Records of the Lost Cases of Helaitang in the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 228: Sacrifice Cliff

The incident happened suddenly. Zhang Xiru frowned and thought for a moment, "Le Niang is not the kind of person who doesn't know the seriousness of the matter. She is the mistress of the house. Where would she run away?"

Ade said with a bitter face: "The young lady is in her naughty period and she is very willful."

Zhang Xiru hesitated for a moment, then said, "Where are the servants around Le Niang? Let me ask them."

"Except for a few errand boys, who were asked to go to the front and back mountains to look for people, the other servants were asked to wait in the courtyard of the villa." Ade said.

"Yeah." Zhang Xiru probably felt that Ade handled the situation well, nodded, and strode towards the villa. Wang Heng and Xiaocai followed.

There were quite a few servants in the Liu residence, and they gathered in the courtyard and made a lot of noise like headless flies. It was only after Ade coughed several times that the scene became a little quieter.

Zhang Xiru asked Ade to call Mrs. Liu Le Niang's maid. Le Niang's maid Xiu'er was timid and pretty.

"This is Xiu'er." said Ade.

Zhang Xiru said to Wang Heng behind him, "Qilang, I heard that you have also solved a case in your hometown. Why don't you come and ask him?"

Wang Heng lowered his head and thought for a moment, then came up with an idea. He said, "Xiu'er, where were you when Madam Liu and Miss suddenly left?"

Xiu'er said in a panic, "Madam said that Miss had a bit of heat stroke and was exhausted. She asked me to make a bowl of nepeta tea to dispel the heat. When I came out with the teacup, Madam and Miss were gone."

Wang Heng asked again: "Where is Miss Liu's maid?"

Ade said quickly, "The young lady's maid Xiaolian broke her leg yesterday and is unable to move. She is resting in the house to recover from her injury, so she is not serving the young lady personally today."

Wang Heng remembered that he and Xiaocai had rescued Xiaolian yesterday, so he stopped asking about Xiaolian.

"So, who was it that saw the young lady dragging the lady away?" Wang Heng asked.

"It was Ah Niu, Ah Shui and a few other male servants. They were all working in the outer courtyard doing rough work. So, when they saw the lady and the young lady walking south from the release pond, no one dared to ask where they were going."

"Where are the maids in this mansion? None of them are here?" Wang Heng had a very strange feeling.

"At that time, the ceremony had just ended and the maids all went to eat." Ade said.

It seems that although the Liu Mansion is grand, it is not a noble family, and the servants do not behave well. When asked this, Wang Heng secretly changed his mind and looked at everyone in the Liu Mansion. The Liu Mansion has only two masters, mother and daughter, but they have so many servants, and the servants have no manners at all. Only the housekeeper Ade looks a bit like a servant of an official family.

Zhang Xiru turned to Xiaocai and said, "Xiaocai, I heard that you wrote a storybook about a public case. What do you think?"

"The only clue we have now is that Miss Liu and Madam Liu walked southward from the release pond into the mountains and then disappeared temporarily. It was about an hour ago, which is not too long. It is not certain that something unexpected happened. Maybe they went somewhere to talk or do something. Who knows." Xiaocai thought for a moment and said to the servants of the Liu Mansion, "If anyone has heard Madam Liu or Miss Liu mention where they were going or what they were going to do, just tell them. If you tell them, you can go to Butler Ade to collect the ten-cent reward."

When the male and female servants heard that there was a reward, some of them who were more quick-witted stood up.

"Ah Hong, what do you know? Tell me quickly." A De saw Ah Hong, the old maid in the laundry, coming out from the corner, as if she wanted to say something.

Ah Hong said, "Yesterday, I heard from the young lady that the master was suffering down there, and she wanted to jump off the cliff to save herself and bring blessings to the master. This morning, I heard from the young lady again."

There was also a servant named Ajuan who testified: "I heard the young lady say with my own ears that she wanted to jump off the cliff with the mistress to accompany the master."

After appreciating the Sheshen Cloud Sea in the morning, Xiaocai realized that the mountain road to Sheshen Cliff was indeed from the Release Pond to the south up the mountain. Xiaocai said to Ade: "Butler, do you know about this?"

Ah De wiped his sweat and said, "The young lady seemed to have said something like this before. I just thought it was a child's talk. Madam, you probably didn't take it seriously."

Wang Heng was puzzled and asked, "Miss Liu is still very young, only nine or ten years old. How could she recognize the road the second day after going up the mountain?"

Ade said, "We live in Cuihua Village at the foot of Jubao Mountain. This is not the first time for the madam and the young lady to go to Jubao Mountain."

Xiaocai said to Zhang Xiru, "Mr. Zhang, Mrs. Liu and Miss Liu may have gone to Sheshen Cliff. It's useless to think about it here. Why don't we go to Sheshen Cliff to look for them?"

Zhang Xiru invited a young monk from the other courtyard to be a guide and took Wang Heng and Xiaocai to the Cliff of Sacrifice. Ade took two male and two female servants with him, and asked the rest of the people to wait in the other courtyard to pass on the message.

The route taken by the young monk was indeed the same as the one he took to see the Buddha's light in the morning. He headed south from the release pond, climbed a small hill, encountered a bamboo forest, then walked eastwards up the steps and climbed a cliff. The young monk said that the Self-Sacrifice Cliff was here.

It was already afternoon, the sky was gloomy, the fairy-tale-like sea of ​​clouds had long since vanished, and looking down from the cliff, everything was grey.

"Madam's silk handkerchief." The maid picked up a handkerchief from the crevice of the stone.

Everyone's eyes lit up, it seemed that Mrs. Liu had indeed been to the Cliff of Sacrifice.