Chapter 27 These two, master and servant, were convinced.
Seeing his disgusted expression, Jin Shu frowned slightly but remained silent.
"Besides these, what else can you see?" Li Jin stood up and looked her up and down.
Jin Shu lowered her head and examined the skeleton intently once again. After a long while, she shook her head: "It's been too long. Many features have disappeared after the skeleton has turned to white. Even with a detailed examination, the information obtained will be very limited."
“…Hmm.” Li Jin nodded, squatted down again and handed her hand to Jin Shu, “Come on up, we still need to go and meet that Granny Liu again.”
"Grandma Liu?" Jin Shu looked at her in surprise. "Could it really be her?"
Li Jin was taken aback by her conclusion. She raised her eyebrows and looked at Jin Shu, who had just crawled out of the grave, her face showing even more surprise than Jin Shu's: "How is that possible?"
After saying that, he disdainfully flung away his fan and walked ahead.
Jin Shu, who was following behind, clearly saw his back as he trembled, as if he were laughing.
So what if she pointed out the wrong murderer? Is it really worth being ridiculed? She followed behind, her heart heavy, her eyes piercing Li Jin's back like a sieve.
This leader is far too demanding, expecting her to pinpoint the murderer without telling her anything.
As she followed behind him, she raised her hand and mimed cutting fruit, moving it left and right as if she wanted to slice Li Jin into several pieces.
But to her surprise, Li Jin turned around with a half-smile, and saw her strange, almost chopping-meat-like manner completely.
In the woods, under the bright sun, birds chirped and the wind rustled through the new leaves.
The two were extremely awkward, their eyes meeting, with only Zhou Zheng struggling to suppress a laugh.
She even wanted to dig a hole right there and bury herself in it.
Li Jin looked her up and down, noticing her standing still and motionless. His eyebrows twitched, and he snapped his fan shut. He walked forward and, to Jin Shu's astonishment, put his arm around her shoulder.
Like good brothers, they put their arms around each other's shoulders and said, "Li Jin may not be very talented, but he has been on the battlefield for more than ten years. He can see through any little thing that happens behind the scenes."
He smiled and patted Jin Shu's shoulder repeatedly: "I must say that you are wrong, Mr. Jin. Once you enter the Six Doors, you are all brothers who have gone through thick and thin together. If there is any dissatisfaction between brothers, please speak up. I am a magnanimous person and will not take your life."
His smile was radiant and he looked incredibly sincere, but it didn't seem like he had a broad mind at all.
Jin Shu was at her wit's end. She glanced at Zhou Zheng stiffly, her eyes filled with pleading for help.
The meaning was indeed conveyed accurately, and Zhou Zheng understood it correctly, but his reaction was too confusing.
He coughed lightly, turned away right in front of Jin Shu, and pretended not to see her.
The master and servant were both satisfied.
One was Li Jin, who wouldn't let go until she got to the bottom of things; the other was Zhou Zheng, who had "good luck" written on his back. She pursed her lips and, with great effort, managed to say with a smile, "It's a misunderstanding, a misunderstanding."
These two words were clearly not enough to appease Li Jin.
She gritted her teeth, basking in Li Jin's radiant smile, and finally couldn't bear it any longer, telling the truth: "The main problem is... Your Highness has intelligence, but I don't. The information is already unequal, and I couldn't even identify the murderer before being ridiculed by Your Highness..."
Her quick revelation surprised Li Jin.
Jin Shu, who rarely expresses her thoughts, actually needs to be pushed a bit before she'll honestly share her true feelings.
Li Jin smiled and released her hand from her shoulder, then took out two already opened letters from his chest.
Unlike ordinary envelopes, the envelope in his hand was pure black with gilded patterns, and in the lower right corner, the words "Omniscient" were written in small characters.
“Actually, it’s not Magistrate Lin’s fault that we can’t find anyone connected to that woman. Some information simply can’t be found openly.” He took the letter out of his hand, flicked it slightly, and presented it to Jin Shu.
Under the sunlight, Jin Shu could see clearly that the letter was covered with symbols, and she couldn't find a single word she recognized.
But Li Jin didn't explain, and continued on his own: "The victim, Miss Lian, had very few social connections, only interacting with Granny Liu. So, I had someone check Granny Liu's social circle as well."
He chuckled: "This Granny Liu is well-behaved in Xiaolin Village, but she's a famous old woman in Yiyang City, fifteen miles away. She has more than a dozen girls under her wing, who are arranged by her to do shady business. And her customers are all well-known wealthy merchants and patrons in Yiyang City."
Li Jin looked at Jin Shu, who was looking on in surprise, and said, "She holds the girls' weaknesses in her hands and uses the smallest favors to keep them firmly under her control."
Hearing this, Jin Shu felt a chill run down her spine.
She never judged a person's actions by their greatest evils, but what she saw and heard now shocked her immensely.
The pearls and jewels in her room, the Tang-style glazed porcelain on her table, the jade bracelet on her wrist, her pre-Qingming Longjing tea, her white jade hairpin...
They actually used such despicable methods to skin these girls alive, tearing off their flesh and blood in exchange for it.
“And I suspect that the leverage that Lian has over her is related to the death of her husband a year ago,” Li Jin said. “Perhaps, Lian herself killed her husband with her own hands.”
Upon hearing this, Jin Shu looked up in surprise, her mouth opening and closing, but she couldn't utter a single word for a long time.
Seeing her shocked expression, Li Jin finally spoke after a long while: "In any case, it still comes down to the evil in human nature."
After walking for a quarter of an hour, we walked from the grave to the grove of trees, and after a few steps, we stood in front of Granny Liu's house.
After Magistrate Xiaolin repaired the tomb, he lit three incense sticks, arranged the offerings, and then hurriedly caught up with the tomb.
It was still that same mud-brick courtyard, with a crooked wooden fence and a rotten, mottled gate, bearing the marks of time.
When Granny Liu saw Li Jin again, she was clearly not as calm as before, especially when she saw Magistrate Lin being extremely respectful to her, which made her even more uneasy.
She opened the door obsequiously, trying to be evasive in her attitude and hoping to win over the official in front of her.
"Oh, sir, you're here again!" He opened the door, pursed his lips, and tried to get closer to Li Jin. "Um, sir, about that painting we talked about last time, are you interested? I'll wrap it up for you."
Li Jin chuckled softly, squinting at her: "Hold her down."
After saying that, he strode forward and went into the house.
Today, Li Jin will ask clearly and thoroughly about where these valuable items in Granny Liu's house came from, why they are here, what she is doing in secret, and what their connection is to Miss Lian's death.
Even if it means digging three feet into the ground, we must uncover the truth.
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