Chapter 589 A draw was an accident!
Shen Lanxi chuckled as she sat in her chair: "Before I even called out your names, Minister Wang volunteered to stand up."
Wang Shen looked choked up.
They were all roasted on the charcoal fire; he couldn't very well explain that he'd been kicked out!
"Now that everything is ready, let's not waste any more time and begin!" Shen Lanxi announced.
Wang Shen's vision went black, and he almost spat out a mouthful of blood.
The officials from the Court of Judicial Review and the Ministry of Justice stepped forward and briefly explained the case.
They were just going through the motions. The competition topic was announced yesterday, and with only one night's time, the two of them must have been preparing.
Wang Shen composed himself and stepped forward to inquire.
"Are there any witnesses? Who was the first to see the young mistress die?"
He inquired about the situation here, and Mr. Ruohua chose to inspect the site.
Wang Shen breathed a sigh of relief as soon as he left.
In this way, he wouldn't worry about others copying his methods. Mr. Ruohua was famous throughout the world, and if he pointed out that someone was stealing his techniques, he would be making an enemy of all the students in the world.
A moment later, Mr. Ruohua returned from the scene.
"I also want to examine the body."
Everyone was taken aback. Wasn't Mr. Ruohua a teacher?
Can you perform autopsies?
Dali Temple: "This way, sir."
Seeing that Mr. Ruohua had beaten him to it, Wang Shen became somewhat anxious. He immediately stopped asking questions and rushed to inspect the scene.
He was just a vice minister of the Ministry of Works, but he didn't really know how to investigate cases. What he was saying now was just something he'd learned from hearsay.
The Dali Temple staff assumed that Mr. Ruohua was just looking at the wounds, so they pulled the white cloth covering the body down a little, down to the neck.
Unexpectedly, the white cloth was simply removed.
"An autopsy naturally involves examining every detail from head to toe."
The people from the Dali Temple were taken aback, as was the coroner standing nearby.
A schoolteacher, how could he not be afraid?
The young mistress's head injury was rather gruesome.
Time passed slowly, and Shen Lanxi naturally didn't stay idle.
With her two most trusted advisors at loggerheads locked in a bitter feud, she naturally had to mediate.
"My lords, please accept my condolences. I will certainly seek justice for you both!"
Liu Mingxin had a scar on his cheek and kept his face half-covered, as he was somewhat ashamed to be seen by others.
Wu Yanzhi wasn't much better off; he had a bruise on his forehead, but he didn't try to hide it and looked furious.
"Your Majesty, my daughter died unjustly!"
"Your Majesty, I am also wronged. My daughter-in-law's death was an accident, yet some people are making false accusations against her."
"Liu Mingxin, you're talking nonsense. It was your son who murdered my daughter."
“Wu Yanzhi, your words are baseless and you should stop talking nonsense.”
"Liu Mingxin..."
Shen Lanxi: "Alright, alright, gentlemen, please don't get so angry. You're both getting on in years. What if you get sick from anger and leave behind your families?"
Liu Mingxin and Wu Yanzhi: "..."
They angrily turned and flung their sleeves, neither willing to face the other.
"Dali Temple and Ministry of Justice, do you have any results?"
Wei Jie: "Your Majesty, to avoid affecting the outcome of the duel, I will not speak of it." He picked up his pen and wrote down the result.
After reading it, Shen Lanxi raised an eyebrow, glanced at Zhang and Wu, and then closed the paper.
"Let's wait for the results!"
"yes!"
Everyone was curious about what the Emperor had seen, and secretly urged the two of them to hurry up.
"Your Majesty, I have the results," Wang Shen said after returning from the scene.
Shen Lanxi: "Are you going to say it now, or write it down?"
Wang Shen hesitated for a moment and then said, "I'd better write it down!"
Fifteen minutes later, Mr. Ruohua also had the results.
"The young mistress's death was an accident!"
Shen Lanxi expanded on the story of Wang Shen and Wei Jie.
"All three of you wrote about accidents."
That's a draw.
Wang Shen secretly breathed a sigh of relief, while at the same time looking at Mr. Ruohua with a smug expression.
He won.
Shen Lanxi: "Tell me your evidence."
Wei Jie: "The tile that hit the young mistress didn't fall from the wall, but from the pavilion."
Liu Mingxin immediately retorted: "The pavilion in my house was renovated last year, and the tiles on it are inspected every year. It's impossible for them to be loose."
Wei Jie produced evidence: a piece of tile covered in bird droppings.
"I'm not saying that Lord Liu's house has been in disrepair for many years, but rather that a bird happened to be perched on the pavilion. This bird must have been quite large, and when it flew away again, it gripped the tiles tightly."
"Besides bird droppings, there are also scratch marks left by birds!"
To demonstrate the bird droppings to everyone, Wei Jie hadn't ordered them to be scraped off. Now that everyone had seen them, he brushed away the filth.
"My lords, please take a look!"
"They really are scratches."
"It's so deep, it must be a night owl."
"That was during the day."
"That's either an egret or an eagle."
"It's digging so deep, it must be an eagle!"
There are quite a few people in Beijing who raise eagles.
After Liu Mingxin and Wu Yanzhi looked at it, their faces turned ashen.
"Some people said that tiles wouldn't kill anyone if they fell on the pavilion, but that's not true."
"If it happened to be a sharp point that hit the back of the head... the same spot where the young mistress was hit—the back of the head—it could be fatal."
Wu Yanzhi still didn't believe it.
"Was my daughter really an accident?"
Wei Jie: "Really?"
Wang Shen: "That's also my judgment. If the Prime Minister doesn't believe me, he can send someone to check the pavilion. There will definitely be bird droppings left there."
Birds naturally love to land on rooftops, so it's perfectly normal for them to land on the gazebo and leave some filth.
Wu Yanzhi fell silent.
Mr. Ruohua: "The young mistress has no other external injuries, nor has she been poisoned. I have examined the area around the pavilion and on the pavilion itself, but I have not found any footprints."
"As Lord Wang said, there is indeed a lot of filth on the pavilion!"
The heavy weight on Liu Mingxin's heart was finally lifted.
"My son did not harm your daughter. On the contrary, ever since your daughter entered the Liu family, she has relied on your power as the current prime minister to bully and oppress the people in my household in every way." Liu Mingxin began to settle accounts.
These past few days, rumors have been circulating in the capital, treating them as the murderers who murdered their daughter-in-law; the Liu family's reputation has been ruined.
It's all Wu Yanzhi's fault, and his unfortunate daughter's fault too.
"My daughter is dead, and you still slander me. Liu Mingxin, I will never let you get away with this!"
Shen Lanxi quickly stopped.
"You two can discuss your matter after we leave."
"We haven't finished the competition yet."
Liu Mingxin and Wu Yanzhi are in a stalemate.
They actually became the subject of a competition, and the case that was judged.
"Your Majesty, this old minister..."
Shen Lanxi smiled and said, "Now that your innocence has been proven, you should let bygones be bygones and be happy!"
Liu Mingxin and Wu Yanzhi exchanged a glance, wishing the other were dead.
"You are my trusted advisors, and now I have a difficult problem to present to you two."
Liu Mingxin: "I am willing to go through fire and water for Your Majesty, even unto death!"
Wu Yanzhi was so angry he felt like vomiting blood; these were words he often used.
"Your Majesty, this old minister will certainly do everything in his power to serve you, even unto death!"
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