Chapter 149: How stupid can one be?
"The porridge at the Grand Tutor's Mansion is so delicious!"
A shrill scream shook off a bunch of snow on the roof and alarmed the people nearby.
Everyone came over to take a look out of curiosity.
There is an open space in front of the Yue Lao Temple in the south of the city, which is convenient for people to come and go, and several mansions’ porridge stalls are set up here.
Seeing more and more people gathered to watch the fun, the steward of the Grand Tutor's Mansion glared at the crying woman with a stern face: "Stop talking nonsense! I don't know what your child ate and died. You actually want to throw dirty water on the Grand Tutor's Mansion. Who gave you the guts to do that?"
"Someone, come! Someone's eating a dead person!" The woman threw herself on the little girl's body and cried, her voice shrill and piercing. "My dear, she drank the porridge and said her stomach hurt, and she died while crying! The Grand Tutor's Mansion is killing people!"
The steward frowned and was about to ask the servant to call the officials to lock up this unreasonable woman in the yamen to stop her nonsense, but he didn't expect a trembling cry from the crowd, "Another, another one has fallen!"
Everyone looked in the direction of the voice and found that the person shouting was a man with patched clothes, about forty years old, with messy hair and an unshaven beard with rice grains on it.
In front of him lay an old man who was about fifty or sixty years old. He was twitching all over, scratching the air with his hands, his mouth wide open, as if he couldn't breathe, and a hoarse sound of extreme pain came from his throat.
The steward's eyelids jumped, and he hurriedly ordered: "Quick, send a doctor..."
Before he uttered the word "guan", the old man's eyes widened, his head tilted, and he died.
The hands covered with frostbite hit the ground with a dull thud.
The guard ran forward, put his hand on the pulse of the old man's neck, turned back after a moment, and shook his head at the steward.
The steward closed his eyes and was about to ask someone to carry the body to Shuntian Prefecture, but unexpectedly, he heard a series of screams.
In just a few breaths, five or six people fell down, both men and women, old and young, and their death was exactly the same as the old man.
Everyone was shocked. Someone's hand trembled, and he dropped the bowl of porridge and said tremblingly, "He, they all, they all drank the porridge."
The sentence was stammered and broken into several parts. As soon as he finished speaking, the man reached out to dig his throat and spit out all the porridge he had just swallowed.
Most people value their lives, so seeing this, others who drank the porridge, no matter which shop it was from, started picking their throats.
For a while, there was a constant sound of vomiting, and the porridge mixed with gastric juice poured out together, which was dilute and made the open space gradually filled with a sour and fishy smell. Even those who did not drink the porridge felt nauseous and backed away, covering their mouths and noses.
The manager knew something was wrong, so he sent someone back to the mansion to report the situation immediately. He also ordered people to cover the porridge bucket and guard it strictly, not allowing anyone else to approach.
Upon hearing that a murder had occurred here, the patrolling officers and soldiers rushed over, and soon the yamen runners and coroners from Shuntian Prefecture also arrived.
During this period, two more people died, also after drinking the porridge provided by the Grand Tutor's Mansion.
Now nine bodies, big and small, were lying side by side on the ground. The coroner examined them one by one and finally came to the conclusion that they were poisoned by strychnine.
Everyone was in an uproar when they heard this, and they pointed fingers and denounced the stewards and servants of the Grand Tutor's Mansion, and the good reputation they had accumulated before was instantly destroyed.
The woman holding the child cried miserably. She didn't have time to wipe away her tears, which froze into ice beads and fell down, piling up on the child's body.
The steward took a closer look at the woman and said to the coroner, "This porridge was all cooked this morning. I've been watching it closely. There's no way strychnine could have been mixed in. Please examine the porridge in this bucket, sir."
He took the initiative to request to test the porridge, which made the people's voices of condemnation quiet down. They looked at him in surprise and suspicion, waiting to hear the result.
There were three porridge buckets in total. The coroner checked them one by one. The first two were not poisonous, but strychnine was found in the last bucket.
The steward stared at the changing color potion in astonishment. How could it be possible?
He suddenly looked at the servant guarding the porridge bucket and asked sternly, "Has anyone other than you approached the porridge bucket?"
The servant had already been frightened by the coroner's conclusion, and now, after being yelled at by the steward, he was even more terrified. Even his answer was filled with helpless tears: "No, no, I was guarding the porridge bucket the whole time. No one came near."
The manager secretly resented it. How could he say no? Wasn't this taking the blame on himself?
As expected, as soon as the servant said this, the voices of condemnation that had subsided started up again. Even the managers and servants of the nearby porridge stalls looked at them with suspicion and hurriedly distanced themselves from them for fear of being implicated.
The officers looked at each other in bewilderment. These were servants of the Grand Tutor's Mansion, and one of them was a steward. It was said that the prime minister was a ninth-rank official, so the Grand Tutor was not bad either. Did they really want to arrest him?
Just as the official hesitated, amidst the outcry, someone who had benefited from the Grand Tutor's Mansion but was still alive raised an objection: "The Grand Tutor's Mansion has been providing porridge for quite a while now, but today they poisoned the porridge. What are they trying to do?"
"That's right!" someone objected. "There were three porridge buckets in total, and only one had poisoned porridge. Could someone have poisoned it and deliberately framed someone?"
Everyone looked at each other in bewilderment. It wasn't impossible, but someone immediately said, "No matter what the intention was, the man died after drinking the porridge from his Grand Tutor's Mansion. He must give an explanation!"
Many people echoed: "Yes, so many lives have been lost, there must be an explanation, no one should die in vain!"
"Find out!"
"Investigate thoroughly!!"
Just as the crowd was getting angry, Dong Yi arrived hurriedly on horseback.
As soon as the court meeting was over, he received the news and immediately grabbed Xie Hui's horse and rushed over, with sweat on his forehead.
He dismounted and after listening to the runner's retelling, he waved his hand and ordered the runner to take back the body, the deceased's family, the manager and all the items in the porridge shed.
Then he bowed to the people and said solemnly, "Please rest assured, I will investigate this case thoroughly and give an explanation to the deceased."
*
[Frog Fun! The porridge provided by the Grand Tutor's Mansion contained strychnine, and nine people died from it!]
Chu Liuzheng was so shocked that his nose, which had been blocked for a long time, was finally cleared. After reading the gossip, he was speechless.
"Giving out porridge is all about gaining a good reputation for being kind and righteous. To poison your own porridge, how idiotic would that be? These people are clearly just hype-mongers. Do those who follow suit have no brains?"
[I want to see who is the abominable poisoner! ]
Chu Liuzheng searched quickly.
[Got it! Prince Li sent his followers to poison the porridge stall at the Grand Tutor's residence. The followers disguised themselves as poor people and mixed strychnine into the porridge while the patrons weren't paying attention. They also distracted the servants when they were serving the porridge and mixed strychnine into the porridge bucket.]
[Fuck! What a disregard for human life! If that woman's cries hadn't drawn everyone's attention, and if people hadn't died from the poisoning one after another, who knows how many people would have drunk that bucket of porridge. By then, wouldn't the ground be... covered in corpses?]
Chu Liuzheng automatically imagined the relevant scenes in his mind, and shuddered.
She hurriedly gave Dong Yi encouragement in her heart.
[Master Dong, come on! You must find out the truth! ]
At the same time, Xiao Jingfan, who had rushed to Nongyun Garden upon receiving the news from the Jinyiwei, said: "We've caught up!"
He turned and headed towards Wenhua Hall, as if the quick run just now was just a leisurely stroll.
Everyone: ???
Having fun!
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