webnovelfull Chapter 1022 The truth of the matter
Chapter 1022 The truth of the matter
He kept on talking like this until the afternoon.
"At noon, my sister-in-law sent a message to the maid saying that she would prepare four dishes and a pot of wine for dinner. I couldn't help myself and thought of going there during the day. However, if I went there during the day, the neighbors would see me and laugh at me. I had nothing to do and was really bored, so I decided to go find Shopkeeper Ding. He likes fishing, and I like watching him fish..."
"What did Ding Chengze say?"
"Shopkeeper Ding was in the shop, but he was in a hurry. He said he had to go to Old Taishan's house to celebrate his birthday, so I couldn't go fishing. He said that if he was not busy in a couple of days, he would ask me to go fishing again. Because of this, my sister-in-law was very angry. She said that the shop was so busy, and Shopkeeper Ding was reluctant to hire a clerk. My sister-in-law was in charge of everything inside and outside, and he actually wanted to go fishing. When I heard that the couple was about to quarrel, I quickly slipped away. On the way back, I met Ma Liuer again, the opium dealer. He asked if he wanted to go for a few rounds. I thought it was fine anyway, so I went with him to a private house..."
"What happens after you go there?"
"After I got there, I gambled until dark. I thought my sister-in-law was still waiting for me, so I wanted to leave. But Ma Liu'er and the others saw that I had won money and wouldn't let me go. They said I had nothing to do that night and I would stay there anyway, so I might as well play a few more rounds. I was anxious to find my sister-in-law, but Ma Liu'er wouldn't let me go. I had to make up an excuse, saying that Shopkeeper Ding had gone to celebrate his birthday and asked me to help look after his house. Only then did Ma Liu'er let me go."
"What happens next?"
"Then I went to my sister-in-law's house. My eldest brother does business outside the Great Wall all year round. The maid fried four dishes, and my sister-in-law heated up a pot of wine. As we ate and drank, my sister-in-law said it was hot..."
In the patrol station, everyone listened with great interest and made faces.
Lin Ze waved his hand, "Alright! Xiao Duan, send someone to catch this Ma Liu!"
The arrest was surprisingly smooth. This Ma Liu was just a nobody with no anti-reconnaissance awareness at all. He thought he was flawless and was gambling in a private house.
After being caught, he was not tortured. When he saw Bai Zengshou was beaten badly, he just killed him.
Bai Zengshou was still indignant. No, why? Why did you hit me and not him?
This time, Xiao Duan presided over the questioning. "Ma Liu, confess immediately. It will be good for both you and me. If you want to experience severe punishment, I can grant you that."
"No! I'll admit it all, I'll admit it all!"
"Did you do anything about the Ding Mansion?"
"Your Excellency, I was indeed the villain who killed that black man, but it was also he who killed that couple!"
"Tell the truth about what happened that night!"
"That day I met a pretty boy, oh, that was Bai Zengshou, and dragged him to gamble. He ended up losing a lot of money. We hadn't even left the table yet, and this guy wanted to leave. Tell me, how can he leave just because he won money? How can that be justified? I asked him what he was going to do, and he said he was going to look after the shop for Manager Ding. That's when I started to have bad thoughts..."
Ma Liu continued, "When the moon was at its zenith, I snuck into the backyard of the silver shop and into the main house. I didn't see anyone, and just as I was about to grab something to leave, I heard two screams from the side room. I had no idea anyone was still in the house, so I was stunned for a moment, thinking it was haunted! A little later, a black man burst into the main room with a small spigot. He was startled to see me in the room. I didn't mean to hurt him, but he just stabbed me with the spigot without saying a word!"
"To be honest, sir, I used to be a horse dealer in Rehe, and I was quite skilled in some martial arts. There happened to be a candlestick nearby, so I picked it up and stabbed it. It happened to pierce the black man's hand. He felt pain and the spear slipped out of his hand. I then hit him on the head with the candlestick, and I didn't expect that this single blow would actually kill him!"
"I was terrified. I picked up the plug, thought for a moment, and decided to go all out. I smashed the man's face with a candlestick, and then went to the wing room to see. There I saw the bodies of Shopkeeper Ding and his wife. I didn't dare to get close, so I climbed over the wall and left. I thought, after all, I didn't kill Shopkeeper Ding and his wife, and that black man might be a bandit. This would become an unsolved case and I would never be the one to be blamed. But I didn't expect..."
This mysterious case has now taken shape.
But how could Xue Da, a fishmonger, go to Ding Chengze's house and kill someone?
Furthermore, when someone dies, the family must be notified. Keeping it a secret is not an option. The patrol station sent someone to inform Xue Da's mother, the blind old lady.
Unexpectedly, when the old lady heard that her son had killed someone and died in someone else's home, she slapped her thigh and said, "I killed my son, I killed my son!"
When everyone heard this, they thought there was something else going on.
After being persuaded, the old lady told another story.
It turns out that the Xue family was once wealthy, but later there was chaos and war, and Mr. Xue died in another place. The old lady cried until she went blind. Xue Da was still a little baby at that time.
After finally growing up, Xue Da followed his uncle to start a fish-selling business. Although it was hard work, they could make a living. Xue Da was strong and no one in the fish-pot business dared to mess with him. In addition, Xue Da was filial, so the old lady's later years finally settled down.
In the past two years, the old lady felt that her health was getting worse year by year, and she didn't know when she would pass away.
But she still had something on her mind. Back then, Old Master Xue loved her so much that he had personally painted the patterns on two bracelets, saying that after he finished this business trip, he would exchange the money for silver to make two bracelets as jewelry for the old lady.
Of course the old lady was extremely happy, but Mr. Xue never came back after he left.
Now that she feels that she will not live long and her family is well off, the old lady wants her son to take the two pictures to a silver shop and have them made into two bracelets. When she closes her eyes, she doesn't want anything else but these two bracelets to be buried with her.
Since my mother has this request, how could the filial Xue Da refuse?
He immediately exchanged two taels of silver to make the bracelet.
The bracelets were returned and the old lady was happy for a while, but by chance, Xue Da discovered that the two bracelets were one real and one fake, one was pure silver and the other was silver covered with lead!
This made Xue Da very angry!
He went to look for it, and Ding Chengze said that he had checked it at the beginning. If he went to look for it later, who would know if the items had been swapped?
Xue Da went to report to the government. It was difficult for the government to handle such matters. Xue Da said that it was Ding's silver shop that tampered with the money, but he could not provide any evidence.
Things just dragged on like this.
Generally speaking, honest people are harmless, but they are stubborn.
Xue Da feels that I work so hard to earn money just to provide for my mother in her old age and see her to the end of her life.
My mother finally asked me to do something for her, but you gave me a fake bracelet.
What’s the difference between this and digging up my family’s ancestral graves?
If I hadn't discovered it, wouldn't my mother have died wearing a fake bracelet after she died?
I kept this matter in my heart, and the more I thought about it, the more aggrieved and angry I felt.
Finally, that night, Xue Da took a small knife for killing fish and climbed over the wall into the backyard of the silver shop.
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P.S. This is a true case from the Republic of China period, but it didn't happen in Tianjin. I found it while looking up information and wrote it down. Now let's move on to the new plot. In the future plots, I may write more about daily life and less about the game between the parties. There is no other way. The timeline is getting further and further back, and many things are sensitive.