Song Yi

Chapter 364 The Barren Paddy Field

Du Wenhao immediately took Hong Butou and the others to Zhao Carpenter's house in Tongluo Village, and repeatedly asked Zhao Carpenter's whereabouts. a fixed place.

Du Wenhao extracted some fingerprints from Zhao Carpenter's residence. After comparing and eliminating them with his family members, he determined that some of the fingerprints were probably Zhao Carpenter's. However, after comparing with the fingerprints on the silk scarf, the results were not the same.It proves that the fingerprints on the silk scarf are not from Carpenter Zhao.

Is this a coincidence?The person who stole the hoe wasn't actually the murderer?Did the thread stop there?
Du Wenhao was not someone who gave up easily, and he could not give up on this clue. He immediately decided to ask Huang Zhizhou to send some plainclothes slaves and police officers to secretly search for Carpenter Zhao in the city and nearby villages.

This news provides an important message that it is likely to be a gang crime!

After returning to Hengzhou City, Sun Xianwei reported that he sent an investigation to buy saws and oilcloth paper and found nothing.

Du Wenhao was not surprised. He originally thought that the murderer bought the saw temporarily to dismember the corpse. Now based on the information provided by the old village woman, it is likely that one of the murderers was a carpenter. For a carpenter, a saw is an essential tool. Will not go to buy temporarily.Oilcloth paper is even more common, without any individual characteristics.

He now pinned his main hopes on fingerprints.The scope of the suspect has been delineated, and the fingerprints of the murderer have been extracted. He is confident that the murderer will be found soon.

As expected, the next day, Huang Zhizhou extracted the fingerprints of the people who bought narcotics within five days after shopkeeper Han disappeared based on the registration book of narcotics purchases provided by Du Wenhao.

Du Wenhao locked himself in the room as if he had found a treasure, and compared his fingerprints.It only took an hour for Du Wenhao to come out excitedly, immediately called Huang Zhizhou, and handed him a fingerprint: "This person is one of the murderers who killed shopkeeper Han and Aunt Tan. He also has accomplices. Immediately." Arrest this person and interrogate him severely!"

Huang Zhizhou took it and saw that this person was a rural doctor in a mountain village more than ten miles away from the city.At that time, I participated in training and lectures, and according to the official letter from the village, I bought anesthetics.Hearing Du Wenhao say that this person is the real murderer, he didn't dare to ask Du Wenhao how he knew, so he immediately agreed, and hurried out with the list, and personally led Sun Xianwei, Hong Butou and others to rush out of the city to arrest people up.

Du Wenhao sat firmly in the tent of the Chinese army, and after waiting for less than an hour, Huang Zhizhou and the others came back, escorting three people.

Huang Zhizhou wanted Du Wenhao to report: "Master Ti Xing, you are really good at predicting things, it really is this person who committed crimes and killed Shopkeeper Han and Aunt Tan!"

Du Wenhao smiled and said, "Have they pleaded guilty?"

"I admit it. When they rushed to the doctor's house, they were planning to rob and kill the next target! They found shopkeeper Tan's jade pendant and other belongings from the house, as well as Aunt Tan's jewelry necklace. All three of them confessed."

Du Wenhao said: "Bring them here, I will interrogate them myself."

Huang Zhizhou hurriedly ordered Hong Butou to escort the three suspects to kneel down and kowtow.In addition to the doctor and the carpenter, the three men also had an accomplice who was a shop assistant in the city. After interrogation, the three confessed unanimously.

It turned out that the village doctor had listened to Du Wenhao's lecture and witnessed Du Wenhao using anesthetics to paralyze a big fat pig, so he had the idea of ​​stealing with anesthetics.He was good friends with the carpenter and the shop clerk. After telling the other two about the plan, both of them thought it was feasible, and the three hit it off.

The three of them agreed that the shop assistants would find a target to attack.The carpenter came forward to rent two rooms from Aunt Tan.The shopkeeper knew the time when shopkeeper Han came to the store to check out, so he decided to do it that day.Waiting on the road that shopkeeper Han must pass, after seeing shopkeeper Han, he told shopkeeper Han that the shopkeeper was waiting for him somewhere, and tricked shopkeeper Tan and the shopkeeper into Aunt Tan's house where they rented, and added anesthetics to the tea, Pour them down.

Unexpectedly, they were dismembered and dismembered in the courtyard of the backyard. Although they were carefully washed with water, Aunt Tan still smelled blood and thought they were slaughtering poultry in the house and wanted to drive them out.They were worried that they could not find a better place to commit the crime, so they gave the treasurer Tan's jade ring to Aunt Tan in exchange for permission to slaughter poultry in the courtyard in the future.

Because the corpses of Shopkeeper Han and the assistant were too big, the three of them did not dare to transport them out of the city for burial at once, so they dismembered and transported them separately for burial.When they dismembered the corpses of the guys, Aunt Tan smelled blood and came to check. When she saw their dismembered corpses, she ran back to the room in fright.The three of them followed closely into the room, and in order to silence the murder, they restrained Aunt Tan and gang-raped her. Afterwards, the doctor stuffed a silk scarf into her mouth and suffocated her to death, thus leaving her fingerprints .

The three first dismembered the man's body and transported it out of the city, and buried it in another place.When returning to the city, I found that the city gate officials began to strictly check the people who left the city.The three of them didn't know that it was Mrs. Han who had paid the city gate officer to visit her husband. They thought their crimes had been exposed, so they didn't dare to enter the city, so they turned around and fled, hiding in the mountains for more than ten days.

Two days before they were arrested, no one came to arrest them after inquiring. Then they came back from the mountain, and when they were preparing for the next round of killing money, they were caught.

The three confessed the place where shopkeeper Han's assistant was dismembered and buried.According to the confession, the burial site was found and the body parts of the man were dug up.

After the case was solved, Du Wenhao decided to continue his journey.

In order to thank Du Wenhao for his magnanimity, Huang Zhizhou threw a big feast for Du Wenhao to practice.Meier is grateful to Du Wenhao for reducing her prison sentence, dragging the hand of Wu Wu and the torturer, and sings a song for Du Wenhao.

After leaving Hengzhou, Du Wenhao traveled southward on medical tours.

On this day, they came to the boundary of Jingjiang Mansion in Guilin, which is the most beautiful place in the world.It was already late autumn.

I thought that there should be no good scenery in this season, but who would have thought that there would still be green mountains and green waters along the way, and the scenery would be pleasant.Pang Yuqin and the others were delighted to see it. Not far from Jingjiang, there is a place with excellent scenery. Ke Yao suggested staying here for two days.Anyway, he was not in a hurry, so Du Wenhao agreed and stayed in an inn in a small town.

In the following two days, they went out early and returned late, enjoying the boundless beauty, fishing by the river, and boating in the river, which was very pleasant.

This morning, Du Wenhao and the others had breakfast at the inn. They packed up and were about to leave the inn. The innkeeper hurried upstairs to find Du Wenhao. sir.

"Du...Master Du, if you know that you are going to be punished, I will never dare to accept your money." The shopkeeper is an honest middle-aged man, bowing and standing in front of Du Wenhao with a trembling expression. , said humbly.

Du Wenhao thought, no one knows his whereabouts, could it be that the prefect of Hengzhou sent someone to inform the prefect of Jingjiang Mansion in advance, or there is no reason why so many government servants suddenly appeared at the entrance of the inn to welcome him.Du Wenhao said with a smile: "It's not a problem, it's only natural to pay for staying in a hotel and eating, and there is a saying that officials don't need to pay."

Du Wenhao went downstairs to the door, and saw several groups of people standing neatly at the door, the leader was an old man, wearing the official robes of the prefect, seeing him coming out, he quickly walked up to him with a smile on his face, and bowed to salute: "Jingjiang Liao Guibing, the prefect of the prefecture, visited Mr. Du, but his humble position did not know that Mr. Du was here, and he was far away from welcoming you, please forgive me."

Du Wenhao returned the salute, wondering: "How did Master Liao know that I was the criminal officer? How did he know that I was staying here?"

Liao Guibing: "To tell you the truth, the humble staff left manpower on the way that the lord must pass through, and found out that the lord has already entered the country, so he rushed here."

Du Wenhao smiled and said, "Your Excellency is really hardworking."

"Where, this is what a humble job should be. In addition, the magistrates of the seven counties under the jurisdiction of the humble mansion are all waiting outside Jingjiang City. Because there are more people coming, there are villages with ordinary people along the way. The noise of cars and horses is afraid of disturbing the people. Make it your own so they don’t have to come.”

Du Wenhao praised: "Master Liao is still thoughtful, so let's go, so as not to make them wait for a long time."

Liao Guibing: "Yes, that humble official will lead the way." After Du Wenhao and the others got into the carriage, he leaned back a few steps, got into the carriage, and drove ahead to open the way.

The carriage followed, and Ke Yao said with a smile: "It seems that the magistrate is still an official who loves and cherishes the people. If it were someone else, he might not think so carefully."

Pang Yuqin said, "I think so too."

Du Wenhao nodded with a smile.

This Jingjiang Mansion can be regarded as a wealthy place in Guangxi. When I was in the capital, I heard the emperor and the empress dowager often mention this place, so Du Wenhao decided to come and have a look. There are 23 townships in the seven counties of Jingjiang Mansion, 57 The village is not a small place. When Du Wenhao first met Mr. Liao, he felt that this man looked very real, neither ostentatious nor impetuous.

The carriage had been driving on the road for about an hour, and saw a boundary marker, and a group of horses and horses stopped not far away, and heard the sound of horseshoes, those who had been resting or sleeping by the side of the road hurriedly stood up and straightened their clothes, waiting for Du When Wen Hao and his carriage arrived, Liao Guibing, who had arrived one step earlier, had already led a group of local officials to stand neatly on both sides of the road and wait.

Sitting in the car, Pang Yuqin saw Du Wenhao get out of the car, lifted the curtain of the window and looked out, and whispered to Lin Qingdai who was beside her: "It seems that I have been waiting for a long time, and everyone's faces are the same. I don’t like disturbing the people, so it’s really unnecessary to summon the county magistrates of the seven counties to wait here.”

Ke Yao: "Look, my brother will definitely teach that prefect Liao a lesson."

Sure enough, after Du Wenhao listened to the introduction, he said to the prefect Liao indifferently: "Master Liao must have come up with the idea of ​​letting so many people wait here?"

Before Liao Guibing could speak, a chunky county magistrate at the side quickly explained: "Master Du, you misunderstood. Earlier, Master Liao said that you must not like what we did, so you didn't let the seven of us come. It just so happened that the magistrate of Hengzhou When people sent letters, the county magistrates of our seven counties reported to Mr. Liao the situation of each county in the government office every quarter, so they all knew, so they strongly asked to come, don’t you think so?”

Everyone else nodded their heads and said yes.

Du Wenhao's face softened slightly: "Don't do this in the future, you just mobilize the people like this, and let the common people know it's not good."

Liao Guibing cupped his hands and said: "The humble official has been punished. The humble official did not agree to this kind of thing, but after thinking about it and understanding everyone's feelings, he reluctantly agreed. Don't worry, Mr. Du, the humble official will not be like this in the future."

Du Wenhao hummed and said, "Okay, then let's go into the city."

Liao Guibing hurriedly said: "Lord Du, I have a merciless request from a humble official."

"Go ahead."

Liao Guibing said: "Your Excellency should have been invited to enter the city from the main gate in the south, but today happens to be the big market every [-]th day, and the common people in the city have to go to the market on this day, so there are very many people, and we have so many horses and chariots. , I'm worried...so...see if I can enter through the north gate?"

Du Wenhao nodded approvingly and smiled, "It's a good thing to think about the common people. I'll listen to you. We'll enter the city from the north gate."

Liao Guibing hurriedly thanked: "Master Du loves the people like a son, and I am humbled to thank Mr. Du on behalf of the people of Jingjiang Mansion."

Du Wenhao got into the car again, and Ke Yao whispered, "Brother, do you think Master Liao is pretending to show you?"

Du Wenhao: "Hehe, you, there are very few good people in your eyes?"

Lin Qingdai jokingly said: "Ke Yao's eyes are intelligent eyes, otherwise Mr. Liao didn't dare to look at us Ke Yao just now."

Ke Yao said angrily: "My sister will laugh at me! I won't come!"

Pang Yuqin also smiled and said: "Yes, I think the Liao prefect is still very good. Whether it is sincere or pretending, at least it can consider the common people, and the common people can benefit from it. This is very good."

Lian'er also said: "I see that Mr. Liao is also very kind, without any official airs."

Xue Fei'er smiled and said, "What kind of airs can he put on in front of my brother?"

Du Wenhao said: "Actually, the rank of a prefect is no lower than that of a criminal officer."

Lin Qingdai said: "You are different from others when you mention a prisoner. You are arranging various prisons. How can he compare with the magistrate of his prefecture!"

Du Wenhao smiled and said, "Hehe, it's rare to see you guys so excited. What's the matter today?"

Ke Yao said: "Probably because we are really too free and need to find something for us to do."

"That's good. I will support whatever you want to do in Jingjiang Mansion."

When Ke Yao heard this, he suddenly became interested, tilted his head and thought for a while, and said, "Why don't we open a Wuweitang in Jingjiang Mansion?"

Lin Qingdai said: "Do you really want to stay permanently?"

Ke Yao pouted: "No, I just feel that doing nothing all day is meaningless."

Pang Yuqin also said: "What Ke Yao said is the same, and I think so too. Find something to do."

Du Wenhao: "Then you guys should think about it again, anyway, you are not in a hurry to leave."

That night, Liao Guibing hosted a banquet in his mansion to welcome Du Wenhao and his party, accompanied by the magistrates of the seven counties.

Du Wenhao found that the dishes on the banquet were exquisite but not extravagant, but they were all common poultry, except for a few mountain delicacies and some seasonal vegetables. Prefect Liao lived in the inner house of the Yamen, and he did not buy any real estate by himself, and the buildings in the mansion were relatively Old, it seems that this Liao Guibing is fairly clean as an official.

Du Wenhao originally thought that Liao Guibing would arrange them in the big inn and restaurant, but unexpectedly, he arranged them in the mansion of Tongzhi, the yamen next to his inner house. Because Tongzhi is a local and has his own real estate, it was vacant. .The place is quite wide.

Du Wenhao nodded secretly, and the group moved into Tongzhi's inner house.

There is everything in the inner house, and there is no need to buy anything at all.So at dusk, Ke Yao yelled to go out for shopping, and dragged Du Wenhao to accompany him. Pang Yuqin saw that there was nothing wrong with Ke Yao along the way, and gradually let go of his guard. She acted like a baby, so she agreed with a smile, and asked Du Wenhao to accompany her to go out for a stroll, and they cleaned up the place.Du Wenhao changed into casual clothes, and left the inner house with Ke Yao through the back door.

As soon as he left the alley, he saw the housekeeper of the Liao Mansion approaching him: "Lord Du, are you going out?" the housekeeper asked respectfully.

Ke Yao hurriedly said, "My brother and I want to go for a walk."

"Why don't I call the master, after all, I'm not familiar with the place, it's better to have someone to lead the way."

Du Wenhao: "You don't have to be so polite, we're just going for a walk, no matter where we go, Mr. Liao is tired today, so don't need to accompany him."

The butler didn't insist, and gave some instructions, and talked about some attractions in the city, and then watched Du Wenhao and Ke Yao walk away.

Ke Yao walked around the street for a while, and felt that it was not as fun as being in the wild, so he dragged Du Wenhao out of the city and walked along the path to the river.

Ke Yao shook a piece of dogtail grass in his hand: "Brother, this is the first time I have seen an official like Liao Zhifu arrange Shangguan to live in the yamen, and he was reluctant to pay us to live in a high-end hotel."

Du Wenhao: "It is necessary to pay for the reception of the Shangguan. The yamen does not have this kind of expenses. If you know that the government pays for it yourself, I am afraid that his family is not very well-off, and the clothes of his family and servants are also very simple. Don't force yourself."

"We can pay for it ourselves. Like the way."

"Everyone has made arrangements. If we move out to live again, wouldn't it be a shame for others?"

"Oh.—Huh? What's that?" Ke Yao saw a paddy field not far away. The clear water was quiet, but there were no crops. There were some grasses growing here and there, and there was a wooden sign on the edge of the field. Look, there are several large characters written on the wooden sign: "For sale here."

Ke Yao was puzzled: "Brother, why is this land so deserted?"

Du Wenhao was also very puzzled, when a woman came over leading a cow, Ke Yao hurried forward and asked, "Elder Sister, why are these fields of yours left uncultivated?"

The woman stared at Ke Yao and Du Wenhao vigilantly without speaking.

Ke Yao quickly said: "We are passing by, but it's a bit strange to see these fields are deserted, so we just asked casually."

A good woman glanced at them, turned her head away, and muttered: "Drought, no rain at all, what to plant?"

Du Wenhao: "No, isn't there rain in this field?"

"..." the farmer hesitated for a moment, then muttered again: "It only planted last month."

Ke Yao said: "Then there is no need to sell the land? The land is gone, what will we eat next year?"

The woman said unhappily: "I..., I don't know, you can ask someone else!" After finishing speaking, she led the cow and hurried away.

(End of this chapter)