Chapter 926: Consideration (IV)
The setting sun is slanting.
The light and shadow from the window frame, which never stopped, finally climbed slowly and steadily to Sun Shaozong's head, casting a mottled shadow on his furrowed brow.
After nearly four hours of carpet search, the final result was futile - let alone secret passages and secret rooms, not even a decent secret compartment was found.
The questions in Sun Shaozong's mind seemed to have not been answered, but became even more obscure and difficult to understand.
Could it be that there was something wrong with his speculation from the very beginning?
Lin Qisheng's body was not actually hidden in any secret room, but was secretly transported to another place and hidden?
If this is true, Lin Xiuyuan's suspicion would be greatly increased. After all, it is not something that anyone can do to transport a corpse out of the Lin Mansion without anyone noticing.
but……
If Lin Xiuyuan really killed his father, he could have hidden the body, used a substitute to create an alibi, and then lied that his father suddenly ran away from home and disappeared.
Isn't this more appropriate than taking the risk of transporting the stinking corpse back to the mansion?
It doesn’t make sense, it really doesn’t make sense!
"grown ups."
Just as his thoughts inevitably fell into an endless loop, a clerk suddenly came in and reported cautiously: "Captain Huang is back."
Sun Shaozong was immediately cheered up. Huang Bin was sent by him to the dental shop to look for the craftsman who was responsible for the renovation three years ago. It took him a long time to come back, so it should be that he got something out of it.
Or maybe, the message he brought back could help me sort out my thoughts again!
After giving an order, the clerk turned around and left. Not long after, Huang Bin came in.
Huang Bin was obviously exhausted from the journey, his face was covered with a thick layer of grease and his lips were cracked.
"grown ups!"
However, when he spoke, he was still very capable: "I followed your instructions and visited several craftsmen who participated in the reconstruction of the Lin Mansion at that time, but they all said that they had never heard of any secret rooms or secret passages."
"However, after repeated questioning by me, a craftsman recalled that there were several outsiders who had participated in the reconstruction of the Lin Mansion. However, they did not live, eat, or work in the same place as the local craftsmen, so outsiders had no way of knowing what they were responsible for building."
"So I went back to the pawnbroker to investigate, but they didn't have any records. We can only assume that the Lin family hired him privately."
"But Butler Hu, who went with me, didn't have the slightest impression of this."
Are there no outsiders hired through dental clinics?
Even the officials of the Lin Mansion are unaware of it?
This seems to reconfirm the inference that there is a high possibility of a secret passage in the Lin Mansion.
But where is this secret passage?
When conducting the search today, they had clearly thoroughly screened all the places in the Lin Mansion where there might be entrances to secret passages!
No matter how ingeniously the entrance to the secret passage was designed, with Sun Shaozong's vision, knowledge and patience, he should not have gained nothing.
Where exactly did the deviation occur?
Sun Shaozong fell into deep thought again.
But not long after, Yang Zhiming , Tang Weishan, Chen Jingde and others all gathered together.
Sun Shaozong had no choice but to cheer up and listen to their reports on their "results" one by one.
First of all, there was Yang Zhiming who was in charge of controlling the situation. According to his monitoring of the Lin Mansion, everything seemed to be normal and there was nothing wrong.
The next person was Tang Weishan, who was in charge of counting and questioning the behavior of the old servants of the Lin family. He led a team to check about eighty people today, but the results were minimal.
Finally, it’s better not to say anything, Chen Jingde…
In short, to sum up the reports of the three people, it can be described as "lackluster".
However, Sun Shaozong still tried his best to extract the nutritious parts from it and then plan further actions based on it.
for example:
"Tang Sizheng, you must work with the steward of the Lin Mansion as soon as possible to draw up a distribution map of the former servants of the Lin Mansion in and outside the city, and then check the records to see if there are any who live in the same area but have not come to pay homage."
"If so, send someone to check and see why they didn't come."
Another example:
"Yang Sicheng, find a way to transfer some trustworthy women - no matter if they are yamen runners, wives, sisters or children - and let them temporarily stay in the courtyards of the Lin Mansion in the name of personal protection."
"Make sure to record every move of the Lin family's female members."
as well as:
"Deputy Chen, you...you will be in charge of the night watch tonight."
After arranging these tasks, Sun Shaozong saw that it was getting late and there was no new direction for investigation, so he prepared to go home and rest for a while.
But before leaving, he once again came to the mourning hall in the front yard.
After quietly observing for a long time outside the door and taking in all the actions and words of the Lin family members, he couldn't help but focus his attention on Shen Peilan.
Her tears seemed to never stop, and her eyes even began to swell from crying.
Looking at how sad she is, is it possible that she and Lin Qisheng are really in cahoots with each other?
But this is an illicit love affair, and the life of Shen Peilan's husband is involved. How heartless and shameless does she have to be to be willing to have an affair with Lin Qisheng?
Staring at the petite figure, Sun Shaozong was completely confused.
At this moment, there was suddenly some commotion in the mourning hall. Almost everyone looked at the coffin under the north wall. Lin Xiuyuan even stood up in surprise.
There was only one person who was not affected at all and was still kneeling on the straw mat sadly - this person was Lin Qisheng's daughter-in-law Shen Peilan.
At this moment , a thought suddenly popped up in Sun Shaozong's mind: The person Shen Peilan was sad about and missed was probably not Lin Qisheng!
Is she crying for her husband who died young?
But this still doesn’t make sense!
If she was not the murderer, her husband would have been dead for more than two years. Even if she was saddened by the scene, she should not be so heartbroken.
If she was the murderer, there would be no reason for her to cry so sadly now that her revenge had been achieved.
Who is she crying for?
Just as he was thinking about it, the commotion inside was getting louder and louder. Several concubines were so terrified that they even shrank back to the door, as if they could escape at any time.
Seeing this, Sun Shaozong also came to the door and asked, "What happened inside? Why is it so noisy in such an important place like the funeral hall?"
"Master Sun, you've come just in time!"
Seeing Sun Shaozong suddenly show up, Lin Xiuyuan was overjoyed. He rushed forward in a few steps, grabbed his arm, and said in panic: "My father...my father seemed to have just farted...farted!"
As soon as the words fell, a concubine who was outspoken could not help but screamed in fear: "Could it be that the master is faking his death?!"
As soon as these words were spoken, there was another commotion around.
Lin Xiuyuan glared at her with dissatisfaction, but the muscles on his face couldn't stop trembling.
After hearing this, Sun Shaozong asked indifferently, "Did anyone move the body or the coffin just now?"
"Just now...just now, the master of Fayuan Temple used incense to purify my father's body. It seems that he touched the corpse at that time."
"Then there's nothing strange about it."
Sun Shaozong explained: "After the corpse decomposes, the body is filled with various gases, which occasionally leak out, and it sounds similar to a living person farting."
After all, he was a recognized professional, and everyone felt relieved after his explanation.
Sun Shaozong took the opportunity to say goodbye to Lin Xiuyuan, and Lin Xiuyuan accompanied him to the gate of the courtyard.
During this time, Shen Peilan still knelt down and sat there, ignoring everything...
