Chapter 448: Twists and turns
Xuanyuan Ling was going to investigate this matter personally. After all, this matter was related to the palace's secrets, so naturally, the people who came to investigate were not officials from the Ministry of Justice, but some people who worked in the palace. These people were naturally shrewd people and were quite polite to Shen Zhizhuo. They would not assume that Shen Zhizhuo was hiding something just because he didn't know about it for a day. After listening to Shen Zhizhuo say this, they asked about Shen Zhizhuo's relationship with the Lin family.
The Lin family is the family of the girl who lost one eye due to teasing by the younger brother of the Qiao family.
Shen Zhizhuo only said that he was invited to the Lin family for a birthday banquet, and there was no other contact after that.
The person in charge found out about it, but didn't investigate Chen Zhizhuo for a while.
In fact, he asked Shen Zhizhuo first just to find out whether Shen Zhizhuo was involved in this matter. This was also because he was concerned about the intentions of the Empress Xianfei. Since Shen Zhizhuo said it was okay, he would let go and investigate.
The first thing to investigate was naturally the cause of death of the Qiao family. This family was indeed wiped out. When asking people around, they all had the same story about the family's experience. What everyone knew was that the young master of the Qiao family committed a crime and was arrested. Later, he was sentenced to exile, but he was unlucky and died on the road. The old man of the Qiao family vomited blood and died, and the wife of the Qiao family also committed suicide.
Now that the body has been buried, we have no choice but to open the coffin to find out the cause of death.
The people from the palace were very efficient and dug up the man's grave that very night.
The wife of the Qiao family was hanged, and the young master of the Qiao family was stabbed to death. According to the explanation, it was natural and normal. However, the old man of the Qiao family said that he died of vomiting blood and illness. Upon examination, the body showed signs of poisoning.
This is obviously wrong. We know there is something fishy about this matter. Now the cause of this person's death is also fishy, so there must be something fishy going on here.
The cause of Qiao's death is in doubt, so the next step is naturally to investigate the official who judged the case.
The other party had no idea that someone in the palace would investigate the matter, so he immediately explained the whole story and said that he was right to sentence her to exile, and that the young master of the Qiao family had indeed ruined the girl's appearance and blinded one eye.
But the official was no fool after all. After asking around, he mentioned the virtuous concubine, Shen Zhizhuo, and the fact that the emperor knew about the matter. The official could only beg for mercy, saying that the case was at a stalemate at the time, and both sides were family members of officials, so no matter how he ruled, he would offend people.
However, the Lin family came to his house and said that they knew Shen Zhizhuo, and hinted that dragging out the case would damage his reputation. When he asked, he found out that Shen Zhizhuo had once eaten at the Lin family's banquet. In Jinzhou today, everyone knew that Shen Zhizhuo was only demoted for blowing up the dike. Everyone guessed that he would be promoted sooner or later, so naturally they did not dare to offend him and would give him any face they could.
When this was said, the person in charge suddenly reacted. Well, it was funny. The person who made the judgment on this matter thought that Shen Zhizhuo had interfered, but Shen Zhizhuo, who was accused of having interfered, had no idea at all.
In this case, what Lady Qiao knew was indeed correct. As for the result, it was indeed Shen Zhizhuo who intervened, and the other party made the judgment for Shen Zhizhuo's sake. If it were not for the fact that they dug up the grave in advance and found that the cause of Mr. Qiao's death was unusual, no matter who looked at it, this was indeed a tragic accident.
But the more we investigate, the more strange things become.
In the end, it all depends on the Lin family.
Master Lin didn't expect that someone from the palace would come to investigate this matter. He was stunned for a moment, and then wondered if it was Concubine Qiao in the palace?
He naturally knew that the Qiao family had a daughter entering the palace. It was precisely because the Qiao family had a daughter entering the palace that this case was difficult to judge. Now he was also afraid of people coming to the palace. He only heard that the virtuous concubine was favored in the palace, but he had never heard that the Qiao family's daughter was favored. He never thought that this matter would alarm the palace. Now it was too late to regret.
Just when he was confused, someone suddenly said to him, "Lin Huan, you are so bold. You killed the entire Qiao family just to get revenge."
Master Lin was really confused: "That's not the case."
"Then why did Qiao Yu die of poisoning? Did you hold a grudge against him and kill his son first and then poison him?"
Master Lin was blamed by the day: "Absolutely not." But seeing that the other party actually found out that Master Qiao died of poisoning, it was obvious that they had already found out a lot. Now he could only grit his teeth and admit it: "I just want my poor daughter to feel at ease and let the wicked son of the Qiao family be sentenced as soon as possible. I had to ask Master Shen for help. I definitely didn't do anything to harm the world. I am the victim in this matter!"
Of course, his words were not convincing. Until this moment, the official told the story that Concubine Qiao had assassinated Concubine Xian because she knew that Shen Zhizhuo had killed the entire Qiao family. He also said that Concubine Xian was pregnant now, and if anyone was implicated in this matter, the entire family would be killed.
Master Lin was so frightened that he was dumbfounded, but he still said, "Really, I didn't. I really just invited Master Shen and didn't dare to tell Master Shen about this. I was just pretending. I didn't do anything else. I, I swear, if I really did it, I will die miserably."
At this point, he realized that this matter seemed like a trap. How did it involve the palace? He thought about it and thought that he had never thought of borrowing the power of Shen Zhizhuo. But someone said to him that the daughter of the Qiao family was in the palace and the case could not be judged. That's when he thought about it. What made him decide to invite Shen Zhizhuo was: "It was Lord Qian. Lord Qian told me that the Qiao family had a daughter in the palace and this case might not be easy to judge. I was eager to avenge my daughter, so I invited Lord Shen to come and deliberately said that I had a friendship with Lord Shen, just to make the case be judged earlier."
Master Lin was about to burst into tears: "I really didn't kill the Qiao family, Your Excellency, please understand."
"Who is Mr. Qian? Tell me in detail."
At this moment, Master Lin really hated Lord Qian. They had dealings on a daily basis, and now he had seen through what had happened. He was afraid that he was being used as a knife, so he quickly told him everything he knew.
This was quite interesting. When Mr. Lin revealed this, it became clear how many years the other party had been on the imperial examination list, who he was friends with in the past, and who his disciple was. After many twists and turns in the investigation, they actually found the Chen family.
The Chen family is a prominent family, so the people in charge were also panicked. They never expected that this matter could be traced back to the Chen family.
Of course he didn't dare to make a decision on his own after hearing this. He warned those involved in the matter not to spread it, otherwise his entire family would be killed. Then, Lord Qian was brought to Xuanyuan Ling.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
