The government office?
What about the government office? I dared to kill someone right in front of the Ministry of Justice. Is it so difficult to kill a mere seventh-rank Jingli?
Xu Qi An pressed down his hand, and the sharp black-gold long saber instantly sliced through the Jingli’s nape. The latter felt the pain at the back of his neck and the warm blood flowing out.
He dares to kill me… The Jingli’s heart tightened, and he looked anxiously at the other night watchmen, hoping they would stop this lawless comrade.
But the attitude of Song Tingfeng and others made the Jingli’s heart sink. They were calm, indifferent, and stood by with folded arms. He had heard of the notorious reputation of the night watchmen, especially their arrogance, but he couldn’t believe that they would dare to kill a government official in the yamen.
Song Tingfeng met his gaze, smiling with narrowed eyes, “Jingli, you’ve embezzled the estate of a government official. Even if we don’t kill you now, we’ll find a way to finish you off once you’re locked up in jail.”
Tang Yinluo added, “This is our usual method as night watchmen. By then, it won’t be just about the estate.”
“This lowly official… admits his mistake,” the Jingli swallowed, his face pale as he accepted his fate.
Only then did Xu Qi An withdraw his blade, kicking the Jingli, “Go, summon everyone who received bribes to the main hall. This official will interrogate them one by one.”
The Jingli, covering his bleeding neck, staggered away.
Once his silhouette disappeared, Xu Qi An turned his attention back to examining the belongings.
“Were you afraid that evidence among the belongings would be embezzled, making the case unsolvable?” Tang Yinluo carefully asked.
“If Zhou Min truly left clues among his belongings, he wouldn’t have chosen valuable items that might tempt people’s greed,” Xu Qi An said, looking up at him. “I just want to retrieve what belongs to Zhou Min and return it to his family once the case is closed.”
“Your moral character is admirable,” Tang Yinluo praised, then added, “Although you’re quite lecherous.”
No, this is just basic morality… Only scum who don’t even spare the dead’s possessions are truly despicable, Xu Qi An thought to himself.
Besides, can a man’s affairs be called lechery? It’s a case of a gentleman’s fondness for beautiful ladies.
Xu Qi An recalled a joke he had read before: Although I drink, smoke, have tattoos, and frequent nightclubs, I know I’m a good girl.
Although I freeload, freeload, and freeload some more, I know I’m a good man…
About ten minutes later, an official wearing a blue robe embroidered with white pheasants entered the storehouse, followed by the Jingli with his neck wound simply bandaged, and another official wearing a blue robe embroidered with egrets.
In the official circles, one could tell someone’s rank just by looking at their official robes, and thus guess their identity. For instance, this blue-robed official with white pheasant embroidery was of the sixth rank, and in the yamen, only the Prefect was of the proper sixth rank.
The saying “recognize the clothes, not the person” originated from official circles.
The round-faced, middle-aged, and portly Prefect warmly approached. When he reached Xu Qi An and the others, he said with deep remorse:
“This official is ashamed. This official has failed to properly manage his subordinates, allowing them to commit such disgraceful acts.”
He continued his self-criticism while taking out a bulging, heavy small package, “Here are 150 taels, part of Zhou Jingli’s belongings. This official has already recovered them for him.”
There was no need to use the art of reading qi for such a trivial matter. The fact that a prefect of a state could make such a concession was actually due to the Provincial Governor’s influence. Xu Qi An had anticipated this and thus acted fearlessly.
If the Prefect hadn’t complied, he would have gone to Provincial Governor Zhang to file a complaint, though the likelihood of such a situation was low. He believed a state prefect would have the intelligence to handle this properly.
So, Xu Qi An reached out to accept it, weighed it a few times, and didn’t press the matter further.
“Prefect, please help prepare a carriage. This official needs to take Zhou Jingli’s belongings back to the courier station,” Xu Qi An said.
The Prefect first glanced at the one with a silver gong embroidered on his chest. Seeing him remain silent, he understood that the bronze gong bearer who spoke to him was in charge.
“Certainly, certainly.”
Xu Qi An left two Tiger Guard soldiers to cooperate with the yamen runners in transporting Zhou Min’s belongings back to the courier station. They then rode horses out of the city, accompanied by a quick-footed constable from the yamen.
Zhou Min’s body was buried in a public cemetery thirty Li outside the city. In this era, public cemeteries were more like the public graveyards of the previous life, with tombstones stretching one after another.
Those buried in the public cemetery were all from poor families. Those with better financial circumstances would hire a feng shui master to select a burial site.
“Gentlemen, Zhou Jingli’s grave is over there,” the constable pointed to a willow tree with a small mound beneath it.
Several Tiger Guard soldiers took the iron shovels hanging from their saddle hooks and began digging open the grave, one shovel at a time. As soil flew, there was a dull “thud” as the shovel hit the coffin.
The Tiger Guard soldiers wiped away the soil from the outside of the coffin, and with a “clang,” they pried open the thin coffin. A foul stench rushed out.
Everyone stepped back a few paces. Warriors with keen senses of smell found it even more unbearable.
Xu Qi An took out a porcelain bottle and distributed the small pills inside to everyone. These were anti-epidemic and disinfectant pills given by the Astronomical Bureau’s Daoist priests.
Then, covering his nose and mouth, he walked to the edge of the coffin.
A male corpse in white clothes lay quietly, its iron-gray face facing the sky.
His skin was a blue-black color, covered with bruises of varying depths. Several holes had rotted through his face, with maggots wriggling in the flesh cavities.
The body was slightly swollen, a phenomenon caused by the skin tissue being filled with putrid gases after death. At this point, even the slightest touch would cause the skin to rupture, spraying foul-smelling bloody water.
Xu Qi An had learned about this before, but it was his first time seeing it.
… My goodness, I’m about to break down. Xu Qi An forcibly suppressed the surging gastric acid and said in a deep voice, “Undo his clothes.”
The Tiger Guard soldier looked at him resignedly: “Yes…”
Half an hour later, Xu Qi An finished examining the body and preliminarily determined that it was indeed not caused by external force. He didn’t find any fatal wounds on the body.
After reburying Zhou Min’s grave, the yamen clerk led them to wash in a nearby stream, then they returned to Baidi City.
The cause of death can be pretty much confirmed, it was done by the Witch God Cult… killing in dreams, the method of a fourth-rank witch… Then wouldn’t it be very easy for him to kill us?
The only clue at present is half a jade pendant, but with just a jade pendant and no more information, where do we start…
They returned to the courier station at two-thirty in the afternoon. Provincial Governor Zhang was there with a group of bronze and silver gong bearers, turning Zhou Min’s belongings over and over, looking for clues.
“You’ve been looking for an hour, have you found anything?” Provincial Governor Zhang frowned.
The night watchmen shook their heads.
“Wasn’t Zhou Min an undercover agent for the night watchmen? Don’t you night watchmen have contact codes?” Provincial Governor Zhang questioned sternly.
“It doesn’t match at all,” a silver gong bearer said in a muffled voice.
“Could it have been taken away or destroyed by the killer long ago? What’s left for us are just some useless items,” another silver gong bearer speculated.
“It’s been half a month, all the clues must be gone. How can we solve it now? No one can,” a bronze gong bearer muttered.
Useless… Provincial Governor Zhang felt a bit irritated. He came from a background as a censor and wasn’t familiar with criminal cases. He could only rely on these night watchmen, but while the night watchmen were good at fighting, they were somewhat amateur at investigating cases.
“Let’s just have a Daoist priest question Yang Chuannan directly.”
“Nonsense!” Provincial Governor Zhang snorted, “For those of the fourth rank and above, accusations from Daoist priests are not admissible. I know Yang Chuannan is colluding with mountain bandits, but where’s the evidence? Without evidence, how can we punish him? How can we punish a second-rank Commander?”
The night watchmen sighed and shook their heads.
“Alright, Governor, don’t trouble them anymore. Zhou Min indeed didn’t use any code,” Jiang Luzhong shook his head, feeling the case was thorny.
He had originally thought Zhou Min would use the night watchmen’s unique code for contact clues, guiding them to find evidence, but after checking the belongings, there was no discovery.
“It’s also possible that it was destroyed by the killer,” Provincial Governor Zhang said helplessly.
“Then what should we do?” a silver gong bearer asked.
“We can only count on Liu Nianyan,” Provincial Governor Zhang said, “He was able to find flaws in the tax silver case from the files, and uncover Lady Pingyang’s old case in the Sangbo case. He might be able to investigate this unsolved case of Zhou Min.”
“But how to investigate?”
“How would I know?” Provincial Governor Zhang glared at the bronze gong bearer who spoke.
At this moment, Xu Qi An just walked in, followed by the accompanying night watchmen and Tiger Guard soldiers.
Provincial Governor Zhang’s eyes lit up: “How was the autopsy result?”
“It’s the same as the yamen’s autopsy report. There won’t be any discoveries from the corpse,” Xu Qi An replied.
The governor nodded with some disappointment, then said, “I heard you injured the yamen’s Jingli?”
“I knew my limits. I wouldn’t kill anyone,” Xu Qi An pointed at these belongings, “Any clues?”
The night watchmen shook their heads.
“We didn’t find any contact code. Perhaps it was destroyed,” Jiang Luzhong sighed, “Nianyan, we can only rely on you now.”
He then looked around at everyone and said solemnly, “All of you, learn from this. Watch how he solves the case. Whoever can learn even one or two-tenths of his skill, I’ll personally focus on training you.”
These bronze and silver gong bearers were all under his command.
Jiang Luzhong had always wanted Xu Qi An, but Lord Wei wouldn’t give him up. He could only resort to this strategy, having Xu Qi An come to train the night watchmen under his command.
Xu Qi An found a place to sit down. Instead of continuing to examine the belongings, he pondered for a moment: “Are the night watchmen yamen’s codes confidential?”
Jiang Luzhong said, “Silver gong bearers and above all know them, as do the bronze gong bearers who have had contact with undercover agents.”
“Then they’re not confidential enough,” Xu Qi An poured himself a cup of water and said:
“Zhou Min very likely didn’t use the yamen’s contact code.”
“How do you figure?” a silver gong bearer asked.
Xu Qi An analyzed, “If the code had a high level of confidentiality, the killer couldn’t have accurately found and destroyed the clues among all the belongings. In that case, we should have found the code by now. But we haven’t.
“If the confidentiality level was low, Zhou Min, as an experienced undercover agent of twenty years, thoughtful and meticulous, how could he possibly use such a crude method? It would be too easy to decipher. So this matter is not complicated. There’s only one answer: he used other means to hide the evidence.”
The night watchmen exchanged silent glances, all somewhat shocked.
“That’s right, it’s like that. At first glance, there seemed to be no leads, but actually, there’s only one possibility: Zhou Min used other methods to hide the evidence.”
The night watchmen excitedly clapped their hands, feeling suddenly enlightened.
Provincial Governor Zhang nodded slightly, then frowned, “But we’re also at a loss now. How do we find the evidence he hid?”
Xu Qi An said, “Then let’s analyze from the beginning…”