The magistrate's face was livid, and his words were frosty: "There are not a thousand lines in a play, but there are eight hundred lines. There are so many lyrics, and you just picked this line. The curls of love, the rippling heart of spring, it's nothing if not teasing." It can be seen that you and the deceased did have an affair, and now that the person is killed by you, you can naturally make up a cover to get away with it."
"What the hell are you doing?" Zhang Yanke cursed in Shaoxing dialect under his breath in the crowd. He turned to Zhang Dai and Zheng Haizhu and muttered, "This dog official is clearly trying to incriminate him, so why bother?" , could it be that Mr. Yang was killed by this dog official? Miss Zheng, do you think so? "
Zheng Haizhu was still frowning to himself, but he heard the Shanghai County residents in front and behind him echoing the magistrate's words.
The middle-aged scribe in a long gown said: "The county magistrate is right. If a nun and a male pilgrim are thinking about "The Peony Pavilion", it would be the most ridiculous thing in the world. If they can't agree with each other, how can they fool around later? , it’s not unusual for him to draw a knife in a fit of anger.”
The short-dressed peddler said: "Oh, my lord, this sister-in-law from Jiulian Temple is indeed unseemly. She doesn't care how much she recites sutras, but she often teaches the little girls in the town how to read. Women don't take scientific examinations. What's the point of being literate? Once a woman is literate, her morale will be high, so how can she look after us?"
Everyone nodded: "That's right, now that the little girls are literate, don't they all go to work as concubines for rich families? Poor guys like us shouldn't be singles."
Another county citizen continued: "I heard that some nunneries in the north are actually engaged in the flesh business. They teach a few young girls who can recite poems and compose poems and keep them in the nunnery, and they keep an eye on the money bags of wealthy businessmen. I think this The same is true for the little master wife of Jiulian Temple."
The more people talked, the more energetic they became, and the more they talked, the more unbearable they became.
When a person has inner demons, his violent intentions will become clear.
A group of people have inner demons, and they stink to the sky.
Zheng Haizhu felt that all the county residents in front of him seemed to have maggot-infested bones under their skin, and the evil hearts of evil spirits.
Zhang Yanke's fist had also been clenched, and his brother pressed it down again.
"Don't be impulsive and keep listening." Zhang Dai said coldly.
Then the Shanghai magistrate continued to interrogate Ye Carpenter.
Carpenter Ye confessed that he was going to Qingpu by boat yesterday to pick up a job. When he was packing his toolbox, he discovered that he had forgotten a handy chisel in the nunnery of Jiulian Temple.
"It's not a matter of sneaking around, why don't you go through the main entrance of the nunnery?" asked the magistrate.
Carpenter Ye said: "Master, the lady in my house doesn't like this nun and won't ask me to work for her. Today my lady is selling orange cakes at a stall on the street. I'm afraid that she will look at me when I enter the nunnery. Come on, think about that Zen room leading to the back door of the nunnery. The back door is just a little bit away from the river and there is a ditch. You can go there in a blink of an eye. Who would have known that the scene in the Zen room is terrifying. Ah, I still have to listen to the people in the house in the future. This nun is indeed She’s a monster who harms men.”
As Ye Mujiang spoke, he moved away from Sister Lian as if to match his last confession.
The crowd roared with laughter.
"Old Ye, you don't know how to go to the riverside to take pictures. How can the goblin fall in love with you?"
The magistrate slapped the gavel several more times and shouted to stop the excited county residents.
Next to come to the court were Captain Liu and several other officials who had received reports of recovering corpses and arresting people, as well as the gangsters.
Wu Zuo said that the deceased's heart and lungs were pierced, and he also said that he found the man's shoe prints by blowing carbon powder in the Zen room, and found the same shoe prints from the courtyard wall to the riverside, which were consistent with the soles worn by Master Yang's body. . At the same location, there are also shoe prints in women's sizes.
"Your Majesty, there are wine pots and dishes in the Zen room. The blood on the floor has been tested with strong salt and vinegar. It is human blood."
"According to your experience, when did the deceased die?"
"It was picked up at Shenshi yesterday. The younger one's autopsy was done in the mortuary in Youchu. Judging from the condition of the body, it was estimated that he had been dead for seven or eight hours."
After hearing the widow's detailed account, the magistrate was shocked and said to Sister He: "Prisoner, the deceased had a tryst with you in the middle of the night. Because he did not want to accept you as a concubine and welcome you into the house, you made him drunk and then killed him. Stabbed to death and thrown into the river, right or wrong?"
Sister He raised her head and said sharply: "If Mr. Yang passed away the night before yesterday, I could never have killed him! At that time, I was on a passenger ship at the mouth of the Wusong River, reciting sutras for people to be saved!"
The magistrate was stunned and asked: "What kind of ship? What is the name of the person who invited you?"
Sister He said: "It's a sand boat. It's not small. It holds seven or eight people, who seem to be a family. I don't know the names of the others. The deceased's surname is Shao, a white-haired old man. He came to the nunnery to invite me. She is a woman in her twenties, her surname is Shi. If it weren’t for the fact that she is a woman and she begged so hard, how could I have gone to the riverside at night to perform rituals for others.”
When Zheng Haizhu heard this, his heart suddenly shook.
It turned out that the person from the Buddhist sect that Shi Yuelan finally invited that day was actually Sister He.
Looking at the county magistrate again, his harsh tone since the start of the trial has softened slightly.
He pondered for a moment and asked, "Prisoner, why didn't you say this earlier?"
Sister He seemed much calmer than before and answered loudly: "Mr. Yang was a kind man, but he was suddenly killed. A poor nun didn't kill anyone, but he was suddenly blamed. I'm afraid there is more than one evil person behind such evil deeds. Your Majesty, I too I don’t know who are the good guys and who are the bad guys around me. If I tell the truth about my whereabouts early on, what if the real culprit finds out and makes other plans or even silences the witnesses? So today I have to tell the story in court and listen to the Yamen’s autopsy. I’ll talk about it later, because I’m afraid the time of Mr. Yang’s murder was deceptive.”
As soon as these words came out, the man jumped up and said, "What do you mean, nun, do you doubt me?"
Sister He said neither humble nor arrogantly: "Uncle, I want to thank you now. You did the autopsy impartially and cleared my name."
Wuzuo was stunned for a moment, his anger faded slightly, and he turned to the magistrate with a magnanimous look: "Your Majesty, I have been eating this bowl of rice rewarded by the government for twenty years, and I can't make any mistakes."
Then Yang Amo shouted: "Your Majesty, Your Majesty, since this nun loves to read story books, she is naturally the best at making up stories."
The magistrate nodded: "The convict woman, you are making empty claims, and there must be someone to prove it. Otherwise, how can the host's family, my officials, and the people in the county trust you?"
Zheng Haizhu in the audience thought to himself: I believe it.
If yesterday she was 50/50 about whether Sister He was the murderer or not, then now, she thinks it is basically impossible for Sister He to be the murderer.
Even if a person has an accomplice and does not need to personally go into battle, the mastermind needs to be in control of the killing. How could he accept a request for salvation from an unknown donor and leave the scene at a critical moment?
Of the hundreds of people in the hall today, only Zheng Haizhu knew that the ship, the woman named Shi and the deceased old man with white hair were real.
However, she cannot jump out to testify.
Why should my contacts with Yan Siqi Group be made public like this?
It would be even more undesirable for Hu Bian to say that he saw Sister He's whereabouts. He never left Han Mansion that night.
But innocent people must be rescued.
Fortunately, the magistrate of Shanghai County, who looked like a weak and cruel official just now, became cautious now.
"Leave the court first and take the prisoner's wife under custody. After the officer has sent someone to investigate, we can retry the case at a later date."
