Chapter 32 Her Corpse Xu Congjing knelt before the corpse, filled with remorse; he was the one who…
Overwhelmed by immense guilt, Xu Congjing could hardly breathe. His fists clenched and trembled. He leaned on the desk and immediately closed his eyes. Lou Yanxu's face flashed before his eyes, like a knife, like a sword, cutting through his heart again and again.
He deserves to die! His crimes are absolutely unforgivable!
A moment later, he propped himself up and walked toward Sheng Jin, each step landing on her heart.
"How did you treat her?" He drew the blade from his waist and pressed it against her chin, his voice as cold and sharp as a knife tip. "Tell me the truth."
Sheng Jin didn't dare to move, a breath stuck in her throat, almost suffocating her. She leaned against the desk, her legs too weak to stand, "You're...crazy..."
Two lines of tears silently streamed down her face. She was a beautiful woman with tears streaming down her face, like a pear blossom in the rain. However, Xu Congjing was already furious. He kicked the desk away, causing her to fall to the ground. He leaned forward and placed his other hand on her slender neck. With just a gentle pinch, her face turned red.
"I don't know..." She kicked her legs and pried at his strong hands until he slowly released his grip and she could catch her breath.
She hunched over, gasping for breath, her whole body tense, before looking up in horror. "That day I saw her in the brothel, and tricked her into taking a drug to my room. I never dared to see the face of my client. Later I heard that this young lady stubbornly refused to comply and killed herself by crashing her head against a wall. When I went to take a look, I saw a young man rush in. He must have been an old acquaintance. He risked his life to carry her body away, and then he disappeared."
Xu Congjing's dark eyebrows were pressed tightly together; this bloody truth was almost as if it would skin him alive, pull out his bones, and throw him into a mass grave to be devoured by wild dogs.
He scoffed at himself, "Xu Congjing, Xu Congjing, you mistook your benefactor for your enemy, how utterly foolish! If it weren't for Yun Li, Rou'er's body would probably never have been found."
A chill suddenly ran through him, as if a pair of sharp eyes were watching him intently from behind. He glanced at the stack of Xuan paper on the desk, and a thought struck him.
That letter.
Yes, that letter.
Who wrote the letter that convinced him of Wanwan's guilt? This person knew Wanwan's habits well and imitated her handwriting, clearly wanting him to vent his hatred on the Lou siblings. But who was this person?
After a long silence, he suppressed the urge to vomit and asked, "Who are they?"
His shadow stretched long and heavy, pressing down on Sheng Jin. He had risen from an unknown commoner to his current status, having schemed against countless people and traversed countless mountains of corpses and seas of blood. Just his cold expression was enough to send chills down her spine, making her afraid to look at him again. "I only know that they are a brother and sister. It is usually the brother who hunts and the sister who does the work. Judging from their accents, they are from Chang'an."
Those who dare to commit such despicable acts are most likely nobles from Chang'an. Yun Li must know the identities of the two men and is afraid of implicating him and Wanwan, which is why he has kept silent about this matter.
Xu Congjing clutched his aching heart, his brow furrowed in thought. They were nobles, and siblings at that—how many families in the capital could there be? No matter how many, he would investigate each one thoroughly!
His eyes held a complex and obscure expression, and he had already made up his mind. He stepped out the door and ordered the guards outside, "Lock it up for me."
"Lock me up!" Sheng Jin looked at him urgently, lunged forward and grabbed the hem of his robe, "No, you can't do this, Xu Congjing! You can't lock me up without my permission!"
Xu Congjing kicked it away, his voice cold and unyielding, "Either you stay here, or you stay in the Dali Temple prison."
Sheng Jin was not the mastermind, but she was an accomplice and cannot escape punishment.
The door slammed shut with a creak. Her eyes were vacant as she hugged her knees, tears streaming down her face.
Yunlu followed beside Xu Congjing, bowing her head and asking, "My lord, she is, after all, the second daughter of the Marquis's household. If the Marquis's household makes a scene about this..."
"What does it have to do with me that Second Madam Sheng was robbed on her way back to the manor?" Xu Congjing said with a sneer as he walked without stopping. Yun Lu understood his meaning and quickly agreed.
Upon reaching the Moon Cave Gate, Xu Congjing stopped, suddenly remembering something, and instructed him to find Rou'er's maid, Yunxi. He obeyed the order, and seeing Wen Jie hurrying towards him, he nodded and withdrew.
"Congjing," Wen Jie called out.
Xu Congjing looked up and noticed his serious expression, a chill running down his spine. "What's wrong?"
He paused for a long time, not daring to look up, then said, "The body has been found."
corpse.
My left ear was ringing, my mind was a mess, my body was stiff as hell, my face was expressionless, but my fingertips were trembling uncontrollably.
The evening breeze rustled the flowers in the courtyard, and wispy clouds drifted by, obscuring the moon. A chill crept into his heart, and Xu Congjing murmured, "Are you sure it's her?"
Wen Jie sighed, his hands hanging by his sides curled up. "The body has been charred black, but she has fragments of your love token in her hand, with the character 'Jing' engraved on them. Take a look."
After saying this, the two men carried in a corpse. The white cloth covering the body made one feel uneasy.
Xu Congjing's heart pounded violently. He stared blankly for a long time, praying that this was not Lou Yanxu.
But when he steeled himself and lifted the cloth, his heart skipped a beat for a moment.
picture.
They look so alike.
It is similar in both spirit and form.
He was struck dumb, and knelt down with a thud, tears streaming down his face. He wiped away his tears, reached out with trembling hands, but didn't know where to put them, so he withdrew them and covered his mouth, sobbing silently.
Why wasn't it him who died? He was the one who deserved to die! He deserved to die the most!
Wanwan, Wanwan...
He finally touched the charred hand, parted the fingers, and saw a piece of jade in the palm. It was the tail of the double fish pendant he had been searching for, and the character "Jing" on it was carved by his own hand.
He came to his senses, a strange feeling washing over him.
If this person is truly Lou Yanxu, why is there no affection in his hand when he holds hers?
He straightened his face and took a sudden step back. "She's not Wanwan, she's not." He trusted his intuition.
His Wanwan, he loves her to the bone, and that feeling will never change.
If someone can imitate Wanwan's letter-writing style, what difficulty is there in replacing a corpse?
As his mind gradually cleared, he became convinced that this was not Lou Yanxu. He refused to believe anything until he saw her face.
Panicked, he fled.
...
The river flows swiftly, and white gulls fly low.
Near Jiaozhou, Lou Yanxu stood on the deck, her shawl fluttering in the wind. She gazed at the two banks, her heart heavy with sorrow.
"Sister," Lou Yunbing said with a light smile as she stepped out of the cabin, "we'll arrive in Jiaozhou tomorrow."
He put his hands behind his back and mysteriously produced something from behind him, saying, "This is for you."
What is this?
She took it and examined it closely. It was a jade bracelet, translucent and of excellent quality. Moreover, there was more to it than met the eye. Yun Bing slipped the bracelet onto her wrist, wrapping it tightly. Then, he pressed a certain spot, revealing a mechanism that caused thin, hard blades to spring out from the bracelet.
He was very satisfied, a smile playing on his lips. "The road ahead is unknown; this can be used for self-defense."
"You have this skill too." Lou Yanxu was surprised, and accepted it with a smile, wrapping it in her palm like a treasure. "Sister accepts it."
However, the smile froze on his lips and gradually faded.
"Once we find the coroner, we'll go overseas to buy a batch of Japanese pearls. Then we'll make money and expand our Lou family business. That way, I can at least do justice to my father's spirit in heaven."
Before her father passed away, he instructed her to bring the Lou family into the elite circles, a task she never forgot, but ultimately she failed to fulfill.
Lou Yunbing's heart sank. "I'll listen to my elder sister."
The river stretched out before them, the sky and earth vast, and the brother and sister stood side by side, silent and still.
The ship docked early the next morning and arrived at Jiaozhou.
The four men, carrying their bundles, settled down at an inn and immediately went to various government offices to subtly inquire about the whereabouts of the coroner.
For several days in a row, they found nothing.
The group paused to catch their breath, sitting around the teahouse. Wan Qing'an slammed her teacup down on the table with a thud, exclaiming, "Could it be that he received the news and ran away already?"
Lou Yanxu lowered her head in thought; she had the same suspicion. Coroners are used to examining corpses for the government, but they had searched all the government offices and still couldn't find him. He had come here to stay with relatives; could it be that he was being supported by someone and never left home?
On such a hot day, everyone was sweating profusely and couldn't shake off the internal heat, causing them to feel a sense of dejection.
However, as the saying goes, there's always a way out.
Just then, Qingrui looked up, her eyes wide with shock, and stammered. She pointed forward and exclaimed, "Coroner Feng!"
The other three looked up, but by then the coroner had already noticed and ran away.
The four men followed, and Lou Yunbing, being fast, took a longer route to encircle them.
"Don't run!"
The sun was blazing hot, and the coroner, being quite old, couldn't outrun the younger men. Before long, he was drenched in sweat, his calves ached, and he couldn't run anymore. He was panting heavily, his back aching.
"Please, please stop chasing me..."
In the winding, narrow alley, Lou Yunbing blocked the way and approached step by step. "If you had known why we came, you should have stayed home and waited obediently."
The three people caught up with her, and Lou Yanxu put her hands on her hips and her chest heaved as she breathed heavily. "Tell me exactly how my grandmother died."
"I really didn't mean it!" The coroner slapped his thigh and sat down on the ground, but then jumped up because of the heat. "That night I was having nightmares, so I went to Lou Dalang's grave to pay my respects and pray. I didn't expect to run into Old Madam Lou. She overheard what I said and kept pressing me for answers. The next day she kept pestering me, and I had no choice but to tell her the truth. I really didn't expect this to cause her to die of depression."
Lou Yanxu frowned, pressing for an answer, "The truth? What truth? What's the real story behind my brother's death?"
Her hands, hanging by her sides, crumpled her dress into a ball. She stared intently at him and finally heard, "In fact, Young Master Lou did not drown himself, but was forced into the water and drowned."
“He had several hidden injuries on his body. I was about to tell him, but then a woman came and grabbed my mother, forcing me to fake the cause of death. I took a look and saw that she was dressed in fine clothes and shoes. I also heard her subtle accent, so I concluded that she was a noblewoman from Chang’an.”
"How could a lowly coroner like me possibly offend anyone? I had no choice but to comply!"
My brother didn't commit suicide for love; he was truly murdered!
The words exploded in Lou Yanxu's heart like a machine gun. She listened blankly, her heart aching with each beat, biting her lip until it bled.
After a long pause, she came to her senses and asked, "A noble lady from Chang'an? Are you sure?"
“My cousin is a native of Chang’an. I’ve heard his Chang’an accent every year, there’s no mistake!”
Chang'an and Suzhou are far apart, how did they become related? How did my brother get involved with those people?
Chang'an, Chang'an, a city rife with treachery and deceit. She murmured to herself, a dark current surging in her eyes, and after a moment's hesitation, she finally asked, "Then do you know why that second daughter of the Xu family, who died a few days before my brother, died?"
"The young woman had multiple bruises on her body and a blunt wound on her forehead, indicating that she had been tortured and killed by banging her head against a wall."
Just as Pu Niang had said.
Lou Yanxu licked her dry, sore lips, unable to bear thinking about what her sister Rou had gone through that day.
Just thinking about it makes me feel like I'm dying.
She had already resolved never to return to Chang'an in this lifetime, but the closer she got to the real culprit, the more she would be. Even if she were buried in the earth years later, she would still be unable to let go of the culprit.
The sunlight was so intense it made her scalp tingle; she looked up and it was blinding.
But now it's clear and obvious.
She not only wanted to return to Chang'an, but she wanted to return in grand style.
Author's Note: I will be updating daily at 12:00 noon. I will announce any absences without a break. [heart emoji]
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