Chapter 802 Confession (I)
Seeing so many delicious foods, the bald man's stomach couldn't help but growl. He swallowed, looked at the two yamen runners cautiously, reached out and pulled a chicken leg, but after taking a bite, he realized something was wrong.
As he chewed, he looked at the two yamen runners expectantly, "Sir, sir, can I go out now?"
Yamen Runner A nodded and said, "You can leave after you finish eating."
Baldy forced himself to put down the chicken drumstick in his hand and said, "I'm not hungry anymore. Let's go out now."
Bailiff B said with a smile, "Brother, you'd better eat something. You can't go on the road hungry."
After saying that, he personally poured a glass of wine for the bald man.
The secret he heard last night suddenly popped up in Baldy's mind. His hands began to tremble, and his whole body was shaking. "Go, go on the road? Go on what road?"
Yamen Runner A patted his shoulder and said, "Brother, what do you think? You're living in the death row. To be honest, this is the first time I've seen a death row prisoner in all the years I've been working in the county government. So we have no experience, and the food we prepared may be a little rough, but we have done our best. Don't say bad things about us when you go to the underworld..."
Before he could finish his words, the bald man's eyes rolled back, and he looked like he was about to faint. Bailiff B just reached out to help him, but the bald man actually recovered on his own. He fell to the ground, crawled forward, hugged Bailiff A's legs, and shouted, "I'll tell you, I'll tell you everything. It has nothing to do with me. It really has nothing to do with me. It was Zhou Yin, it was Zhou Yin who did it."
The two yamen runners looked at each other. They hadn't expected there to be something fishy going on. They said, "Don't tell us that. We're just runners and we can't make the decision."
"You have no say in the matter, you have no say in the matter. I, I want to see the Lord, I want to see the County Magistrate. You want to arrest Zhou Yin, but Zhou Yin is dead. Oh, he had a daughter, he still had a daughter. Don't arrest me, don't chop off my head. It has nothing to do with me, it really has nothing to do with me. I just saw it..."
The bald man was brought before County Magistrate Tang.
The two yamen runners whispered what he said in prison to County Magistrate Tang. County Magistrate Tang's eyes fixed and he nodded slightly.
Glancing at the bustling hall, County Magistrate Tang pondered for a moment, then stood up and said, "Bring the man to the backyard. I'll interrogate him from behind."
The trial was held privately. Servant A and Servant B looked at each other, responded, and took the bald man to the backyard of the county government office.
The backyard of the county government office is the residence of County Magistrate Yang. Although there is a door connecting to the county government office, the gate is guarded by County Magistrate Yang's servants, so not everyone in front can come in.
County Magistrate Tang went in and out of the backyard as if he were going back home. He simply had someone clean up a side room and interrogated the bald man there. He only left a clerk and a long-time attendant with him.
His long-time attendant was his confidant and wise man, while his clerk was an official from Luojiang County, a person whom Yang Heshu had said was trustworthy.
County Magistrate Tang sat down in the first seat. Clerk Jiang Qi looked around and then brought over a table and a stool, placing the four treasures of the study on them, intending to record the case here.
As soon as the things were put on the table, two yamen runners brought the bald man up.
When the bald man saw that he was not in the court, and the bailiff pushed him down and then left, he saw that only County Magistrate Tang was sitting in the court, with only two people on his left and right, and one of them was a servant. He became more certain of the secret he heard last night, that the bad officials in the court really wanted to use him to take the blame.
County Magistrate Tang took a sip of tea, looked at the shivering bald man below, and said, "Didn't you say you had something to tell me? Go ahead!"
The bald man swallowed, licked his lips, and said carefully: "Sir, I was wronged, really wronged. Those things have nothing to do with me. I just listened to the village chief and the villagers. I didn't deliberately hide anything from the officials."
County Magistrate Tang asked, "What did you hide from the officer? Tell me from the beginning."
But Lai Tou blocked the conversation. He didn't know where to start. He was the one who knew the least about Zhou Yin's affairs, because at that time he just followed the crowd and did whatever the villagers said.
What does he say about this?
Seeing his foolish appearance, County Magistrate Tang simply asked, "Let's talk about Zhou Yin first. Where is Zhou Yin?"
"Dead," the bald man said very smoothly and quickly, and immediately said, "He died more than ten years ago, and died with his wife."
"More than ten years ago?"
"Yes," the bald man counted on his fingers and said, "It was about eleven or twelve years ago. At that time, Zhou Jin's little girl was only a few months old, still very young. Oh, she is Zhou Yin's daughter, his only daughter."
County Magistrate Tang raised his eyelids, glanced at him, and asked, "Where is the person buried?"
"He was buried in the Zhou family cemetery at the end of the village. He was buried without a name or status before, and no one dared to let anyone know. Later, an official from the county government came with an announcement of Zhou Yin's death, and the Zhou family reburied him with great fanfare."
"Then tell me more about Zhou Yin. What did he do wrong? How did he die?"
"He's a bandit," Baldy said, a little confused. "Isn't that what the officials said?"
County Magistrate Tang raised his eyebrows and asked, "Which official said that and when?"
"Just eleven or twelve years ago, he and his wife were hacked to death on the mountain. We had just brought them back when several officials on tall horses arrived in the village," the bald man gestured. "They brought swords and portraits, saying the people in the portraits were bandits who had been hacked to death on the mountain when they caught them. They asked us who buried them, and also asked their names and who they were from."
The bald-headed man said, "They were so fierce at the time, how could we dare to say we were from the Zhou Jin family? We were all from the same village, and their family had many favors with the village. We just said we had never seen them and didn't know them, and fooled them away. Later, another group of people came and searched every house carefully. We were even more afraid to tell anyone."
This amount of information was quite overwhelming, and the clerk couldn't help but look up at County Magistrate Tang.
County Magistrate Tang sat up straight and asked, "Eleven or twelve years ago, was that the second or third year of the Dazhen reign?"
Without thinking, the bald man said, "The third year of Dazhen."
"How do you remember it so clearly?"
"Because there was a great flood in Yizhou City the year before, and it affected us, and my second daughter was born in the second year of Dazhen. When you mentioned it, I remembered it."
County Magistrate Tang asked, "Zhou Yin had sold himself before. When was the first time he returned to his hometown?"
"In the third year of Dazhen, he returned home just once, married, had a daughter, and returned home in glory."
County Magistrate Tang raised his chin and said, "Then tell me in detail."
Baldy felt a little timid under his sharp gaze, shrank his neck and asked, "Tell me, what did you say?"
The next update will be around 2:00 PM
(End of this chapter)
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