There is a god in the sky

Chapter 36 Poisoning Case in a Dilapidated Temple in the Wilderness (Part 4)

Joy flashed in Zhang's eyes, but she quickly calmed down.

“I have no evidence.” Zhang was sweating profusely. After thinking hard, she suddenly looked up and said, “But I can prove that this thing was sent by Wu Zhongjin through the escort agency. The agency has a deposit slip.”

She cried out in agitation, "He caused all this to seize the treasure! He's the one who caused it all! He deserves to die! He's the culprit!"

No matter how angry she was, Xiao Ji just shook his head: "But he can also prove that he bought this thing from you with money."

After all, Zhang received that large sum of money.

Zhang looked at them dejectedly.

Is there really no other way?

Fu Qingyan felt sympathy and advised her, "Perhaps you can look for clues from Master Luo. As long as you can prove that Master Luo's disappearance is related to him, you can still file a case."

At this moment, Xiao Ji interjected, "Does Madam Luo cook and prepare meals at home?"

Zhang was taken aback. "I rarely do it. We used to have servants at home, but they left, so my daughter does most of the work."

Luo Yuemei stood by her mother's side the whole time, her eyes sometimes filled with sadness, sometimes with resentment.

She is a very filial child.

"Did you pick those mushrooms together yesterday? From what you've said, you don't seem to have ever handled these before."

Zhang answered nervously, "Yes, we picked them together. We didn't have any money, so we caught a wild pheasant and saw some mushrooms, so we picked some to make soup."

"Sir, we don't recognize poisonous mushrooms, and we didn't know they were poisonous beforehand."

Shen Lan remained in a daze; she hadn't fully woken up yet.

Upon hearing this, she widened her eyes and said rationally, "You're lucky; the mushrooms you picked aren't poisonous."

"What?" Zhang didn't quite understand the meaning of those words.

Sui Feng voiced her doubts, "How did Miss Shen know that?"

"Take a walk around the dilapidated temple and see if you can find any dead rats."

Sui Feng didn't understand at first, but he understood after he went around in circles.

Shen Lan divided the leftover chicken bones and spat-out mushrooms into two piles and placed them on the east and west sides of the dilapidated temple.

Both piles of food contained remnants, but both showed signs of being eaten by rats, yet there wasn't a single dead rat in sight.

What does it mean that a mushroom that can kill an adult male cannot even kill a small mouse?

Xiao Ji pondered after hearing the report.

This was not the outcome he had envisioned.

He asked curiously, "Where did you put the poison?"

Zhang shook her head frantically, "No! I didn't poison her!"

Xiao Ji went to see Shen Lan, who was staring at Zhang and her daughter deep in thought.

Shen Lan walked past them to look at the corpse on the ground.

Only half a night had passed, and the faces of the five corpses had all changed.

The characteristics of death from poisoning are becoming increasingly clear.

She returned to the dilapidated temple and found the bowls they used to drink soup.

Those were just five ordinary bamboo tubes, freshly made, and discarded after use.

She opened her toolbox, put on gloves before touching the bamboo tubes, and then gently scraped the inner wall with a knife.

A layer of white powder was scraped off.

She dissolved the powder in water, put the silver needles into the water, and could see the silver needles slowly turn black.

Arsenic in this era was not pure enough, containing a large amount of sulfides. These sulfides reacted with silver, producing black silver sulfide that adhered to the silver needle, thus revealing its toxicity.

"Someone put poison in the bamboo tube?" This was the first time Fu Qingyan had witnessed the crime.

This case, which happened right under their noses, was initially thought to be caused by accidentally eating poisonous mushrooms, but they never expected there to be more to it than met the eye.

Could such meticulous thinking really have come from that mother and daughter?

Xiao Ji gave Sui Feng a signal, and the latter understood and walked to the corner where the mother and daughter had been lying.

Their belongings were still there.

"What are you trying to do?" Luo Yuemei rushed over, trying to stop Sui Feng.

But Suiying dodged and blocked her.

"Get out of the way!"

Luo Yuemei pounded on Suiying with her fist.

It remained steadfast and unmoved despite her knocking.

Zhang's bewildered expression couldn't be faked; either she didn't poison him, or she was an excellent actress.

Xiao Ji was skilled at observing people's micro-expressions, and in his experience, Zhang was truly unaware of the situation.

The only possible perpetrator is her daughter, Luo Yuemei.

But this girl is only around ten years old, where would she get such cunning and methods?

Sui Feng searched the bundle, shook his head at Xiao Ji, and found no poison.

Shen Lan asked directly, "Do you need me to search you?"

Xiao Ji's gaze fell on Luo Yuemei, who roared like an angry little lion, "If you cause any trouble, I'll kill myself right here!"

"You poisoned me, didn't you?" Xiao Ji asked.

"It wasn't me!" Luo Yuemei denied.

But her shifting eyes betrayed her.

Even if she's cunning, she's still just a little girl and can't completely hide her emotions.

Zhang quickly pulled her daughter behind her, saying, "You've got the wrong idea. We didn't poison anything. We don't want the stuff anymore. We'll leave right now."

Suiying remained blocking their way.

"They were just bodyguards, they had no grudge against you, why would you kill them?" Fu Qingyan couldn't understand.

Shen Lan casually added, "Of course, it's to retrieve the treasure."

Sui Feng continued, "If we hadn't been stuck in this dilapidated temple because of the torrential rain, this would have been the perfect murder."

A group of bodyguards who had mistakenly eaten poisonous mushrooms in the wild found the mother and daughter's bodies, but by then the mother and daughter had already fled.

Zhang was still pleading, "Please, sir, have mercy and let us leave. We are a widow and her child, and we can hardly survive. Are you trying to force us to commit crimes? Are you trying to drive us to our deaths?"

If such a heavy accusation were leveled against them, a person with a conscience might have let them go.

Xiao Ji had seen murderers of all kinds. They might have had their reasons, but that couldn't cover up the fact that they had killed people.

"Arsenic is not hard to buy, but how can you smear the poison on the inside of the bamboo tubes and then make sure they will use them?"

Shen Lan poked at the fire that the mother and daughter had lit the night before with a stick.

“Let me guess.” She picked up a bamboo leaf that hadn’t burned completely and said, “What if they arrived at this dilapidated temple first, gathered some firewood, and cut a piece of bamboo to burn as firewood?”

Later, the group of bodyguards arrived, and the first thing they did after sitting down was to drink water.

But a group of men traveling together certainly wouldn't carry bowls, so they used the bamboo the women had cut to make bamboo tubes.

"Wait, what about the poison? How was it administered?" Fu Qingyan was filled with questions.

Shen Lan glanced at Xiao Ji, who stroked his chin and guessed the second half.

"It must have been about to rain. These bodyguards were going to spend the night in the dilapidated temple, so they must have wanted to sleep more comfortably. That's why they went out to gather dry grass."

There was only one pile of dry grass in the temple, which must have been picked up by the bodyguards.

While they were out, someone smeared arsenic on the inside of the bamboo tubes they used for drinking water.

At the time, they didn't realize that someone would later steal their chicken soup, mix it with poison, and drink it, making it seem like they had accidentally eaten poisonous mushrooms.