Lao Qiao said, "Young General, please eat slowly."
Ye Zelin responded, and Lao Qiao left with the tray.
He looked at the letter beside him, wondering if he should write a letter to Hua Fushu. He wondered if her injury had healed, and if she had listened to him and stopped going to the gambling house. After thinking it over, he decided it would be better to write. So he picked up the pen again, looked at the letter, but didn't know what to write. After pondering for a while, he wrote:
Don't go to gambling houses, don't fight, and don't cause trouble.
Looking at this sentence, he felt it was a bit straightforward. Given Hua Fushu's personality, he might not listen to the advice, so he crumpled the letter into a ball and threw it on the ground.
He thought for a moment and wrote a sentence on the paper: I have been in Yuezhou for a month. I wonder how my wife is doing and whether she misses me?
After writing the last word, he suddenly felt that he was being reckless. Although he had been married to Hua Fushu for more than two months, they had only spent a few days together. At most, they were just friends. How could he be so frivolous when writing to her for the first time?
When the coolness of the bowl of lychee paste faded, the sentence "My clothes are getting looser and looser, but I will never regret it. I am exhausted for her" suddenly appeared in my mind. Just as he was about to write it down, he felt that it was not right. He was secretly annoyed with himself. Even if he wanted to be more tactful, he should not write such a sentence. He must be confused to come up with such a weird sentence.
Looking at the crumpled letter on the ground, his handsome brows furrowed, as he felt troubled for the first time about writing a letter.
When his hand touched the wall of the bowl, the refreshing coolness he had just felt disappeared. He rubbed his forehead, ate some litchi paste, folded the letter with dried ink and put it into the envelope and sealed it. Then he got up and went out to find Yu Xuanji to play chess. However, he saw Yu Chisu entering Yu Xuanji's room from a distance. Thinking that Yu Chisu might have made some progress, he quickened his pace.
Old Qiao, holding a scroll, quickly stepped over to block his path, unrolled it, and asked for advice: "Major General, my daughter likes to paint plum blossoms. I heard you're skilled in both calligraphy and painting. Could you please take a look at this painting for me? I bought it from an artist for ten taels of silver."
Ye Zelin looked at the scroll. The plum blossoms were too dark, the branches were rough, and there was nothing eye-catching about them. It was just an ordinary painting. "Uncle Qiao, this painting is at the level of a beginner. It's not a top-notch piece, not even a good one. It can be bought for a few coins. How can it be worth ten taels of silver? You've been fooled."
Old Qiao was immediately furious: "How dare this bastard lie to me!"
He rolled up the scroll, grabbed Ye Zelin and tried to pull him away, "Come on, Major General, let's go settle the score with him."
Ye Zelin said, "Yuezhou is a vast place. You might not be able to find the swindler if you go looking for him. Besides, swindlers are naturally shrewd. Why would they wait for you to come back to find him in the same place?"
Old Qiao said bitterly, "This swindler is truly despicable. Didn't I just waste my ten taels of silver?"
Ye Zelin said, "I have a friend named Nie Huaixin, who is an excellent painter. He once gave me a scroll of red plum blossoms painted in the snow. I want to give it to Uncle Qiao after I return to Beijing. What do you think?"
Lao Qiao had naturally heard of Nie Huaixin's name. His paintings were quite popular among literati, officials and dignitaries, who often invited him to various banquets, poetry gatherings and elegant gatherings. He had once gone to his house to ask for his paintings, but he was unsuccessful.
He was overjoyed, forgetting the ten taels of silver that the swindler had taken from him. "Thank you very much, Major General."
Ye Zelin smiled faintly and said, "Uncle Qiao, you're welcome."
Suddenly, he thought of what to write in the letter to Hua Fushu, so he went back to the dormitory, picked up his pen, wrote a sentence, sealed the letter, took the two envelopes and left the post station to send the letter home.
When he returned to the post station, Yu Chi Su had already come out from Yu Xuanji's place. When she saw Ye Zelin, she walked over and gave him a general account of the deceased's interpersonal relationships.
Ye Zelin said, "So this man who repeatedly went in and out of the deceased's home could be the deceased's murderer."
Yu Chisu nodded and said, "Uncle thinks so too."
Ye Zelin said again: "Miss Yu, I will go with you to find this person tomorrow."
Yu Chi Su said "good" and sat down on the bluestone stool beside her. She poured herself a cup of tea to quench her thirst and asked, "Young General, you just went to send a letter home, right? Uncle Qiao writes home every few days, and he was just complaining that it takes you a month to write home."
Ye Zelin sat by the pavilion, leaning against the fence behind him. "I was worried that my parents would be worried, so I wrote a letter home to let them know I was safe."
Yu Chisu played with the teacup, looked at Ye Zelin and asked, "I heard from Uncle Qiao that the Major General got married?"
Ye Zelin hadn't expected that the honest and simple Old Qiao would gossip about other people's affairs. It was just idle talk, no need to hide anything, so he nodded and said, "We got married in February."
Yu Chisu asked, "I wonder which young lady has won the favor of the young general."
Ye Zelin was silent for a moment before he said, "She's just a jade from a small family, not really a lady. She's more lively and playful than other girls, and she's also very pretty."
The corners of his mouth curled up slightly unconsciously.
Yu Chisu said, "I heard Uncle Qiao say that it's better for girls to be lively and look like flowers in the morning sun."
Ye Zelin's handsome face was filled with a happy smile, "When my wife smiles, she is like a flower in the morning sun."
Yu Chisu couldn't help laughing, "Young General, you must be missing your wife."
Ye Zelin suppressed his smile, but a blush appeared at the base of his ears. He looked at Yu Chisu and said calmly, "Miss Yu, I don't know when Cheng Wenbo's case will be solved. You don't have to call me Major General because of my status. I am the second oldest in your family. If you don't mind, how about calling me Second Brother?"
Yu Chisu was not a reserved person, so she changed her tone immediately, "Then Second Brother Ye, just follow Uncle Qiao and call me Susu."
After two days of investigation, the person who had been in and out of the coroner's office finally got some information. The man was a young man in his twenties. The person who was investigating was reliable and even got a portrait of the man.
Yu Xuanji handed the portrait to Ye Zelin and said, "Major General, you and Susu go to Tongfu Restaurant and arrest this man. He must be a powerful figure to be able to kill people right under our noses. Be careful."
Yu Chisu replied yes, and then left the post station with Ye Zelin and headed to Tongfu Restaurant.
As soon as the two left, Yu Xuanji called Lao Qiao and ordered him to send people to the four gates of Yuezhou City to inquire whether there were any suspicious people entering or leaving.
Old Qiao didn't understand what he meant. Yu Xuanji took a mouthful of lychee paste to moisten her throat before saying, "I originally only suspected that Cheng Wenbo didn't hang himself, so I asked Susu to keep an eye on the coroner. Now that the coroner is dead, my suspicions are confirmed. Cheng Wenbo didn't hang himself, but was murdered. The murderer must have killed Cheng Wenbo and then created the illusion of suicide. The coroner must have instructed him to fake the corpse. He's dead, and the Cheng family won't allow an autopsy. Even if they did, Cheng Wenbo has been buried for a month. The body has decomposed, and it's likely that no one can determine the cause of death. No one except the murderer knows the true cause of Cheng Wenbo's death."
Old Qiao asked, "What does this have to do with Cheng Wenbo's death?"
Yu Xuanji said, "The silver was lost after it entered the Yuezhou treasury. If it was really Cheng Wenbo who embezzled the 100,000 taels of silver, he, a prefect, wouldn't be so foolish as to hide the silver in his own mansion. If he wanted to transport such a large amount of silver out of the city, there must be something suspicious. Perhaps we can find some clues."
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