Chapter 9: Men Should Be Generous
"Don't be nervous, I won't bully you." Shang Wan picked up the thin blanket and wrapped Lu Chengjing's thin body tightly.
Lu Chengjing: Something seems to be wrong?
He coughed dryly, forced the subject back to his mind, and asked with concern, "Where do you and Yuanyuan live now?"
"We live in Elm Village." Shang Wan briefly told him the current situation of the four people, focusing on Chen San and the others, and asked, "Have you ever had a feud with the Lin family?"
She had a hunch that Village Chief Lin's sudden targeting of them was not just to establish his authority, and their only connection with Elm Village was Lu Chengjing.
"No." Lu Chengjing frowned, "But he deliberately targeted you, it must be related to me."
Isn't this a contradiction?
Shang Wan looked at him and said, "Speak more carefully."
"Qin Cuixiang, the daughter of Qin Lizhang, the head of Xiaohe Village, is the concubine of Li Can, the only son of Li Wenhua, the former magistrate of Dongning County. Li Can has few children. Neither his wife nor his concubines have any children. Only Qin Cuixiang gave birth to a son, who may inherit the family business in the future. The Qin and Lin families are related by marriage."
"Wait, let me sort this out." Shang Wan felt the weight of this information was a bit overwhelming, and she pressed her temple. "You're saying that the Qin family blames you for poisoning the former county magistrate, and since no one will help their grandson pave the way for success, they're taking their resentment out on us through the Lin family in-laws?"
Lu Chengjing nodded.
Shang Wan was speechless. If he wanted to take revenge, he should just do it head-on. Why did he have to go through so much trouble?
After thinking about it, she still felt something was amiss. "Shitou didn't introduce himself when he went to exchange for food. How did Village Chief Lin know that we were from the same family?"
Lu Chengjing looked at her plain bun and said, "That silver hairpin has the Lu family emblem engraved on it."
Shang Wan: “…”
So she is digging her own grave?
Lu Chengjing warned worriedly, "If one plan fails, there must be a backup plan. You guys stay in the village, so be careful."
"Don't worry about us." Shang Wan said, "First, tell me, how can I rescue you?"
Lu Chengjing stared at her face for a while. Seeing that she looked serious and didn't seem to be pretending, he couldn't help but pursed his pale lips and whispered, "There is no other way except to find out who really poisoned her."
"Then tell me the whole story of the county magistrate's poisoning from beginning to end." Shang Wan grabbed a handful of the messy hair of the person next to him and smoothed it out one by one with his eyes lowered.
Lu Chengjing moved his head uncomfortably, trying to pull his hair back.
"If you move again, you'll be the one in pain." Shang Wan kept pinching her and urged, "Hurry up and tell me. Those yamen runners should be awake soon."
Hearing this, Lu Chengjing had to suppress the discomfort in his heart and recounted the key points of the poisoning.
In fact, the matter is very simple. The day before yesterday, when Lu Chengjing went to Fuyuan Inn, he met Li Wenhua and was invited to have dinner together. Unexpectedly, the wine was poisonous. After drinking the poisonous wine, Li Wenhua bled from all seven orifices and died in a tragic way.
Lu Chengjing, however, escaped the disaster by chance because he was too weak to drink alcohol.
There were only two of them in the room. After questioning the inn staff, the yamen runners did not find any other suspicious people. The crime of poisoning the county magistrate naturally fell on Lu Chengjing.
"Poor kid." Shang Wan sighed, "Why did you go to Fuyuan Inn for no reason?"
Lu Chengjing turned his face away and pulled the hair back from Shang Wan's hand with force, breaking several strands.
Shang Wan: “…”
This little temper is really hurting himself.
She carefully recalled what she had just said, and reached out to poke Lu Chengjing's arm, "I take back what I said, unlucky kid."
Now you shouldn’t be angry anymore, right?
But Lu Chengjing's face became darker, as if someone owed him thousands of taels of silver.
Shang Wan: “…”
I guess Shitou learned his weird behavior from this guy?
"Letter." Lu Chengjing clutched the quilt with his left hand, his voice a little muffled, "I saw that letter."
What letter?
Shang Wan blinked, and a scene suddenly popped up in his mind.
The sour love words on the letter, the original owner's blushing face and rippling heart in the mirror, and the little expression of wanting to refuse but also to welcome.
Damn! Lu Chengjing actually went to Fuyuan Inn to catch an adulterer!
No wonder Shitou blamed her when he just woke up. If it weren't for that letter, Lu Chengjing would not have gone to Fuyuan Inn. If he hadn't gone to the inn, he wouldn't have met Li Wenhua, and if he hadn't met Li Wenhua, he wouldn't have been blamed for poisoning.
The original owner was delayed for some time because of Mrs. Lu's deliberate embarrassment. When he went out, the news that Lu Chengjing had poisoned the county magistrate had spread. The original owner was so scared that he fainted on the spot, and the cuckold operation naturally came to nothing.
"If I say that the letter is fake, do you believe it..." Under Lu Chengjing's stare, Shang Wan curled her lips, "Okay, you definitely don't believe it."
"But I didn't have time to cheat on you, did I?" Shang Wan said confidently, "Don't worry about things that didn't happen. Men should be more generous."
Lu Chengjing was so angry that he laughed. Shang Wan immediately took advantage of the situation and said, "Hey, if you laugh, it means you don't care."
"Okay." Lu Chengjing responded unexpectedly.
Shang Wan was stunned and looked at him carefully.
If he can tolerate being cuckolded, he must be a fake man.
"You really don't care?"
"Yeah." Lu Chengjing responded again, his expression visibly relaxed.
The woman in front of you is not Shang Wan, so why bother with her?
Shang Wan didn’t understand what Lu Chengjing was thinking, but since Lu Chengjing was so generous, could she hug him left and right in the future... Ahem, that’s getting off topic, let’s get down to business.
"Who do you think is most likely to have poisoned Li Wenhua?"
Lu Chengjing stared at her for a long while before uttering a name, "Tian Sheng."
Tian Sheng was the county magistrate of Dongning County.
Shang Wan was puzzled, "Why do you doubt him?"
"That day, he came to the inn looking for Li Wenhua with official documents from the county government, and happened to see Li Wenhua having a bout of poisoning."
Shang Wan felt that this reason was a bit far-fetched, "What if he just happened to run into it?"
"He was so surprised that he dropped the official document," Lu Chengjing recalled. "It landed at my feet. It was about the replacement of the county school teacher. As the county magistrate, he could have made the decision on such a small matter. Even if he had to consult Li Wenhua, it wasn't urgent enough for him to rush from the county office to the inn in person."
"So you think he made this trip on purpose just to witness Li Wenhua's poison attack?"
"Yeah." Lu Chengjing nodded, "I can't think of anyone else except him."
"Okay, let's check this Tian Sheng." Shang Wan said, raised his hand and covered Lu Chengjing's forehead, and found that the temperature had completely returned to normal.
Lu Chengjing could naturally feel the changes in his body. He looked at Shang Wan with his exceptionally dark eyes, "What did you just give me to drink?"
Shang Wan didn't even blink, "Water."
Lingquan water is also water.
Lu Chengjing, who felt perfunctory, said: "..."
"Although the quilt is a bit smelly and thin, it's better than not covering yourself at all." Shang Wan stood up and waved to the people on the straw mat, "Let's go."
Lu Chengjing opened his mouth to say something, but saw a green shadow flash before his eyes and disappeared with the sound of a lock being locked.
There is a hint of the fragrance of grass and trees in the air.
Lu Chengjing lowered his head, clenched the thin blanket with his left hand, and his eyes hidden in the shadows were dim.
(End of this chapter)
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