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Yizhuang is not far from Fucheng, on the edge of a hillside called Fangya Mountain.
It is said to be a yizhuang, but it is actually a large courtyard made of mud and several thatched houses in the courtyard. Apart from here, there are no other homes around.
The old man in Shouyi Village is named Hu. He is about sixty years old. Old Hutou was very courageous, otherwise he would not have dared to guard such a place alone where he could only hear the calls of wild dogs and old crows.
Ever since Lin Yuanqiu ordered him to leave yesterday, there have been people guarding the Yizhuang.
The officials didn't understand why they were suddenly asked to stay here. They were wondering if there had been any changes in the case, but when they saw the naked body lying in the house, they thought there could be any changes. A man and a woman without clothes were alone in the house, so it was not an act of adultery. What else could it be.
Fortunately, it wasn't a hot day right now, otherwise it would have been so stinky that they wouldn't be able to stay there.
It was rare for a living person to spend the night in the yizhuang, so Old Hutou felt a little uncomfortable, so he stayed in the house twisting the thin hemp rope and didn't come out much.
At this moment, he heard the sound of a carriage outside the courtyard. Old Hutou thought that another body was being delivered, so he hurriedly left the house to open the door.
When he opened the courtyard door, he saw two carriages parked at the door. Soon Old Hutou saw a young official in official uniform getting out of the carriage in front.
There was no need to guess too much. Just by looking at the official robes of the fourth rank, Old Hutou knew that this was the prefect. He knelt down and said, "Young man, I have seen you before!"
The attitude was extremely respectful.
Gao Tongzhi and others thought that Lao Hutou had never seen such a big official before, and they were afraid. Only Old Hutou himself knew that he was respectful rather than afraid.
To be honest, Lao Hutou is a lonely old man who often deals with dead people. There is really nothing that scares him, whether it is people or things.
The reason why Lao Hutou respects the prefect from the bottom of his heart is because his seeing is believing.
It turns out that throughout the winter last year, except for an old beggar who died of illness, there were no other beggars who died of freezing or starvation in Yizhuang here. This is an earth-shaking change compared with the past. Old Hutou still remembers that there were more than ten beggars who died of starvation the year before last.
Therefore, this is not what the prefect can do if he manages things well.
Lin Yuanqiu didn't know what Lao Hutou was thinking. After calling the man up, he asked him to lead him to the place where the corpse was placed.
When the government officials saw the magistrate coming, they all quickly knelt down and saluted. Lin Yuanqiu waved to them and asked them to stand up. Then he called Zuo Zuo into the room.
There was nothing in the whole room except two corpses covered with ragged linen cloth in the middle. Lao Hu stepped forward and uncovered a corner of the linen cloth, exposing the heads of Yang You and Xiao.
The faces of both of them were dark, especially the man, who looked like he had been pulled out of a gray casket.
When Lin Yuanqiu took a closer look at Ms. Xiao, he found that her head had been sewn to her neck with a thin hemp rope. He was a little puzzled. He was about to ask who had sewn it up when he heard the old bearded man beside him talking to himself. , "Always let people have all their hair and tail."
Lin Yuanqiu pointed to the man's body and asked Xiang Wuzuo, "Tell me, how did you determine that this man died of smoke choking at the fire scene."
Wu Zuo naturally had his own judgment, "My lord, after careful inspection, I found that in addition to the fire-burned hair on the deceased's body, there were several burns on his body. Apart from these, there were no other wounds on the whole body, let alone any fatal injuries from external force." place."
As he spoke, Wu Zuo lifted up the linen and pointed out the permed area to Lin Yuanqiu.
Then Wu Zuo pointed to the mouth of the man's corpse and said, "The young man also checked this man's nostrils and mouth and saw a lot of cigarette ash inside. It can be seen that this man sucked a lot of black ash into his mouth before death. This is also It is consistent with the characteristics of a fire scene where someone died.”
Lin Yuanqiu followed the movements in the man's hands and looked over one by one, and saw that the nostrils and mouth of the male corpse were indeed black.
It seems that this person did suffocate to death from inhaling too much smoke.
But when Lin Yuanqiu looked at the female body, he quickly discovered something was wrong.
Logically speaking, although Mrs. Xiao did not die on the spot in the fire, she was definitely choked by the thick smoke. But at this moment, Lin Yuanqiu saw that the inside of Xiao's nostrils were clean, and there was only a little dust stuck to the outside of her nose. .
Lin Yuanqiu couldn't help but feel suspicious. He pointed at Mr. Xiao and told the man, "Look to see if there is any ash in this person's mouth."
Wu Zuo nodded in agreement and quickly took a closer look. He remembered that he had checked it the day before yesterday. At that time, the female corpse also had black ash in its mouth.
Sure enough, when he saw his mouth full of black, Wu Zuo breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Sir, there is indeed cigarette ash."
Hearing this, Gao Tongzhi and He Tongpuan couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. It seemed that they had not concluded the wrong case.
Lin Yuanqiu also saw the black color in Xiao's mouth, which looked consistent with signs of being choked by a large amount of smoke. Now Lin Yuanqiu couldn't find anything wrong with it.
Could it be that I am overthinking it, that this is indeed just an adultery case?
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Chapter 227 The case is solved
Lin Yuanqiu was wondering if his suspicion was wrong, but when he saw the thin hemp rope sewn on Mrs. Xiao's neck, he quickly thought of something. Since both Yang You and Mrs. Xiao had inhaled a lot of soot at the fire scene, , then there should be black ash not only in their mouths, but also in their throats and tracheas.
Thinking of this, Lin Yuanqiu asked the old Hutou who had his hands hanging by his side, "When you were suturing Mrs. Xiao, did you see black ash in her throat?"
Black and gray?
Old Hutou didn't understand what the magistrate meant when he asked this, but he knew the matter clearly. Old Hutou shook his head, "No, sir, I didn't see this woman when I was suturing with linen thread." There is black ash in the throat.”
Hearing this, Lin Yuanqiu's eyes lit up, and there was finally a breakthrough in this matter.
He ordered the man beside him, "Slit the man's corpse's throat and take a look."
As for Wuzuo, after hearing what Old Hutou said, he knew the purpose of the prefect's asking him to do this.
With many years of autopsy experience, Zuo Zuo certainly understands that anyone who dies due to smoke in a fire scene will not only have a large amount of inhaled soot in their mouths, but there should also be traces of soot in their trachea. Although according to what the Yang family and his son said, Mrs. Xiao did not die on the spot in the fire, there was absolutely no sign of smoke in her throat.
So this case is probably not as simple as adultery.
Sure enough, Lin Yuanqiu and others waited at the door for a while when they heard the widower in the room excitedly say, "Sir, the throat of the male corpse has been cut, and it is clean inside, with no traces of smoke!"
Lin Yuanqiu turned around and returned to the room, and then looked at Yang You's neck with Gao Tongzhi and the others. They saw that it was just as Zuo Zuo said, the throat was clean and there was no trace of blackness after choking on smoke. It can be seen that Yang You was dead or in a coma before the fire broke out.
So the so-called adultery does not exist at all.
Lin Yuanqiu ordered the officer at the door: "You guys, hurry up and arrest the Yang family's father and son and bring them to justice!"
"Yes!" The officials responded and quickly left the yard.
Gao Tongzhi and He Tongpian were blushing. If the adults hadn't investigated clearly this time, or if the adults had come back a few days later, the culprit would have been at large by the time the two corpses were buried.
"Sir, I almost let the lawless person escape, and I shouldn't have done so." Gao Tongzhi said, his face full of guilt.
He Tongpuan also felt very guilty. He bowed and saluted Lin Yuanqiu and said, "Please forgive me for my negligence."
Lin Yuanqiu waved his hand, "Just think more about things in the future."
They can review their own problems in a timely manner instead of just making excuses. These two people can be considered responsible and there is no need to embarrass others.
When leaving Yizhuang, Lin Yuanqiu took out a piece of silver from his pocket and handed it to Lao Hutou, "Go and buy some incense and candles to light for these two people."
As for the coffin collection, Lin Yuanqiu planned to have someone buy a coffin later.
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The Yang family father and son, who were preparing to take over the Yang You family property, did not expect such a follow-up, so they did not react until the moment they were arrested.
When they went to court, the two men pretended to be innocent and didn't know what was going on. This made the people standing at the yamen gate watching the magistrate's trial feel aggrieved for the Yang family and his son.
The people were really puzzled as to why Landlord Yang and his son were arrested when it was clearly the daughter-in-law of the Yang family who had done something scandalous.
Lin Yuanqiu was too lazy to talk nonsense. Seeing that the two people in the hall still looked like they were not crying even after seeing the coffin, he directly grabbed four red lottery tickets from the lottery tube and threw them on the ground, and asked the government servants on both sides to hold Yang Landlord and His sons were pushed to the ground and beaten with forty wooden sticks.
I originally thought that it would take several rounds of back and forth, but I didn't know that Landlord Yang's son couldn't stand the pain. After only ten sticks, he shouted "I'll move, I'll move."
As for Landlord Yang, he only held up a few more sticks than his son, and he quickly confessed his crime while shouting.
As a result, the people present listened to the Yang family and his son explain the whole incident intermittently.
It turned out that Landlord Yang had coveted his nephew's property for a long time, so he took advantage of the other party's visit to specially stay at home for dinner, and then put a lot of drugs into his nephew's wine.
Originally, Landlord Yang was planning to give his nephew a drunken drink, but he accidentally fell into the water and drowned. As a result, when the father and son carried the person to the edge of the lotus pond and were about to throw the person down, they happened to be hit by Mrs. Xiao.
At that time, Mrs. Xiao was shocked, turned around and ran into the house.
As for the Yang family father and son, they were always on tenterhooks when doing something like this, seeking wealth and murder. Now they were frightened by Mrs. Xiao's sudden appearance and run away.
So the father and son hurriedly took the person back again.
But people with evil intentions must be afraid that Mrs. Xiao will tell what they saw. In addition, Landlord Yang's son has long been extremely disgusted with his wife who can't give birth to a son, so he simply used a knife to cut Mrs. Xiao's throat. Yang You, who had been given a lot of drugs at this time, was still in a coma. The father and son quickly created the illusion of adultery, and then quietly lit a fire in the room. They originally thought that even if they pretended to put out the fire, the two of them would definitely be dead. Little did they know that after entering the house At first glance, Xiao, whose throat had been cut, was unconscious, but still had a weak breath. This was really a desperate situation.
Now that things have come to this, it is naturally impossible for the Yang family and his son to let her live. So, Landlord Yang's son, who pretended to be "unstoppably angry" about his wife's adultery, cut off Xiao's head with a knife.
This confession made the people present say that they had never expected it. In other words, they had scolded Mrs. Xiao countless times.
The scribe wrote down the confessions of the Yang family and his son verbatim, and finally asked the two to sign.
Such a cruel crime could not escape the severe punishment of the law, so Lin Yuanqiu directly sentenced the two of them to be executed by Queen Qiu.
Although the case has come to light and the murderer will be executed in a few months, Lin Yuanqiu is not at ease. The reason is that women can be killed at will as long as they have the reputation of adultery.
Lin Yuanqiu felt that with this kind of protective umbrella, cases of unjust deaths of women would definitely happen from time to time.
It's just that the matters in the law cannot be changed by the Holy Spirit just by his suggestion, so he has to think about it in the long term.
However, he, the prefect, can still make the final decision on matters within the jurisdiction of Shizhou Prefecture.
Within a day, the government office posted notices in all counties under its jurisdiction. The notice first used this case as an example. Then the government issued a stipulation that in the future, anyone who uses the excuse of a woman's infidelity to do whatever he wants with a woman, including dipping her in a pig cage, will be treated as a murderer.
The deterrent effect of these words is quite large.
At this time, many clans, especially the heads and elders of the Zhao, Chen and Yang clans who had suffered a loss in front of the prefect, became even more cautious, fearing that the prefect would take advantage of them and punish them to death.
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After posting the notice, Lin Yuanqiu quickly wrote a letter to Zhang Gui, not wanting to give it a try, and then arranged for all the servants in the house to go out.
After Zhang Gui received the letter, he immediately got busy following Lin Yuanqiu's instructions.
Later, a story spread in the capital that the husband's family was fond of the new and disliked the old, and deliberately wrongfully accused his wife of committing adultery and then killed her.
The person who sent the message also added at the end, "Don't tell me, this method is really good. Our Da Jing Dynasty law allows the victim to lynch a woman who has lost her virginity."
When others heard it, they didn't dare to agree, "We can't have such thoughts."
The messenger smiled, "What are you afraid of? The law can't cure us anyway."
After that, Zhang Gui, who had thick eyebrows and a long beard on himself, left.
Everyone in the teahouse was left to discuss it, and within a few days, the matter spread to every corner of the capital.
At the same time, people in other states and cities are also talking about this murder case. Many of them were complaining about the Xiao family and felt that the Yang family and his son were too much.
And on this point where the victims could resort to lynching, there were several groups of people with different opinions. Most of them felt that the matter had nothing to do with them, and whether they were lynched or not was definitely not related to them, so they didn't care.
Some people think that this should be the case, otherwise without restraint, the world would still be in chaos.
Another group of people with different opinions retorted, "That's why there are lawsuits about indiscriminately charging people with adultery charges and taking other people's lives privately. If you ask me, this is really messed up. "
