newbobooks Chapter 039 The Dry Well in the Backyard (Revised)
Chapter 039 The Dry Well in the Backyard (Revised)
Except for the first room, there was blood in the remaining three rooms.
Strangely, they did not see a body.
“The Zhu family has sent quite a few people. Even if they are assassins from the martial arts world, they would still need a place to hide and dispose of the body.” Captain Ma pondered, “The Captain’s Office is in charge of the security of the capital. From yesterday morning until now, no suspicious vehicles or suspicious persons have been found. Where would they hide the body?”
"Has Commandant Ma ever heard of the saying 'the darkest place is under the lamp'?"
"Does Miss mean... they're still in this house?" Captain Ma shook his head: "Impossible. My men have searched the entire place. Even if they're blind, they shouldn't be so blind as to not see a single corpse."
"We've searched inside and outside, but what about the floor? Have you searched it thoroughly?"
“There’s nothing underground, the soil is all dry. They can’t possibly use some kind of earth-遁术 (earth-遁术 is a type of magic used in storybooks), can they?” Captain Ma’s subordinate shook his head: “That’s too scary.”
“Since it’s a dwelling, there must be a well in the yard.” Lu Zhiyuan put her hands behind her back and looked at the sky. “Let’s go check out the well; maybe we’ll find something new.”
“Impossible. We’ve already checked the well. It’s dry, and the bottom is just overgrown with weeds.” Captain Ma’s subordinate scratched his head. “I had someone throw a torch into the well, and the torch illuminated the bottom of the well perfectly. There was nothing there.”
Before he could finish speaking, he was kicked. The kick was so heavy that it made him stagger.
"So that's where that black smoke came from. Turns out you burned down someone's well. And there was nothing in the well, or if there was, you burned it all away."
Captain Ma's subordinate looked aggrieved and muttered under his breath, "Really, there isn't. If there were, with my two big eyes, there's no way I wouldn't have missed it."
The well in the corner was blackened by fire, and a strong, acrid smell filled the air. Upon smelling it, Captain Ma and his men all paled—it was the smell of a charred corpse.
Commander Ma was so angry that he spun around in circles. His subordinate, knowing he had made a big mistake, wanted to make amends and tried to jump into the well, but was stopped by Lu Yun who intervened in time.
"The fire has already burned down to a certain extent, so jumping down won't help."
"It was my oversight. I should have gone to see for myself." Commander Ma pounded his forehead. "Who exactly did the Zhu family offend to bring about such an undeserved disaster?"
“It’s not entirely unfounded. The Zhu family may not have been innocent all these years.” Lu Zhiyuan looked up at the sky: “Judging by the time, my cousin should have returned to the Pingnan Marquis’s residence.”
Both Zhu Jia and Ji Wanwan were pawns of Prince Yong'an, and Zhu Guozhi once became Prince Yong'an's confidant, using business to gather information for him.
Zhu Guozhi's encounter with Ji Wanwan was accidental, while Ji Wanwan's encounter with Prince Yong'an was inevitable. From the moment Zhu Guozhi brought Ji Wanwan home, Prince Yong'an had already investigated her background and learned about her connection with the Pingnan Marquis's family.
In accordance with Prince Yong'an's consistent style, at that time, he already regarded Ji Wanwan as a pawn in his hands, a pawn that could be used to deal with the Lu family and the Xie family.
He was extremely cunning. He deliberately waited until after the wedding of the Xie and Lu families before using the pretext of a disaster in Weinan to leverage his influence in the court and lure Lu Huai to Weinan, where he and Ji Wanwan staged a touching reunion after a long separation on the streets of Weinan.
It was not Ji Wanwan who killed Zhu Guozhi, but the Prince of Yong'an.
With Ji Wanwan connected to Lu Huai, Zhu Guozhi's existence became superfluous; Ji Wanwan was merely a tool used by the Prince of Yong'an to eliminate useless pieces.
Her arrival caused the original plot to change.
The Zhu family carried the coffin to the capital, and Ji Wanwan was unable to defend herself and was imprisoned. In order to ensure the smooth progress of the plan, the villain, Prince Yong'an, naturally arranged for the maid to be replaced.
That maid was definitely not a true member of the Zhu family; everything she said in court was a lie. Even if Prince Yong'an could bribe people in the Commandant's office, there was no guarantee that Old Madam Zhu wouldn't file a complaint with the Emperor to find out the truth.
To avoid further trouble, Prince Yong'an decided to go all the way and eliminate the Zhu family altogether.
According to Captain Ma and his subordinates, the Zhu family's door was opened from the inside. There were no signs of a struggle at the entrance, indicating they were invited in. No obvious signs of a struggle were found in the victims' guest rooms or courtyard. All of this suggests only one thing—the Zhu family knew their killers.
This case is likely to be very difficult to investigate. Even if it is, if the Prince of Yong'an denies it, there's nothing they can do about it.
No wonder her broken system was so hesitant.
Commander Ma touched his nose and said, "To be honest, I had someone investigate the Marquis's residence. The Marquis has no connection with the Zhu family or the maid who came to turn herself in."
Lu Zhiyuan looked up and glanced at him: "Has Commandant Ma investigated the background of that maid?"
Commander Ma nodded and said, "It's almost exactly what she said. After leaving the Zhu family, she went to the Xiu Nu Fang (Imperial Girls' Quarter). This Xiu Nu Fang is a place in the capital where all sorts of people have fun. The people there are diverse, but they are well-informed. When she heard that the Zhu family had brought a coffin to her door, she felt uneasy and couldn't sleep. After thinking it over repeatedly, she decided to turn herself in at the government office."
Lu Zhiyuan asked, "Has Commandant Ma verified her identity? Is she really a maidservant of the Zhu family?"
Commander Ma said that when the maid turned herself in, he was not at the Commander's residence; he was led by someone else to see Ji Wanwan. Ji Wanwan was poisoned and on the verge of death, but she recognized the maid at a glance, which showed that she was indeed from the Zhu family.
Upon learning of this, Commander Ma considered further investigation, but his superiors urged him to close the case, and even the case closure document was already written. There must be a reason behind this suspicious turn of events, so he sent a trusted aide to deliver the case closure document, intending to gauge Old Madam Zhu's reaction to the matter. However, the aide was nowhere to be found.
“It’s not that people have disappeared, but that there’s no way to verify the truth.” Lu Zhiyuan looked into Captain Ma’s eyes: “In a case where the culprit surrenders and the plaintiff disappears, even if there are still countless doubts, there is no way to verify them.”
As soon as he finished speaking, Lu Yun and Captain Ma's subordinates each came in carrying a bag.
Lu Yun was carrying a head, the charred skin clinging tightly to the skull. Among the still-burnt strands of hair, he could see half a hairpin, with a ruby embedded in the tip.
That was Madam Zhu's hairpin, the last birthday gift Zhu Guozhi gave her before his death. She wore it for ten years and never took it off.
The subordinate was carrying a bag of badly deformed jewelry, which he had salvaged from a pile of mud mixed with corpses. The burly man, over eight feet tall, stood there, head bowed, looking utterly helpless.
“It’s all my fault. I acted impulsively and destroyed the evidence of the Zhu family’s murder. But when we first explored the well, there was definitely nothing in it.”
Lu Zhiyuan rummaged through the pile of deformed jewelry: "You didn't go down to the bottom of the well. If you had, you would have found the reeds covering the corpse and the tung oil spilled on them. Grass can grow in a well, but it can't grow reeds like these."
Commandant Ma's subordinate slapped himself: "Miss is right. We didn't go down to the bottom of the well. We were too presumptuous and thought that the murderer couldn't possibly have thrown the body into such a dry well. The Zhu family has dozens of people. Even if they were chopped up, they could still pile up high."
Lu Zhiyuan sighed and took a vase from inside the house, placing it in front of Commander Ma and his subordinates. Narrow at the top and wide at the bottom, it was a common well design in Northern Liang; they believed that a large, round well could absorb and retain wealth.