Chapter 2 2. Murder

In Chang'an, the sunset is beautiful. The ancient majesty of the imperial capital is engraved between the ancient bluestone city walls, resting on the tall glazed cornices, and outlined in the drawings of the Grand Canal stretching for three thousand miles.The faces of the people in Chang'an are a little lazy and satisfied, even though it is winter now, the setting sun is sticky, the temperature is like half-hot rice porridge in a soup pot, there is a kind of order in the streets, but there is chaos in the small inn It was bustling, and the atmosphere was as hot as the boiling water on the stove.

"Have you heard that two major events happened in the court recently..." a drinker said loudly. "What's up?" "One is that Zuo servant shot Huangfuxuan and was killed in the mansion, and the other is that General Zuo Yiwei was exiled to Fengzhou by the emperor unintentionally." "What mistake did General Jun make? How could he be exiled?..." Immediately, someone came forward in surprise. "General Jun is a good man. Last year, our village was forced to pay heavy taxes. We went to the government to beat drums to redress our grievances. The yamen didn't pay any attention to it. General Jun personally punished this matter..." An old man who was drinking bad wine shook his head.

"Alas... General Jun has made great military exploits and has always been upright. It's hard to guarantee that he offended a villain in the court..." A Confucian scholar waved his fan. "There is no Jun and General in Chang'an, it makes people feel uneasy..." ... The small inn was full of anger, and even the setting sun that splashed through the curtain was a bit dazzling.After a long time, no one remembered that there was Huangfu Xuan. "How could Master Huangfu be killed?" Someone couldn't help asking. "Hey..." Someone whispered: "General Jun has nothing to do with Huangfuxuan's death, right?" At this moment, everyone felt that it made sense. The two events happened almost at the same time. Could it be that General Jun killed Lord Huangfu ?

"Pfft—hahaha..." Suddenly, a burst of crisp laughter came from the crowd. People followed the prestige and saw a girl in a smart dress giggling while eating peanuts, almost dying of laughter.She looked only fifteen or sixteen years old, her light-colored eyes were crystal clear, and her wide-eyed smile was very charming: "General Jun will kill Lord Huangfu? Haha..." She stuffed another peanut into her mouth, and said vaguely: "...he only sleeps three hours a day, so he won't be so bored to go to Jinyi night walk...Kill Mr. Huangfu, and he can't marry his little girl." A concubine can't rob him of his treasures, let alone get his officials to do it himself, and General Jun is a very boring person, even if he is given Mr. Huangfu's concubine, he doesn't know how to bear it... Hee hee! "

Her nonsense with a smile on her face seemed to be very familiar with the court officials. I saw her stuffing peanuts into her mouth with one hand, and carrying seven or eight colorful bags with the other hand: "The weather is good and the mood is good. It's very suitable for beating people and robbery." It wasn't until she walked out of the tavern humming a little tune that someone suddenly slapped her head: "Isn't that under General Jun's account——Lieutenant Ye?" Outside the inn, the distant mountains swallowed up the rays of the sun little by little, and the half-curved crescent moon hangs greenly on the willow twigs.

It was gradually getting dark. Ye Xiaowei, who is famous for eating, drinking and having fun in Chang'an City—Miss Ye Fangting happily wandered on Chang'an Street, holding a bag of red clay peanuts, a bag of pear balls in honey sauce, a box of almond cakes, Five bunches of candied haws, and a pinch of dogtail grass that I don't know where. "The four great tragedies in life, a long drought meets sweet rain, a drop; when you meet an old friend in a foreign land, you are a creditor; when you are named on the gold list, you are dreaming; at the wedding night, next door..." When others hear this heartless tone, most likely You'd think she was going to have a wedding.

Even if she wasn't there for the wedding, at least she wasn't there for the funeral. Seeing her licking the candied haws with relish, she didn't necessarily gobble them up, but before the passers-by could see clearly, only bamboo sticks were left on the five strings of candied haws—— When she walked to a magnificent mansion, it happened that the seven or eight bags in her hand were also empty.There are two big characters "Huangfu" on the top of the mansion, and a white tent is hung on the door plaque. The old servant who came to open the door was dressed in black, with a little white gum in his eyes, and a white cloth strip was tied on his head.Ye Fangting put away the dog's tail grass, coughed, and said with a serious expression: "Please be sad."

Ye Fangting really went to the funeral - and it was the funeral of Huangfuxuan at the same time. In the middle of the hall was Huangfuxuan's corpse, surrounded by crying.No matter how prominent he was during his lifetime, his appearance is almost the same after his eyes are closed. The staff are checking the wound: from the outside, it looks like a knife stabbed into the chest and abdomen and died.When the body was found, Huangfuxuan fell to the ground holding the handle of the knife tightly with both hands——Master Huangfu is extremely popular, with wives and concubines full of children and grandchildren, life can be said to be without regrets.It's just that many years of being an official have inevitably formed some rifts. The bigger the official, the older the person, the more nervous he is about life and safety, so the guards in his mansion are extraordinarily strict, and even spend a lot of money to hire masters from the rivers and lakes , Ling Chongxiao, who is known as "The Cloud Nine".

Ling Chongxiao's martial arts is certainly good, but it is not his martial arts that made him famous in the Jianghu - but his people, he is a person who never tells lies and stereotypes.There are many people with high martial arts skills in the world, but there are very few people who never tell a lie or cliché. Ye Fangting cleared his throat and took out a token: "Cough ~ you have heard that someone won the first prize in the palace examination this time and didn't want to be an official. The emperor released it in front of all civil and military officials in the court hall." In other words, if he can find out the truth about Mr. Huangfu's murder within three days, he will be allowed to resign. But he is lazy and is already sleeping, so I asked me to take a look at the case first."

She said serious things, but she really didn't look serious at all. But everyone knows that she is telling the truth, the bet between the emperor and Su Zhuangyuan's palace has been known to both the government and the public.Half a month ago, Su Lang, the champion of poetry and painting in the Golden Palace, angry horses in fresh clothes on the streets of Chang'an, and Gu Qu sung in the market, is known to everyone. Ye Fangting took out a pen and paper from his bosom, put the dog's tail grass on his ears, and first asked Ling Chongxiao: "The night that Lord Huangfu was killed, were you guarding outside the door?"

"Not bad." Ling Chongxiao was sure. "What is Master Huangfu doing in the house?" Ye Fangting asked again. "Sleep." Ling Chongxiao replied. "One person?" Ye Fangting glanced at the row of weeping women in sackcloth and filial piety, obediently, there were not twenty, at least eighteen. "My lord... was alone in the room that day, and didn't call us." A woman who looked no older than seventeen or eighteen cried and said, her teary face was beating pear blossoms, she seemed to be the one who was being favored recently.Ye Fangting touched his chin, shook his head again and again: "It's a pity." Everyone only thought that she was sighing for the misfortunes and blessings of others, and they all sighed and grieved, but they didn't know that Ye Fangting's real pity was that this concubine was indeed quite pretty.It's a pity that Huangfuxuan is already sixty-two years old, it's more or less suitable to be her grandfather, how can it not be a pity to put a flower on old dung? "Are you keeping watch at night for Mr. Huangfu, on the old tree by his window, or squatting on the roof?" Ye Fangting asked Ling Chongxiao again. "On the tree." Ling Chongxiao replied. "Didn't you see anyone go into the room when the accident happened?" "No." "Has anyone cleaned Lord Huangfu's bedroom recently?" Ye Fangting asked again. "No..." This time it was an old mistress who wiped her tears and answered. Although she was not as pretty as the concubine just now, she spoke neither arrogantly nor humblely: "The master has gone, but he died in an inexplicable way. To investigate the case, I have ordered my servants not to move the scene of the crime." It seems that she is the mistress of the mansion, Mrs. Huangfu. "Who gave Ling Chongxiao the money this month?" She suddenly asked something completely irrelevant. "It's me." The old housekeeper said with red and swollen eyes. Ye Fangting wrote down all these seriously, and said as he wrote down: "Su Tong asked me to look outside Lord Huangfu's bedroom before I came to worship, and I stopped by to have a look - the old tree by the window is shedding its leaves , the ground is full of dead leaves, but there is no leaf on the window. Since no one cleans it, how can the leaves float to the ground and not to the window sill?" When she asked this question with a smile, everyone was a little stunned. "I guess some expert sneaked into the room from the tree and scattered the fallen leaves when he lightly stepped on the window—" she spoke with reason: "If this is the case, one of Mrs. Huangfu and Ling Chongxiao is lying." Everyone was stunned. "Since Ling Chongxiao never lied, it is Madam Huangfu who is lying." Ye Fangting looked at Madam Huangfu with a smile. "I'm not lying!" Mrs. Huangfu's face was a little annoyed: "It's true that no one in the house has cleaned the master's bedroom recently. The younger sisters and the housekeeper can all testify—" "Really?" Ye Fangting looked at them. Seeing that everyone nodded, Ye Fangting muttered: "Madam is not lying, then Ling Chongxiao is lying, but Ling Chongxiao never lies, and it is not Ling Chongxiao who is lying—" When she said this, she suddenly stopped. He showed a cynical and playful expression: "Could it be that you are not Ling Chongxiao at all?" A gust of cold wind swept through the hall, and suddenly all the candle lights went out! In the darkness, she couldn't see her fingers, and she slapped Ye Fangting's Tianling Gai. Although Ye Fangting's martial arts were not very good, she seemed to have expected this slap, so she dodged the moment the moment she finished speaking—— General Zhangfeng only knocked out a pinch of dogtail grass near her ear. That palm seemed to be able to see things in the dark, and the breath was as fast as gliding on the water surface, and the thick murderous aura enveloped Ye Fangting again! At this moment, everyone including Ye Fangting smelled a strange fragrance, and before they could react, they had already lost consciousness in the fragrance.Just when the palm was about to hit Ye Fangting's cap in the dark, suddenly, a voice asked leisurely: "Where is the candlestick?" The voice was flat and featureless, but it sounded very comfortable, and even a little drowsy after waking up—could it be that Huangfu Xuan sat up from the coffin? "Ling Chongxiao" was obviously stunned for a moment, ghosts are not afraid of people in this world, only people are afraid of ghosts. Startled, he stood motionless for a long time, waiting for the sound of touching the candlestick in the dark.It wasn't that he didn't want to move, but that he couldn't move—the other party had already tapped his acupoints in an instant! A cluster of warmth glows in the dark. That candlelight is like a branch of peach obliquely planted on the velvet lawn in spring, shining brightly.The projection of a cloth on the wall is cut intentionally or unintentionally by such candlelight, free and easy, natural, and at ease—comfortable and comfortable, a bit like the sigh of the morning wind on the velvet grass.The slender hand holding the candle seemed as if he was just reading a book by lighting a lamp in his own home. Ling Chongxiao hesitated and said, "... Su... long gown?"