The Third Corpse

The night was dark and quiet, and the crescent moon barely gave off any light. Eyes became the brightest thing in the world suddenly.

Song Caitang could see the cheeky look in Zhao Zhi’s eyes, “Why do you think An Pengyi only took Yun Nianyao’s things and didn’t kill her?”

Yup, his voice too. It was as deep as the color of the night sky, but his tone had an upward lilt, like a leopard that had returned from a hunt. His mood was relaxed and he could crack jokes leisurely.

Song Caitang was very calm, “If he confessed to killing Yun Nianyao, you wouldn’t have come looking for me. You would have thrown him into jail with great fanfare and declare that the case has been solved.”

Zhao Zhi looked intently at her, “Do you know that when a woman is too clever, she’s not cute?”

“My opinion is the exact opposite of that. I think women are more beautiful and cuter when they’re clever. They sparkle very brightly that way,” said Song Caitang as she glanced knowingly at Zhao Zhi.

Zhao Zhi understood quickly that she was laughing at him. He was a man who didn’t like being around women, yet he came looking for her time and again, and couldn’t even leave when she argued with him, only because she was very clever and was a great help to him!

He seldom enjoyed any smug moments around Song Caitang, and after a few arguments, he had gotten used to it. Getting into petty fights was pointless, so he got down to business right away, “I didn’t have anything else to attend to at night, so I brought him in for questioning.”

Judging from the way he spoke, Song Caitang knew that he hadn’t gone by the proper protocol and had conducted this questioning privately.

Zhao Zhi didn’t look the least embarrassed about doing this and remained unfazed, “An Pengyi said that the three sworn brothers had decided to stay at Tianhua Temple not only because staying at the temple was cheap, but more importantly because Yun Nianyao had come here.”

Song Caitang got it. Yun Nianyao was a target even before she had arrived here and they might have followed her halfway through her journey.

“They followed Yun Nianyao and observed her for several days, but their conclusion wasn’t great.”

The reason why the band of three brothers was able to remain stable and not fall apart was because they had good foresight and never committed major crimes. They stole, robbed and swindled among other things, but they always did homework before carrying out these crimes and made sure never to target anybody whose social standing was too high.

Yun Nianyao looked like a rich and easy target because she was travelling by herself, but after observing her, the three brothers realized that she was a very particular person and did not behave like most wealthy people. If she was an aristocrat, then every item she possessed would have a clear history and it would be hard for them to sell the loot. Worst of all, she had the strange habit of handling her own things herself. If she lost something important, she would notice it very quickly. And once she reported the loss and an investigation was conducted, the three brothers would be in trouble.

They began to lose interest in her. If they decided to go ahead anyway, they couldn’t steal more than one or two items, and they had to pick something that wasn’t very intricate, or something that she didn’t really like and had no special markings on it.

The best would be to find something made from gold.

It would be something that was valuable even if they melted it down and it was usually less unique or fancy, so aristocratic women normally did not really care much for them.

The fact that they weren’t going to get rich made them feel discouraged, but they had followed her for so long and felt that all their efforts would have been in vain if they didn’t take anything. Yun Nianyao wasn’t accompanied and pregnant women spent most of their day sleeping, so it wasn’t very hard to steal something from her. The three brothers didn’t purposely pick a time either. They had nothing to do on the morning of the 8^th, and there was nobody around her residence, so they decided to strike then.

“In the morning? What time?” Song Caitang frowned, “Before breakfast? Or when the victim was with Gao Zhuo?”

She remembered that in his statement, Gao Zhuo said that he thought he saw someone at the wall when he met with Yun Nianyao.

Zhao Zhi nodded, “Bingo. Gao Zhuo had spotted one of the three brothers.”

Two hours after Yun Nianyao had taken her breakfast, her “morning sickness” began. She kept vomiting and felt nauseous, so after struggling with her symptoms for some time, she felt that she couldn’t stay inside her room anymore and had to go outside.

Because she was an aristocrat, the temple allocated her a huge residence. If she wanted to take a walk, she didn’t have to leave her residence at all and could just walk around her yard. There were plenty of corridors, flowers and trees to block her view and her room was empty, so the three brothers decided to go ahead.

As always, Shi Qun and Ximen Gang would go in to steal stuff and An Pengyi would be on guard outside.

Just then, Gao Zhuo arrived.

Because Yun Nianyao intended to remain in the yard for a while more, her maid had prepared tea and snacks on the stone tables outside. So when Gao Zhuo arrived, she didn’t have to get more and Yun Nianyao’s room remained empty.

Shi Qun and Ximen Gang were progressing well, but the time they were given was too short.

An Pengyi had signaled to them from outside, because he was afraid that things could change now that Gao Zhuo was here.

Shi Qun and Ximen gang quickly got out of the room.

Their escape route was clear and they did not make any noise. But Gao Zhuo was sitting down with a woman he was in love with, so his thoughts wandered along with his gaze, and he spotted either Shi Qun or Ximen Gang leaving the residence.

Thankfully, the wind was blowing and it was hard to tell their shadows from the trees’ shadows, so Gao Zhuo didn’t think too much about it.

Song Caitang asked, “They were observing the victim for a long time, so did they see who poisoned her?”

Zhao Zhi shook his head, “Nope.”

“Then what did they steal? Is it the item that was originally on that three-legged round table?”

“An Pengyi said he doesn’t know.” Zhao Zhi frowned deeply, “Shi Qun would always keep the stolen goods and not even Ximen Gang would know where he hid them until it was time to sell the loot. An Pengyi didn’t get any chance to see it.”

Song Caitang couldn’t help but glare at Zhao Zhi, “None of this information has been useful so far, yet you spent so much effort…”

“Are you a woman or not? Aren’t women supposed to be more patient?”

Zhao Zhi rubbed his temples, “After Yun Nianyao died, An Pengyi went to her room.”

Song Caitang’s interest was finally piqued, “What time was that?”

“11pm. The bell had just rung.”

“To steal?”

“Yes,” Zhao Zhi’s voice was a little deeper now, “An Pengyi felt that he was losing out, so he decided to go solo and do it himself. But this time, he didn’t get anything.”

Song Caitang narrowed her eyes, “Because Yun Nianyao was already dead.”

Zhao Zhi went on, “An Pengyi said that at that time, he thought that Yun Nianyao was just sleeping and didn’t give it much thought. But he accidentally kicked the bed frame and made a loud sound, but Yun Nianyao did not wake up. He was relieved, but he found it weird too. He became wary and pulled back the blanket to check her breathing.”

“He only wanted to steal something and get rich, and didn’t want to be involved in a murder, so he didn’t dare to stick around any longer and didn’t dare to steal anything. He quickly tidied up the areas he had touched and left quickly…he was inside the room for a very short time and didn’t do much. This process happened extremely quickly.”

Song Caitang asked, “What did he see?”

“He saw a woman.”

“A woman?”

Zhao Zhi nodded, “That’s right. A woman. Walking in the middle of the night without any lantern and walking very quickly.”

Song Caitang paused to think, “Would that be the killer?”

“Not necessarily so.” Zhao Zhi shook his head, “He didn’t see how Yun Nianyao was killed and couldn’t see the woman’s face, so he doesn’t know who it is. If could have been Yuzhu coming back from making the red bean pancakes.”

But at least there was a new direction now.

This woman was a suspicious character.

“So, An Pengyi had gone to Yun Nianyao’s residence, but he didn’t take anything and he wasn’t the one who killed her,” said Song Caitang before tilting her head, “Is his statement reliable?

Zhao Zhi had a sly grin on his face, “Don’t worry, he wouldn’t dare to lie to me. He might hide some details if there’s an area I’ve not thought of and did not ask about, but there’s no way he’d lie.”

He added, “But even if there’s something I left out, it’s alright. If you have any questions, tell me and I’ll ask him for you. I guarantee that the moment he sees me, he’ll behave himself and not dare to lie.”

“How…did you get this statement out of him?” Song Caitang couldn’t help but suspect he used torture or something.

Zhao Zhi smirked and looked rather evil against the night sky, “Any smart person would have their own clever methods. You don’t need to know.”

Fine. Song Caitang still left him a kindly reminder, “It’s still best to go by the book when investigating a case.”

There were a lot of officials in the temple and Governor Li was definitely watching him closely, so Zhao Zhi had better watch himself.

But Zhao Zhi merely snorted, “Women are always so timid.”

One had to be flexible when working and do whatever was most effective. Didn’t she understand that?

Song Caitang couldn’t be bothered with him and silently rolled her eyes inwardly.

Zhao Zhi yawned, “I really think that the item that Yun Nianyao lost is very important. The three brothers stole one item and the killer stole another item. Once we find out what those things are, we might be able to crack this case.”

Regardless of who the killer was, they had to have a clear motive.

And very importantly, it couldn’t be achieved without killing her.

“I’ve been busy all day and haven’t slept yet, so I’ll leave you here. You can go look for that Wen Something-Yuan and take a closer look at the Ximen Gang case and search for Shi Qun. He’s handling that case so he’d know the most about it.”

Zhao Zhi then waved and turned to leave.

He had only taken two steps when he stopped again and turned to look at Song Caitang with a frown, “Don’t always go so close to the water.”

“Humans aren’t fish, after all. If you fall in, you could drown very quickly.”

Song Caitang was confused. Why did he bring this up again?

“Don’t brush it off,” said Zhao Zhi with a snort, “Do you know where the bamboo raft that was here has gone?”

Song Caitang was curious about this as well. She noticed that it wasn’t here anymore when she got here.

“It’s broken. After you stood on it that day, the raft fell apart.”

Song Caitang stared at him. Surely she wasn’t THAT heavy, right?

“The string used to tie the bamboo poles together was broken. It had been cut cleanly.”

Zhao Zhi knew that Song Caitang was a clever girl and he didn’t have to spell it out. She would understand what he was implying.

Since he had dropped enough hints, he turned to leave with a big yawn.

Song Caitang remained in her spot and slowly narrowed her eyes.

So…she hadn’t run into danger twice. It was thrice.

Shortly after the sun rose, Song Caitang went to look for Wen Yuansi.

Wen Yuansi happened to open the door as he was about to leave.

He was pleasantly surprised to see her, “Great! I was about to look for you. We’ve found Shi Qun’s body.”

When they were discussing the case the other day, Song Caitang already had a bad feeling about this. She wasn’t surprised to hear that he was dead, so she asked, “Where was his body found? Where’s the body know?”

“At the coffin home,” said Wen Yuansi gently, “Because we’re all at Tianhua Temple, I’ve told me men to bring the body here. Looking at the time…” He looked up at the sky, “They should be here in an hour. It doesn’t make sense to ask someone else, so I’d have to trouble you to examine this body as well.”

Song Caitang nodded in agreement, “No problem.”

She stopped to think, then turned to instruct Qinqiao, “Go back and pack my box.” She then turned back to Wen Yuansi, “Actually, I’m here to ask you about something. I’d like to have a look at the room where Shi Qun stayed.”

“Shi Qun is connected to the Ximen Gang case, so his room has been cordoned off and preserved in its original state. Now that he’s dead, it’s true that we ought to take a good look at it.” Wen Yuansi turned to walk outside and lead the way.

“Miss Song, please come with me.”

Shi Qun’s room was very messy. Besides being messy in the first place, it looked like it had been ransacked.

“I’ve looked at this room before.” Wen Yuansi took another closer look at the room as they made their way through, “Besides his personal belongings, there’s no loot and there’s no sign that a large amount of money had been placed there before. It looks like someone had ransacked this room before, so I asked Ma Sanniang and An Pengyi separately about it, but both of them said they didn’t know anything.”

But besides them, there shouldn’t be anybody else interested in searching this room.

Song Caitang looked at the entire room very carefully. The blanket was pulled back, the clothes were strewn about randomly, there was only half a cup of tea left on the table…everything showed that the person staying here had only left for a while and was certain that he could return almost immediately.

Shi Qun’s death was definitely an accident. At least to him it would have been.

“Are there secret compartments in this room?”

Wen Yuansi replied, “I got my men to check the place very thoroughly but there aren’t any.”

After a short pause, Song Caitang asked again, “Would a band of thieves like them have no cash or loot on them at all times?”

Wen Yuansi shook his head, “In most cases, it can’t be this clean. When they’re about to run out of money or loot, they’ll have to find a way to get more. The three brothers had been in Tianhua Temple for several days and didn’t look like they were leaving anytime soon, so it means that they still had enough to spend.”

And even if they didn’t have anymore cash left, they could liquidate any loot on hand.

But this entire room didn’t have any loot…

Why? Very simple – they had all been hidden away!

Of course his companions would try to get smart.

Zhao Zhi had “questioned” An Pengyi and was certain that the young man wouldn’t dare to lie. In that case, An Pengyi really hadn’t found what had been stolen from Yun Nianyao’s room and the one who would know where it was would be Shi Qun.

Song Caitang checked every corner and didn’t find anything, “The room doesn’t have a single trace of loot. This Shi Qun must be pretty confident.”

“Perhaps he was a very controlling person too,” Wen Yuansi smiled, “But I’m sure you’ll have new clues after you examine the body!”

When Shi Qun died, where he died, what he did before dying, where he went – all of these would leave a mark on the body. And if he died very close to when Yun Nianyao and Ximen Gang did, then it would be easier to find the item.

Song Caitang and Wen Yuansi remained in the room for a long time. They analyzed and discussed every point of suspicion and tried to think hard about them to see if they could glean any clues.

Until someone came to report that Shi Qun’s body had arrived.

Wen Yuansi looked at Song Caitang.

Song Caitang clasped her hands together and stretched her arms to warm up, “Let’s go examine the body now?”

Wen Yuansi smiled brightly, “This way please, Miss Song.”

The two of them walked out together and headed for the room where the third corpse was laid.