Chapter 40: No Good Banquet 19: The Truth
The house was not big, and the fact that County Magistrate Bi and Chief Clerk Qu were taken away and detained was not deliberately concealed. Mrs. Zheng was not surprised to hear about it.
Li Song pondered for a moment and understood why Madam Zheng had asked this question. Although he had no evidence to convict County Magistrate Bi, he still gave a firm and affirmative answer: "Yes."
Madam Zheng took a deep breath and stopped hiding things. "Ten days ago, Magistrate Bi came to me and ordered me to find Zheng Shu and inquire about the whereabouts of the disaster relief money. After Magistrate Zheng's accident, I hadn't been in touch with Shu'er for years, so I naturally didn't want to go. But Magistrate Bi said that he was a government official, and if I refused, my children would be in danger... I had no choice but to come here shamelessly... I was really forced..."
Madam Zheng wiped her face with her sleeve as she spoke. Her sobs echoed throughout the courtyard, startling even the slumbering birds. Her features were pressed together, as if she were overcome with grief and helplessness. But Xun Shu stared at her wrinkled cheeks and saw no trace of moisture.
It was actually County Magistrate Bi who brought Old Madam Zheng here.
Many things that had previously been elusive were now connected, the fog dissipating, revealing a truth so ludicrous and terrifying it chilled people to the bone. Qiu Anping, kneeling on the ground, suddenly threw his head back and burst into laughter, as if he had gone mad. This startled Madam Zheng so much that she stopped crying.
Qiu Ping'an laughed until tears came out. When his laughter subsided a little, he gasped and said, "I didn't want to say much, but it's really too ridiculous. I saw a good show these days. I wonder if you are interested in listening?" After the voice fell, he continued without paying attention to the reactions of others, "On the second night after County Magistrate Zhao died, I had nothing to do and slept all day. I woke up in the middle of the night and happened to run into Bi Da leaving his room. I followed him and when I followed him to the courtyard of Feng Zhishu and Yang Yong, I was caught and couldn't follow any further. Guess what I saw? I saw Feng Zhishu opening the door for Bi Da. The two of them seemed to have made an appointment. After meeting, they didn't say a word and tacitly entered the courtyard. I was thinking at the time that these two people must have some secrets. If I hadn't been caught, I wouldn't have been able to continue eavesdropping... Humph.
"This morning, I was indeed resting in my room, but at noon, there was a knock on the courtyard door. Bi Da was in the courtyard at the time, but he didn't go to open the door. About a quarter of an hour later, he got up and left, and I quietly followed him again. This time he went directly to the back garden and stopped in the woods. I followed him closely, watching him standing in the woods, looking towards the grave - no, the rockery.
"Over at the rockery, Feng Zhishu and Yang Yong were pointing and talking at the pond. Suddenly, Feng Zhishu pulled out a dagger and stabbed Yang Yong. The strike missed, and the two men began to wrestle. While they were fighting, Feng Zhishu glanced toward the woods, probably asking Bida for help, but Bida stood close to the trees, not even a corner of his clothes showing. I guess Bida must have agreed to help Feng Zhishu kill Yang Yong, but Bida turned against him and watched Feng Zhishu fall to the ground and die.
"After Feng Zhishu fell to the ground, Bida turned and left. I don't know where he went, but he definitely didn't tell everyone that Feng Zhishu was dead immediately. I guess he went to destroy the evidence. Feng Zhishu came to find Zheng Shu, urging Zheng Shu to avenge his father to prevent him and Bida's actions from going astray. Bida hid it from Feng Zhishu and wanted to use Old Lady Zheng to find out the whereabouts of the money first and keep the money for himself. You see, this is the officials of your Chaozhou County Government. They all have their own ulterior motives and are killing each other. Everyone has their own shameful intentions and wants to keep the disaster relief money for themselves." Qiu Ping'an's eyes swept over the people in the courtyard, and there was a hint of pity. "Yes, maybe you have been in the quagmire for a long time, otherwise how could anyone have the idea of taking the disaster relief money? It's pitiful, sad..."
The soft sighs filled with helplessness were more touching than the deafening wails. For a moment, everyone was speechless, not knowing what to say or do.
Suddenly, blood began to flow from the corners of Qiu Anping's mouth, followed by blood from his nostrils and eyes, which quickly formed a small pool on the ground. He collapsed sideways, his face twisted with pain, but the traces of mockery and pity remained.
The Dali Temple personnel quickly stepped forward, felt his pulse and breath, and confirmed that he was dead. Li Song angrily said, "Didn't you check his teeth? Didn't you find any hidden poison?"
"Your Excellency, we checked, and there's nothing in his mouth!"
He Xuan stepped forward, grasped Qiu Anping's jaw, and with a little force, pried his mouth open. He examined him inside and out and said, "It's not a wax pill. He must have taken poison long ago." He leaned over and carefully searched the body. After a moment, he took out a small porcelain bottle, uncorked it, and smelled it. He confirmed, "This must be the antidote. He knew the Dali Temple's methods and took the poison before coming here. If he didn't take the antidote before the poison took effect, he would have died from the poison and avoided the torture."
Li Song's face was gloomy. He stared at the man who had already died on the ground and said harshly, "There are still many questions I haven't asked."
"You can't get any information from them." He Xuan stood up and took out a handkerchief to carefully wipe his fingers. "Even if someone manages to survive by chance, they won't say anything."
He Xuan retreated to Xun Shu's side, and seeing her frowning face, he couldn't help but ask, "Is there anything you can't figure out?"
Xun Shu paused, then spoke slowly, "I don't understand. County Magistrate Bi was Governor Ouyang's subordinate, and so was Qiu Anping. So why did he reveal all this before he died? Were they supposed to be on the same side? Or was Governor Ouyang unaware of what these two men were doing?"
How could he not know?
As the governor of a prefecture, Governor Ouyang was the superior of Magistrate Zheng and Magistrate Feng. If Magistrate Zheng and Magistrate Feng wanted to do something, how could they bypass Governor Ouyang? If he was involved, how could he be so confident in the safety of such a large sum of disaster relief funds hidden somewhere when he hadn't set foot in Chaozhou in all these years? He would certainly have someone monitoring him.
Bi Da was that person. As for Qiu Anping, He Xuan took a last look at his body and said, "Maybe, who knows."
-
Before his death, Qiu Anping only spoke of the dispute between County Magistrate Feng and General Yang, and did not admit to killing Yang Yong. However, after all other candidates for the murderer were ruled out, the Dali Temple still closed the case as the murderer.
Now, Qiu Anping is dead, and Yang Yong is also dead. No one knows what happened in the end that day. Everyone has their own speculations. It is impossible to tell who is right and who is wrong, but it doesn’t matter anymore.
At dawn the next day, people from the Dali Temple searched the residences of County Magistrate Feng, General Yang, and Bida inside and out. They found all the missing daggers and a Yibu Jue in a porcelain bottle under General Yang's bed. It was unknown whether this was a frame-up that County Magistrate Feng had planned before he took action.
Armed with Qiu Anping's confession and the testimony of everyone who had witnessed that night, County Lieutenant Bi abandoned his defenses and confessed everything. He insisted, however, that the killing of General Yang was County Magistrate Feng's idea. He was not an undercover agent planted by Governor Ouyang in Chaozhou, nor did he know the relief funds were hidden in Zhao's residence. He was willing to assist in the murder only because County Magistrate Feng coerced him into it. As for his inaction in the garden, it was because he didn't want to commit further evil, and so he stopped helping County Magistrate Feng.
No one believed his story, but no one could find any evidence linking him to the disaster relief funds or the murder ordered by Governor Ouyang. Fortunately, he was implicated in Magistrate Zhao's death, so Li Song quickly arrested him and prepared to bring him back to the capital to be handed over to Qin Yuan, the Minister of Justice, for personal judgment.
Overnight, the Zhao residence fell into complete decline. Where only a few days before, the place had been bustling with guests, now only half the people were still alive. Qu Zhubu, now free, excused himself to return to the government office to handle official business and hurried out of the Zhao residence, unwilling to delay any further. Unaware of what had transpired that night, Fang Yan hesitated as he hesitated to stay with Xun Shu until Qu Zhubu persuaded him to leave.
Only the people from the Dali Temple, Xun Shu and He Xuan had not left yet.
Actually, he was about to leave. After packing up the house he had lived in, Xun Shu went to the yard and saw He Xuan and Li Song chatting and laughing under the pomegranate tree.
The sun was shining brightly in the courtyard, with a gentle breeze blowing. Two young men stood side by side, full of vigor and vitality, making people unable to help but take a few more glances.
Hearing the sound of the door opening, the two turned to look at her. Li Song straightened up and stated his purpose straight out of the door: "Miss Xun, I came here today to ask for a favor."
Xun Shu glanced at He Xuan and saw that he was concentrating on fiddling with a leaf in his hand, as if he hadn't heard what the two were saying. Then she looked away and looked at Li Song. She walked a few steps in front of the two of them and stopped, not agreeing immediately. "Tell me what you want first, and then I'll consider whether to help you."
Li Song was speechless, thinking that this girl was indeed saying the same thing as He Xuan. He turned serious and said, "Young lady, you should have figured out the case from five years ago. The disaster relief money back then was quite a large sum, and its whereabouts remain unknown. I've heard that your Qimen skills are extremely advanced, so I'd like to ask for your help in calculating where the money is hidden."
Xun Shu was surprised and said, "You should have known where the money was hidden long ago. Why are you still calculating it?"
He Xuan couldn't say much, so Li Song could only explain with a wry smile, "Five years ago, after County Magistrate Zheng was executed and the Zheng family moved out of this house, the people from the Dali Temple searched every corner, leaving no brick or tile untouched. When they discovered that the pond in the backyard was newly built, they immediately sent people underwater to search every corner, but they found nothing."
Xun Shu said cautiously, "That pond is indeed strange. I heard from Zheng that before the pond was dug, people from the Si Tian Pavilion came to inspect it. The people from the Si Tian Pavilion are well versed in feng shui for residential buildings, and they would never build a pond that is not beneficial to feng shui. There must be other reasons."
He Xuan raised his eyes and looked tentatively at Xun Shu across from him: "I remember that you can observe the celestial phenomena and predict the wind and clouds. Can the people in the Sitian Pavilion also do the same?"
Xun Shu lowered his eyes and didn't look at He Xuan: "Observing the celestial phenomena is very simple. Most people in the Xuanmen sect know how to do it. From small things like wind and rain to big things like floods and droughts, they can all be predicted in advance."
"If it was the flood five years ago, how long in advance would we have known about it?"
Xun Shu pursed her lips, clutched her dress, and whispered after a while, "If he really was a disciple of Si Tian Pavilion, we would have known about it half a year in advance. But Si Tian Pavilion was destroyed many years ago, so how could there be any disciples of Si Tian Pavilion..."
Li Song and He Xuan exchanged a glance, and Li Song smiled, saying, "Young lady, you've lived in Chaozhou for a long time, so I'm afraid you might not know this. Four years ago, a disciple of the Sitian Pavilion entered the imperial court and became a state teacher. If you'd like to go to the capital, I can introduce you. You two are kindred spirits, so perhaps you could have something to talk about."
A disciple of the Sitian Pavilion? Xun Shu's pupils trembled, her mind blank, and she felt as stiff as an ice sculpture. She reached out to hold onto the edge of the stone table, bracing herself. The coolness of the stone table seeped into her palms, easing her into a deeper state of consciousness.
"So that's the case... If he really was a disciple of the Sitian Pavilion, he should have been able to predict the flood that year and lead everyone to escape."
He Xuan seemed oblivious to her annoyance and speculated, "If the disciple from the Sitian Pavilion who entered Zhao's residence that year had observed the celestial phenomena and predicted a natural disaster six months from now, and County Magistrate Zheng and his men had planned to steal the disaster relief funds in advance, digging a pond in the backyard to hide the money, then all this would make sense."
The people of Sitian Pavilion are the most upright, how could they do such a wicked thing? Xun Shu thought so in his heart, but in the end he said nothing.
Now that the search for the relief money had reached a deadlock, Xun Shu couldn't just sit back and watch. She sat down at the stone table and pulled a palm-sized copper plate from her bag. She asked about the date of the incident and confirmed some of the circumstances. Then, under the two men's intense gazes, she fiddled with the plate a few times and confirmed, "The time stem is Ren and Gui. Your judgment is correct. The relief money is undoubtedly by the water."
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