According to the arrested murderer, the eldest son Shen Ming did not agree with his aunt killing his stepmother and two younger siblings.
But after knowing that the little nun had heard and seen her aunt hiring a killer, she still helped hold down the little nun's legs when the killer killed her to prevent her from making too much noise.
Afterwards, the concubine gave her outer robe to Lu Yinbao, took off the little nun's green hat, and replaced it with a headscarf for her to conceal her identity as a nun.
Shen Ming rented a simple sedan chair for going up and down the mountain. The murderer and he carried Lu Yinbao's body onto the sedan chair.
The concubine took off her cloak and covered the corpse with it, almost covering more than half of the face. There was also a headscarf wrapped on top, making it extremely difficult to recognize at first glance.
They pretended to be Lu Yinbao's brother and husband to the two sedan bearers, and the concubine pretended to be her mother. Because Lu Yinbao felt unwell after going up the mountain, they hurried down the mountain.
After going down the mountain, he carried "her" into the concubine's carriage.
He told the groom and the accompanying maid that he had met a couple while praying on the mountain. The wife was not feeling well and they needed help to take her home. Later, when they arrived outside a farm, he lied and said that he had already arrived.
Shen Ming got off the carriage with the murderer on the pretext of helping, and first let the carriage take the concubine home. After they left, the two men saw that there were few people around the manor, so they dug a pit at the foot of the wall outside the manor and buried the nun's body in it.
This village was merely a vacation estate owned by its owner, with only a few gardeners there to look after it. This section of the wall was in a secluded area, and the digging outside made little noise, so no one noticed.
The hoe and shovel they used to dig the hole were stolen from the tool shed by the murderer who climbed over the wall to enter the estate.
According to the murderer's confession, because of Shen Ming's opposition, his biological mother tried to avoid her son when she contacted him again.
Later, they pretended to frighten a horse and cause the three carriages to collide, hoping to kill the stepmother and her companions of three by hitting them with the horses and carriages.
But one of the concubine's personal maids told Shen Ming all the information she got. After he knew it, he first tried to get the marquis's wife to get off the carriage and not go out with her.
Later, he stepped forward in a critical moment and saved his brother and sister.
Before he died, he spit out blood and said that it was just an accident. In fact, he hoped that his stepmother and younger siblings would be safe, and he also hoped that his biological mother could be saved.
Based on this confession, Jingzhao Yin quickly found the personal maid, groom and several accomplices.
With each other's confessions verified, the truth about the death of the little nun Lu Yinbao was revealed.
But during the investigation, Lu Yinbao's former roommate in the temple, now a nun, said that what Lu Yinbao told everyone that she had saved her good friend Xiao Lingling was actually just her wish.
Lu Yinbao told her that as soon as she let her friend go, they were both caught. Xiao Lingling only ran out of the ancestral hall door before being caught again, and she was pinned to the ground.
The villagers lynched Xiao Lingdang as requested by the immortal master. Xiao Lingdang was also identified by the immortal master as a celestial being who would bring disaster to the village and was forced to become a nun.
Because of this reason, she did not believe in gods and Buddhas, and was often depressed in the temple and avoided her lessons there.
The nun said that she had advised the young nun that the dead are gone and the living should look forward. The Yunlan Temple has profound Buddhist teachings. Even if we are not masters with wisdom and cannot comprehend the Buddhist teachings here, it is still a good thing to copy scriptures, practice good handwriting, learn the art of the five elements, learn how to exorcise evil spirits, or even learn some divination and fortune-telling to predict the good and bad luck of words.
But the little nun said that the reason why this nun thought that learning these things was a good thing was because there is still hope in life and there are things that she wants to get.
After witnessing the extremely cruel and bloody side, she felt that many things in this world were meaningless and unnecessary.
She said that the uncles, aunties, and playmates in the village are usually good people, but one day they will suddenly kill you and not give you any chance to live. There is nothing you can trust in this world.
Little Bell, a cute little girl with a round face, experienced the most cruel thing in the world. She was first burned alive and then doused with boiling hot oil because the immortal master said that this could drive away evil spirits.
The tortured little girl was whipped and spat on by the whole village when she was dying. Because the villagers believed that they were punishing a devil, they showed no mercy whether it was burning her, pouring boiling oil on her or whipping her.
The little nun was tied to a pillar and watched Xiao Lingdang being tortured. Even Xiao Lingdang's parents joined in the beating under the pressure of the whole village.
She looked at Xiao Lingling, and when she saw her parents stand up, her face turned pale and her eyes were full of despair.
What followed was cruel and seemingly endless torture. When Xiao Lingling finally breathed her last, Lu Yinbao's eyes were full of tears, but he also breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that it was good to be dead, and fortunately he was dead.
So she doesn't believe in gods and Buddhas, nor does she want to learn about them. If gods and Buddhas really exist, how could they let such things happen in the world?
She just did the physical work she was willing to do in the temple, such as cleaning, cooking, washing clothes and boiling water, to do her best to live up to the temple's support and provision of food and clothing. She was also willing to help other nuns with cleaning.
She can kneel down to wipe all the floors, but she does not kneel down to recite scriptures; she can climb high to wipe the window frames and candlesticks, but she does not recite scriptures; she can wash basins of clothes, but she does not recite scriptures.
Although she often avoided Buddhist lessons in the temple, people in the temple left her alone because she was very diligent and worked hard without complaint.
More than 20 years ago, the abbot at that time also said that the practice of Buddhism should follow one’s heart and circumstances and should never be forced.
Now, because of this case, the Yongding Marquis's mansion is involved in a dispute between legitimate and illegitimate children. And there is also a strange twist, more than 20 years later, Luo Yunyan saw the murderer's appearance in a dream and was able to identify the real murderer.
This case and the old incident were widely circulated and became a hot topic, with the storyteller updating several versions overnight.
Every detail of the two pairs of mothers and children in the Yongding Marquis's mansion back then was recalled, argued about, and discussed. Even now, the old Marquis of Yongding and his daughters Shen Zhaoshu and Shen Zhaoyu, as well as their respective marriages and children, are being talked about.
Not only that, the story of the murdered little nun before she became a nun, the friend she failed to save, the tragic death of the little girl Xiao Lingdang, and Lu Yinbao's belief in no gods or Buddhas also spread throughout the streets and alleys.
For a time, a heated debate arose among the people of the Xuanyuan Dynasty about whether there were gods and Buddhas.
Meanwhile, as the five elements and spirits returned to their proper places, something went wrong in the process of treating the amnesiac, and Zhang Baiyi had to deal with it.
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