Chapter 68: Suzaku Pendant
After bidding farewell to Xue Xiyang, Qian Deng was returning to the front yard in deep thought when he suddenly heard a noise behind him.
She looked back and saw that Ling Tianshui, who had just left the house, had turned back and was walking straight towards her with big strides, obviously coming back to find her.
Behind him, there was a man with a sad and confused expression - it was Shang Nanliu.
Qian Deng, who was worried about Shangluo, was frightened and immediately turned around to greet him: "Ling Langjun, why did you come back with Shang Beijia?"
Ling Tianshui gestured to Shang Nanliu: "We've found Shangluo. County Lord, would you like to go with me?"
Qiandeng immediately signaled the maids to wait where they were, quickened her pace and walked to Shang Nanliu to ask for details.
"County Princess..." Shang Nanliu had just opened his mouth when tears began to fall.
He raised his hand and handed her the few pieces of stuff he had been holding tightly in his palm.
They were several pieces of carved stone objects, which were cracked and charred in the fire, and their original appearance could no longer be seen, but the shapes were still there. Qiandeng looked at them a little familiarly.
"Is this... the cinnabar pendant that Shangluo gave me?" she blurted out, and then took a closer look, only to find that it was not that one.
The cinnabar pendant that Shangluo gave her had a carved Vermilion Bird with its left wing spread out and its head facing right, while this Vermilion Bird had its right wing spread out and its head facing left.
"Xiao Luo's maternal uncle's hometown is rich in cinnabar. When Xiao Luo was one month old, I carved a pair of Vermillion Bird pendants for him. This is one of them. Cinnabar wards off evil spirits. He has always carried it with him since he was a child and rarely leaves it..."
Therefore, Shangluo took the pair of cinnabar pendants apart, gave one to her as a birthday gift, and naturally carried the other one with him.
Qian Deng looked at the charred and shattered Vermillion Bird Pendant, a sense of foreboding welling up in his heart, and his throat felt a little clogged. "Where did you find this...?"
Shang Nanliu choked up and replied, "In Wubenfang, at the home of Zheng Raoan, a doctor in the Ministry of War."
Passing through the alley with hanging willow branches, you will reach Zheng's house.
At this time, the door of the house was wide open. Fang Zheng was accompanying the yamen runners from Wannian County to the door. The servants inside were waiting in the courtyard in panic, and several old slaves were kneeling at the door of the study and crying.
As soon as I entered the study, I saw a large incense burner overturned on the floor. The ground was covered with incense ash. Next to it was an empty box under the bookshelf. Under the window behind the bookshelf was a small couch, on which lay a body covered with a white cloth.
Ling Tianshui informed the yamen runner of his identity and explained that this case might be related to the case of Princess Gaoguo.
Qian Deng walked in with heavy steps and stared at the covered corpse. He couldn't believe that the young man who was still lively and calling "County Lady Sister" a few days ago was now lying here, with no possibility of standing up again.
She took a deep breath and walked to the corpse step by step with difficulty. She calmed herself down, grabbed a corner of the white cloth and lifted it up.
Beneath the white cloth lay the remains of an old man, nearly sixty years old, with a gaunt appearance. His clothes and face were covered in incense ash, and his cloudy eyes were only half-open, as if he had died with his eyes open.
The breath of relief in his heart eased a little, and Qiandeng realized that he had made an outrageous judgment because he was too worried.
Judging from the situation at the scene and the reactions of the servants, the deceased should be Zheng Raoan.
But why did the bird pendant from Shangluo appear here?
Ling Tianshui went forward to check on the condition of the deceased. When the constables from Wannian County saw that the Princess of Lingling County had brought people here in person, and the people who were examining the body were so imposing, they did not dare to go forward for a moment and just stood outside the study and watched.
After Ling Tianshui came over from Shangnan, he had already brought the set of boxes and tools he used for autopsy. He then lifted the white cloth covering the corpse and examined it on the spot.
"Examination: The deceased was approximately five feet four inches tall, thin, with sparse hair, but all limbs were intact. There were no external injuries to the hands, feet, chest, or abdomen. The hair and beard had a scorched, curled appearance, as if from the fire.
"The deceased had a swollen face, cyanotic fingers, bulging eyes, ash clogged his mouth and nose, and black smoke marks in his nasopharynx.
"The time of death was approximately the beginning of the evening hour. The cause of death was likely smoke inhalation, leading to loss of consciousness and death from suffocation in the ashes."
Qian Deng, as usual, quickly recorded his test results.
The old slave who was wiping his tears beside him listened and nodded repeatedly: "That's right, our doctor had closed the doors and windows, and burned things in the house, which led to this tragedy!"
Qian Deng looked at the slightly open eyes of the deceased and thought of Princess Gao's eyes that refused to close after her death.
She whispered to Ling Tianshui, "Will dying from suffocation make it difficult to close your eyes?"
He casually replied, "No. But the eyelids are thin and lose water easily. After his death, his face was lying in the still warm ashes. The eyelids wrinkled from the dryness, so they couldn't close completely."
Qiandeng nodded silently, and naturally thought of the incense ash beside the body of Princess Gao. He couldn't help but frowned, as if thinking about something.
She walked to the incense burner, looked down at the ashes, then picked up the empty box under the bookshelf and took a look.
The small box is woven with bamboo strips, and the body of the box is woven with bamboo silk to form an exquisite eight-petal lotus pattern. Although it is thin, it is not translucent.
This style is exactly the same as the one Yan Penglai took away from here that day.
She turned it over and saw the fire-burned mark of the word "Gao" on an inconspicuous corner of the bottom edge.
Over there, Ling Tianshui covered Zheng Raoan's body as it was, and then asked the old servant, "When was the body found, and what was the situation at the time?"
The old servant tearfully replied, "Yesterday, after the doctor returned from the yamen, he has been restless. After dinner, he stayed alone in the study. Late at night, I saw a candle still lit in the study, so I knocked on the door and asked the doctor to go to bed. The doctor was quite impatient at the time and told me not to talk any more. I then locked the door with the other servants, turned off the lights, and went to sleep. This morning, when I woke up, I found the study door still closed and the doctor hadn't come out. Although I felt something was wrong, I was afraid of being scolded again, so I knocked on the door again to ask if he had eaten. I got no response, thinking that maybe he slept late last night, or was in a bad mood and didn't bother to pay attention to us, so I gave up. It wasn't until Shang Beijia came to visit that I knocked on the door again..."
Shang Nanliu nodded in response when he heard him mentioned him, his voice hoarse, "Last time, after the county lady inquired about the scroll in my study, I suddenly remembered that when I was discussing the Mianchi Poetry Festival with Doctor Zheng, Xiao Luo mentioned that there was also a pond full of water striders in the capital. Couldn't it be called Mianchi? That place is very secluded. If he doesn't do well in his studies in the future, he can hide there to avoid being criticized. At that time, Zheng Raoan and I laughed at his childish talk, but I forgot what place he was talking about. Now, I'm desperate and want to go there to look for it, so I came to ask Doctor Zheng if he still remembers it..."
Seeing Shang Nanliu coming, the servants of the Zheng family hurried to the door of the study and knocked to inform him.
But after knocking on the door for a long time and reporting loudly, there was no response from inside.
Shang Nanliu, who was in the front hall, saw them making a commotion in front of the study for a while. He came over to ask what was going on and was a little worried: "With all the noise and no one moving, could something have happened?"
The old servant thought that something was wrong, and seeing that the doors and windows were bolted from the inside and could not be opened, he called two strong servants to break the door open.
The room was tightly closed and the air was stuffy, filled with the stench of burning things.
There was an incense burner on the brick floor in the middle of the study. The lid was open and the inside was full of ashes.
A body was lying by the stove, skinny and curled up. It was Zheng Raoan.
The old servant was so frightened that his hands and feet went limp. He staggered in and helped Zheng Raoan up, but his body was already stiff and he had been dead for a long time.
A group of people cried and screamed, not knowing what to do.
Shang Nanliu had come into contact with criminal cases when he was a deputy governor in Jizhou. He immediately pointed at two people and ran to the Wannian County Government Office to report. Seeing that Zheng Raoan's body had been turned over, he asked them to carry the person to the couch and cover it with a white cloth so that the government officials could come and inspect it.
Everyone was in a panic and trying to lift the body when someone kicked over the incense burner. The ashes inside were scattered all over the floor and the smell of burnt smoke filled the room.
Shang Nanliu covered his mouth and nose and was about to leave, but he caught a glimpse of something in the incense ash.
It was a stone-like object that had been smoked black by the incense ash, but he was very familiar with the shape because it was the line he had carved out with his own hands thirteen years ago.
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