The He family's secret room is hidden under the artificial lake in the back garden, and the mechanism is located in the rockery. Taking out the key and opening the door, a faint musty smell rushed towards the face.
There are three secret rooms. There is a long table in the outermost room. There is a simple small bed next to the table. There is a quilt on the bed, which is folded into a square shape. Zhou Yu'an touched it with his hand and found that the bedding was sticky. It should be caused by the humidity at the bottom of the lake and the lack of sunlight for many years. There was nothing on the long table, the dust was thick, but there were a few drops of dried blood under the dust.
"Look, little sir, there are blood stains here too." Zhou Yu'an pointed to the table leg and showed it to Shen Chongming: "The blood stains are in the shape of splatters and are dark in color. They must be old."
"Go inside and have a look." Shen Chongming took out the silver key and opened the second door.
I thought I could see some gold and silver jewelry, but what I didn't expect was a coffin. Open the coffin and there is a body inside.
The deceased was lying on his back in the coffin, his hands were tied together, and his legs were stretched out stiffly.
"The deceased is a male. He was wearing summer clothes. There was grease on the clothes. It should have been left while eating." Zhou Yu'an looked at the deceased's clothes: "The deceased did not tie his belt himself, but the murderer helped him tie it. , the deceased and the murderer should have known each other."
"What happened to his feet?" Shen Chongming looked at the bones of the deceased's feet.
"The foot bone is broken, as if it was hit by something." Zhou Yu'an looked at the wound of the deceased: "With such a serious injury, he should have been lame before death."
"Cripple?" Shen Chongming narrowed his eyes: "I know who he is!"
"Who is it?" Zhou Yu'an turned around and bumped into Shen Chongming's arms.
Their eyes met, and the atmosphere suddenly felt awkward.
Zhou Yu'an moved aside without leaving a trace, his waist bumped into his arm, and his face suddenly turned red.
"What else?" Shen Chongming stared at the red tips of her ears, holding the edge of the coffin tightly with both hands to circle her.
The atmosphere suddenly became ambiguous.
She suddenly remembered that when he was in Qinglu, he refused to take the medicine she brewed with seven-worm and eight-step grass, so she pressed him against the bed like she did today. What happened next? She was so fascinated that she kissed him, and after a moment of daze, he drank the decoction together with the dregs at the bottom of the bowl.
She looked at his mouth full of medicine residue and laughed so hard that she completely forgot what she had done to him.
Damn memory, unexpectedly revived at this time.
Unable to hide his embarrassment, Zhou Yu'an coughed and asked with a blushing face: "What did you just ask me?"
"I ask what else you saw? For example, the cause of this person's death?" Shen Chongming let go and turned to the other side of the coffin as if he didn't notice Zhou Yu'an's embarrassment.
"The leg bones are intact, the hand bones are intact, and the knots are loose. The murderer should have tied him up after he was unconscious. The cervical vertebrae were fractured and the joints were dislocated. He died after the murderer broke his neck. There was blood on his hair, and the area of blood stain was larger. It was caused by being hit with a heavy object, which should be the reason why he fainted. The murderer knocked him unconscious while he was eating, and then murdered him."
"The murderer is He Hongyi!" Shen Chongming concluded: "The deceased is the strange thief Lu Yiming. His feet were broken by the jailer in Jingzhou Prison."
"Monster Lu Yiming?" Zhou Yu'an stared at the person in the coffin: "Is that the one they often talk about in the teahouse?"
"That's him!" Shen Chongming said: "Lu Yiming's hands are different from others. They are fat and short. Do you think his finger bones are shorter than ordinary people?"
Zhou Yu'an put his hands over for comparison, and the other's hands indeed seemed wide and short.
She was a little disappointed. She imagined that Lu Yiming should be a handsome and elegant thief in white clothes. She never thought that he was a strange man with rude behavior, short stature and unusually short fingers.
Lu Yiming's adoptive father was Lu Shisan, who once served as a young eunuch in the inner court. Back then, there was a fire in the Inner Palace for no apparent reason. Many young eunuchs took advantage of the chaos and fled, and Lu Shisan was one of them. After the prescription was lost, the court also suspected that it had been taken away by one of the young eunuchs, and it took many years of investigation before it was found on Lu Shisan.
When the officers and soldiers found him, he was already a withered skeleton buried in the mountains and forests.
Lu Yiming is his adopted son in his later years!
Lu Shisan gave the prescription to Lu Yiming, and Lu Yiming took the prescription to the capital to find His Highness King Qi, hoping to exchange the prescription for great wealth, but he was tricked by King Qi and was imprisoned and tortured.
Lu Yiming was not a fool. He didn't bring the prescription with him when he met King Qi. He knew that as long as he did not tell the whereabouts of the prescription for one day, King Qi would have to let him live. As long as he was alive, there was hope of escaping.
The King of Qi imprisoned him for a year and a half, tried various methods, and finally released him.
After Lu Yiming left the capital, he went straight to Fuyang and then disappeared in Fuyang County. Shen Chongming came after this clue, and so did Prince Ning's people. Sui'er was the spy paid by Prince Ning, and the mark behind her ear was also tattooed at that time.
Shen Chongming did not tell Zhou Yu'an this, not only because he was worried that she would be involved, but also because he also had doubts about her origins.
Zhou Yuan groped around in the coffin.
The coffin seemed thicker than usual, and she suspected there was something fishy about it. Sure enough, she found a mechanism at the bottom of the coffin. After opening it, she found that there was another layer of the coffin, which was filled with gold, silver and jewelry.
"He Hongyi is really a talent for hiding treasures." Zhou Yu'an picked up a string of jade beads and looked at them: "These beads are worth at least five hundred taels!"
"One thousand taels." Shen Chongming looked at the quality of the jade beads: "The jade pendant at the bottom is more expensive, and the carving alone is not worth a thousand taels. Most of the things in this coffin come from Lu Yiming's wealthy families in the capital. Stealing."
"Since it's stolen, it's not too much for us to take them all, right?" Zhou Yu'an picked up a handful of gold and silver jewelry and stuffed it into Shen Chongming's arms: "Did you bring a sack with you when you came? I'm not familiar with He Mansion. If you can’t find it, just pretend for now and we’ll split it up when we go back.”
"Are you really going to carry these things out?" Shen Chongming sprinkled the jewelry back into the coffin: "I didn't bring a sack. You can figure it out on your own."
"Just think for yourself." Zhou Yu'an snorted and unfastened his belt.
"What to do!" Shen Chongming held her hand.
"What else can I do if I take off my clothes?" Zhou Yu'an frowned: "Didn't you let me figure it out on my own?"
"This method is useless to me. It's not that I don't give it, I really don't bring it." Shen Chongming whispered.
"I know you didn't bring it with you. Didn't I take off my coat and use it as a baggage? I used to do this when I went up the mountain to collect herbs." Zhou Yu'an opened Shen Chongming's hand: "Although this coat is not as useful as a sack, it also doesn't hold as much as a sack. , but being able to pretend to be a little bit is better than nothing.”
"Use mine!" Shen Chongming took off his coat and handed it to her: "You are a daughter, you can't take off your clothes casually, especially in front of men!"
"My master is also a man!" Zhou Yu'an muttered, "He doesn't have as many things as you. He taught me how to wrap things in a coat."
"What he taught is wrong!" Shen Chongming said loudly: "In short, if you don't allow it, you won't allow it. In the future, you won't be allowed to go to the mountains to collect medicine."
"Why are you so loud? I'm afraid that the He family can't hear you!" Zhou Yu'an hurriedly covered his mouth, stepped on his sleeve, and threw himself into Shen Chongming's arms.
