Chapter 121 A Village That Believes in Ghosts and Gods
The magistrate sighed.
"Your Highness must have heard of the concept of adoption." He paused. "Wang Bin was adopted by Wang Guixiang's parents to her uncle's family years ago. In other words, Wang Bin is actually Wang Guixiang's younger brother."
"Three years ago, Wang Guixiang's parents died suddenly one after another. Her uncle felt that the child was cursed and would bring bad luck to their family, so he sent the child back."
The magistrate shrugged: "In the end, the county government intervened, and the two families finally reached an agreement."
"The idea was that Wang Bin would be raised in Wang Guixiang's house, and Wang Guixiang's family would pay for Wang Bin's schooling and help him get married. After he got married, when his uncle died, half of his family property would go to Wang Guixiang's family."
"Who knew that after only three years of peace, something like this would happen again."
News of the incident quickly reached Tangxia Village.
As you walk along, every household that sees the Six Doors attire immediately shuts its doors.
Li Jin waved his fan and smiled nonchalantly, "Is this also because that young man carries an evil aura?"
Upon hearing this, the county magistrate nodded awkwardly: "The villagers all believe that Wang Guixiang's family is unlucky, and anyone who comes into contact with her family will suffer great misfortune."
When Wang Bin died, those two men from the Six Doors were right in front of him. Who knows if they brought with them some kind of malevolent aura, which would be unsettling.
Li Jin chuckled softly and raised an eyebrow slightly: "Is the magistrate not afraid?"
This question left the magistrate of Tangxia Village speechless for a moment. He feared misfortune, but if he refused to see the dignified Prince Jing now, misfortune would likely come even faster.
Now, he could only awkwardly laugh it off: "As for ghosts and gods, although I have reverence for them, I am not afraid of them."
After saying that, he waved his hand and said, "If you do the right thing and sit upright, the only people knocking on your door in the middle of the night will be your ancestors visiting relatives. There's nothing to be afraid of."
"That's quite magnanimous." Li Jin said with a half-smile, then changed the subject, "What was it like when her mother died suddenly three years ago? Does the county government have any records of the investigation?"
“We do have the protective book…” he said, turning to the constable beside him and saying, “Go quickly and bring over all the protective books from Wang Guixiang’s family from three years ago.”
In the center of Tangxia Village stands a thousand-year-old tree with a trunk so thick that it takes several people to encircle it. Its lush branches are covered with red ribbons for blessings.
Jin Shu watched as the scattered light filtered through the gaps between the branches, turning into tiny specks that swayed in the wind.
In that moment of swaying, amidst the swinging red strip, there was even a clanging sound of metal objects.
She hesitated for a while, looking over with some doubt, only to see that among the red stripes, on the high branches, hung many vajras.
The warm feeling of blessing that had been flowing through my body seemed to be struck on the head by those hanging Vajra pestles, instantly turning gray and black, making me feel a little chilly.
“Being closer to Xiangji Temple, most villagers believe in ghosts and spirits.” At this point, the magistrate frowned even more, complaining, “But the true Dharma of the Western Paradise is only four or five miles away. The villagers don’t really believe in it, so they go to those sorceresses and fake Taoist priests to perform rituals.”
He grimaced and inhaled sharply: "They're incredibly mercenary, only interested in saving a little money, making this village a mess."
"Take Wang Guixiang's mother for example. When she died suddenly, her whole body was convulsing, she was scratching her face in pain, and she was choking and couldn't breathe. She died soon after." The magistrate shook his head. "Her death was horrific, as if someone had choked her."
"Everyone in the village said that she was possessed by some kind of spirit. Wang Guixiang spent money to hire a master to take a look. The master said that it was because her family's feng shui was bad. There were two persimmon trees in front of the ancestral graves. Persimmon trees are dead trees, which is why people died. He even said that if the two trees were not dug up, two more people would die."
As Li Jin listened, he silently observed the houses on both sides of the road.
There are Bagua plates hanging on the doors, Taiji diagrams carved on the screen walls, bronze mirrors hanging above the windows, and the character "万" (wan, meaning ten thousand) written on the main gates...
If it is true faith, then the beliefs are indeed somewhat mixed.
If it's a false faith, then you've been thoroughly deceived.
"The magistrate didn't stop him?" He turned around and glanced at the magistrate of Tangxia Village, only to meet his rather helpless expression.
"Your Highness, I did try to stop her! But that one act of obstruction has caused me great trouble." He sighed. "Not two months after I stopped her, her father also died. Now the two of them have come together."
"And when his father died, he was also convulsing, choking on his own neck, unable to breathe, just like his mother." The magistrate shook his head and sighed, "Alas, now I'm being blamed for delaying the tree-digging, which led to his father's tragic death. I'm being treated like dirt, alas..."
Looking at him, Li Jin smiled slightly and said, "You must be tired, Magistrate."
He snapped his fan shut and stood at the door of Wang Guixiang's house, glancing up at the gate of the Ruyi Gate: "But the magistrate did nothing wrong." He said, "Her parents and her nephew were all poisoned to death."
The magistrate paused, "Ah?! Poisoned?"
"Moreover, the murderer is very likely the same person."
This startled the county magistrate of Tangxia Village. The village only had a few dozen households, yet it had produced a murderer with three lives on his hands. He was stunned for a moment, finding it hard to accept.
Jin Shu glanced at his face without speaking, but in her heart she quite agreed with Li Jin's speculation that it was the same person.
Although we haven't met Wang Guixiang yet, nor have we seen the autopsy report from that time, we can still discern similar characteristics of death from the magistrate's description.
The crimes are perfectly consistent with the key commonalities of being related and using similar methods.
In other words, the most likely scenario is that the murderer is the same person or the same group of people.
During the brief pause at the door, the constable who had gone back to the county office to retrieve the protective scrolls returned jogging, handing the two scrolls tied together to each other to the magistrate.
The medical record listed the time of death and the names of the deceased. He glanced down at it, pointed to the names, and said, "This is her mother, and this is her father. They were less than three months apart."
Li Jin glanced at it, then pointed at Jin Shu with the handle of his fan: "Thank you for your trouble, Mr. Jin."
It's no wonder I was shocked when I looked.
Jin Shu's brows furrowed into a knot. She unfolded her notebook and stared incredulously at the two people in front of her: "This... a normal death?"
Her words prompted Li Jin to step forward and open the other protective book as well.
In the autumn of the 207th year of the Great Wei Dynasty, the deceased Wang Fa, aged 66, suddenly fell ill while chopping wood in the back mountain, which caused his heart to stop beating. He died of natural causes.
Li Jin looked at the protective book in his hand, raised his eyebrows, and stared at the county magistrate's face: "Who wrote this?"
The magistrate hesitated for a moment, then stammered, "This... Tangxia Village has not had a coroner for many years, only a doctor who occasionally serves as one."
He said with some grievance, "Back then, it was Dr. Zheng who wrote the protective prescription."
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