Chapter 18 Chapter Seven Turning Hands into Clouds and Hands into Rain

The kitchen knife in the hand of Wang Chen, the proprietress of the coffin shop in the east of the city, suddenly froze in mid-air, hesitating, and did not cut it off in an arc immediately.She stared blankly at Juliet, and thought to herself, oh my God, if what Juliet said is true, then the steamed bun dipped in her blood and then fed to her son Tie Dan, in case Tie Dan really changed With a white skeleton, how will she live in her next life?Her husband disappeared, and if her son disappeared, leaving her to live alone in the world, she would absolutely not be able to bear the feeling of it.

So, she could only murmur: "How could you be innocent? How could you not be a villain? Du Lunqiang has already recruited, and it was with you that he conspired to kill Mr. Ximen... " Juliet stood up slowly, and replied: "Du Lunqiang is a down-and-out former security captain. He has no money and doesn't look very good. How could I like him?" She walked slowly to Xu Qingfeng. In front of him, he gently stretched out his hand, stroked Xu Qingfeng's cheek tenderly, and said with a sneer, "If Du Lunqiang looks as handsome and handsome as County Magistrate Xu, maybe I will fall in love with him."

Xu Qingfeng remained silent, like a wooden man, letting Juliet caress his cheek. "Then what evidence do you have to prove that you didn't kill Mr. Ximen? Even if you didn't kill Mr. Ximen, the matter of Du Lun's strong poisoning is always a certainty, and there is no dispute, right?" Wang Chen roared loudly. "That's not necessarily true." A voice suddenly came from the crowd. After hearing this voice, Wang Chen's body immediately trembled. And the crowd stepped aside, and a middle-aged man with a wretched appearance stepped out of the middle. When Wang Chen saw this person, he immediately rushed forward angrily, slapped the middle-aged man hard on the face, and shouted, "Wang Ruoliang, you bastard who killed thousands of knives, how dare you come back? God, where did you go? Did you get into the eyes of money? In order to make more money in the coming year, you even took the blood-soaked steamed buns that were used for Tiedan’s treatment to the provincial capital and gave them to the proprietress of Tongmupu... "

Speaking of this, Wang Chen suddenly realized that if Tie Dan had eaten the blood-soaked steamed bun three days ago, he might have turned into a white skeleton without flesh and blood just like the other nineteen tuberculosis patients. For a while, Wang Chen was overwhelmed with grief and joy, and couldn't help crying. This wretched-looking middle-aged man is none other than Wang Chen's husband, Wang Ruoliang, the owner of the coffin shop in the east of the city. "Hey, what's going on here? Didn't Boss Wang from the coffin shop go to the provincial capital with bloody steamed buns? Why did he come back suddenly?" There was a commotion in the crowd.

But Wang Ruoliang turned around, facing the Xiling people outside the dungeon and said loudly: "I walked along the official road for a day and a night, and came to the provincial capital at noon on the second day after Wang Liezi was beheaded. I haven't had time to find Tongmu Han Wenhao, the owner of the shop, was stopped by police officers from the police department just outside the gate of the provincial capital. They received a letter from Feige from Xiling County, and learned that 19 tuberculosis patients in Xiling County had eaten steamed buns dipped in blood. Afterwards, he died strangely and turned into bones. And there was another person who came to the provincial capital with a steamed bun soaked in blood, and was going to give it to Han Wenhao, the owner of the Tongmu shop. So they waited at the city gate, intercepting this might cause people to die suddenly A bloody steamed bun that turned into bones."

"Then what happened next?" Wang Chen stopped crying and asked curiously. "Later, the police officers searched the bloody steamed bun from me, found a wild dog, and fed the steamed bun to the dog." Wang Ruoliang turned around again and said to Xu Qingfeng, "Later, that steamed bun The dog ate the steamed buns, nothing happened, and ran around me, wagging its tail." "So what?" Xu Qingfeng asked with a livid face. "Major Xu, didn't you say that the poison in the iron pot was cast by Du Lunqiang? Before beheading, he threw the poison into the iron pot. Then twenty people who had been dipped in human blood The steamed buns should be highly poisonous. But, why did the wild dogs eat the steamed buns I took away, but they were all right?"

Xu Qingfeng flicked his sleeves, and replied dully: "Who knows? Maybe it's because that wild dog just happens to be more resistant." Wang Ruoliang shook his head and said, "No, no, it's not that wild dogs are more resistant, but that my blood-soaked steamed bun is not poisonous at all." "Then how is it possible?" Mrs. Wang Chen grabbed her husband by the corner of his clothes and asked, "Du Lunqiang was poisoned before the beheading. Why is the steamed bun you dipped in blood not poisonous?" Wang Ruoliang replied: "That can only explain one problem - Du Lunqiang did not poison at all, the poison was injected by another person after I dipped the steamed buns."

"Oh, the person standing behind you at that time was Ximenya." Xu Qingfeng finally spoke, "Probably he was deceived by Du Lunqiang, obeyed Du Lunqiang's words, and threw the poison into the iron pot Right. It's a pity that Simeon has been killed, and everything is dead without proof." "Maybe it's like this..." Wang Ruoliang seemed a little flustered and couldn't continue talking. And Xu Qingfeng glared at Wang Ruoliang, and said, "Someone taught you what you just said?" Wang Ruoliang's eyes flickered even more, and he couldn't help taking two steps back.

"Say, who told you to say what you just said?" Xu Qingfeng pressed again. Wang Ruoliang's body trembled, but he still straightened his waist and shouted loudly: "The matter of poisoning is over, someone asked me to ask Miss Yang, Juliet, how did Ximenya die?" As soon as these words came out, all eyes in the open space turned to Juliet who was standing beside Xu Qingfeng. And Juliet held her head high and proudly replied: "I killed it!" The crowd was in an uproar, Wang Chen raised his kitchen knife again, and shouted: "Juliet, you really are the murderer who killed Ximenya! Just now you kept saying that you did not conspire with Du Lun to kill Mr. Ximen, what are you doing now? Admit it again? You are a villain in the first place, dipping steamed buns in your blood will definitely cure my son’s tuberculosis!”

Wang Chenshi's eyes immediately revealed a fierce look. Juliet smiled miserably, and replied: "I didn't tell a lie just now. It is true that I did not conspire with Du Lun to kill Mr. Simon. Someone else instructed me to kill Mr. Simon. And this person is in the After I got it, I hid it all, and someone poured dumb medicine down my throat, trying to make me dumb and unable to defend myself." Juliet turned around, stared at the livid Xu Qingfeng, and asked softly, "Major Xu, am I right?" But Wang Chen asked inexplicably: "The person you are talking about... is the county magistrate Xu? Since you have been given dumb drugs, why can you still talk?"

"Because—because I didn't give her dumb drugs at all!" Another voice came from the crowd. After the crowd flashed a small path, a person came out. It was the current security captain Lin Shangwu. Lin Shangwu walked in front of Xu Qingfeng, smiled slightly, and said, "County Xu, you must have never imagined that I didn't give Miss Juliet dumb drugs, right? She couldn't make a sound in the courtroom that day, so she could only say 'Yeah! ’ It’s just that Miss Juliet played a good show in the court.” "You...you..." County Magistrate Xu didn't know what to say. But Lin Shangwu turned to face the people in the open space, and said loudly: "Now I want to tell you a big secret, that is--in addition to being Ximenya's lover, Miss Juliet also has a lover of her own." Her lover is Xu Qingfeng, the magistrate of Xiling County!" There was another commotion in the crowd. Lin Shangwu continued: "Xu Qingfeng is not simple, not only let Juliet kill Ximenya on the official road to the provincial capital, but also instructed Juliet to go to the dungeon to scold Du Lunqiang the next day. When Gao was not paying attention, Juliet used a hidden small crossbow to shoot a poisonous arrow dipped in corpse powder into Du Lunqiang's body, turning Du Lunqiang into a bone!" "You...how did you guess it?" Xu Qingfeng asked with emotion. Lin Shangwu shrugged his shoulders and replied: "When you asked me to give Miss Juliet dumb drugs, I told her that I was sent by you. In a fit of anger, she told me your whole plan. When you went to the dungeon to interrogate Du Lunqiang, you and I went together. You were the first to discover the dentures in Du Lunqiang's skull. However, the dentures were not in Du Lunqiang's skull at the time, but in the In your hand. As you bent over the skull, you slid the false teeth out of your sleeve and pretended to take them out of the skull." "Hmph, it doesn't matter if you don't listen to one-sided words! Everything you said has no basis at all!" Lin Shangwu smiled again, and said: "There must be evidence. Du Lunqiang's teeth are already good, and there are no false teeth at all. In the dungeon, when you asked me to come out to find Lao Gao to give the prison meal, I was in the dungeon. Pull out the teeth in the mouth of a skull, and install the dentures. As for Du Lunqiang's original teeth, you have no place to throw them away, so you can only put them in your pocket and take them back to the inner room of the small building of the county office. I guess, the tooth is still hidden in the soil of a potted flower in the inner room?" As soon as the voice fell, a person suddenly ran over. This man is Lao Gao, the jailer and executioner, and in his hand is holding a pot of spider plants. In front of everyone, Lao Gao dug up a layer of soil inside the flower pot, and a blood-stained tooth was immediately exposed inside. Lin Shangwu said coldly: "If you put this tooth back into Du Lunqiang's skull, it will fit perfectly with the remnants of the dentures in the gap between the teeth!" "Xu Qingfeng not only instructed Ms. Juliet to kill Ximenya and Du Lunqiang, but he even found someone to secretly throw in the corpse powder that was thrown into the iron pot." Lin Shangwu said loudly again. "Nonsense!" Xu Qingfeng was in a hurry this time, and he quickly argued, "You just saw that the steamed buns dipped in blood by the coffin shop owner Wang Ruoliang are not poisonous, which proves that the poison was cast by Ximenya. This is not the same as mine. What does it matter?" "Hehe, besides Ximenya, there is another person who also had the opportunity to throw poison into the iron pot. And this person was coerced by you." Lin Shangwu waved his hand, and Lao Gao immediately returned to the dungeon knowingly. After a while, he led a man with a sack covering his head back to the open space. Pulling off the sack, a dull face was revealed inside. This person was actually the most honest member of the security team, who was in charge of Niu Gen holding the iron pot to catch the blood that day. Niu Gen's knees softened, and he knelt down in front of Xu Qingfeng, kowtowed and cried, "I'm sorry, County Magistrate Xu, I've recruited them all! It was you who arrested my mother and said I wouldn't cast poison , just killed my mother. You said, anyway, those tuberculosis patients are the scourge of the family, and if they die early, they will be relieved... You also said that you will reward me with money, the money that smells like shochu..." "Stop talking!" Xu Qingfeng said angrily, raised his leg, and kicked Niu Gen hard in the chest. Then, Xu Qingfeng turned around and said to Lin Shangwu, "Captain Lin, when did you notice something strange?" Lin Shangwu smiled and replied: "I discovered something strange three months ago. At that time, in a small town outside Xiling County, someone used a few silver dollars. Those silver dollars were very strange, and they all smelled of shochu .” "Later, these silver dollars attracted the attention of our provincial police department." A voice came from behind Lin Shangwu. The one who spoke turned out to be Inspector Wang Huaixu from the provincial capital. Xu Qingfeng's face was ashen, and he murmured: "It turned out that the provincial police department had already paid attention to it as early as three months ago..." That's right, as soon as Wang Huaixu, the old inspector of the Provincial Police Department, saw these silver coins that smelled of shochu, he knew that someone had soaked the silver coins in shochu to remove the wax that was originally printed on the silver coins.So Wang Huaixu went to the bank in the provincial capital and asked which silver dollars had been waxed in the past few years. Soon, Wang Huaixu noticed a sum of money two years ago. It was Xu Qingfeng's instruction that the bank used a batch of wax on the silver dollar that the royalists cashed.And that money, according to legend, was robbed by the bandit leader Wang Liezi of Hidden Dragon Mountain, and he also bloodbathed Ninglan Town, leaving no one alive.But in Wang Huaixu's view, this public case was probably not done by Wang Laizi, and there should be someone else who did such a bad thing. So, after two months of intensive preparations, until a month ago, a man came to Xiling County with his hands bound and bandit leader Wang Laizi with three knives and six holes on his legs, and became the new security captain. "Lin Shangwu, so you are sent by the Provincial Police Department..." Xu Qingfeng murmured to Lin Shangwu. "That's right." Lin Shangwu just smiled, and answered noncommittally, vaguely. Lin Shangwu came to Xiling County just to find out who robbed the huge amount of silver dollars that disappeared from Eunuch Jiang two years ago?Who actually did the murder in Ninglan Town?Where is that silver dollar hidden now? Bringing Lame Wang to the county seat will naturally make the real murderer of the murder feel panic and uneasy. Sure enough, as soon as he went to court, Xu Qingfeng ordered Lin Shangwu to cut off Lame Wang's tongue, so that Lame Wang could not speak. This naturally made Lin Shangwu and Wang Huaixu point their suspicions at Xu Qingfeng. What happened afterwards was somewhat beyond Lin Shangwu and Wang Huaixu's expectations. Nineteen tuberculosis patients unexpectedly died suddenly, and then Ximenya and Du Lunqiang also died in the official road and in the dungeon.Indeed, under Xu Qingfeng's suggestion, Lin Shangwu also came to a seemingly reasonable conclusion, that is, Du Lunqiang and Juliet conspired to kill Ximenya, and Du Lunqiang committed suicide in prison.If Juliet had successfully left Xiling County in a sedan chair and returned to the provincial capital that day, she might have hid in the British Empire's embassy and escaped justice.It's a pity that Lin Shangwu released a carrier pigeon in time, allowing Wang Huaixu to stop Juliet halfway and send her back to Xiling County. Xu Qingfeng's arrangement and design was originally logical. If everything goes well, the whole incident should stop here when Du Lunqiang is found.He also made Lin Shangwu a witness in the misleading case at the price of a jar of silver dollars. However, Lin Shangwu knew it well. In his opinion, Xu Qingfeng's disappearance was not free from suspicion. And if it is assumed that Xu Qingfeng is the mastermind behind the scenes, then he also has the motivation to poison the iron pot. Xu Qingfeng expected in advance that once nineteen tuberculosis patients died suddenly, Du Lunqiang, the former security captain who coveted the Yayuan private school, would do everything possible to persuade Ximenya to go to the provincial capital to avoid danger, and then arrange for his fellow troops to wait for an opportunity to kill them in the provincial capital. Simeon.In this way, he would have the opportunity to frame Du Lunqiang and make Du Lunqiang the scapegoat for the public case two years ago. That's why he instructed Niu Gen to put the corpse powder into the iron pot before Ximenya dipped the steamed bun in blood.If the vote was made too early, there would be no need for Ximenya to flee, and the whole plan would be impossible to carry out. As for the underground secret room in Du Lun's strong house, it was also arranged by Xu Qingfeng. After some investigation, Lin Shangwu found out that Du Lunqiang's hut was the residence arranged by Xu Qingfeng for him when he was the security captain.Before that, Xu Qingfeng had already built a secret room, and hid three jars of silver dollars in the secret room.At that time, he had already planned to make Du Lunqiang a scapegoat for the murder. And after instructing Juliet to kill Ximenya on the official road, Xu Qingfeng also asked Juliet to do one thing, which was to replace the two hundred silver dollars that Du Lunqiang gave with two hundred pieces of silver coins with wax. An ordinary silver dollar.This is to convince Lin Shangwu that Du Lunqiang is related to the murder in Ninglan Town two years ago. Of course, regarding this point, when Lin Shangwu told Juliet that Xu Qingfeng was going to give her dumb drugs, Juliet had already confessed. When Xu Qingfeng and Lin Shangwu went to search for silver dollars in Du Lunqiang's hut for the first time, he deliberately stepped on the switch to open the secret room, and then pretended to discover it by accident, leading Lin Shangwu to discover the silver dollars step by step.At the same time, Xu Qingfeng hinted that Du Lunqiang was just a gun used by someone behind the scene in the provincial capital, which made Lin Shangwu dare not go any further, and made the investigation of the whole incident stop here with Du Lunqiang. Originally, the whole plan could be called seamless, but Xu Qingfeng also prepared to train Lin Shangwu as his confidant at the price of a vat of silver dollars.If everything goes well, when the incident subsides, he will fabricate a little pressure from the provincial capital, resign and fly away, and then join Juliet who fled to the provincial capital, and live a happy life that only envies mandarin ducks but not immortals. . Unexpectedly, Juliet was sent back to Xiling County by Wang Huaixu, who had crossed the bar. This made Xu Qingfeng helpless, so he had to make up his mind to treat Juliet as a sacrifice, and let his newly recruited confidant Lin Shangwu take over her. The dumb drug was poured down Juliet's throat, and the case was closed. But Xu Qingfeng never imagined that Lin Shangwu was actually sent by the Provincial Police Department. Lin Shangwu has always been looking forward to civil strife between Xu Qingfeng and his accomplices, and Xu Qingfeng's decision to poison Juliet is a sign of civil strife. Sure enough, as soon as Lin Shangwu told Juliet about the dumb drugs, Juliet immediately became furious and confessed that she was Xu Qingfeng's lover, and the two conspired to kill Ximenya and Du Lunqiang. Xu Qingfeng asked Lin Shangwu in a low voice: "Am I already charged with a death sentence?" "I am very sure of that!" "So, if I tell the whereabouts of those three hundred thousand silver dollars, can I buy back a life?" A smile appeared on Lin Shangwu's face.Then he turned around, faced the angry crowd in the open space, and asked, "If county magistrate Xu gives you one thousand silver dollars each, will you spare his life?" The crowd was commotion again. One thousand silver dollars is enough for a family to live comfortably for several years. Even the family members of the tuberculosis patients who died violently couldn't stop whispering to each other. After all, the tuberculosis patient was a burden to the family. Although the death was tragic, the family breathed a sigh of relief after his death. As for Ximenya and Du Lunqiang who were killed, they were just irrelevant bystanders who died as soon as they died. So after whispering to each other, Wang Ruoliang, as a representative of the crowd, came out and said hesitantly, "If everyone can get a thousand dollars, it would be a great thing to spare the life of County Mayor Xu." But Xu Qingfeng still had some concerns. He did the math, even if every commoner in the open space was given a thousand silver dollars, it would only cost less than one hundred thousand silver dollars, and the rest of the silver dollars would naturally have to be handed over to Lin Shangwu. and Wang Huaixu.But, that foreigner Lawrence, and more than a dozen Indian Asan soldiers, can he handle it? Lin Shangwu seemed to see Xu Qingfeng's doubts, he smiled and clapped his hands. Lawrence immediately wiped his face with his hand and pulled his hair again.Immediately, a layer of white ointment was smeared on his face, and the blond hair was pulled down. It turned out to be just a wig. And the dozen or so Indian Asan soldiers also took off their turbans and the fake beards under the bridge of their noses. Everyone is a genuine Chinese. Seeing everything in front of him, Xu Qingfeng couldn't help but let out a long sigh. He knew he had been duped. But he had no choice but to say, "Captain Lin, I just hope you keep your word. I'll take you to find the three hundred thousand silver dollars, and you will let me live." Lin Shangwu replied cheerfully: "My cripple king speaks for himself, and he keeps his word!" Xu Qingfeng froze, he opened his mouth wide, unable to utter a word.After a long time, he asked stupidly: "What, you are a crippled king? Who is the person whose head was cut off while hanging upside down on the tower?" "It's a death row inmate my uncle recruited from the prison in the provincial capital. Uncle promised him that as long as he dies obediently, he doesn't have to worry about his family's future life." Xu Qingfeng finally understood what was going on. It turned out that he had fallen into a trap set up by Lame Wang. The purpose of Lame Wang was to track down the whereabouts of that large sum of silver dollars.The so-called visitors from the provincial legation and a dozen or so Indian Asan soldiers were all bandits from Tibetan Dragon Mountain in disguise. Now that things were over, Xu Qingfeng had no choice but to admit defeat. "So you are the cripple Wang. No wonder, you knew from the beginning that the cripple Wang was not the real culprit of Ning Lan's murder." Xu Qingfeng paused, then suddenly realized a problem, and asked, "But, if you are Lame Wang, why aren't your legs lame?" Lame Wang smiled: "Who said lame Wang must have a lame leg? Your name is Xu Qingfeng, and I didn't see that your face was blue!"