Zhou Pei's eyes sharpened, his face was expressionless, and he raised the corners of his mouth coldly.
Yu Fangjing stood between the two of them and said solemnly: "Is Miss Zhou Zhou Pei?"
Xiufang Nuonuo: "Sir, yes."
Yu Fangjing raised his hand, shook out his sleeves and swept half a circle, "Look carefully, who else do you know among these people below?"
Xiufang glanced at Butler Zhou, shook her head, and then paused for a long time at the two middle-aged men behind him, "The one on the left seems to be the eldest young master of the Zhou family."
"Zhou Ting, the eldest young master of the Zhou family?" Yu Fangjing confirmed.
Xiufang bit her lip and nodded. She stepped back and accidentally stepped on someone.
"You, a little maid, dare to step on my young master, do you want to die?" The voice was childish but domineering.
Everyone looked at the person who made the noise. He was a child of seven or eight years old. Most of his body was held in the arms of a woman. He broke away at this moment, with a fierce and domineering anger on his face.
Yu Fangjing rolled his eyes, "Oh? Whose young master are you?"
"Hmph! Our Zhou family is a bully in Diqiu. Can you afford to offend me?" He asked his mother to hug him and kneel for a long time. He was already impatient. Then he was accidentally stepped on by Xiu Fang, and the usually lawless little bully went into full force.
Yu Fangjing smiled meaningfully, "The Zhou family."
The child wanted to scream, but his mother quickly covered his mouth.
The others remained silent, even the front housekeeper Zhou and Zhou Ting, whom Xiufang considered the eldest son of the Zhou family, were expressionless and knelt on the ground with numb faces.
Meng Xueli squeezed his brows together and said loudly: "Zhou Pei? Zhou Ting? Zhou family?" He expressed the confusion that many people have, "The Zhou family was wiped out, and the bodies of the Zhou family were not all burned in Yizhuang, how could they be returned?" Why are the Zhou family coming?"
Yu Fangjing cupped her hands in front of him and said, "Mr. Meng, please be patient. I want to talk to His Highness the Crown Prince and several other gentlemen about something mysterious."
Zi Sangjin's eyes moved slightly, and he looked at everyone in the hall and said, "Prefect Yu wanted to say that someone in the Zhou family survived. But the autopsy that day showed that there were exactly 149 corpses, and no one was missing."
"Go back to Your Highness the Crown Prince, I was just about to talk about this." Yu Fangjing nodded politely to Lu Anran, "Miss Lu conducted the autopsy that day, and Miss Lu put the heads of one hundred and forty-nine people back to their original positions one by one. , Miss Lu, are you sure that no one made any mistakes?"
"No." Lu Anran had the confidence to say this. She glanced at Zhou Pei and Zhou Ting, suppressed the shock in her heart, and replied: "The body was damaged that day. I judged from the bones and fracture connections that it was just like a tree. The growth rings and bones also have age differences.”
Yu Fangjing nodded and asked Xiufang to be taken down. He turned to everyone and said, "I asked these two witnesses to come here because I want to tell the prince and your lords two things. First, I have daily contact with Butler Zhou. The 'waiter' of the incense and candle shop was not the original owner. The real owner was murdered and sealed in a low wall. The wild dogs smelled the smell and dug the ground before my officers discovered it."
Yu Fangjing stretched out his second finger and said, "Secondly, the village girl Xiu Fang identified Zhou Pei and Zhou Ting. There was no doubt that the identities of Zhou Pei and Zhou Ting were clear, and the child blurted out the word 'Zhou family'. However, it is known that the Zhou family has already What’s the reason for destroying the whole family?”
His expression became solemn, and he said every word with sonorous force: "The fact is that there is no such thing as the Zhou family being exterminated. There are exactly one hundred and fifty people in the hall, all of them Zhou family members!"
As soon as these words came out, not only Zi Sangjin was shocked, Yun Qi and Lu Anran looked at each other silently, their expressions changed at the same time, and they fell into thinking.
Nangong Zhi walked to Yu Fang Jing's side. After the initial shock, he had slowly digested the matter and said, "Your Highness, I can prove that everything Magistrate Yu said is true. Exceptions include other witnesses. Anyone who has had business contact with the Zhou family can come to court one by one to confront him if necessary."
At this point, there is no need to say too much. No one doubts the identity of these people kneeling in the hall.
But the fact was unexpected, and it took some effort for everyone to accept it.
"Originally, this was not a sophisticated plan." Yu Fangjing sighed: "From the time we settled down at the farm, we accidentally fell into the Zhou family's trap. Butler Zhou took advantage of the situation and made the Zhou family's murder case the most logical one. His posture comes into everyone’s sight.”
At that time, Butler Zhou rushed over and cried and screamed so much that no one doubted that the deceased was not a member of the Zhou family, and no one doubted that he was a loyal servant who had worked diligently in the Zhou family all his life. No one thought of such an unprecedented deception.
Nangong Zhi put one hand behind his back and held the other in front of him. He bent slightly and said to Housekeeper Zhou, "It will be a long night and many dreams later. You deliberately burned down the Yizhuang and destroyed all the corpses."
Yun Qi shook his head and sighed: "What an amazing butler."
"I have a question." Zi Sangjin narrowed his eyes slightly, with a hint of sharpness in his eyes, "Since the woman named Xiufang just knew the young master of the Zhou family, why didn't she know the butler who was welcoming her? ?”
After Yun Qi realized that Butler Zhou was acting strangely, he also decided that he was not a simple person, but he had never doubted his identity. Now, like the prince, he felt a strange feeling.
Nangong Zhi was the closest. He looked at Butler Zhou's face carefully, waved to the outside and shouted: "Nine-nine."
A short man dressed in black came in, knelt down and saluted, and then waited quietly aside.
"Chaojiu knows how to disguise himself." Nangong Zhi gave a brief explanation and told Chaojiu: "Check his face."
Chaojiu looked at it with emotionless eyes for a long time, then he tore off Butler Zhou's beard and took out a bottle of potion and applied it on his face. In an instant, a layer of black faded away, and another old face appeared, older than His original appearance was whiter and more serious and majestic.
"Oh, oh..." Qian Liang jumped to his feet, "This, this, this... isn't this the head of the Zhou family?!"
Butler Zhou suddenly changed his identity and became the head of the Zhou family.
Unexpected and reasonable.
In any case, a housekeeper is not capable of planning such a sophisticated and thoughtful matter, and the Zhou family will not cooperate so unconditionally.
Yu Fangjing seemed to have just thought, "Master Qian is here. Do you know the head of the Zhou family?"
Qian Liang wiped the sweat from his forehead and said, "I have been in contact with him once or twice."
"Then don't you also know Young Master Zhou?"
"I can't remember clearly. I'm afraid of admitting my mistake."
Meng Xueli snorted coldly: "In front of His Royal Highness, County Magistrate Qian must tell the truth."
Qian Liang knelt on the ground with his hands, his whole body couldn't help but tremble, "Wei Chen doesn't dare, Wei Chen really can't believe such a ridiculous thing, so he doesn't dare to speak rashly. Wei Chen is also not very familiar with other people in the Zhou family, until Nangong Shaofu After restoring the appearance of the head of the Zhou family, I can be sure that he is indeed Zhou Hou, the head of the Zhou family, and behind him are his two sons, Zhou Ting and Zhou Yao."
Yu Fangjing said in confusion, "It turns out that Zhou Yao was not kicked out of the house."
Butler Zhou is completely fake, and naturally there is not much truth in what he says.
At this time, Chaojiu Fuer said to Nangong Zhi, "Sir, the one next to you has also changed his appearance."
Nangong Zhi then looked over and saw that Chaojiu was referring to the 'waiter' of the incense and candle shop. He nodded and told Chaojiu to remove his disguise.
Following the steps just now, a new face soon appeared, which was even more surprising than before, because the original young face was suddenly replaced by a wrinkled old face, and no one could adapt.
"Let me guess, I'm afraid this is the real Butler Zhou?" Yu Fangjing asked tentatively.
The waiter at the incense and candle shop knelt down and kowtowed to Zhou Hou, "Master, I deserve to die. I can't forgive you."
Zhou Hou's eyes moved slowly and fell on the waiter. His eyes were dark and indifferent, "You deserve to die, you can't even look at a corpse."
After that, he sneered at everyone and said, "I, Zhou, have exhausted all my mechanisms, and I didn't expect you to find out. I admit defeat."
At this time, the two words "It's over" flashed through the hearts of the Zhou family at the same time. Zhou Ting and Zhou Yao could still hold on, but Zhou Pei had lost all color and collapsed on the ground. If the upbringing of the boudoir lady hadn't been deeply rooted in his bones, he would have given up on everything. The image rolled to the floor crying and making a fuss.
Behind Zhou Hou, the Zhou family members began to cry in whispers, and their voices gradually converged into whimpering and whining.
"There's nothing to cry about when things come to a close. The Zhou family's fate is over, and I have no energy to recover." The corners of Zhou Hou's mouth drooped, and the wrinkles stretched his entire eyebrows, making his face look cold and stern.
But no matter the hesitation hidden in his eyes or the veins on the back of his hands, they all reflected the strong unwillingness in his heart.
Yu Fangjing was about to ask questions when a woman kneeling below suddenly rushed out and said, "My father-in-law did this all by himself. We didn't know about it and it's none of our business."
"Shut up!" Zhou Ting pulled her hard and the woman fell to the ground.
The woman in splendid clothes smashed her chin, her face was stained with blood, her pearls were scattered all over the floor, and she was in a state of utter disarray. Her voice was particularly sharp due to extreme fear, "This is a serious crime of beheading, why should you shut up! I don't care, it's all your fault." What you are doing has nothing to do with me and Heng'er. If you want to die, you can die, and we can't be implicated."
The woman cried and screamed, and the other female family members, servants, and maids also kowtowed to apologize, and the whole county hall became noisy.
Zhou Ting couldn't bear it anymore and slapped the woman in the face with his backhand. The woman was so angry that she fainted.
Zi Sangjin rubbed his forehead and said, "Sir, there are too many people in the hall. I feel short of breath. Even if the case is being tried, there is no need for so many people to be present."
"What His Highness said is absolutely true." Yu Fangjing hurriedly asked people to carry the woman down, and then dismissed most of the crowd, leaving only a few people from the Zhou family and his son.
Zhou Pei's dignity finally showed its timidity when he stepped out of the county hall. His feet gave out and he sat directly on the threshold.
All the Zhou family members realized that as early as the moment the escort army appeared, their Zhou family was doomed.
Although the prince was sitting at the top, it was obvious that the person asking the question could not be the prince. Yu Fangjing asked, "Master Meng, are you here?"
"Although I am the governor of Licheng, I cannot go beyond the prefect and county magistrate to handle cases without the Holy Master's instructions." Meng Xueli declined.
Yu Fangjing turned to Qian Liang again, "Since we are in the realm of Diqiu, why not Master Qian..."
"No, no, no, I can't afford to be a low-ranking official." Qian Liang didn't even have time to reduce his existence, so he didn't dare to move forward. He, a small county magistrate, was nothing among this group of people.
"Prince Yun, you are Sicheng, the prosecutor of punishment. You are here to judge."
Yun Qi knocked on the jade bone fan and smiled like a spring breeze. "Okay, but I am investigating the Yaksha case. Why don't you arrest a Yaksha case with the prefect first?"
Zi Sangjin couldn't stand it and said decisively: "Master Yu, please continue the trial."
"Yes, Your Highness." Yu Fangjing did not dare to shirk, so he had no choice but to accept the job.
He walked to the high hanging mirror and sat down. He gave a slap in the face. Facing the kneeling Zhou family, his eyebrows turned sharp and his eyes sank. He said, "I'd like to ask, since you are one hundred and fifty people." They are all here, where did the 149 corpses in the Zhou family ancestral hall come from that day?"
