Chapter 23 third chapter

After Ma Rong left, Di Gong brewed a cup of tea and sipped it slowly, thinking hard about the ins and outs of Meng Lan's case.Suddenly, he stared at the porcelain cup in his hand in a daze, and suddenly remembered the white porcelain cup that was lost in the small pavilion in the lotus pond.Mrs. Meng said that Meng Lan always used the white porcelain cup by herself, why didn't she find it when she went to the kiosk in the morning.And the green porcelain cup of the guest—the murderer, of course—was placed on the round table. Di Gong put down the teacup, peeked around the yamen through the window, and saw no one was walking around, so he hurriedly changed into his official uniform, walked quickly through the garden, opened the corner door in the east corner, and quietly left the county yamen.

Di Gong hired a big sedan chair and went straight to "Yangliuwu" outside the east gate. In "Yangliuwu", the lights are feasting, the figures are full of people, there are many strings and urgent pipes, and the sound of laughter and waves is noisy.Di Gong went around hastily, watched the porter leave, then lifted his robe and went straight to Meng's house. The bamboo gate of Meng's house was ajar, but it was not locked.Di Gong dodged in sideways, and quietly walked around the embankment of the lotus pond towards Mrs. Meng's residence.At this time, the new moon is like a hook, the night breeze is slight, and the lotus pond is very quiet.Di Gong leaned over, picked up a stone, and threw it towards the dense lotus leaves in the pool. With a "plop", the stone fell into the pool, and there was a sound of frogs, and then croaking, breaking the tranquility of the summer night.Di Gong nodded and smiled slightly.When he arrived at the door of Mrs. Meng's house, Mr. Di listened carefully for a while, but there was no sound, so he went up and knocked on the door with a "bang bang".

A light flashed through the wooden window opening, and someone hastily pulled the latch and stepped forward to open the door. "Come in! Quick! Quick!" When Mrs. Meng opened the door and saw that it was Di Gong, she was so startled that she almost cried out. Di Gong said coldly, "Who is Mrs. Meng waiting for?" Mrs. Meng bowed her head and did not answer. Di Gong flashed into the door, locked the door behind him, and asked, "Say it quickly! Who are you waiting for?" Mrs. Meng replied hesitantly: "The little lady heard the loud noise of frogs, and felt panic in her heart. Suddenly, she remembered that the door was unlocked, and she got up and wanted to go out to have a look..."

Duke Di said loudly, "Getting up—I don't know where Mrs. Meng is sleeping right now?" Mrs. Meng didn't say a word, she held a candle and led Mr. Di to a small bedroom. In the bedroom is a simple wooden bed covered with a thin straw mat.Di Gong stepped forward and touched the straw mat with his hand, it was indeed warm.He asked again: "How did Madam know that someone would knock on the door at night, and she agreed so quickly. Could it be that the agreement has not been made?" Madam Meng said nothing, and looked at Di Gong with infinite shame. "Then follow me to the yamen for a trial. —— Serious torture, you can't help but call out the name of that adulterer!"

Mrs. Meng had no choice but to follow Mrs. Di out of the house, and went around the embankment to the bamboo gate. Just as the inspector led a team of patrolmen coming, Mrs. Di ordered the inspector to escort Mrs. Meng back to the county government prison, and ordered two people to stay behind. Ming Xun lay in ambush in the shade of the trees inside the bamboo gate. If anyone breaks in again, no matter who it is, they will be arrested and taken back to the Yamen for supervision. When Di Gong returned to the inner office, he told Ma Rong the details of his trip.After hearing this, Ma Rong said: "In this way, this case really did not meet my expectations. Now we only need to capture the adulterer, and we don't have to worry about him not revealing the details of Meng Lan's murder. As for asking Jasmine to confess the adulterer's name , without much effort."

Di Gong shook his head and said: "However, there are two points that I have exhausted to guess. If Mrs. Meng has an affair with someone, how will they meet? By her side, how could she escape to meet the adulterer? What's more, when Meng Lan had guests, it was during the daytime, and Madam Meng could not act recklessly at that time. Besides, how could Madam Meng wait alone for the adulterer? Which small and simple bedroom was chosen? I saw that the dilapidated wooden bed could only sleep one person. —— Ma Rong, these two points both show that Mrs. Meng is not waiting for an adulterer, but may be an adulterer. Her brother, Shi Xiaoming.—So I suddenly wondered whether Meng Lan's case might be related to the government treasury robbery..."

Ma Rong shook his head and said, "I don't think this case is necessarily related to the robbery of gold, but I think we should find the adulterer among Jasmine's old acquaintances." Di Gong pondered for a moment, then suddenly smiled, and said: "Ma Rong, I have an idea at the moment, you might as well try it, you go to the Jinli Hotel behind the fresh fish market immediately, and order the shopkeeper to kill all the beggars under his command. , idlers, and rascals called a few to come to the Yamen to obey. ——The shopkeeper is the head of the beggar group in Hanyuan City. You don’t need to keep this matter a secret. It would be better if you can shout it all over the city. Tell everyone clearly: I summoned beggars and rascals just to get clues about Meng Lan's murder from them."

Seeing Ma Rong's astonishment, Duke Di smiled and said, "If this plan succeeds, we can kill two birds with one stone, and we may be able to solve the murder of Meng Lan and the robbery of the government treasury in one fell swoop." Ma Rong led four ragged beggars to the Nei Ya to go to Di Bus, but he saw several plates of fresh fruit, pastries, and a gourd of good "Poinsettia" fragrant wine on the table of the Nei Ya. Seeing the table decorations, the four beggars thought it was a good luck, swallowed hard one by one, their eyes were about to burst into flames, followed Ma Rong's order, and each sat down on an armchair.

Di Gong whispered to Ma Rong: "Go quickly and appoint four capable yamen servants to wait on the two sides of the yamen. When I released the four beggars here, the four street servants secretly followed one of them. As long as there are people in the market with The beggar accosted, no matter who it was, immediately got it and came to see me." Although Ma Rong felt ignorant, he immediately agreed, and stepped back to dispatch the servants. Di Gong entertained the four beggars warmly with a smile, asking them about their health, asking this and that, and asking them to eat and drink as they please without restraint.Although the four beggars didn't understand Di Gong's intentions, they saw Di Gong's gentle words, a pleasant smile, and three points of peace in their hearts.After a while, the wind swept away the remaining clouds, and he devoured the fruit dishes on the table and the fragrant wine in the gourd.

Duke Di asked them some innocuous words again, and seeing that it had been an hour, he stood up to see off the guests.When the four beggars were suspicious and at a loss what to do, when they heard Di Gong say that they were seeing off the guests, they were overjoyed as if they had received a pardon.Di Gong nodded frequently and stroked his beard.Pick up the teacup and sip. About a cup of tea, Ma Rong escorted one of the beggars named Cyclops back to the inner office. When the one-eyed dragon saw Di Gong, he knelt down in panic and shouted: "Master is high above me, I am so wronged. This tael of silver was stuffed into my hands by that man, and I didn't steal it from him. I haven't figured out what happened yet." , was arrested by this yamen."

Di Gong said in disbelief, "It doesn't matter whether the one tael of silver was given by him or you stole it, I will cut it off from you. Just accept it, don't be alarmed. I just ask you that the person told you some words." The one-eyed dragon blinked his red eyes, and replied: "I turned the right corner of the yamen and just turned to the street, he came to me, put the one tael of silver in my palm, and said: 'Follow me, Quickly tell me what the lord of the government and the county asked you, and I will reward you with a tael of silver.'——The villain’s words are absolutely true, and there is no lie in the slightest, I hope the lord can see clearly.” Di Gong said to Yan: "You can go. Wait, but if you can not steal or steal, you can be innocent. The Yamen has its own kindness, can you hear me?" Cyclops kowtowed to the ground, thanked him and left. Di Gong shouted sharply: "Bring the prisoner in!" Ma Rong responded and brought Yuan Kai into the inner office. Yuan Kai yelled: "I'm wronged, I'm wronged, Brother Ma Rong, let me go!" Di Gong asked coldly: "Treasurer Yuan is not related to him, but why did he give the one-eyed dragon a tael of silver? Come on, what do you want to ask him?" "Master Di, I just want to help the government to..." Di Gong scolded: "Shut up! Hurry up and kill all the crimes of how to kill Meng Lan, kill Shi Xiaoming, and steal the gold from the government treasury—one move!" Yuan Kai turned pale and sweated profusely, but asked rhetorically, "What is the basis for Master Di's statement? Why did you accuse me of ordinary people?" Mr. Di sneered and said, "How could this hall accuse you of such a false accusation? Mrs. Meng said that the frogs in the lotus pond in her garden never croak during the day, but are very vigilant at night and croak at every turn. I heard you say that there are no frogs in the lotus pond. It is quiet, and the frogs in the pond sometimes scream desperately.——So I know that you must have been to the lotus pond at night. After you came out of the peony flower place in the middle of the night last night, you touched Meng Lan on the lotus pond in Mengzhai and used Mongolian sweat medicine to anesthetize Meng Lan. Afterwards, you secretly hid the white porcelain cup. The calm expression on Meng Lan's face when she died is a clear proof. From this, I deduce that you turned it over with Mongolian sweat medicine and was instructed by you to have sex with six people. Shi Xiaoming, who was connected by a strong man, killed him viciously and stole the twelve ingots of gold. All of this was done without leaving a trace. You run a big herbal medicine shop, you are quite good at medicine, and you can mix strong perspiration medicine Another point, because you have been in a hurry all night, so when you hunted wild cats this morning, your arrows and arrows missed and you got nothing. In the past, you could kill four or five cats by yourself every time. This is why you killed people at night. Caused by dizziness." Yuan Kai realized that after hearing this, he thought that death was inevitable, but asked calmly: "I just don't know why the master would suspect that I killed Meng Lan?" Di Gongdao: "Mrs. Meng's eagerness to wait for her brother shows that she has suspected that Shi Xiaoming has committed some terrible crimes outside. When the gold ingots were stolen from the yamen treasury, she knew in her heart that Shi Xiaoming must be involved. Because After Shi Xiaoming quarreled with Meng Lan that day, he threatened that he would get a huge sum of money from you soon. Mrs. Meng knew a little about the relationship between Shi Xiaoming and you. Meng Lan is careful and straightforward. Hearing this, I was deeply worried, and seeing that Shi Xiaoming was missing, I made an exception and invited you to meet at his small pavilion in the lotus pond at night. While asking the truth, I begged you not to harm Shi Xiaoming. You are panicked and worried that something will happen. , so you poured the strong Mongolian sweat medicine into Meng Lan's white porcelain cup. After Meng Lan was paralyzed, you killed him, fearing that the government would find out the medicine, and then hid the white porcelain cup. Meng Lan never The guests are well known, so I made an exception last night and no one knew about it, and even Madam Meng was concealed. It is known that the sky net is not leaked, but your crime was exposed by the frog in the lotus pond. Shopkeeper Yuan, the ironclad evidence is as strong as a mountain, What else do you have to say now?" Yuan Kai cried out: "Last night I kicked a dead frog into the lotus pond, and the sound of frogs in the pond was startled, so I revealed the truth when I was gossiping, but I never thought that it was the frog in the pond that made me expose. , I even laughed at that little monster for not going to the government to sue me for killing people. Now that I think about it, it’s so obvious, and I’m so afraid of people.”