Seeing this situation, Ji Yinshu and the others didn’t press further.
They waited until Li Yuan’s condition gradually improved.
After a long while!
Li Mingzhou finally lifted his head and looked at everyone, taking a deep breath.
His Adam’s apple rolled for a long time, as if the words he’d been brewing for ages finally came out. At last, he lowered his eyes and said helplessly, “That’s right, A’Yuan isn’t completely mad. Most of the time, he’s normal. This is an illness he contracted many years ago.”
“Can you tell us now?”
He nodded. “Alright, I’ll speak.”
His tone was heavy!
The surroundings were very quiet. No one made a sound, and no one interrupted Li Mingzhou’s words.
Speak!
Speak!
Our ears are all perked up!
The rough Constable Zhang even dug at his ears, wanting to hear more clearly.
Fang Mingsan leaned forward, lest his ears catch the wind and miss something!
As for Wen Lingyang, he quickly opened his notebook and picked up his pen, afraid to miss even the slightest clue.
As for Ji Yinshu, she concentrated fully on watching Li Mingzhou and Li Yuan.
However—
After waiting for a long time, Li Mingzhou stammered but couldn’t get out half a word.
His entire demeanor was complex and conflicted!
Ji Yinshu scrutinized his expression thoroughly, when suddenly—she noticed a pendant hanging around Li Yuan’s neck.
A pendant made of azure luan stone!
When she clearly saw the pattern on that pendant, her heart suddenly trembled!
After her mind buzzed for a moment, she instantly understood something. All the various clues also fell into place bit by bit.
She steadied her breath and said to Li Mingzhou, who had yet to speak, “If you find it difficult, then how about I speak instead, and you just answer yes or no, or even just nod or shake your head.”
What?
Ji Yinshu already knows?
As soon as these words came out, everyone’s gaze instantly focused on her in unison.
Ji Yinshu composed herself: “The two characters ‘Shangxi’ carved on Miss Yu Yin’s bracelet—I think they don’t refer to you, but rather to Li Yuan, correct?”
She waited for Li Mingzhou’s response!
After a moment, Li Mingzhou, head bowed, nodded.
Then he lifted his head and asked, “How did you know?”
“It’s not difficult.”
She pointed at the pendant on Li Yuan’s neck and explained, “Although the pattern embroidered on your collar is the same as that embroidered on Miss Yu Yin’s gauze, the pattern carved on this azure luan stone around Li Yuan’s neck is also the same as Miss Yu Yin’s pattern. However, the pattern on this azure luan stone is even more exquisite, and moreover, it was carved by hand. The rope connecting the pendant is red, so one can imagine it should have been a gift from a woman. Apart from Miss Yu Yin, I can’t think of anyone else.
More importantly, azure luan stone belongs to a category of twin stones. When a woman wishes to entrust her feelings, she will often give a piece of azure luan stone to the other person. The fact that it’s hand-carved with the same pattern as on Miss Yu Yin’s gauze shows that the person Miss Yu Yin truly wished to entrust her feelings to was actually not you, but Li Yuan. Am I right?”
So it turns out, they’d made a huge mistake earlier!
The person Miss Yu Yin truly liked was this sometimes-mad, sometimes-normal Li Yuan.
However, Li Mingzhou neither nodded nor shook his head!
Presumably, he tacitly acknowledged it!
Everyone was so dumbfounded their eyeballs nearly fell out!
This was absolutely huge news.
Zhuo Wei, are you sure you don’t want to dig into this?
Even secretly photographing would work.
Ji Yinshu asked, “Then, is Li Yuan one of the seven original leaders from back then?”
At this, Li Mingzhou nodded!
Of the seven brothers, six had now appeared.
However, Ji Yinshu didn’t know that Yun Tongyang was also one of them!
She didn’t plan to pursue this question further.
Instead, she said, “Fine. I don’t care what exactly happened between Li Yuan and the three deceased twenty years ago, but the one thing that can be confirmed is that Miss Yu Yin was acting on Li Yuan’s instructions, pretending to be a ghost to frighten the three deceased. Then he could use this opportunity to kill the deceased, and finally, he could attribute the crimes to supernatural explanations. Of course, there are two possibilities here. Either he really didn’t kill anyone and only saw the murderer, which is why he kept talking about vengeful ghosts claiming lives, or it’s the scenario I’m about to describe.
Actually, you knew early on that Li Yuan would go kill people. You must have tried to stop him during that time, but he didn’t listen. Setting aside how the first two deceased died for now, let’s just talk about Old Master Chang’s death. Not long after you left Yuzhou City that day to handle business, you heard rumors that Chang Shiliang had encountered a ghost, exactly the same situation as before the first two deceased died. So you were worried that Li Yuan would go kill again the next day, which is why you secretly rushed back overnight from the outer city. You didn’t go to your jade stone shop to get the account books at all, but instead rushed to the Chang residence, wanting to stop Li Yuan from killing. Am I right?”
Li Mingzhou said nothing, bowing his head even lower and holding Li Yuan in his arms even more tightly.
This silence seemed to represent his admission.
“The reason you went to dig up the grave in the dead of night wasn’t for your so-called thumb ring at all, but rather you had two purposes. One, you wanted to destroy the evidence, because the corpse bore the tattoo of your Liu Gang. Two, there might have been something related to Li Yuan inside the coffin, and you had to retrieve it.”
“Something?” Fang Mingsan asked. “What thing? Apart from that thumb ring, there were only some clothes and burial goods in there.”
“Then I’ll have to trouble Magistrate Fang to send people to search thoroughly in Chang Shiliang’s coffin again. Perhaps among those burial goods, there is something.”
Without a word, Fang Mingsan immediately gave the order.
Several junior constables swiftly went to handle it!
Li Mingzhou was completely rendered speechless. Everything had been laid bare by Ji Yinshu—what more did he have to say?
But Jingrong asked, “But what’s his motive for killing?”
Ji Yinshu shook her head. “That will have to wait for him to say it himself, or after Li Yuan regains consciousness, let him answer personally.”
Suddenly—
“How about I speak instead.”
A person stood outside.
It was Yu Yin.
She looked coldly at everyone and, under the watch of several constables, walked in.
Then she crouched beside Li Yuan, took out her handkerchief, and gently wiped his forehead.
“You’ve all misunderstood. A’Yuan and I aren’t in the kind of relationship you’re thinking. The person he likes is my elder sister.”
Hm?
“Twenty years ago, my sister and A’Yuan were devoted to each other and were originally going to marry. But the leaders of the Liu Gang vehemently opposed it and beat my sister to death right in front of A’Yuan. From that day on, he developed this illness.” As she spoke, she lifted the azure luan stone pendant at Li Yuan’s neck. “The pattern on this azure luan stone was personally carved by my sister and given to him. All these years, he’s kept it. In his heart, he’s never let go of my sister.”
Speaking to this point, Yu Yin’s eyes burst with hatred, as well as regret.
The tears pooling in her eyes were stubbornly “swallowed” back.
Then she stood up, straightening her neck, and said to Ji Yinshu, “A’Yuan absolutely didn’t kill anyone. Even if everything you’ve said, Mr. Ji, is correct, he still didn’t kill anyone, because on the night Chang Shiliang died, A’Yuan… he was with me.”
Li Mingzhou looked at Yu Yin in disbelief, astonished. “You’re saying the person really wasn’t killed by A’Yuan? But I clearly saw him coming out of the Chang residence.”