The two maids who had accompanied the bride stepped forward in fear and trepidation. Their bodies trembled slightly, and what was surprising was that both of them had large, red, swollen bumps on their heads.
A maidservant recounted the story in tears: "Just half an hour ago, the eldest mistress called for frogs and came. We chased the frogs away for her for a while. Then the eldest mistress said she wanted to talk to the eldest master. So we accompanied the eldest mistress out of the second gate to the study in the front yard to look for the eldest master. Suddenly someone jumped out and knocked us unconscious."
Another maid confirmed: "That's right. When we woke up, we saw the eldest mistress in the lake and we screamed."
After they finished speaking, they started crying out of fear, their cries echoing across the still lake.
After discovering this important clue, Lin Daowei's expression became very serious.
He thought for a moment, then suddenly turned his head, staring intently at the old woman guarding the second gate, and said sternly, "You guard the second gate of both the inner and outer courtyards, so you must have seen what happened by the lake. Tell me the truth now, or you will be punished just like the murderer!"
The old woman was so frightened by Lin Daowei's shout that her body trembled uncontrollably, and her legs seemed to have lost all strength, causing her to kneel down with a thud.
She raised her head tremblingly, looking at Lin Daowei with a face full of terror. Her lips trembled, and she managed to squeeze out a sentence with great difficulty: "The...the eldest mistress...she came out of the second gate with two maids, and then walked...towards the outer courtyard. I...I looked up and saw, at the corner, those two maids collapsed one after the other as if their souls had been ripped out..."
The old woman's voice grew softer and softer until it was almost inaudible, clearly she was terrified.
Lin Daowei frowned and pressed, "And then? What did you see? Tell me quickly!"
The old woman took a deep breath, composed herself, and continued, "I was startled at the time, thinking that the two maids had accidentally fallen. I stared at them for a while, but they didn't get up, nor did the mistress call for help. I felt something was amiss, so... I quietly walked over to see what was going on..."
At this point, the old woman suddenly stopped, her body trembling uncontrollably like a leaf in the wind, as if recalling something that terrified her to the extreme.
Her lips trembled, but she couldn't make a sound, as if the terrible scene had gripped her throat tightly.
Seeing this, General Ren became even more anxious and shouted, "What did you see? Speak quickly! You must tell me everything you saw without hiding anything!" His voice was like thunder, exploding in the silent night, making the old woman's body tremble violently.
Urged on by General Ren, the old woman finally mustered her courage and stammered on, “I…I saw a man dressed in green with a green headscarf, lying on top of the naked old lady…I initially thought it was the old man, but when I looked closer, I realized it wasn’t him. The man was thin, his hair was a mess under his tattered green headscarf, his face was so dirty you couldn’t tell his skin color, and his green clothes were tattered and dirty. He looked like…like a beggar.”
"What?" General Ren and everyone present exclaimed in unison, they could hardly believe their ears.
The old woman at the second gate took deep breaths and continued, "Then, I was suddenly hit hard, and then I knew nothing more. When I woke up again, I heard someone shouting that the eldest mistress had drowned..." As she spoke, she trembled and stretched out her hand, revealing a purplish-red mark on her neck, clearly a mark of being beaten.
Lin, the head constable, knew immediately that the old woman was not lying; the purplish-red mark was made by someone striking her from behind.
After hearing what the old woman said, everyone stood frozen in place, as if under a spell, speechless, as if time itself had stopped.
They were completely unable to accept this shocking fact, and a series of questions kept flashing through their minds: "A beggar entered the general's mansion? He even defiled and killed the eldest mistress, and then threw her into the lake?"
"How is that possible? The general's mansion is so heavily guarded, how could a beggar possibly get in?"
"This beggar is incredibly audacious! He actually dared to commit such a heinous crime in the General's Mansion!"
People began to suspect that the old woman guarding the second gate might have been knocked unconscious and had mental problems, which was why she was talking nonsense.
Just then, the coroner rushed over, his face grave as he confirmed what the old woman had said: "General Ren, General Lin, constable, Madam Lin was indeed raped and murdered, stabbed in the back, and that stab took her life."
The coroner's words struck like a bolt from the blue, leaving everyone present utterly shocked.
Ren Dachuan was even more enraged. His eyes widened and he roared with fury, "Who did this? I will tear him to pieces!"
All eyes fell on Young Master Ren, whose body trembled with anger, his features contorted, his face ashen, and his hair faintly tinged with green.
Someone muttered to themselves, "Could it be that the master of the Ren family has been cuckolded by a beggar?" The thought flashed through their minds, and no one dared to think about it any further. They quickly looked away, afraid that if they looked any longer, they would anger the master of the Ren family.
Constable Lin pressed on sternly, "In this Ren residence, who wants Madam Ren dead? Who wants Madam Ren to die in this way?"
Ren Chuanhe opened his mouth to say someone's name, but Ren Guiwang grabbed him and wouldn't let him say it.
General Ren frowned, his face full of worry, and said, "Officer Lin, you can't just guess who the murderer is. We must bring the real culprit to justice before we can truly solve the case!"
"Of course I know that's how it is." Constable Lin was also helpless. The clues he had at the moment were very limited. He only knew that there were two people at the scene of the crime, one was a beggar, and the other was the real culprit hiding behind the scenes.
It's utterly baffling that the real culprit murdered Madam Lin in such a cruel and humiliating way.
Lin, the head constable, couldn't help but fall into deep thought. What kind of motive would make the murderer go to such lengths to plan such a complex case?
It wouldn't be too difficult to kill someone inside the general's mansion.
But to bring a beggar into the heavily guarded general's mansion from the outside, one would have to be an insider. And to have the beggar first insult the eldest mistress before killing him and throwing him into the lake—that must mean he harbored extremely deep hatred for the master and mistress to do such a thing.
"Guards!" Officer Lin suddenly shouted, "Take this old woman guarding the second gate and go to the street to find that beggar immediately!"
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