Food Fairy Lord

Chapter 462 Before Death
Ding Yukang was born very easy-going, no wonder he was often the one mediating family matters, a face like that made it easy for him to get in on the conversation.

The coroner's autopsy report was very brief: [Mr. Ding was 49 years old. His body was 4 feet 5 inches long. He had five abrasions and three bruises. The fatal wound was on his temple. There were two fist wounds.]

"Does Constable Ding have any cultivation skills?" Pei Ye untied the corpse clothes and asked after carefully examining the neck.

"Ah? My Lord, Uncle Ding has no cultivation." Xu Liu responded somewhat stiffly.

There was a reason why Zhao Yi himself was unwilling to come here. Autopsy was not only a dirty job, but also a tiring one. Xu Liu had been working in the county government office for two months, and this was the first time he had seen a murder corpse so closely.

He didn't know where the adult next to him came from, but he was obviously too young. At this moment, he looked calmly at the horrific death scene with half of his face covered with blood.

"Are you friends with Constable Ding?" Pei Ye caught the call.

".Replying to the lord, actually we are not very familiar with each other. I am on foreign affairs with Captain Zhou. But sometimes when I meet Uncle Ding, he will take the initiative to chat with me." Xu Liu said, "He said that he also worked on foreign affairs in his early years. He told me to hold on and it will be fine."

"Oh." Pei Ye nodded. He had already exposed the body completely. After a quick glance, he found that the body was indeed basically intact, with no injuries. "Do you have any impression that Constable Ding has been different recently?"

Pei Ye knew very well that the same thing looked different to different people: "For example, have you ever gone somewhere or met someone to think about it carefully?"

Xu Liu really thought about it carefully. He had just entered the county government office, and every word of his superiors and colleagues was taken seriously. He frowned for a long time and said, "No, I don't often see Uncle Ding. He still comes to the room to work as usual. In the evening, he goes to Pingkangfang to hang out. If I have to say anything, it seems that he doesn't drink anymore these days, and doesn't chat with me much."

"Not drinking anymore?"

"Yes, he used to say 'a little tipsy is like a god', and after two drinks he would drift off to visit the night scene, but a few days ago, there was no smell of alcohol in the room."

Pei Ye nodded and gestured with his hand: "Come, hold on to your feet and turn over."

Xu Liu's body tensed slightly. He pursed his lips and stepped forward to hold the ankle. Just as he was hesitating about how to exert force, the heavy corpse sank gently and steadily and turned over easily.

For a moment he did not understand what the point of his help was, but the next moment he remembered what the old coroner told him when he first entered the yamen, that death is a heavy matter, even if the body is full of true energy, it is still necessary for two people to carry it if conditions permit, so as to "not disturb the remaining soul."

Pei Ye's eyes swept over the back again. This was indeed a very simple and clear corpse. There were a few scratches on the hands and elbows, and a heavy bruise on the lower back. It didn't look like he fell on the ground, but rather hit something. There were also two scratches on the legs, and then there were three fatal punches.

Qi Sheng could wipe out a fifty-year-old mortal with no cultivation in such a clean and neat way.

Pei Ye recalled the first time they met in prison. He was the silent and undead man who had not yet been possessed by evil. He could indeed ruthlessly throw three such punches. And it was certainly not because he had bumped into him on the road. This was just the reason he had chosen for going to jail.

But Ding Yukang was not wearing a police uniform at that time.

Pei Ye called Xu Liu to turn over the body, tie the shroud, and they washed their hands beside the sink.

Pei Ye thought about it and went back to his room to get the case files from the past two months to look at.

Four fights between rangers and seven cases of theft.

No one was killed, but there were two single fights that resulted in injuries and two group fights, all involving the same common groups of people.

Thieves are skilled in the underworld, and even though they are different in type, they are basically impossible to detect. There was a case where gold disappeared from a locked cabinet, a case where a purse was found missing while walking on the road, two thugs were knocked down by a masked man, and five taels of silver were robbed from them. There was also a report from Wannian County in Dongcheng that two rice shops in Pingkangfang were broken into, but no theft was found, only that the thief accidentally broke a flower pot.
Pei Ye read them one by one. The young man showed unimaginable patience in this matter. He knew what kind of enemy he would face in the end, so he would not miss any details.

But there was indeed no place related to Ding Yukang. Pei Ye closed the case file, nodded and said goodbye to everyone in the county government office, and went straight to Ding Yukang's residence. Yonghefang, a very decent courtyard, the door was sealed.

Pei Ye pushed the door open and walked in. There were trees and grass planted in the yard, which were taken care of with great interest. It was indeed as the constables in the county government had said, this was a man who was on the road to retirement.

But now there has been no water for several days and it has become a little sluggish.

The furnishings everywhere are very simple, as if he is a person living alone, and everything is just for his own convenience.

The west wing was locked. Pei Ye opened the door to check. There were miscellaneous items piled up everywhere. There was a stove in the yard. Pei Ye lifted the pot to look inside. It was clean and there was dust on the bottom of the stove. He paused.

The east wing is the kitchen. Everyone in the county government office has mentioned that Lao Ding often gets wine and cuts meat after work. Even if he doesn't invite guests on weekdays, he always has cold and hot dishes, both meat and vegetarian.

But the room was now clean but somewhat deserted. It was not because no one took care of it after the owner had suddenly passed away, but because no food was prepared at all.

There was no wine in the pot, no meat in the pot, the utensils were placed on the shelf, and the bowls and plates were neatly stacked in the cabinet, all looking unused. A better set of wine utensils was placed preciously at the top, but even the ordinary set below was not placed in a commonly used place.

——Even when the owner was here, he never ate here.

But the answer was soon revealed in the bedroom.

The bed was spread out in a mess, as if it had not been made up for days. The dining area was moved here. A small, broken square table was propped up on the ground with a small plate on it. The remaining pickled radish in it had already become hairy. Next to it was a half-eaten steamed bun that was also dotted with mold.

A strange smell emanated from the air. Pei Ye lifted the lid of the small jar next to him. A wooden spoon was dipped into the pickled cabbage, looking like it was being fished out. Four packages of steamed buns wrapped in paper were piled on the table. Pei Ye counted them and found fifteen left, enough for a man to eat for two days.

In the days before his death, he stopped drinking and ate steamed buns and pickles for several days in a row.

Pei Ye stared for a while. There were tables and chairs next to him, and books and papers were placed on the table. Pei Ye walked over and saw that the lamp was still solidified with unburned oil. He picked up several pieces of paper in succession. They were all some incomprehensible sketches, which looked like a place, a path, and some were numerical calculations.

Pei Ye seemed to have seen this scene before. That was Lao Xiangzi's bedroom.

But there was nothing supernatural or crazy here. Pei Ye only saw a kind of careful calmness. He flipped through the drafts one by one and finally found a clean and clear piece of paper, as if it was used to record the result of some effort.

"Nine peaches, about sixty. On September 8, eight hundred catties; on September 20, eight hundred catties; on October 1, eight hundred catties.

Lingfang, about seventy. On the first day of September, she weighed 1,200 catties; on the fifteenth day of September, she weighed 800 catties; on the twenty-fifth day of September, she weighed 1,500 catties.

"

The whole piece of paper was filled with such strange nouns and numbers, listed in more than ten lines, but no one knew what they indicated.

Pei Ye frowned and looked at it until his eyes paused, and suddenly he saw a familiar noun mixed in it.

——"Lotus seeds are fragrant, about eighty. On September 11, one thousand catties; on September 22, one thousand catties; on October 3, one thousand catties."

Pei Ye remembered the three words "lotus seed fragrance". When he went to Pingkangfang for a stroll that night, the performing artist dancing on the lotus platform flew down from this building.

Are these the brothels in Pingkangfang?
(End of this chapter)