Chapter 73 Go Down "You, you just work in the fish pond, right?" ...
Jiang Hui felt something was wrong, but before he knew it, Yan Siqing had already left the body.
I want to go see the ancient well.
Following the old woman's instructions and what other villagers said, Li Yu was very agile and led people there first.
Jiang Hui followed closely behind.
This prince was dressed in a noble and lazy manner, strolling leisurely in the mountains and forests, but he gave people a sense of oppression.
Yan Siqing didn't care about this when he was doing his work. He silently calculated the distance between here and there and frowned slightly.
"Be careful, this place is messy and full of weeds."
"It was even more chaotic when I came that day."
Yan Siqing: "Even more chaotic?"
She asked, "Are there enough wood here?"
The old woman was stunned for a moment, not reacting to Yan Siqing's incoherent question, "Tianxian, um, no, what did you say, young lady?"
Yan Siqing pointed to the dead trees and broken branches around him.
"Are these a lot compared to previous years? It doesn't look like anyone else has picked them up."
The old woman nodded. "No, I was the only one here in previous years."
Yan Siqing raised his eyebrows.
Li Yu seemed to react and looked at the branches, then at the weeds that had been trampled into different paths. Many paths led to - that dry well.
"Be careful."
"It's easy to fall."
"We built it in a hurry back then, and the threshold wasn't even high. We were all starving and had little strength left. When the war was over, everyone moved downstairs, so no one cared."
The old woman was attentive and explained everything in detail, but she was so engrossed in instructing others that she forgot about herself. She stepped on something and stumbled. Yan Siqing immediately reached out...
When he supported the old woman's left arm, she turned around.
He pulled the old woman with one hand and held her waist with the other.
He watched both of them.
The fingers were very long. They were shaking the branches before, but now they were firmly controlling a large part of her slender waist.
There was no other meaning behind her glance. Jiang Hui quickly withdrew his hand and muttered in a low voice, "Be careful."
After thinking for a moment, he added, "You two."
Yan Siqing nodded and was about to say thank you.
The old woman looked at her, then at him, very respectfully and politely, "Thank you both Your Highnesses for your help."
Yan Siqing: "You misunderstood, I am not a royal family."
I am not worthy of the honorific title of Your Highness.
If you spread it, you will be punished.
The old woman was stunned. "Well, I didn't mistake you two as brother and sister... then you aren't?"
She was also a little confused, her speech was a little incoherent, and she hesitated to speak, afraid that she would say something wrong and anger others.
Not what?
She didn't mistake them for brother and sister, but she called them "Your Highness".
......
Yan Siqing: “….”
Li Yu quickly turned around and exchanged glances with Ruozhao and Xiaoyun, but neither of them said a word.
It's really helpless to say. Miss Yan is very decisive in solving cases and she finishes the case every day, but in this case, the truth is misunderstood again and again. She has to prove every time: No, it's really not, you are wrong.
Yan Siqing held his forehead, exhausted. Jiang Hui pressed the corners of his mouth, but couldn't suppress the smile on his face, "Old senior, this is my old friend's sister."
"We must look a bit alike."
Yan Siqing turned around and glanced at him indifferently.
Jiang Hui pretended not to see and asked the old woman seriously.
The old woman studied Jiang Hui's expression, thought for a moment, and nodded, "Indeed, Your Highness."
She must not offend His Highness.
Besides, it’s not against my will.
They really look like a couple.
Just looking at it......
Yan Siqing was no longer able to care about this side. Instead, she looked down at the stone on the ground. The stone had just hit the old man. She moved it with her shoe and looked down at the bottom of the well.
This time Jiang Hui didn't play around anymore. He stayed close to her, fearing that she would fall.
It was indeed dark down there.
"Do you want to go down?"
"Let's go down and take a look."
Yan Siqing: "Don't use it yet, get a torch and throw it down first."
It was broad daylight and they didn't have any torches, but she suddenly needed one, so they had to have one.
Without waiting for anyone to move, he swung his sword with a clang, and a piece of wood fell to the ground.
"Fire stick."
Soon a piece of wood was lit and thrown down as Yan Siqing ordered.
The bottom of the well is indeed quite high. Unless one is an expert like Jiang Hui who can climb high and low, even Xiaoyun would not be able to come up after going down.
If Chen Yue went down, he would have died unless someone rescued him.
When the torch fell, everyone saw the chaotic rubble below, with sharp edges.
There were faint traces of blood and footprints in the mud. It seemed someone had to go down to get the body up there.
But the smell is really strong, maybe someone died down there, the smell of a corpse...
"Liu Guangzhi?"
"Him? He can't do that. He's too weak and doesn't have any skills at all."
The old woman slandered him first, and Li Yu said that it was the officials from the yamen who found the body after receiving the report.
Yan Siqing looked at the bottom of the well again and suddenly said, "It's out."
What?
Only then did everyone notice that the torches below had gone out.
Everyone was confused.
Li Yu felt that Yan Siqing was interested in those stones, and asked if he wanted someone to move them up for a closer look.
In fact, she also felt something was wrong.
"These stones don't look like they're found at the bottom of the well."
Her eyes were still on the stone that almost hit the old woman, and she asked the old woman if she had had a stone before.
The old woman couldn't be sure. After all, it had been many years since she came here. She usually came here just to chop firewood. Who would care about the dry well? She herself was afraid of falling into it.
So there is no answer.
"We need to go down and move some rocks, but let the other person go down first."
who?
Yan Siqing took two steps back and said, "Send someone over to bring Liu Guangzhi here, but Li Yu, you wait over there and pay attention to your surroundings..."
how?
Is he the murderer?
Everyone was nervous, but after the person was brought over, Liu Guangzhi was much calmer than before. His eye bags were swollen and black, his fundus was bloodshot, and his veins were bulging like a ghost.
"Go down."
Liu Guangzhi was a little confused and thought he had heard it wrong.
"W-what?"
Yan Siqing said in a calm tone, his brows hesitant, "I'll let you go."
"Go down and shout a few times."
Liu Guangzhi refused, but Li Yu got angry before Jiang Hui could. "It wasn't your wife who died?! You were willing to dig a grave to bury her, but you refused to go down once. If you don't have something to hide, why are you so anxious to bury the body? If so, don't blame me for labeling you a suspect and taking you back..."
He had no choice but to accept it and be hung up like a coward.
But everyone knew that this was Yan Siqing clearly expressing her disgust for him.
She has never been a woman who relies solely on men to repay others.
She has her own tricks.
After watching the people go down, she lowered her eyes and nonchalantly asked Liu Guangzhi below to shout twice.
The latter obeyed and shouted at the top of his lungs.
After a while, Li Yu came back and asked her if she heard anything. Li Yu frowned and said, "I walked around the area a few times and could hear subtle shouting, but it was very soft."
"Do you want to try a few more times?"
Yan Siqing: "I'm afraid there's no way."
"The people down there will faint."
What? !
Just as he finished speaking, Liu Guangzhi below felt something was wrong. He seemed to be weak and neighing. Everyone looked down.
I did faint.
Pull it up quickly.
Jiang Hui then looked at Yan Siqing, "The torches below went out because..."
Yan Siqing's expression was calm. "There's no moss on the surface of the stone, and its edges and corners are sharp. It was carefully selected and recently moved to the bottom of the well. The side near the bottom of the well is covered in mud, but the side facing the well mouth is spotless."
"This is a stone that was moved here specifically to kill people."
"But even if a person fell in, they wouldn't necessarily die immediately. What if she was still holding on to her last breath, crying out for help? What if there were other people nearby? Usually, murderers would cover the well mouth with rocks, but that wouldn't explain her suicide. So, the well mouth couldn't be covered, and it couldn't completely block out the cries for help. So, the conspirators added another layer of design—mud underneath."
"This silt isn't just the usual dry, wet mud that's been deposited for years. It's the swamp mud that someone recently brought from under the fish pond. I remember this village had a fish pond... so the smell is particularly strong and fishy. The poisonous gas released by the swamp mud has settled for a while, trapped at the bottom of the well, extinguishing the flames and causing dizziness. An ordinary person might be fine and could hold on for a while, only to feel the darkness and discomfort at the bottom of the well. But Chen Yue is a woman, and with severe injuries and blood loss, she's already fragile. It won't be long before she'll faint."
"The person who moved the stone and placed the swamp mud either knew the secrets of the heavens and knew that Chen Yue would fall to the bottom of the well soon, or he did it on his own without any calculations."
"This is the murderer's intention."
"There's evidence here—for example, this place was originally deserted. Aside from you, the elder, who rarely came a few times a year, no one else was willing to come. Even the firewood wasn't picked up. But you said that as the first person to discover the crime scene, you saw the weeds trampled when you arrived, and you thought it was someone else from the village. But if other elders had been here, they wouldn't have missed the firewood. So, the people who came here had ulterior motives, carrying stones and mud over and over again, and occasionally dropping a few pieces, nearly causing someone to fall."
"Then let's go back and speculate - will Chen Yue commit suicide?"
"First of all, if Chen Yue really committed suicide, she wouldn't have to go through so much trouble."
"It would be easier to jump into the river than this."
"Besides, she's been working hard lately. If she'd suffered a major blow and suddenly wanted to die, it would have taken her over half an hour to walk here from her home, which is unnecessary. There's a river right next to her backyard. If she had suicidal thoughts early on, it was probably because she was afraid of being stopped by someone. She'd also dressed neatly and tidy up—that's what Chen Xu said. Her sister is a very strong-willed person. She works hard, but she also loves cleanliness and doesn't slouch. She'd occasionally buy some clean, bright clothes to dress herself up."
"She wouldn't choose such an undignified way to die."
Chen Xu nodded, not even bothering to sign, tears in her eyes. That was just the kind of person her sister was.
Always full of optimism, I won't commit suicide easily, not to mention it's not that serious...
She hesitated to speak, almost blurting out something, but held it back.
Yan Siqing noticed that she was hesitant to speak, but did not press her and just looked at the unconscious man.
"So, it's very likely that someone who knew her well, and who is also from this village, orchestrated this murder. The most likely suspect is you—Liu Guangzhi."
"You, you work at the fish pond, right?"
Yes, they learned about it from Chen Xu when they came, and the villagers also told them about it.
This is something that everyone knows.
so....
Liu Guangzhi, he is the murderer...
Liu Guangzhi had been pinched in the Ren Zhong point with medicine at this moment. He opened his eyes and met the suspicious gazes of everyone.
His expression froze.
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