Concubine

Chapter 95

It has been several days since the Bai family left Guangde County, and the small town has returned to its former calm.

On this day, Yang Qiuchi was sitting bored in the class room, when he suddenly heard faint cries from the repeat offender's cell, which sounded like Long Zixu, and asked Da Banya what was going on.Dabanya told Yang Qiuchi that the upper mansion had approved Long Zixu's death penalty and he wanted to report it to Yingtian Mansion.Long Zixu was one step closer to the execution ground. When Long Zixu heard the news, he was crying loudly in the prison.

Yang Qiuchi frowned. Last time he felt that his wife-killing case was a bit strange, but when Mr. Bai Qian proposed a marriage, he never asked about it. Anyway, he was idle now, so he decided to take a look.Yang Qiuchi came to Long Zixu's cell with his big teeth, and saw him lying on the ground in the cell crying bitterly. When he saw Yang Qiuchi come in, he got up and knelt on the ground, kowtowing repeatedly: "Master Yang, please help me!" Right. I really didn't kill my wife, I was wronged."

Yang Qiuchi didn't know how many times he had heard this sentence, and now he said it again, feeling a little annoyed: "Okay, okay, you said you were wronged, but you can't give evidence that you didn't kill your wife. How can you ask me to help you?" you?"

When Long Zixu heard this, he was even more desperate, kowtowed loudly, and kept crying out for being wronged.

Yang Qiuchi thought that there was nothing wrong with him, so he listened to him talk about how to be wronged, so he said: "Don't cry, how about it, tell me the whole story of your lady's disappearance, let me listen, what is wrong with you?" .”

Long Zixu wiped away his tears, nodded, and said with sobs: "At about this time last year, one day when I came back from outside, my wife disappeared. I searched everywhere but couldn't find it. A white bone was dug up in the ground, it was my wife, and I was arrested. A laundry stick was found in my house, and there was blood on it, and it was said that I beat my wife to death with this wooden stick. ——I was beaten into a trick, I really didn't kill my wife."

Yang Qiuchi always felt that there was something wrong in what he said. He frowned and thought for a while, but he still couldn't find what was wrong, so he decided to reconsider the plot: "Your wife disappeared in the early winter of last year, right?"

Long Zixu nodded.

"Then when did they find that bone?"

"It will be spring this year."

"Oh~! Got it..., what? It's spring this year? You said they found a bone?" Yang Qiuchi asked.

"Yes, the one who took me to see it was a bone." Long Zixu didn't know why Yang Qiuchi asked this.

"A skeleton with no meat at all?"

Long Zixu nodded again.I still don't understand why Yang Qiuchi asked such a question.

Da Banya at the side also said: "It is indeed a white bone. Many people went to see it at that time, and I also went to see the excitement. It is a white bone with no meat or clothes. It may have been stripped and buried. "

Yang Qiuchi's face became serious. After thinking about it, he asked again: "Your lady really disappeared in the early winter of last year? Did you remember correctly?"

"My memory is correct. It was already very cold at that time. We had a quarrel about making winter clothes. There was only so little money at home, and there was not enough to buy rice. She insisted on making a new quilted jacket. I disagreed, so we started arguing, and she scratched my face until the neighbors came to persuade me to fight. After a few days, she disappeared."

Yang Qiuchi stood up, walked back and forth in the cell, stopped suddenly, turned around and asked, "Where is that bone?"

Dabanya said: "I heard that the family of the talented lady took her back and buried her."

"Buried? Where is it buried?"

"I don't know." Big Mater said.

Long Zixu also shook his head.

"Aside from the bones, what else is left in this case? Such as relics, murder weapons, etc."

Dabanya said: "Master Yang, I really don't know. I just went to watch the excitement. I heard that only a skeleton was dug out, and there were no clothes left. This is the murder weapon. By the way, scholar, are you What did you use to kill your wife?"

Long Zixu cried, "Master, I really didn't kill my wife!"

"Okay, okay, you didn't kill it, I killed it, okay? Then what did they say I killed your wife with? It seems that you just said it was a laundry stick, right?"

Long Zixu wept and said: "They put sticks on me, and I just admitted it because I couldn't stand it. But I really didn't~!"

"Didn't you just say that they found blood on the laundry stick? You didn't beat your wife, so how could there be blood on the laundry stick?"

"That... that is..." Long Zixu hesitated to speak, looked at Yang Qiuchi and Da Banya, hesitated for a while, then lowered his head and whispered: "That's me, I really have nothing to eat, so I use that A laundry stick secretly killed a neighbor’s piglet, took it home and ate it, that’s why there was blood.”

Yang Qiuchi frowned and asked, "Did you talk about this in the lobby?"

Long Zixu shook his head, his face full of shame: "I am a scholar, this matter is insulting to the gentlemen, I... am embarrassed to say it."

Are you embarrassed about losing your head?Yang Qiuchi couldn't laugh or cry, it's no wonder that no matter how educated a person is, when he is hungry, he may not be able to resist the temptation of food.Turning to ask Big Mater: "What about the laundry stick?"

Da Banya said: "Since it is a murder weapon, it should be in the small room next to the mortuary, where these murder weapons and other things are specially piled up."

Yang Qiuchi said to Long Zixu: "Don't cry, I'll check your case." Then he hurried out of the cell.Long Zixu kowtowed to thank him.

Yang Qiuchi came to the small room next to the mortuary. When he was an apprentice, he had the keys to several rooms in the mortuary in his hand, but Song Zhixian did not let him hand it back.Yang Qiuchi opened the door and rummaged through a pile of murder weapons. Among more than a dozen sticks, he found a one-foot-long stick with a piece of paper on it that read, "The murder weapon in the case of Long Zixu killing his wife .”

Yang Qiuchi took the wooden stick out of the room and looked carefully outside. Sure enough, there were obvious dark red marks on the wooden stick, which looked like blood.

Yang Qiuchi took the wooden stick home, entered his forensic room, and closed the door.The blood sample on the wooden stick was extracted first, and then the species test of the blood stain was carried out.The result came out, the bloodstains on the stick were not human blood!

Yang Qiuchi's brows were furrowed together.He walked back and forth in the room, thinking, just now Long Zixu said that his wife disappeared in the early winter of last year, and this bone was discovered in the spring and summer of this year, and the interval was only half a year.

Here lies the problem: according to the climate in Guangde, it is impossible for a corpse buried in the ground to turn into bones in half a year!

The decomposing speed of the corpse is closely related to the surrounding environment. Generally speaking, the corpse decomposes fastest when it is exposed to the air, followed by water, and the slowest in the soil.The general ratio is 1:2:8.In other words, assuming that a corpse is on the ground and exposed to the air, it takes 2 months for it to rot into a white bone. Under the same conditions, it will take a year and a half for a corpse buried in the soil to become bones.

The rate of decay of corpses buried in the soil varies depending on the soil quality, burial depth, whether a coffin is used, the quality of the coffin, and the season of burial. Generally speaking, the ossified corpse takes about three to five years in northern China. About one to one and a half years in the south.

Of course, if the climate is sultry, the heat from the ground emits slowly, and the temperature of the soil is higher, the time for ossification will be shorter. In some hot climates in the south, corpses buried in summer can skeletalize in less than half a year.

The climate in Guangde County is moderate, and the winter is relatively cold. According to the climate here, Yang Qiuchi judged that if the corpse was directly buried in the soil, it would take at least two years for the body to fully ossify.However, Long Zixu's wife disappeared in early winter. If she had been buried in the soil at that time, Guangde's winter climate would be cold, and the body's decay would be much slower.And the burial place is a vegetable field, which is often watered, so even in summer, the temperature of the soil should be relatively low. May become bones.

Therefore, this bone cannot belong to Long Zixu's wife!This bone should have died and been buried in this vegetable field a year and a half before Long Zixu's wife disappeared!

Long Zixu said that the laundry stick was the blood that was stuck on the piglet he used to kill the neighbor. Just now, Yang Qiuchi conducted the blood stain test to test whether the blood stain was human blood or animal blood. According to Long Zixu.

Long Zixu's murder of his wife turned out to be a wrong case!
Who is this skeleton?To find out this problem, we must first conduct an autopsy.

However, it is not that simple to open the coffin for an autopsy, especially in the Ming Dynasty where the feudal ethics were very prosperous. If it is not possible to arouse public outrage, it must have a good reason.

If in modern society, the coffin can be opened for autopsy just because the time of ossification is inconsistent with the time of death of the victim, but now we use this thing to persuade Song Zhixian to overturn his own death sentence half a year ago, and open the coffin for autopsy. He won't do it, and no one will believe it.

The most convincing thing is to find Long Zixu's wife!If he can't find his wife, everything will be useless.Only when his wife was found, Song Zhixian and others would believe that the bone was not Long Zixu's wife, and only then, Song Zhixian had to overturn his own judgment, re-examine the case, and allow the exhumation of the coffin.

But Long Zixu's wife has been missing for a year, where can she find her?

(End of this chapter)