Chapter 291 Where is the culprit? !
The horse pulling the carriage let out a hissing sound, took a few steps forward with kicks and clatters, and then stopped steadily outside the door of Huichun Tower.
Sun Shaozong got off the carriage, and before he could stand still, the madam, whose face was covered with countless rouge and powder, hurried out to greet him. She opened her bloody mouth and shouted exaggeratedly, "Oh my goodness! This man is so majestic and powerful !"
As she spoke, she covered half of her face with a round fan and smiled mysteriously, "I don't like what you said. We in Huichun Tower today treasure your majestic and big..."
Before she could finish her words, Sun Shaozong suddenly threw a golden object over to her.
The old procuress was quick and grabbed the thing in her hand. She glanced at it with joy, but her eyeballs almost popped out of their sockets and her mouth grew bigger and bigger, and it seemed that a scream was about to burst out of her throat.
"You'd better not shout."
Sun Shaozong said calmly: "I am here to find a man, but if that man runs away with you, I don't mind taking all the women here back ."
"Big... big, big..."
The madam trembled as she handed the thing back with both hands. She finally managed to utter a complete sentence: "Master Qian Hu, rest assured, I will not make a fuss, I will not make a fuss!"
When not wearing official robes, the waist badge of the Dragon Guard Captain is indeed more convenient.
Sun Shaozong casually kicked the waist badge into his arms, and ordered expressionlessly: "Qin Rushuang, I'm looking for the guest in her room. Lead the way."
The madam quickly agreed and carefully led Sun Shaozong into the living room.
After entering the room, I felt a wave of heat mixed with the smell of powder hitting me in the face. It was still afternoon, and not yet the peak business hour for the brothel. There were only a few tables of guests sitting scattered in the hall, hugging some average-looking women, flirting and chatting there.
Although Qin Rushuang was not the top star in Huichunlou, she was not comparable to these mediocre women, so she naturally would not receive guests downstairs in this building.
So the madam led Sun Shaozong up to the second floor, and vaguely heard someone in a room at the west end reciting a poem loudly: "In the past, King Chen held a banquet in Pingle, and drank ten thousand cups of wine and had fun! What is the host saying..."
It seems to be Li Bai's "Drinking Song".
Sun Shaozong pointed to the room and said, "But this is the one."
The madam nodded vigorously.
Sun Shaozong strode up to him and waited for a moment until the man finished saying the last line, "Let us share the eternal sorrow together," before he pushed the door open and walked in.
I saw a man and a woman sitting around The man looked to be in his early thirties, dressed like a scholar, with a wild yet slightly weathered look.
woman……
Well, Sun Shaozong wasn't here to see her anyway, so it didn't matter whether he said it or not.
The man was holding a brush in his hand and there was a piece of ink-stained rice paper in front of him. It was obvious that he was not reciting poetry but practicing calligraphy.
Perhaps because he had obtained a work that he was extremely satisfied with, the man was looking very pleased with himself. However, the moment he saw Sun Shaozong rushing in, his satisfaction turned into endless astonishment and fear.
"It seems that he recognized me."
Sun Shaozong raised the corner of his mouth slightly, walked to the round table with his hands behind his back, and carefully looked at the ink-stained "Song of the Wine".
Putting aside other things, the unrestrained spirit of "who else but me" seems to be bursting through the paper.
Even though Sun Shaozong was not an expert, he could see that the calligraphy was definitely of high quality.
Tsk~
He smacked his lips and said with some regret: "You said you have this skill, why don't you write a plaque for someone and make a lot of money?"
The scholar's expression changed several times, and finally he smiled bitterly and said, "To be honest with you, I have been practicing calligraphy for more than ten years, but I have only been able to achieve the form but not the power. It was not until I scribbled a few words on the door yesterday that I suddenly had an epiphany."
As he said this, he threw away the brush in his hand, pointed at the "Song of the Wine" and said: "This calligraphy is my life's masterpiece, and I'm afraid it will be my last calligraphy in this life. If I leave it to a prostitute to play with, I will really be unwilling - how about giving it to you?"
As the saying goes, one should not scold a bald man in front of a monk. After all, Qin Rushuang was a famous prostitute in Huichunlou. After hearing him say this, she could not help but pout and wanted to complain.
"go out."
However, Sun Shaozong glanced at her and uttered two words lightly, which blocked all the anger that Qin Rushuang was about to say.
Frightened by this look, she didn't even have the slightest intention of resisting, and hurriedly retreated, closing the door obediently.
After driving Qin Rushuang away, Sun Shaozong sat on the Xiudun with a majestic look and said, "I've accepted the letter. How did you kidnap Ma Yingjue and how did you kill him and his accomplices? Isn't it time for you to explain?"
"Alas~"
The man sighed and sat down heavily on the stool, saying quietly, "One misstep can lead to eternal regret. When you look back, you are already a hundred years old! I passed the imperial examination when I was young and lived a carefree life for a few years. But I failed five times in a row and even the family fortune passed down by my ancestors was squandered by me."
"That day I was drinking with two of my bad friends. When we were drunk, they suddenly revealed a secret. It turned out that they had all been Ma Yingjue's personal servants, and had done something heinous with Ma Yingjue!"
"That was three years ago, when Ma Yingjue took the imperial examination..."
"I have already investigated the case from three years ago." Sun Shaozong interrupted and said, "Just talk about this case."
"Your Excellency is indeed worthy of being called a God of Judgement."
Li Xiucai smiled bitterly and continued, "After I learned about this, I wanted to report it to the authorities, but the two thieves quickly came to their senses and even thought of killing them to silence them."
"I had no choice but to flatter them and persuade them to trick Ma Yingjue out of the city, kidnap him and extort a large sum of money. I also comforted them by saying: Ma Yingjue has a guilty conscience anyway, and he will definitely not dare to report it to the police afterwards."
"The two thieves really had an idea, so they followed my plan and pretended to help Ma Yingjue harm another decent woman for fun, and lured him out of the city and kidnapped him."
"But what they didn't expect was that I actually had the intention to kill these three shameless villains!"
"So I proposed again last night that we celebrate before letting Ma Yingjue go, and then I secretly poisoned the wine glass, poisoned the two thieves, and strangled Ma Yingjue to death!"
At this point, he couldn't help but sigh again, and said helplessly: "Although I also thought that you might find out the truth, I didn't expect you to come so quickly."
After hearing what he said, Sun Shaozong smiled slightly, raised his hands and clapped slowly, and exclaimed in admiration: "What a good story, it is really a good story. It is seven parts true and three parts false. It really has the essence of storytelling!"
story?
Li Xiucai finally showed some panic and smiled stiffly: "Why do you say that, sir? I am going to die anyway, why would I lie to you, sir?"
“Two words.”
Sun Shaozong sneered, "Shelter! You want to shield your accomplices, or rather, shield the mastermind of this case!"
"What you just said seems very reasonable, but it contains two fatal loopholes!"
"First of all, I've had people investigate. You usually stay at home and rarely interact with others. You especially look down on the vulgar scoundrels hanging around on the streets!"
"If that's the case, how could you have been hanging out with those two and happened to overhear their biggest secret?"
"As for the other loophole, it was also the flaw that made me first start to suspect that there was another culprit behind the scenes. That was the poison you used to kill the two servants!"
"It is colorless, tasteless, can dissolve quickly in alcohol, and can kill people in a very short time !"
"This is definitely not comparable to common goods like arsenic!"
"If you were a rich and powerful person, it would be fine if you could find this kind of poison, but you are just an ordinary poor scholar, and it only took you seven or eight hours to get the ransom..."
At this point, Sun Shaozong leaned forward slightly, stared at Li Xiucai fiercely and said, "Tell me, who is the person behind you?"
