Chapter 7 Chapter VII
When Di Gong walked out of the ear gate of the inner yamen, he saw a monk with a round bald head approaching him.
"Haha, County Magistrate Di, I visited you in Shexia, and your door is locked."
Di Gong immediately realized that this person was Master Ruyi, and hurriedly bowed his hands and replied: "Could it be Master Ruyi? I have long admired you. Luo Xianggong mentioned your high deeds in front of the late students several times. You are valued, and you are welcome. Forgive your sins." Forgive me."
"Master Di may not know why Luo County Magistrate invited the poor monk to the banquet? Shame, the poor monk also has the name of a poet. The poor monk only writes two lines of poems, whether it is right or wrong, the words are not many, and the meaning is exhausted. Mr. Di is interested in official documents." He nodded with his finger on the bundle of files under Mr. Di's armpit.
"Master, let's have a cup of tea at the house." Di Gong invited politely.
"No need, no need. The poor monk is still a little mundane, and he wants to do it before the night banquet. Your Excellency, you may as well come to my resting place if you have a free time. I live in the clean room behind the fox temple. In the room. Master Di, are you a tiger?"
Duke Di nodded, looking puzzled at Master Ruyi's sudden question.
A mysterious smile appeared on Master Ruyi's ugly face, and there was a strange light in the eyes of the two toads.
"A fox, a tiger—excellent, excellent. Master Di, be careful. Someone was killed here last night, and there are still others to be killed. I saw many ghosts trailing behind you, thanks to your yang energy Only when you are strong, you can't get close."
Di Gong couldn't help shivering.
"Master Di, don't expect me to help you. Three thousand worlds have no end, and there is no obstacle to the door of witty words. It's all up to you to hold the Zen lamp in your hand and touch the road according to the way." As he spoke, he dragged his hemp shoes He swayed away on his own.
Di Gong seemed to understand, but he didn't want to ask in detail, and he was very suspicious.
Back in the library, Di Gong unfolded the file and began to read it carefully.
The 20 pages of the opening book are the biography of Yulan's life written by Luo Yingyuan.The words are subtle and the pen and ink are fine.The section about Magnolia and Egrets is even more praiseworthy, which has a profound meaning.
Yulan was originally the daughter of the shopkeeper of a pharmacy in Chang'an, and she could read and write at the age of five.When she was fifteen, her father sold her to a well-known courtyard in Chang'an because of the bankruptcy of her family business.She stayed in the academy for four years, and got acquainted with many celebrities, poets and poets in Chang'an.The day will be the moon, and she will be influenced by the sun, and she will write a good poem by herself, which shows her amazing literary talent.At the age of nineteen, just when she was in her prime, she suddenly disappeared.The old bustard, Guisun, inquired around and searched for half a year, but he couldn't find him, so he had to give up.Two years later, she was reduced to a fireworks factory, poor and sick, and in a difficult situation.A young man named Wen Dongyang redeemed her and returned to Chang'an.So the two became inseparable partners.That Young Master Wen is handsome, suave, rich, and spends money like dirt.And like Magnolia, the poetry is full of talent, and the beautiful chapters and sentences are like spit out pearls and jade;
The two of them became guests of Chang'an ministers, princes, celebrities and dignitaries. Their remuneration singing collection became popular all over the country, and people sang it endlessly in boudoirs, temples, travel and post pavilions.They traveled around famous mountains and great rivers, and the poems they wrote along the way spread like wildfire, and even scholars and literati could recite it.However, the good times don't last long, and life is full of joy and sorrow.Four years later, Mr. Wen abandoned Yulan, and followed a heroine who went through the rivers and lakes without knowing where to end.
Yulan left the capital to live in Sichuan, where she made friends with famous local writers and Qingliu, and established a poetry club.There are many high officials and rich people who come to ask for poetry.Because of her nobility and arrogance, she offended a local governor.She was forced to leave Sichuan again, and wandered in the Dongting area of Huxiang.Finally, she bought a small Taoist shrine in Xin'an County - Bailuguan.She claimed to be a Taoist station, chanted the Yellow Sutra, accompanied by the green lantern, and only had a maidservant by her side, strictly forbidding men to enter the contemplation.Since then, self-cultivation and self-cultivation.Cut off from the world.
One day two months ago, four yamen servants suddenly broke into the peaceful Bailu Temple, and started digging under a cherry tree in front of the court with hoes and shovels, and unexpectedly dug out the body of Yulan's seventeen-year-old maidservant.Wu Zuo concluded that the maid was flogged to death because she was covered in whip marks.Yamen officials arrested Yulan and accused her of intentional homicide.
Yulan argued: Three days ago, the maid took leave of absence to visit her parents in the village, and she prepared dinner for Yulan before she left.Yulan finished her evening meal and went for a walk along the Xin'an River.It was nearly midnight when she looked back, and she found that the back door of the Taoist temple had been pried open, and a pair of silver candlesticks were missing from the temple.She reported to the government the next day.She said that she guessed that the servant girl must have forgotten something and ran back to the temple to get it. When she met a thief, the thief beat her with a whip and asked her to tell her where Yulan hid the money. die.But several witnesses testified to the county magistrate that Yulan often abused the servant girl, and her miserable screams could often be heard in the middle of the night—even though the Bailu Temple was located in an inaccessible mountain valley.Another peddler confirmed that he was walking past Bailuguan late at night on the day of the accident, and there were no traces of thieves or vagrants.
The county magistrate refuted Yulan's defense, accusing her of killing the maidservant.She also said that she pried open the back door of the Taoist temple by herself, and threw the silver candlestick into a well.Just as the county magistrate Bei Wen declared to the state capital, a group of thieves robbed a farm not far from Bailuguan and killed the farmer's family.For this reason, the county magistrate didn't dare to do his own thing, so he sent people to hunt down the gang of thieves, and at the same time postponed the judgment on Yulan, and referred the case to the governor.
The governor of Shezhou admired Yulan's poems very much and wanted to get rid of Yulan.He made an in-depth investigation and learned that the county magistrate of Xin'an had wanted to marry Yulan, but Yulan sternly refused.The county magistrate admitted that it happened, but it had nothing to do with the case of Yulan's murder of her maidservant.He revealed that he only sent people to Bailuguan to dig up the dead body after receiving an anonymous letter of accusation—there was no plaintiff in this case.Secondly, the patrol captured a thief a few days ago. He participated in the robbery of the farm, but he did not admit that he had robbed Bailuguan.However, he confessed that his leader once mentioned that Yulan had hidden a lot of gold and silver in the cellar in Guanzhong.This confession fits well with Yulan's defense.The governor didn't dare to specialize, so he transferred the case to Jiangnan Dao ambassador.The case book stated that Yulan was not guilty.
Many poets and celebrities in the country have written letters to Ambassador Dezhi to intercede for Yulan.The ambassador dezhi was waiting to acquit Yulan, and it happened that there was a person who called for injustice claiming to be the lover of the dead maid. He said that the maid often told him how Dao Zhan beat and scolded her. Make decisions for him.Also, in view of the fact that the results of the autopsy confirmed that the maidservant was still a virgin, Ambassador Dezhi became suspicious again.He thought that if the servant girl was killed by a thief, she would undoubtedly be raped at the same time.Besides, the thieves don't seem to have to carefully bury the dead body under the horse cherry tree.Now the gang of thieves are nowhere to be found, and the person who wrote the anonymous letter to Yulan refused to show up.
Mr. Di closed the file and walked out to the veranda outside the house. A cool autumn wind blew, and the bamboo bamboos all over the courtyard rustled.The scent of cinnamon is faint, and the sound of worms groaning.The sky is as thin as silk, and a silver moon has just risen over Dongshan Mountain.
Duke Di thought: That's right, this is a very interesting but troublesome mystery.Since Luo Yingyuan introduced him to Yulan and showed him the transcripts of the pile of case files, the meaning was quite clear, and Di Renjie was required to make a judgment in a short period of time: whether Yulan was guilty or not.
Duke Dee felt a sense of uneasiness.He thought of Master Ruyi's warning just now, and his heart tightened.He understood that he could not make judgments based on these materials, and he thought that he would try to talk to Miss Yulan at the banquet tonight anyway, and he also wanted to hear Shao and Zhang's views on the case by the way.But there is no doubt that this will greatly detract from the elegance of the poets' gathering.
For some reason, his thoughts returned to Song Xiucai's case.This case is also very strange.Although he himself did on-site investigations, most of the materials he could rely on were second-hand materials.Suddenly he thought of Song Xiucai's "Jade Flute Spectrum".In addition to the six transcripts of Xiucai, this volume of "Jade Flute Book" can be regarded as the most direct relic of the deceased.Presumably it has a close relationship with Song Xiucai's death.He took out the flute score and flipped through it again. Looking at the dense phonetic symbols, a smile suddenly appeared on his face.He wants to give it a try, and this is the attempt with the best chance of success!
There was still an hour before the banquet started, Duke Di quickly changed into a sea blue cloth robe and a black hat, and with the volume of "Jade Flute Book" under his arm, he walked towards the gate of the county government.
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