Episode 232

Lv Mingyue had fallen from the pagoda at Zhaoze Temple and both Song Caitang and Coroner Zhou had confirmed that she had indeed died from the fall. She had a suicide note on herself, so it looked like she had killed herself.

But there were slight bruises on the victim’s skin that showed that she had been hugged. Either someone else had been too rough with her, or the victim had done so subconsciously. Without a full autopsy, one would not be able to reach a conclusion easily. It would be hard to say for sure that this was actually a murder.

Fortunately or unfortunately for everyone involved, the coroner for this case was one Song Caitang.

She was the expert at dissecting and examining dead bodies.

According to what she found in the victim’s stomach, the victim had eaten one last meal within an hour before she died. There was a very small trace of high quality knock-out drugs, as well as drunken crabs.

Li Zhengzhi’s brows were furrowed slightly as he threw Song Caitang a sharp glance, as though he had put a few things together.

Qi Yan noticed it and unfolded his fan with great fanfare as he smirked. “Don’t you know how capable our coroner is?”

Li Zhengzhi turned back to look at Zhao Zhi. He definitely knew how capable Zhao Zhi was when it came to investigating matters.

Since Zhao Zhi dared to say such a thing, then it meant that he must have confirmed that his family was the only one who had eaten this item that day in all of Bianliang.

Li Zhengzhi’s expression shifted for just a moment, then he reverted to his calm and steady expression again. His voice was slow and reasonable, “But I’m not the only person in my entire household.”

“In my residence, even if you leave out my family, we’ve got almost a hundred servants working for us. And I’ve never been stingy with them with regard to food.”

Zhao Zhi knew that he wouldn’t admit to all this readily and wasn’t surprised. So he stared more intensely at the man and said, “What about the embroidered shoes then? The soles of these shoes match the footprints we found at the pagoda, and you’re the only one who fits these measurements.”

Li Zhengzhi straightened his sleeves and responded calmly, “If a murderer is determined to kill someone, they wouldn’t mind suffering a little if that meant they could achieve their aim. Besides, how big can a woman’s foot get? If they got embroidered shoes specially tailored for themselves, they would never be as large as a man’s. It’s just unfortunate that my feet happen to be on the small side. Is that my fault?”

Zhao Zhi went on, “But we found those shoes in your house.”

He didn’t have enough evidence to get a search warrant, so he had searched Li Zhengzhi’s house secretly and luckily, he’d managed to come back with something.

Zuo Xiuwen seemed a little surprised as he stared wide-eyed at Li Zhengzhi. If those shoes were used for the murder of Lv Mingyue, why didn’t he get rid of them? Why keep them till now? Was he waiting to get caught?

But he got his answer almost immediately.

Li Zhengzhi looked at Zuo Xiuwen with a fake smile on his face. “Of course Mr. Zuo must have been trying to frame me. We’ve been enemies at work for so long – he’s tried to do this to me so many times. Now that he’s committed murder, I’m not surprised that he’s trying to drag me down with him. All those accusations he made earlier only serve to prove that point, don’t they?”

Zuo Xiuwen nearly pounced on him. “Li Zhengzhi, you’re lying! You did this on purpose! You deliberately kept these shoes in case something like this happened so you could easily push the blame on me!”

“And how have I done any of that?” Li Zhengzhi narrowed his eyes at Zuo Xiuwen. “You were the one who did all that 18 years ago, right? And you just told all of us here that you did want to kill Lv Mingyue, right?”

Zuo Xiuwen glared at him and wheezed in anger, but he couldn’t come up with any points to refute him.

What else could he possibly say? Li Zhengzhi had thought of everything already! There was no other argument he could make!

Clap! Clap! Clap! Zhao Zhi applauded. “Mr. Li, your thinking is so detailed.”

Li Zhengzhi bowed slightly. “Thank you for the compliment, my lord.”

“But you know, there was one sheet of gold foil stuck in the insole of the shoes, and your family emblem was drawn on it. How do you explain that?”

Zhao Zhi had asked this question very casually, but Li Zhengzhi immediately narrowed his eyes. “Gold foil?”

Qi Yan smiled brightly. “That’s right, gold foil. The type that you burn to pay respects to your family’s ancestors. The families who are more particular would insist that the head of the household draw the family emblem on each sheet personally to show that they are sincere in remembering their ancestors. And it so happened that earlier that afternoon, you had burned some of these gold papers for your ancestors.”

As Qi Yan spoke, he remembered what Song Caitang had also said to him earlier and repeated it, “Even if the shoes were your size, they were a women’s shoe design, so the heel would be much higher than what you’re used to and wouldn’t be comfortable at all. After wearing them just once and going through all that discomfort, you wouldn’t want to see them again and you wouldn’t bother to check them carefully either. In any case, you’d already picked a scapegoat, so you probably decided to just keep it and wait…”

The nasolabial folds on Li Zhengzhi’s face deepened.

But Qi Yan wasn’t done. “Since Commandery Prince Zhao paid your home a visit, he wouldn’t come back empty handed. Of course he’s going to take a look at your study, any hidden compartments and all that.”

Mention of “hidden compartments” made Li Zhengzhi’s expression change completely.

Zhao Zhi clearly knew what he was talking about. He raised an eyebrow and asked him straight, “If you had no dealings with Zuo Xiuwen, why would you have collected and kept so much incriminating evidence against him inside hidden compartments?”

Li Zhengzhi gripped his sleeves tightly as he sucked in a mouthful of air.

Zhao Zhi went on, “These are all documents that could have cost Zuo Xiuwen his life. But all these years, you never made them public and you never told anyone about them, choosing to hold on tightly to them instead. If it wasn’t to control him, then what were they for?”

Li Zhengzhi suddenly raised his head, his gaze aggressive. “So, that’s what you found.”

“Are you still going to tell me that someone planted those things to frame you?”

Zhao Zhi took a slow sip of tea. “Perhaps you still can argue your way out. For example, you can say that you have no feud or connection to Lin Feizhou, so you had no motive for killing him. But I’ve found out that five years ago, you became close to a particular prostitute and told her some things you shouldn’t have in bed. She didn’t understand what you were talking about, but Lin Feizhou happened to be there and overheard what you said. He was a very clever man who swindled others for a living, so he did a bit of digging around and approached you to blackmail you. Were you very wary and afraid when that happened?”

Li Zhengzhi gritted his teeth and did not speak.

Zhao Zhi snorted and called Li Maocai to come forward. “Tell us what you saw on the night Lv Mingyue died.”

Li Maocai trembled as he fell to his knees. “The mistress of the Zuo household paid me to secretly follow and keep an eye on Lv Mingyue. I had to do a good job, even if I got caught by the commandery prince. I kept creating opportunities to follow Lv Mingyue around… That night, I saw Mr… Mr. Li carry an unconscious Lv Mingyue up the pagoda and throw her down.”

Li Maocai was a hooligan who had no loyalty or morals and worked solely for money. As long as he was paid to keep quiet, he wouldn’t answer any questions honestly even if he got bashed up. But once the other party knew the truth and might kill him if he spoke up, he wouldn’t dare to keep quiet anymore.

Before Zhao Zhi knew the truth, Li Maocai pretended to be terrified, but he was purposely holding back and might have even thought about trying to make money from the information he had, so he continued to keep tabs on this matter. He might have hoped that this would become blackmail material he could use in the future. But Zhao Zhi now knew the truth, so he didn’t dare to hold back anything now.

But if he was called to testify at the start, his words wouldn’t have had any effect. That’s why Zhao Zhi allowed him to speak only now.

Pak! Zhao Zhi slammed the table hard. “Now, we have both evidence and a witness! What else do you have to say for yourself?”

Li Zhengzhi paled.

Zhao Zhi snorted as he played with a small and thin dagger. The blade was thin and its sharp edge reflected the sun beautifully. But despite being so sharp, he spun it between his fingers as though it was merely a toy and not a weapon.

But anyone with a pair of working eyes would know if it was a toy or a weapon.

“Li Zhengzhi, you’re a clever man. You should know what sort of person I am.”

Of course he knew. And he also knew what sort of situation he was in.

The smart thing to do now would be to stop while he still could. He had to consider admitting his guilt very seriously now.

Then again, he didn’t have that much of a choice. How much longer was he going to hold everyone here for?

The food found in the victim’s stomach, the size of the embroidered shoes, the gold foil found in the insole of the shoes, the incriminating evidence against Zuo Xiuwen that he kept in a hidden compartment within his study, his previous connection with Lin Feizhou and Li Maocai, an eyewitness. There was no way he could deny anything now.

No matter how unwilling he was, he had no choice but to buckle and fall to his knees. “I… admit my guilt. I did work with Zuo Xiuwen to commit these two murders.”

Zhao Zhi stared at him steely. “Please elaborate.”

“At first, I only wanted to kill Lin Feizhou…” Li Zhengzhi licked his lips. “He looked me up more than once. He had already tried to threaten me even before that run in at Zhaoze Temple. I secretly kept tabs on him and found out that he was in a relationship with Lv Mingyue. And at the same time, Zuo Xiuwen came to tell me about his troubles and that he wanted to kill Lv Mingyue, so…”

Zhao Zhi interjected, “At first, you did not know Lv Mingyue was Zuo Xiuwen’s daughter.”

Li Zhengzhi nodded. “That’s right. I only found out after Zuo Xiuwen came to talk to me.”

Zuo Xiuwen glared at him. He was even angrier now. “So, I actually gave you the perfect opportunity!”

He just knew it would be impossible for two strangers to be suddenly involved with one another and create the perfect scenario for a murder! How could it have been so easy? He should have known!

Zhao Zhi asked Li Zhengzhi, “You’ve talked to Lv Mingyue before?”

“I noticed that she seemed especially friendly toward older men and she always smiled. She seemed like a nice girl, so I made use of her…” said Li Zhengzhi, “but because I wanted my plan to go well, I just met her twice and left a good impression on her so that I could put her into my plan.”

Zhao Zhi said, “So the two of them appeared at Zhaoze temple that day because you had arranged for that. And Lv Mingyue vanished from her home because you helped her to leave as well.”

Li Zhengzhi nodded. “That’s right. Lin Feizhou’s death was a big blow to Lv Mingyue. Zuo Xiuwen had done an excellent job and she really thought that she had killed Lin Feizhou by accident. Even though Madam Gu had taken the rap for her, she still felt guilty and scared, so it was easy to convince her to do anything. I coaxed her to come out of her house and making her death look like a suicide went better than I expected. For example, that suicide note was actually something she herself had written a few days ago out of guilt…”

After he had explained the whole thing, Li Zhengzhi shut his eyes and took a deep breath. “I thought everything would end there, since everything would have made sense. But it seems I still couldn’t hide from the long arms of justice.”

“I really did not want to kill another person.”

“But I had worked hard to get to where I am today. I didn’t control Zuo Xiuwen and plan all these schemes just to go to jail or get myself executed. I have big dreams that I don’t want anyone else to ruin!”

“Ruin my foot!” Qi Yan spat in his face. “Your big dream is to have everyone do your bidding, to have things go exactly the way YOU want them to go! As long as anyone doesn’t obey your instructions, you’d wipe them out! You’d try to remove everything in your way! Li Zhengzhi, who do you even think you are?”

Li Zhengzhi numbly wiped the spit off his face. He bowed his head and did not speak.

Zhao Zhi looked outside of the hall and snapped his fingers. “Men, take them away!”

Since he had concrete evidence of their crimes and both of them had admitted their guilt, the rest was just a matter of procedure.

As the official in charge, Zhao Zhi was very busy. There was no need for Qi Yan and Song Caitang to stay here anymore, so he got Qi Yan to send Song Caitang home.

Song Caitang smiled at him and did not make any protest. She bowed slightly, then left with Qi Yan.

“Tangtang, you’re so clever,” Qi Yan’s eyes shone brightly, “it’s so fun cracking cases with you. No matter how complicated the details are or how little we can get from making general observations about the bodies, you’re able to sort everything out so clearly and find the right direction despite how things can be so confusing. You’re not human at all – you must be a god or something!”

Song Caitang… couldn’t be bothered with him and let him ramble on excitedly by himself.

The streets were as cold as the winter season. There were very few people walking around and everywhere was quiet, except at the front of certain houses.

The Zuos’, for example.

Regardless of whether he was the leader of bandits or the real Zuo Xiuwen, neither had relatives in Bianliang or deep connections here. Once something bad happened to the head of the household, the entire household would fall apart. The atmosphere was tragic and depressing.

Zuo Xiuwen had committed murder and was to be put in jail and await sentencing. Madam Yu and Zuo Shanshan had not committed any crimes and were allowed to go home on the spot. They had left shortly before Song Caitang and came home to this terrible sight. Both women cried miserably.

Madam Yu’s voice was hoarse as she yelled, “Stop right there! Stop this chaotic behavior right now!”

Zuo Shanshan was crying so hard, she could barely breathe properly. “Don’t take my things… don’t take my jewelry…”

But nobody cared about what they said.

The servants who used to quietly work under them and listened to their instructions had turned on them. They took things from the house without feeling any fear and even dared to spit at them. “So what if I’m taking it with me? Go ahead and report me to the authorities! Tell someone to beat us or kill us! Go ahead!”

Madam Yu collapsed weakly and hugged her daughter tightly.

Qi Yan shook his head at this sight too and whispered to Song Caitang, “Madam Yu has always been such an aggressive and difficult woman, everyone calls her Bianliang’s number one tigress. Everyone used to tiptoe around her in fear. Zuo Shanshan too. She used to get absolutely anything she wanted and she mixed with other young ladies from equally prominent families. She used to be so arrogant. Nobody could have imagined she would be so helpless one day.”

Song Caitang frowned slightly and sighed inwardly.

In this world, women were not independent beings at all. No matter how aggressive they were or how capable they were, as long as they didn’t have a man they could depend on, anyone was allowed to walk all over them.

It was really sad, actually.

Now wasn’t the time to say such things, but if Zuo Xiuwen, or the bandit leader pretending to be Zuo Xiuwen and his wife had trusted each other more and shared more information with one another, they wouldn’t have come to this. It would have been much harder to crack this case.

Song Caitang kept walking. The Lv household was mourning their daughter, Lv Mingyue. White cloth was hung up in their house and everyone was grieving.

While it was clear that the Lvs were truly grieved by the loss of Lv Mingyue, they also looked more frightened than sad.