TEFSCBSS Chapter 16

Chapter 16: On-Site Investigation in Locust Tree Village (Part 4)

The three men hurriedly began searching for a secret passage in the backyard of Liu Tuhu’s house, making so much noise that the people in the front yard could hear it.

“What are you doing? Did you find something?”

“This noise, it’s as if you’re tearing down the house…”

The man in the green headscarf looked proud. “Hey, we found… umm, hmm!” His leader suddenly covered his mouth. This young brother had no sense, answering every question. They were trying to trap them!

The leader smiled awkwardly. “Ah, we just found a few letters, written all haphazardly. We don’t know many of the words, could you help us take a look?”

He was, after all, the leader of the officers, so how could he not read? It was just that these letters didn’t contain anything important.

Saying this, he threw the letters over to Wang Qingmu and the others who had just entered the yard.

“Perfect timing, Scholar Wang is here. He’s the most learned among us, could you help us decipher these letters?”

Wang Qingmu thought to himself, “Thanks, so I’m the designated letter reader now?”

Helpless, with everyone watching, he opened the letters. The handwriting was elegant, clearly different from the one he had seen earlier from the groom. After briefly scanning the contents, he summarized the key parts for everyone.

“This letter is from a girl named Yanran, based on the clues I gathered, Yanran is Liu Tuhu’s eldest daughter, who just recently returned home.”

“The general content of the letters is about the mutual affection between Yanran and Liu Tuhu.”

“However, this letter is a bit strange—it’s very old. The paper has yellowed, and it doesn’t seem to have been written recently. It must have been written several years ago.”

The officers, ready to flee at any moment, looked puzzled.

“Wait, but when we just looked at it, the letter just seemed like a daughter caring for her father. It was simple, direct, and clear. How could Scholar Wang see something else?”

The officer leader took the letter back with a skeptical look. “Wait a minute, Scholar Wang, are you trying to trick us? How did you tell this letter is years old? And what difference does it have from a letter written recently?”

Everyone echoed their confusion.

Wang Qingmu took a deep breath. If it weren’t for him, this whole script would fall apart!

And as for the forty taels of silver, these people probably thought they could just dream of getting that money.

“Sigh,” he resignedly walked to the study and took out some fresh paper. “Look, this is brand new stationery. Now compare it with this letter. Isn’t it yellowed? Isn’t the ink fading? Smell it—doesn’t it have a musty, dusty odor?”

The others quickly began comparing.

“Hiss—this is true.”

“It’s not a recent paper.”

“By the look of this yellowing, it must be years old.”

“But what does that have to do with anything?”

“Exactly,” Wang Qingmu pinched his nose. “According to the plot, this girl Yanran only returned to Liu Tuhu’s house a few months ago, but why have they been corresponding for years already?”

Everyone was stunned. Wait—what?

“Exactly. Liu Tuhu was playing the part of a man whose eldest daughter was starving and poorly treated. But if he knew she had been out there all along and was regularly writing to her, why didn’t he bring her back sooner?”

“There’s something fishy going on. Something fishy!” Wang Bokao exclaimed.

He hadn’t expected the story to be so twisted. His brain was not handling it well. “Er-Tong, Er-Tong, quickly write all this down!”

The servant, Er-Tong, wiped his sweat and continued to jot down the group’s speculations with a charcoal pen.

Wang Qingmu secretly scolded himself. “Serves me right for showing off. Liu Tuhu already had a huge amount of suspicion, and now I’ve pointed the finger at him again. Everyone’s going to suspect him, what do I do now? I have to think of something!”

His gaze shifted toward the officers who were sneaking around and seemed ready to leave at any moment. “Stop! The three of you! I’m talking about you!”

Everyone turned in surprise and followed Wang Qingmu’s shout to look at the officers.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Wang Qingmu stared at them as if they were criminals.

“We… we’re going to look for clues elsewhere!” The officer leader said smoothly. “We’ve already said, we’re splitting up to search for evidence. Why do you care?”

Wang Qingmu sneered. “Don’t tell me you found some crucial information but don’t want to share it with everyone?”

At this, the group narrowed their eyes and slowly surrounded the officers.

“In the past, we respected you a lot, always bringing you food and drinks. But now that you’ve got clues, why are you hiding them?”

The officer leader recognized the middleman, a person known as Fat Dahai, who had connections with many high-ranking families. This person couldn’t afford to offend him.

The officer leader could only grit his teeth. “Ah, Fat Brother, no such thing happened. We were just looking around because we didn’t find any clues here, so we thought we’d check the front yard.”

He waved the bronze key in his hand. “My third brother just found this key in the study. We thought we’d look around to see if it opens anything. Want to join us?”

The group stopped laughing and moved closer, surrounding the officers, and looking for a place that might be unlocked.

However, despite searching everywhere in the house, even flipping Liu Tuhu’s place upside down, they found nothing that could be opened.

Wang Qingmu and the other thoughtful scholars, however, did find some small clues. For example, in the laundry maid’s room, there were many gold and silver jewels, as well as a note that seemed to suggest she should keep quiet about something.

In the firewood room, which wasn’t just a storage area, there were signs someone had lived there for years, and there were old items and red cloth pieces. (Wang Qingmu guessed this was the room where Xiao Hong lived.)

They also found a room where the eldest son lived, which reeked terribly, with many marks of whipping, messy clothes, bedding, and old bloodstains…

These clues were mounting up, getting more and more detailed.

Wang Qingmu frowned. Looking at where the laundry maid and the eldest son stayed, it seemed like they had been abused or bought off, which explained the rumors of the younger daughter mistreating her elder brother.

But if the younger daughter was truly so uncontrollable, why would she be forced to live in the filthy, messy firewood room?

Wang Qingmu couldn’t make sense of it, but he became even more certain that Liu Tuhu was the culprit.

Yet, he continued to shift the blame onto other players, convincing the detectives.

“Look, this firewood room must have been where the eldest daughter Yanran was mistreated.”

“Look, these jewels must have been the younger daughter’s hush money, to stop her from revealing her crimes. The reason she told Wuzhen must be because Wuzhen isn’t from here, and as a monk, he wouldn’t interfere with family matters.”

“Look, didn’t I tell you she disrespected her stepmother and abused her older brother? The marks in his room are the best proof, aren’t they?”

Gradually, everyone was swayed, starting to believe the bride was the villain.

Meanwhile, Wang Qingmu told another group, “I think Li Tiezhu is very suspicious…” He rambled off the theory he had shared with Wang Bokao earlier.

At this point, only a few people in the crowd suspected Liu Tuhu, with most now suspicious of the bride and Li Tiezhu. As for Wuzhen, though no one knew the professional terms for script murder, they already considered him just a tool in the story.

Eventually, with time running out, they all decided to head toward the so-called “graveyard” to see for themselves.

As they walked down the narrow path toward the depths of the Western Tower, a cold wind suddenly blew, white paper money fluttered to the ground, and distant flames flickered…

And there, at the graveyard of Liu Tuhu’s house, a massive figure was kneeling and sobbing…