Looking at Wei Fu's clear and transparent eyes, which seemed to be able to see into people's hearts at a glance, the male boss could not say with certainty that he could stick to his bottom line and not accept bribes.
Many people become officials just to bring honor to their family, don’t they?
As for those who speak up for the people... there are too few, too few such people.
It is not easy to be not greedy and to help the people deal with their problems relatively fairly when they come to you.
Seeing that he was silent, Wei Fu continued, "If you are willing to confess all your crimes honestly, I can also spare your youngest son's life."
The male boss negotiated with Wei Fu and the other two: "If you release the rest of my family, I will tell you everything."
"You are too greedy. Do you think your life is worth so many lives?"
The man looked at Wei Fu for a while, knowing that Wei Fu would not give in, so he began to confess with a dejected look on his face: "I don't know how many people we killed or who they were."
"I'm originally from Bai County. After failing the imperial examination, I returned home feeling very depressed. Through an introduction, I married the daughter of the owner of a famous local bun shop. She is now my wife."
"My father-in-law only has this one daughter, so my wife has been able to make buns since she was young. Not long after we got married, my father-in-law passed away, and the bun shop was run by my wife and mother-in-law alone. As a woman, there were many inconveniences, and I was full of resentment towards the imperial examination, so I just followed him and started selling buns."
"Because I'm a scholar and quite famous in our county, our bun shop is booming, so prosperous that it's causing people to envy me. The pork sellers in the county, seeing how well we're doing, have banded together to raise the price of pig heads. Buns are supposed to be about small profits but quick turnover, and their price hike is ridiculous. They even insulted me, a scholar, for stooping to selling buns."
"I felt humiliated. My transition from scholar to businessman was a sore spot in my heart, and yet they deliberately tried to undermine me. So I pretended to agree to a price increase, but only after signing an agreement. I was afraid they would later break the contract and not supply pork. They thought they had coerced me into agreeing, and smugly agreed to sign the agreement."
"I used the excuse of going back to work out an agreement and agreed to meet them at Butcher Zhang's house in three days. In reality, I was going to buy poison. I chose to meet at Butcher Zhang's house because he was a bachelor and it would be easier to do it there."
"They were all caught off guard, and they thought a scholar like me wouldn't cause any trouble. The day I came, I brought steamed buns from my own home, some wine, some side dishes, and the agreement. They were all delighted, convinced that a scholar like me was so subservient to them. They were quite pleased, and even said that scholars know how to behave."
"I poisoned the wine before I left, and they died immediately after eating and drinking it. Seeing them die with their eyes wide open, I suddenly felt a sense of accomplishment. This sense of accomplishment reminded me of some storybooks I'd read before, about the one selling human meat buns. So I cut off their flesh piece by piece. There were hundreds of pounds of meat, enough to make a lot of buns. It was a completely profitable business."
"It was my first time killing someone, so I was a little nervous and scared. I was worried about being discovered, so I secretly carried their bodies out and dumped them on the mountain."
Long Yin asked in surprise: "You killed so many people, and you weren't discovered?" It was broad daylight, and anyone in the village could have seen it!
"When I entered the village earlier, I took a small road, avoiding the villagers, so no one saw me enter. Butcher Zhang had to get up very early every morning to slaughter pigs, and the villagers didn't want to be disturbed, so he lived in a remote place at the foot of the mountain. This made it convenient for me to kill the pig and carry the body out. After I carried the body out, I sneaked out of the village, avoiding people, and then took the main road, carrying a jar of wine, asked the villagers about Butcher Zhang's home, and then entered the village with fanfare."
"When they saw that there was 'no one' at Zhang the Butcher's house, they went to the villagers to ask if Zhang the Butcher was not at home. They also angrily complained that Zhang the Butcher wanted to break his contract. The villagers said that they had not seen Zhang the Butcher go out. Some who were a little closer could even hear him slaughtering a pig."
"In the end, the county magistrate couldn't find anything. He found the remains of Zhang the Butcher and his men in the mountains and closed the case by saying they had been mauled by wild animals while hunting. No one would have thought that a weak scholar like me could kill such powerful butchers, and several of them at that."
"I watched everyone being deceived and fooled by me, and the sense of satisfaction in my heart grew even greater. But that feeling of satisfaction didn't last long. When selling buns, I had to bargain with people over a penny, smile at them, and accept their jokes. I felt like I wanted to get rid of those people as soon as possible."
"So, if anyone crosses me, I'll remember that person and find a way to kill them. Before, nothing happened, and no one knew I was responsible. But as more and more people died in the county, it caught the attention of the higher-ups, and they sent in skilled investigators to investigate."
"I was a little scared. One day, I was not paying attention when I killed someone, and my mother-in-law noticed it. She pressed me, and I confessed. But my mother-in-law actually wanted to report me to the police and even yelled. This noise attracted the attention of my wife. During the struggle between the three of us, my wife accidentally killed my mother-in-law."
"I confessed everything to her. My wife was terrified and berated me for killing someone, for causing her to accidentally kill her own mother. She was heartbroken, but she had deep feelings for me and didn't want to report me. We were worried about being discovered by the authorities, so after burying my mother-in-law, we moved our family."
"When we arrive in an unfamiliar place, we usually attack people nearby first, because they know the situation best. In order to avoid being discovered, we never stay in one place for too long."
The people next door to the bun shop couldn't hold back any longer when they heard this. They rushed over and beat up the male boss, cursing, "How can you be so cruel, you unscrupulous people!"
"After you moved in, our family took good care of you. When your youngest child was still young, our Xiao Cui even helped you take care of the child. How could you be so cruel!"
The male boss smiled numbly: "I didn't want to kill her at first. I even thought she was a perfect match for our family. It's just that she was too smart. She accidentally discovered that we had murdered someone and even wanted to report us. So we had no choice but to kill her."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
