Chapter 656: Cult?
A winding dirt road and an uneven gate.
Although the structure cannot be said to be monotonous, what catches the eye is mottled and lonely.
Sun Shaozong hadn't been to this slum near Xibianmen for two years. When he revisited the place now, he really didn't notice any changes.
It seems that Jia Yucun's praised political achievements did not benefit this place.
This is understandable. Jia Yucun's main focus is on the middle and upper classes in the city; his secondary focus is on the impoverished refugees who have no place to live.
Relatively speaking, those who live in slums close to the ground but can barely support their families have become a neglected group.
"grown ups!"
While evaluating Jia Yucun's achievements, the Dragon Guard who was leading the way looked around for a long time on his horse, and finally pointed to an alley and shouted, "This is it!"
Sun Shaozong looked out of the car window and saw a small stone tablet about an inch high standing at the entrance of the alley, which was less than ten feet wide.
Tsk~
It is actually the former residence of a scholar.
This is a popular custom in the capital. If a poor family gives birth to a noble son, when the whole family moves away, a monument will be erected in front of the door to commemorate the birth.
This is not to show off deliberately, but to pin down one's own literary style, so as to prevent it from flowing to other places without anyone's "supervision".
Normally, such "former residences of nobles" would not be rented out or sold to others - and it was unlikely that the murderer would choose to commit the crime in his own ancestral home.
However, when he got a little closer, Sun Shaozong felt relieved again, because looking at the broken state of the stone tablet, he was afraid that it might not be a juren of this dynasty - if wealth cannot last for more than three generations, it is normal for the ancestral home to fall into the hands of outsiders.
Stop talking nonsense.
Before the carriage stopped at the entrance of the alley, Zhao Wuwei and several servants came out to greet them, calling them "Master" and "Sir".
Sun Shaozong got off the carriage and saw that those who had the honor of following Zhao Wuwei were all familiar faces, so he called out their names one by one. Then, surrounded by the flattered crowd, he walked into the alley.
"How's the on-site investigation going?"
"Reporting to the Lord."
Zhao Wuwei tilted his shoulders and said respectfully, "We checked inside and out several times. The back door is locked. It looks like no one has been in or out of there for at least a few months. There are only traces left by us on the wall."
"It can be basically concluded that the murderer was not at the scene when Wei Shougen was killed..."
Others were fine, but Liu Xianglian couldn't help but question, "How could the murderer kill Wei Shougen if he wasn't at the scene? Are you trying to say that he committed suicide?"
Just as Zhao Wuwei was about to explain, Wang Zhen on the side said, "Maybe they set up a trap in advance."
"That's right."
Zhao Wuwei continued, "There were a few pieces of clothing scattered around Wei Shougen, as well as an open wicker box. According to the coroner Lao Xu's investigation, he must have been bitten to death by some kind of poisonous insect hidden in the box."
"Coroner Lao Xu?"
Sun Shaozong paused and asked in surprise, "Isn't he not used to being on the scene ?"
Zhao Wuwei smiled and said, "After being coerced and bribed by the judge several times, I have become accustomed to it."
Sun Shaozong trusted the autopsy skills of the coroner, Old Xu, and this saved him a lot of trouble.
A group of people entered the yard one after another, only to find it empty and without any decorations.
Sun Shaozong asked, "Who is the owner of the house? Have you found out?"
"We did find out everything, but the owner of the house moved his family to Jinmenfu a few months ago. We only know that he rented the old house to someone else before he left, but no one knows who rented it."
Was it rented out a few months ago?
At that time, Zhang Biao was still fine, and there was no sign that the matter was about to be exposed - it seemed that this yard should have had some other uses.
Thinking this, he had already entered the main room.
But the room was also exposed. The coroner, Old Xu, was wiping instruments in front of a twisted corpse with an expressionless face.
When he saw Sun Shaozong coming in from outside, he forced a smile and bowed.
Sun Shaozong waved his hand and said, "Stop talking nonsense and tell me the results of the autopsy first."
This kind of straightforwardness was exactly what Old Xu liked. He immediately stopped smiling and pointed at the body on the ground, explaining, "Please look, sir. The right hand of the corpse is obviously swollen. There are papule-like red spots on the back of the hand. There is a part of the skin near the middle finger that looks like it has not healed from a burn, but there is no obvious wound."
"According to my subordinates' deduction, the deceased was probably pierced by a small needle-like object at the base of his middle finger, which injected venom into him. Then, his skin and flesh twitched and contracted, completely covering the wound. The suffocation caused by the venom should be the main cause of his death."
"Because there are no signs of snakes around, I inferred that the thing hidden in the box might be some kind of poisonous insect."
Wei Shougen's body was hunched into an S shape, lying on his side on the ground, with his left hand tightly pinching his right forearm, probably trying to stop the poison from spreading, but in the end it was in vain.
While listening to Old Xu's explanation, Sun Shaozong bent down to look at the red spots and dead skin on the back of Wei Shougen's hand. He inadvertently met Wei Shougen's face and subconsciously exclaimed "Huh".
Of course, he had not forgotten the "daredevil" he had run into when he went to Daxing County Office that day...
wrong!
Thinking about it now, it is not difficult to infer that Wei Shougen did it on purpose; and Wang Qian’s overly arrogant response was probably related to this guy.
So what is his purpose?
Could it be that they thought that Zhang Biao's death was related to their private dealings, so they were afraid of interfering?
"In addition, there were some relatively fresh burns on the deceased's back."
Old Xu continued explaining while handing Sun Shaozong two silver chopsticks.
Sun Shaozong didn't even ask him how to use it. He skillfully scratched the dead man's back with the chopsticks a few times, then lifted up four layers of clothes, revealing the skin and flesh on the back.
It turned out that there was a cut in the middle of the deceased's back by the scissors.
"These burns..."
Sun Shaozong looked at the plum-shaped burn marks on Wei Shougen's back and murmured, "It seems to be the marks left by some kind of ritual."
"Yes, I think so too."
Old Xu nodded, but Liu Xianglian, Wang Zhen and others beside him were a little puzzled Plum blossom-shaped ironware was not uncommon nowadays, so how could they conclude that a ceremony was being performed?
It was difficult for others to interrupt, but Liu Xianglian was not shy: "Second brother, how can you be sure that this was left behind by some kind of ritual?"
“It’s very simple.”
Sun Shaozong pointed at the plum blossom marks and said, "Look carefully, these marks are not deep, but they look very even. If they were not voluntary, they would never be like this."
"Why is that?"
Liu Xianglian still didn't understand, and was even more confused.
Sun Shaozong sighed helplessly, asked Zhao Wuwei for a fire starter, blew it and slowly burned it towards Liu Xianglian's face.
Liu Xianglian quickly dodged and shouted, "Second brother, what are you doing?!"
"You know how to dodge, doesn't he know?"
Sun Shaozong pointed at Wei Shougen and said, "If you had branded it with force, it would be fine. This thin layer would be blurred with a little struggle. Now it is so clear, you must have voluntarily accepted it."
"And if it was just to make a mark, there would be no need to burn so many at once - that's why I inferred that this must be the trace of some kind of ritual performed by Wei Shougen voluntarily."
