Chapter 030: Partridge Sky (V)
Zhou Ting sent Chao Yisong to Nanhuai Street to check whether Ni Su had returned home. He then took his men to bring back the medicine lady Yang, the couple who had hidden her, and the few remaining killers who had intended to kill Yang, to the Yinyesi.
"Master Xiao Zhou, there is poison hidden in their teeth." A close official pointed to the ground, where several bloody teeth were mixed with tiny particles of medicine.
Ever since the jailer in Guangning Prefecture committed suicide by taking poison, the Night Watch has become more .
Zhou Ting took a quick glance and turned back to see several personal officials carrying books and writing materials and hurriedly running to the torture chamber. He then asked the personal official beside him, "Is the envoy in there?"
The close attendant replied in a low voice: "Yes, the envoy has just arrived. I heard that it is Lord Lin inside who wants to confess."
That Lord Lin was an official in the Transcription Office and one of the officials involved in the winter examination case.
Is he going to confess?
Zhou Ting heard the sound and looked towards the candlelight spreading out from the torture room.
"Lord Lin, were the test papers of Ni Qinglan and others really destroyed by you?" Han Qing, the envoy of the Night Bureau , sat on a chair and motioned the marriage official to write a testimony beside him.
"yes……"
As soon as Lin Yu spoke, he spat out a mouthful of blood. His clothes were soaked with blood and his whole body was in convulsions.
"The Fengmi official surnamed Yan was the last person in charge of collecting all the test papers. He said that someone had told him in advance that the cheater mentioned the ancient place name 'Fenglinzhou' in his test paper, so he was able to recognize that person's test paper. As for Ni Qinglan, he knew Ni Qinglan's handwriting in advance, and took the opportunity to check the test paper that Jin Xiangshi had not finished copying and wrote down a few words. After that, he collected the test papers copied by other Fengmi officials, and secretly re-copied Ni Qinglan's and that person's test papers and sent them to the Transcription Institute to hand them over to you."
Han Qing blew away the tea foam on the edge of the bowl.
According to what Master Jin Xiang had explained before, there was a test paper that had not only excellent handwriting but also beautiful writing, so Master Jin Xiang had an impression of that test paper.
It was also because of this that when he was on his way to hand in the test paper for his colleague, he found that the test paper had been re-copied by someone else.
After Jin Xiangshi finished drawing the map and returned to Beijing, he heard that a scholar named Ni Qinglan had died, and he guessed that there might be a big problem with the test paper.
There was more than one Fengmi official for the winter examination. Han Qing asked them to leave their handwriting one by one and then let Master Jin Xiang to identify it. However, some people deliberately concealed their handwriting, which did not go smoothly at the beginning.
It was not until Zhou Ting searched the homes of the Fengmi officials and found their handwriting or documents that he asked Master Jin Xiang to compare them.
Only then was the Feng Mi official named Yan found out.
Using the Fengmi official named Yan as a loophole, it took quite some effort to finally catch the trace of Mr. Lin from the Transcription Institute.
"good,"
Lin Yu coughed violently a few times. "The official Feng Mi had blank test papers with names covered on them. They were put into the Imperial Examination Hall by someone else in advance. He and I only knew that Ni Qinglan was the person they chose. As for who the cheater was, we didn't know, and we didn't want to know. But later the emperor changed his mind and wanted to add another palace examination. So I had to take their test papers, along with those of others, and burn them together when the Transcription Hall caught fire during those two days of dry weather."
"Master Lin, you are really confused," Han Qing put the tea bowl on the table and sneered, "Are you dissatisfied that the salary given to you by the government is not enough? How dare you be so greedy in this matter? Do you think that if you keep refusing to admit it and pointing your finger at the group of censors in the Censorate who are speaking up for you, this matter will be over?"
"As long as the official decree is in place, we are not afraid of them."
Han Qing sat upright and glared at him, "Tell me, who ordered you to do this? I think you can't stand the punishment any more."
During the past few days in the Night Police, Lin Yu had experienced what it meant to be worse off than dead. No matter how sharp his temper was, it would be worn away by the punishment here. He gasped with difficulty:
"Du Cong."
The east was already bright and heavy rain was falling.
Du Cong sat in his study almost the entire night. He had hardly had a good night's sleep since the Night Police took away all the officials involved in the winter examination case.
The sky was not yet clear. Du Cong watched as the Neizhi led a man in a straw raincoat up the stairs. The Neizhi stepped back and the man entered the room without taking off his bamboo hat. He just bowed to him in the dark shadows and said, "Master Du."
"What did he say?"
Du Cong sat on the chair and didn't get up.
The man didn't look up, but said, "My master has only one thing to tell you. After fifteen years of prosperity and wealth, you should have had enough, right?"
Du Cong's fingers suddenly curled up.
The man really just said this one sentence, then turned around and walked out the door, disappearing into the rain.
The sound of rain further accentuated the dead silence in the study.
Du Cong looked dejected and sat in front of his desk in a daze.
…
There were no breakfast stalls on Nanhuai Street, so Ni Su had to go to the neighboring street with an umbrella and ordered some buns at a stall covered by a tarpaulin tent.
"When I encountered the bandits, I couldn't see clearly in the carriage. You didn't use your magic to kill them, right?" The rain hit the brim of the umbrella, making crackling sounds.
"If you kill someone with magic, I will be severely punished."
In the rain and fog, Xu Hexue walked side by side with her, his figure sometimes visible and sometimes faint.
"So when did you start practicing martial arts?"
Ni Su saw his moves with her own eyes last night, and it was then that she truly realized that beneath his seemingly weak and gaunt body, he actually hid a completely different edge.
"If you hold a pen when you are young, you must hold a sword too."
Xu Hexue raised his head and glanced at the canopy of the umbrella that covered his head. "This is the discipline at home."
Later, he went to Yunjing with his mother and brother. No one remembered the family rules so clearly, but he never neglected his studies in literature and martial arts.
As they were talking, the two were about to leave the street when suddenly a figure came running towards them in the rain. Xu Hexue reacted very quickly and immediately grabbed Ni Su's wrist and pulled her back a few steps.
The raindrops on the man's sleeves dripped onto the oil-paper bag in Ni Su's hand. His muddy hands missed the bag and he stumbled and fell to the ground.
The young man in the rain was about twenty years old. He was ragged, pale, and skinny. Ni Su was shocked when she saw his eyes.
The pupils of an ordinary person are definitely not as big as this person's.
The cloth wrapped around him loosened a little, revealing his hairless head, which did not even have eyebrows.
For some reason, Ni Su always felt that his gaze seemed to linger on her for a moment.
Ni Su took out two buns from the oil paper bag and handed them to him tentatively.
The young man grabbed her bun without any hesitation, got up from the rain, turned around and ran.
"He looks like he's seriously ill."
Ni Su looked at the man's back.
"Not sick."
Xu Hexue said.
"How do you know?" Ni Su turned around after hearing the voice.
The morning mist and rain drowned the figure of the young man. Xu Hexue met her gaze and said, "He saw me."
"So he... is also a ghost?"
Ni Su was stunned.
But since it is a ghost, it should not need these foods to fill its hunger.
Xu Hexue shook his head. "He has no hair and his pupils are different from those of ordinary people. He is not a ghost, but a ghost fetus."
Ni Su almost couldn't hold the bun firmly.
Isn't that the flesh and blood born from a human and a ghost?
The rain eased a lot. The young man walked through the streets and alleys, holding two buns tightly in his hands. He ran under the eaves of a house, squatted behind a pile of debris, and then slowly started to eat the buns.
His eyes were fixed on the tarpaulin shed opposite.
The aroma of wontons entangled his nostrils. He sniffed hard and ate the cold buns in two or three bites. He heard the rumbling sound of a carriage approaching. His dark pupils moved slightly, and he saw the carriage stop in front of the wonton stall. The first person to come out of the carriage was an old man who seemed to be an insider.
He first got out of the car with an umbrella, and then reached out to help the plain-dressed, gray-haired old man in the car: "Sir, please be careful."
Through the rain, the young man saw the clerk helping the old man out of the carriage. He looked at the old man and scratched his head. After a while, he looked at the carriage carefully again.
On a lantern hanging on the eaves of the carriage, there was a word "Zhang".
"It's raining heavily today, and you still have to go to the palace. Aren't there meals in the palace? Why do you have to come here?" The inner knowledge kept on mumbling.
"Over the years, I have no attachment to Yunjing, but the wontons here are different." Zhang Jing was helped to sit in the innermost part of the oilcloth tent. He looked around and said, "This stall has been around for more than ten years and it is still here. It's not easy."
"I'll go get you a bowl."
Neizhi said this and went to find the stall owner.
"Some more pickles."
Zhang Jing coughed twice and gave more instructions.
The stall owner was a man in his thirties or forties. He was very skillful and quickly cooked a bowl of wontons. The clerk brought the wontons and pickles to Zhang Jing and handed him a spoon: "I asked him and he is the son of the original stall owner. Try it and it should taste similar."
Zhang Jing took the spoon and drank a mouthful of soup. He felt much more relaxed and nodded: "It is indeed the same."
"Master He should be here soon. It will be safer if he goes with you."
Neizhi glanced outside the oilcloth tent and said to Zhang Jing.
Zhang Jing ate wontons and pickles and snorted, "I'm not too old to be unable to move. Why does he have to watch me all the time when I'm just walking a few steps?"
"Sir, Mr. He and the others haven't seen your teacher for many years. What's wrong with them wanting to be with you every day? You should be glad that they are thoughtful." Neizhi said with a smile, but he heard some noise outside the oilcloth tent. He turned around and saw two coachmen stopping a young man outside.
"Why aren't you letting people in?"
Zhang Jing put down the spoon heavily.
Neizhi hurried out of the tarpaulin tent and asked the two servants with a frown, "Why did you arrest him?"
"You know, he doesn't look like the guy who's eating wontons. I see his eyes are fixed on our Mr. Zhang. It looks really weird! " said a servant.
Neizhicai moved his gaze to the young man's face and was frightened by his eyes. The young man suddenly broke free from the two servants, and with a skinny hand he rummaged in his arms and took out a letter.
"To Mr. Zhang."
He even bowed, but like a stiff puppet, which looked quite funny.
Neizhi saw that the man was in a mess, but the letter in his hand was not wet at all and was smooth and wrinkle-free. He thought about it and decided to take it.
"Jia Rong."
Hearing Zhang Jing calling, Neizhi turned around quickly.
The young man kept staring at the clerk. When he saw him hand the letter to Zhang Jing, he felt relieved and took advantage of the two servants' inattention to run quickly into the rain.
"Sir, he said it was for you, but he didn't say anything else." Neizhi heard the servants exclaiming, and turned around to see that the young man was gone, feeling even more puzzled.
Zhang Jing took out the letter and looked at it. His calm expression seemed to be suddenly cut by a sharp blade. His eyes were fixed on every word on the paper, and his face was pale.
Neizhi saw Zhang Jing suddenly stand up, even forgetting his crutches, and staggering forward a few steps before falling. He hurried over to help him, "Sir, what happened to you?"
Zhang Jing barely walked outside the tarpaulin tent. His rapid breathing brought up a murmur in his throat and lungs. He stared at the two of them and asked, "Where did he come from?!"
One of them answered honestly: "I asked him a lot, and he just said that he was from Yongzhou."
Yongzhou.
These two words made Zhang Jing's eyes go dark and his chest tremble. He crumpled the letter into a ball and suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood.
"grown ups!"
Neizhi was horrified.
He Tong, a Hanlin scholar who was just about to arrive, also happened to see this scene. He immediately dropped his umbrella and ran over:
"teacher!"
