife. The first lady in the mansion was like a figurehead. She and the old housekeeper shared the management of the household affairs. It was like she had absolute control over the mansion, second only to Du Xingye, and Du Xingye doted on her in every way..."
She paused for a moment and looked at Qi Xiaopei who had been listening attentively.
"At that time, Du Qiong had already taken over the business of the Du Mansion, and the second wife didn't want Du Qiong to be more powerful than her," Qi Xiaopei took over the conversation gently, and then became a little flustered, as if he felt that he hadn't said it well, "so she attacked him. Am I right?"
"Great!" Zhang Yuan boasted about taking care of the children.
Xu Wei also nodded encouragingly: "I also guessed that she didn't understand the situation in the mansion at the time. She didn't know that Du Qiong was adopted because she had no children for decades. She was afraid that Du Qiong would threaten the status of the child in her belly in the future."
"After Doo-jeong's death, Ewha's revenge began."
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