Interrogation (2)

“You want evidence…” Song Caitang looked out of the window and noticed the corner of a green robe. “Oh, we’re just in time.”

Just after she said that, a man in green walked in. His back was straight and his gait was elegant. It was Wen Yuansi.

Even though the team had worked together to distract Zeng Deyong and Sang Zheng so that they could look for evidence, the distraction wasn’t long enough for them to get everything they needed. There was one item that was very important, but Qi Yan didn’t have enough time to retrieve it. Today was their best chance at getting hold of it.

Zhao Zhi had barged into the house with great fanfare and became the center of attention. Wen Yuansi took the chance to quietly sneak away and headed to the place that Qi Yan pointed out to retrieve this important item.

While Qi Yan was better at stealing something when it was dark and nobody was around, Wen Yuansi was good at adapting to the situation even with lots of people around and was able to move about with confidence.

And that was why he had been chosen to do this.

Based on his expression, Song Caitang knew he had succeeded in retrieving the item.

“Just nice. Mr. Wen has arrived just as Mr. Sang wanted evidence.” Her expression was more relaxed now. “You… remembered to bring it along, right?”

Wen Yuansi was chuckling inside at how sly Song Caitang was, but his expression did not flinch. He remained calm as he retrieved a small bottle from his sleeve and showed it to Sang Zheng. “I believe you recognize this bottle.”

Sang Zheng’s pupils constricted.

The bottle was small, made from white porcelain and had no design painted on it. The workmanship was just average and it was a bottle one could buy from just about anywhere. But this bottle had… rat poison inside.

It would take a while to buy enough to fill up the bottle, but it was poison that was very easy to purchase.

Most importantly, Gan Zhixuan recognized the bottle.

“That’s… my bottle…”

The bottle didn’t look like it had any markings on it, but Gan Zhixuan knew his own belongings well. If one looked inside, they would find a black dot painted right at the bottom!

He remembered this bottle, but didn’t say anything and just stared at Sang Zheng in horror.

Song Caitang had actually been right! This man had really wanted to harm him and his mother!

Wen Yuansi nodded. “Commandery Prince Zhao has already sent his men to investigate thoroughly and it has been confirmed that the bottle belongs to Gan Zhixuan. The rat poison inside was bought by Gan Zhixuan recently. The drugstore has records of his purchase.”

“But the amount of rat poison Gan Zhixuan bought would not even be enough to cover the base of this bottle, so why is this bottle so full? Mr. Sang, I’m afraid you haven’t been very careful about framing this young man.”

The evidence was right here and all details had been confirmed. Denying it now would only result in further interrogation and embarrassment.

Sang Zheng was a decisive man. He looked up and admitted to it, “Yes, I did it. So what?” He glanced at Madam Wei. “Everyone in Bianliang knows that the countess is my benefactor and I will do anything to repay her. Madam Gan and this little bastard…”

He threw a glance at Gan Zhixuan and licked the corner of his lips. “They left so many years ago and lived in freedom. Nobody would have been bothered by them. But they had to come back here to irritate everyone, and one of them was even scheming to get his hands on more…”

“Every inch of land and every item in this estate belongs to the countess and her family! These two are nothing but filth!”

Gan Zhixuan shrank a little with each sentence Sang Zheng uttered.

Now that he was faced with similar looks of disdain from everyone in the hall, he finally realized that this house, his supposed home, didn’t welcome him at all.

Sang Zheng was not only talking about his own opinion. Everyone else thought the same way!

He had been wrong about everything. He had been so wrong!

“But Fourth Missy Gan did not die from this poison, so I was not the one who killed her. Since you actually found this bottle, then you should know very well that I’m not guilty.”

After Sang Zheng confirmed that the bottle was his, he turned to bow toward Zhao Zhi. “Miss Song has been pressing a pitiful man like myself so hard for nothing, which is simply unbecoming for someone from the authorities. Don’t you find her behavior inappropriate?”

Zhao Zhi’s lips curled into a mocking smile. “If you’re a really pitiful man, that is.”

“Are you saying—”

Zhao Zhi snorted. “Aren’t you curious to find out where Mr. Wen found this little bottle?”

Wen Yuansi smiled elegantly as he answered the question, “It wasn’t too difficult. I found it in this house, inside the count’s study.”

This time, Sang Zheng’s expression changed and he turned to look at Zeng Deyong.

Wen Yuansi went on, “At that time, did you think that you had accidentally misplaced it?”

“You were the one who took this bottle away?” Sang Zheng kept his gaze on Zeng Deyong.

Zeng Deyong straightened his sleeves and rolled his eyes. “You fool.”

It was still a display of arrogance, but a different sort.

And so… most of them figured out what must have happened.

Song Caitang helped everyone to round things up, “Sang Zheng was irritated by Fourth Missy Gan and Gan Zhixuan’s presence in the house because they were an eyesore to his benefactor, Madam Wei, so he wanted to get rid of them. But he was smart about it. The way to get away with murder would be to frame someone else for it. Gan Zhixuan’s way of thinking was very clear to everyone in the household, so he was the perfect target. It wasn’t difficult to find this small bottle and fill it with rat poison too.”

“So, why didn’t Fourth Missy Gan die from the rat poison in this bottle? The answer is simple. Someone swapped the bottles. His bottle for Sang Zheng’s bottle.”

And because this bottle had been found inside Zeng Deyong’s study, all eyes were on him now.

Sang Zheng stared at Zeng Deyong and growled, “Why? Why did you do that!”

“Because he wanted to kill Fourth Missy Gan too but didn’t want to get caught for it, plus he happened to notice you were doing the same thing,” Qi Yan clicked his tongue. “Gosh, someone hated you and you didn’t even realize it? What a failure you are, Mr. Sang!”

So, there were a couple of plots at work here.

Song Caitang continued, “The case thus far is very clear. Both Sang Zheng and Zeng Deyong wanted to kill Fourth Missy Gan and had made preparations for it. Sang Zheng wanted Gan Zhixuan to be his scapegoat, while Zeng Deyong wanted Sang Zheng to be his scapegoat. Everything had already been prepared and they were just waiting for a good chance.”

“And the aphrodisiac incense scheme that Madam Wei came up with turned out to be the perfect opportunity.”

“In order to make sure her plan went well, Madam Wei would have prepared everything in advance to make sure that nobody would interrupt what was happening in the room. Gan Zhixuan, Lu Yuxue and Wei He’an had all been spotted nearby, so all of them would become suspects in this case. But the more people involved, the messier the case becomes, the easier it will be for the real murderer to hide himself.”

“And so, Sang Zheng ended up making the first move to kill Fourth Missy Gan and frame Gan Zhixuan for it. Then Zeng Deyong came later, switched the bottles, and framed Sang Zheng for it.”

The final result would be that Fourth Missy Gan would be found to have died from overstimulation, which was an unglamorous way to die. If the authorities closed the case with that, then that would be the end of the story. But if they felt that she might have been murdered, then they would find that the bottle of poison belonged to Sang Zheng, the room was set up by Madam Wei and the people who passed by the room were the three younger ones. Zeng Deyong would have escaped his fate perfectly.

There was just one thing Song Caitang couldn’t figure out. When did Sang Zheng enter the room, when did he leave, and when did Zeng Deyong enter?

Fourth Missy Gan was inside the room throughout the entire thing, so something must have happened inside.

Sang Zheng’s next question immediately answered her queries, “Just after I entered the room, I heard a strange noise outside, so I left without doing anything. That was you?”

Zeng Deyong did not reply with a yes or no, just the same two words as before, “You fool.”

“But…”

Gan Zhixuan was shocked as he just uttered that one word, but did not dare to complete his sentence.

But even so, everyone had the same question in their mind.

What was his motive?

Sang Zheng had a clear motive for killing Fourth Missy Gan. But what about Zeng Deyong? And why did he bother to plan it so elaborately?

Song Caitang looked calmly at Zeng Deyong. “You’re the one who killed Fourth Missy Gan, right?”

Zeng Deyong wasn’t going to admit to his crime, so he just snickered and said, “Physical evidence can’t speak, you know? Is that how the authorities investigate such cases? If you found evidence in this person’s room, this person is definitely the killer? You’ve never heard of others planting evidence? Or is it because… you know someone who did such a thing?”

He was just short of saying that Song Caitang planted the evidence in his study in order to frame him.

Wen Yuansi raised the bottle in his hand. “Count Zeng, are you saying that this thing is not yours and you’ve never seen it before?”

“That’s right. The study is mine, but I’m not the only one who can go in and out,” Zeng Deyong narrowed his eyes and glanced at Sang Zheng from the corner of his eye. “Perhaps someone out there is deliberately setting me up? There are people who are experts at such things, after all.”

Sang Zheng rolled his eyes.

“Besides, why would I want to kill Fourth Missy Gan?” Zeng Deyong folded his arms and kept his hands in his sleeves as he stood haughtily. “She’s my concubine. I don’t have to force myself on her if I want her.”

Qi Yan hated it when men behaved arrogantly like that. He fanned himself angrily, “Fourth Missy Gan never liked you, so it’s not surprising that she would refuse your advances. She stayed out there for more than ten years and never wanted to come back here!”

Zeng Deyong remained calm and steady as he glanced at Qi Yan. “But she still came back, didn’t she? She still had me in her heart. If I wanted her, she wouldn’t refuse.”

He spoke rather confidently, so Qi Yan found himself unable to refute that.

Zeng Deyong only became more smug. “If you want to accuse me of murder, you’d need more solid evidence. Planting evidence is not the right way to do things.”

Song Caitang’s gaze flickered. “If you wanted her, she wouldn’t refuse.”

Zeng Deyong echoed her words, “That’s right. She wouldn’t refuse.”

“And it was precisely because you knew that, you decided to treat her with such cruelty.”

Song Caitang suddenly felt an anger rise within her. “There were aphrodisiac incense sticks burning in the room, but such incense sticks can only increase one’s libido, but they will not cause one to lose their rationality. She was so badly bruised all over. The abuser must have been such an animal. She almost bit her tongue into half. Imagine how much pain she must have suffered, how hard she must have struggled.”

“She was not willing and she did not like what was happening at all, and she might have even said she didn’t want any, but you did not let her off.”

“She was such a smart woman and she fought back so hard, yet there are no traces of skin, blood, flesh, or even fabric on her hands or under her nails. Was it because she didn’t want to scratch you? Was it because she didn’t hate you?”

“No. She hated you. She knew you wanted to kill her, but she couldn’t allow any evidence to be left behind. She couldn’t allow anyone to find out you were her killer.”

“Because you are her son’s father. Gan Zhixuan’s father.”

“She didn’t want her son to have a murderer for a father!”

“Until the moment she died, she was thinking about how she could protect her son. Until the moment she died, she had begged you to let her off, to let her son live! Zeng Deyong, yes or no!”

The room fell deathly silent after her outburst.

Song Caitang glared steely at Zeng Deyong.

Fourth Missy Gan had gripped the bedsheets the whole way, to the point where her nails split and came off her skin. Her face was covered in tears and her mouth was full of blood. She had endured a lot.

She was about to die and could no longer protect her son. She couldn’t let her son go without a father too…

All of this would only make sense if the killer was Zeng Deyong!

If it was someone else, she wouldn’t have endured silently. She would have found a way to leave a mark behind on the killer to make sure the authorities found him.

That would be the natural reaction of anyone in her shoes. And for someone smart like her, she would definitely have done something like that. That was, unless the perpetrator was Zeng Deyong, father of Gan Zhixuan!

Gan Zhixuan finally broke down.

He hugged himself and trembled violently as tears and mucus kept running down his face. “…That’s right… where the rooms are in this estate… nobody would know better than you…”

Qi Yan glared at Zeng Deyong. “You must have understood Fourth Missy Gan’s psyche and used that to your advantage! You were not afraid that you would get caught! You’re scum! An animal!”

Wen Yuansi sighed. “Gan Zhixuan isn’t just Fourth Missy Gan’s son. He’s your son too. Don’t you feel any love toward him at all?”

Zhao Zhi snorted. “So, one delivered the knife, the other used it to kill a person. How very well coordinated.”

Madam Wei was about to collapse. She simply couldn’t imagine how this calm, expressionless and confident man could have been the man who slept beside her all these years. All these years, he had been a man who only knew how to smile because he had no temper and was both incapable and had no ambition in life. How was this possible?

“You really… you really killed Fourth Missy Gan?”

Were these his true colors? Had she failed to understand her husband all this time?

Wei He’an’s gaze glanced past his aunt and Zeng Deyong, his eyes filled with frostiness.

The household of the rich and influential were never as simple as the commoners thought.

Lu Yuxue’s gaze flickered. She had never seen this degree of depravity. The Count of Peace’s household was way worse than she thought.

But Zeng Deyong still refused to admit his guilt. “This is all just your conjecture. It sounds plausible, but you still don’t have any evidence. It still comes back to the question: Why would I want to kill Fourth Missy Gan? I’m happy to have one more son. Besides, Fourth Missy Gan’s status in the house and society is very low, so there’s no way for her to cause any chaos here. I have no reason to deal with her this way.”

At the end of the day, it still boiled down to two words – his motive.

Qi Yan scoffed.

Song Caitang said, “You do have a reason to kill her.”

Zhao Zhi very slowly reached into his pocket and pulled something out. “Do you recognize this, Count Zeng?”

Zeng Deyong’s pupils constricted when he saw the item.

It was a jade pendant.

It was the pendant that Jing Yan carried on all times as part of his identity, because it had his family emblem carved on it.

“Five years ago in Qingxian, Fourth Missy Gan found a body in her yard and buried it. She found this jade pendant on the victim and wanted to pawn it for money, but didn’t dare to in the end. She kept it on her all these years because she was afraid it would bring her unnecessary trouble. Not even Gan Zhixuan knew where it was…”

Zhao Zhi dragged his words out, but they were filled with an indescribable iciness, “So, Count Zeng, can you explain to me why the woman is dead, but one of her possessions was found in your study?”

It was found in his study again. Finding one item might have been the work of someone else, but finding two items… was definitely no coincidence.

“What is this thing even? Why would I know what it is?!”

Zeng Deyong seemed so angry he was trembling. He swung his sleeve exceptionally hard.

His reaction didn’t seem to match what he said. He said he didn’t know what it was, but it was obvious that he knew!

Zhao Zhi asked, “So, you’re saying this is planted evidence too?”

Zeng Deyong lied without batting an eye, “Since I don’t recognize it, it must have been planted in my study by someone else.”

“Oh…” Zhao Zhi turned to the man who supposedly enjoyed framing others. “What do you say, Sang Zheng?”

Sang Zheng’s eyebrow twitched violently. “What has this got to do with me?”

Zhao Zhi just smiled as he propped his head up with his palm.

Wasn’t it obvious? It was because Sang Zheng had tried to frame someone else before.

Sang Zheng snapped back, “I don’t know anything and I don’t recognize this thing. Both this jade pendant and Fourth Missy Gan’s death have nothing to do with me!”

The reactions of these two men in this interrogation were very important, so when Zhao Zhi questioned them, Song Caitang and Wen Yuansi would observe their behavior and watch their expressions very carefully.

And… the two of them exchanged similar glances.

Song Caitang could read micro-expressions and was able to pick up other emotions from their gestures. Wen Yuansi was able to do something similar after years of interrogating suspects and cracking cases, and he was also a meticulous man, so he was able to judge people by their reactions.

Zeng Deyong definitely recognized this jade pendant, plus it was retrieved from his study in the first place. The surprising part was Sang Zheng.

Sang Zheng… recognized this jade pendant too.

These two men were always part of the same incident. It was impossible to say that they had nothing to do with one another.

They definitely worked together on something.

But it was also obvious that they weren’t friends. In fact, based on their tone and gestures, they didn’t like each other at all.

And that was something the investigation team had used to their advantage.

Besides Gan Zhixuan, the most confused and flabbergasted person in the whole hall was Madam Wei.

Everything was happening too quickly for her to even wrap her head around things. It was just another ordinary day where she had guests in the house, just that these guests were no ordinary people… but how did things turn completely upside down? She was so lost.

The husband she knew was a timid, weak-willed man who only knew how to smile and didn’t know how to do anything else. He wouldn’t have dared to argue back so fiercely, especially when he was arguing with someone as powerful and domineering as Zhao Zhi.

The Sang Zheng she knew was someone who did more than he said. He always looked expressionless, but he was actually someone very warm inside and would never lose his temper. What was going on today? He seemed to be covered in thorns and was not as quiet and well-mannered as before…

Was she dreaming? Did she somehow get out of bed in the wrong way?

Madam Wei clutched her chest because she felt like her heart was falling out of her body. Everything seemed beyond her control now.

Zhao Zhi knew that these two men weren’t going to admit their guilt so easily, so after exchanging glances with Song Caitang and Wen Yuansi, he nodded to commence the next part of the plan.

If they weren’t going to admit their guilt, then they would have to keep testing the waters until they broke.

Song Caitang noticed the change in Madam Wei’s expression, so she sighed and said, “I see that Mr. Sang and Count Zeng seem rather well-coordinated because they share common knowledge, but they also seem to secretly hate each other and have been trying to attack one another… Madam Wei, did you really know nothing about all this?”

Madam Wei had an awkward look on her face. If she knew about any of this, she wouldn’t be standing here like an idiot now!

Qi Yan unfolded his fan with gusto and covered half his face as he stared at Madam Wei with a cheeky look in his eyes. It was no longer a hint. “Madam Wei, stop trying to hide it from us. I know all about both of you already!”

Madam Wei instantly grew wary. She threw Sang Zheng a quick glance, then looked back at Qi Yan. She gripped her handkerchief tightly and pretended to be calm. “What are you talking about? What do you know? I’m warning you, you’re in the residence of the Count of Peace, an official approved by the emperor! Don’t spout nonsense here and ruin your own future!”

“Oh my, I’m so scared!” Qi Yan leaped to hide behind Wen Yuansi. “Tell her what you found!”

Wen Yuansi proceeded to look straight at Madam Wei and said in a clear voice, “Year 19, 7th day of the 7th month, 11pm at Mingyue Court; Year 20, 16th day of the 3rd month, 3am at Qingcha Inn; Year 20, 5th day of the 4th month, Zuixian Court…”

He rattled off a whole string of dates and venues, starting from a date that was more than ten years ago, all the way until a date that was fairly recent.

Some people would not have understood these dates and places, but Madam Wei did.

Her face instantly turned red as Wen Yuansi’s clear but not very loud voice seemed to explode like bombs in her ear. Her head spun wildly and she wished she could faint right now.

All these dates and venues were basically where she had secret dates with Sang Zheng!

She had always thought that her movements were very discreet and nobody would have found out about this. She was even proud of how well she had everything under control. How did Wen Yuansi find out?!

“You… What are you talking about? I don’t understand a word!”

Madam Wei looked nervously at Sang Zheng, as though she was hoping that he would take a step forward to take charge of the situation and protect her.

But Sang Zheng looked at the floor and didn’t do or say anything.

“What are you hoping for?” Zhao Zhi couldn’t help but laugh at this sight. “You think he truly loves you and would stand up for you?”

Madam Wei screamed inwardly as she quickly shook her head at Zeng Deyong as if to say that Zhao Zhi was slandering her. She never did anything shameless like that.

But before she could actually say anything, Zhao Zhi already knew what she was thinking about. He quietly said, “Oh, I see. You thought your husband didn’t know about any of this.”

Madam Wei’s hands trembled angrily. “You… you…”

“I’m not the one who did this. Why are you angry with me instead of reflecting on yourself?” said Zhao Zhi sincerely. “Seriously, there’s no point in hiding your affair with Sang Zheng. Your husband found out about it a long time ago too. If you don’t believe me, you can ask him.”

“Isn’t that so, Count Zeng?” Zhao Zhi asked Zeng Deyong before Madam Wei could.

It was pin drop silence in the room.

The change in everyone’s expressions… was very entertaining to watch.