When the book-traveling little detective meets the two-faced prince

Chapter 14: The Flower of Hell

Li Weisheng's hands tightened and loosened, loosened and tightened again, his eyes were full of complicated emotions, he didn't speak for a long time, he stood there blankly, as if he had lost his soul.

Seeing that Li Weisheng didn't say anything, Village Chief Ji let go of Li Weisheng's trouser leg, turned around and kowtowed repeatedly in front of Lin Lezhi.

"Mr. Jiang, please forgive us for our mistakes. Please help us beg for mercy. Our entire village will remember your kindness and be grateful to you."

After Village Chief Ji finished speaking, the attitudes of the villagers all changed.

"Master Jiang, we have a newborn baby at home. If something happens to us, our child will die. Please plead for us, please plead for us."

"Yeah, we didn't mean to do this, please let us go."

"..."

Village Chief Ji stood up and grabbed the hem of Lin Lezhi's clothes. All the dirt on his hands was stuck to Lin Lezhi's body, leaving two obvious palm prints.

"We will never do such evil things again."

Village Chief Ji looked at the two black skeletons on the ground and said quickly, "Tomorrow... tomorrow, I will go to the town to order a good tombstone for Yuqing's parents, and then find a good Feng Shui site for them to bury them properly. Do you think this is okay?"

Seeing that Lin Lezhi did not express his opinion, Village Chief Ji said hysterically: "Oh my God! What sin did our village commit to cause such a disaster!"

Lin Lezhi looked at Village Chief Ji and said, "If we look into the reasons back then, you were indeed forced to do so, but what you did to eliminate your sins was not innocent either. Village Chief Ji, it's not that I don't want to speak for you, but I'm not the victim of this case, so I really have no right to judge whether you are right or wrong."

After saying that, Lin Lezhi looked at Li Weisheng and said, "County Magistrate Li, the He family has saved your life, and Miss Yuqing cares about you even more. If there is someone who can speak for them, I think... they hope that person is you."

After a moment of silence, Li Weisheng finally spoke: "If Yuqing were still alive, she would definitely not want to see this..."

Li Weisheng clenched his fists for a long time, then sighed, and then looked at the villagers of Yulong Village and said, "This was an unintentional act by the villagers. Now the evildoer has turned into bones. It is meaningless to pursue the past. From now on, the River God Festival will be abolished. If Yulong Village does something wrong again and adds to the sins, they will be arrested and brought to justice without mercy."

When the villagers knew that Li Weisheng had decided not to pursue the matter any further, they immediately kowtowed and expressed their gratitude with tears in their eyes: “Thank you, Master Qingtian! Thank you, Master Qingtian—!”

After the villagers dispersed, Li Weisheng looked at the two dry bones on the ground, his expression still unable to let go.

Li Weisheng knelt on the ground in front of the corpses of He Yuqing's parents and kowtowed three times in a row. Then he raised his head but did not stand up, and his voice sounded very confused.

"Brother Jiang, do you think I am right?"

Lin Lezhi walked forward and helped Li Weisheng up.

"Right and wrong are just human nature. As long as Brother Li thinks it is right, then it is right. There is no need to think too much. But what do you plan to do next, Brother Li?"

"I plan to stay here for a few more days to fulfill my promise to Yuqing."

Li Weisheng looked at Lin Lezhi and said, "Although it is just my own selfish desire, since Brother Jiang has solved the case, I hope that Brother Jiang can stay and be a witness for me and Yuqing."

Lin Lezhi cupped his hands and said, "Since this is what Brother Li wants, I will stay."

When he returned to the inn, Lin Lezhi wanted to fall on the bed, but before he could lie down, Xiao Xu pushed the door open from the direction of the door. Lin Lezhi yawned and said, "What are you doing here so late?"

Xiao Xu took out a piece of paper from his shirt pocket and handed it to Lin Lezhi.

"I found this in a drawer while playing games today. It was sandwiched between a bunch of poems. I thought it was strange and forgot to give it to you."

"what is this?"

"See for yourself."

After saying that, Xiao Xu walked out the door without looking back. Just as Lin Lezhi was about to lie down again, Xiao Xu suddenly said, "If you want to sleep, you'd better take off your coat first. It's dirty."

dirty?

Lin Lezhi looked at himself and saw two obvious dirty handprints on the hem of his clothes. He thought it must have been made by Village Chief Ji. Just when Lin Lezhi wanted to say thank you for the reminder, Xiao Xu had already left and disappeared.

Lin Lezhi opened the paper and it said, Lin Lezhi took a look and saw medicines such as licorice and coptis root.

As he watched, Lin Lezhi's eyes darkened.

The next day, Li Weisheng buried He Yuqing's parents with great ceremony and erected a tombstone for them. The whole village came to help and buried them under the red bean tree next to the Yulong Waterfall.

After settling He Yuqing's parents, the whole village began to prepare for the wedding.

The wedding will take a few more days to prepare and the ceremony will be held at the Hongzhu Temple.

Although ghost marriage was too unbelievable, the villagers only dared to discuss it in private and did not dare to speak about it in front of Li Weisheng.

Lin Lezhi had nothing to do in the village, so he suggested going to the town for a stroll and took Xiao Xu and Sun Wan'er to the town.

Zhouqing Town

I happened to catch the morning market in Zhouqing Town, which was very lively.

There was not much food to eat in the village, but Lin Lezhi ate it all at once and packed up a lot of delicious food, which felt heavy in his hands.

Xiao Xu frowned and said, "Have you eaten enough?"

Lin Lezhi grumbled as he put food into his mouth: "It's just a few dollars of yours, why are you so stingy? Can't I just pay you back someday?"

"Do you have the money to pay it back?"

"You must be joking. I earn money based on my own ability. Even if I don't have money now, I will definitely have money in the future."

When Lin Lezhi said this, Sun Wan'er's clasped hands tightened unconsciously.

Xiao Xu snorted coldly: "I think your ability is just so-so."

"Don't look down on me. By the way, there's another place I want to go, but I don't recognize the Tao."

Lin Lezhi turned his head and looked at Sun Wan'er and said, "Miss Wan'er, do you know where the rich man's house is?"

Seeing that Sun Wan'er didn't respond, Lin Lezhi stretched out his hand and waved it in front of Sun Wan'er: "Miss Wan'er?"

Sun Wan'er came back to her senses and said with an embarrassed smile, "Sorry, I was distracted just now. Mr. Jiang, what did you say just now?"

In front of the residence

Because the mansion here has been vacant for twelve years, it has become an ownerless land with no one to take care of it. Flowers, plants and trees have grown wildly, and weeds have grown everywhere. The growing trees have also broken the tiles on the roof.

Red bricks and tiles fell down and scattered on the ground.

Desolation.

The mansion that was once a wealthy family has now become a residence for beggars and refugees.

Xiao Xu frowned and said, "Isn't this case closed? Why are you here?"

"Curious, isn't it?"

After saying that, Lin Lezhi walked into the yard and generously distributed the food in his hand to the beggars in the yard.

Xiao Xu, on the other hand, had a look of disgust on his face. He stood at the door with his back turned and did not go in.

When someone brought food, they naturally rushed over, "all saying thank you, young master."

"Eat all, eat all, don't be polite." Lin Lezhi smiled and rubbed his hands and said, "Well, I just have a question I want to ask you guys."

"Sir, please tell me what you know. We will tell you everything we know."

Lin Lezhi chuckled a few times and said, "Do you know the rich man who lived here twelve years ago?"

As soon as he finished speaking, the beggars immediately became silent, with expressions as if they had seen a ghost.

Lin Lezhi sighed and said, "Alas, I heard that there is a kind-hearted wealthy man here, and I wanted to come here to seek refuge and make some money, but I didn't expect that I would not be able to make any money."

"What a good man! He is a bad man!"

"Big villain? But that's not what people outside say."

"You heard wrong, sir. The good people you are talking about are not them. They are just a bunch of robbers. When they have money, they disguise themselves as rich and good people. But they still do bad things in private. The people here hate them very much."

"What bad things have they done?"

The beggars also widened their eyes, "Using money to kill people."

Lin Lezhi followed suit, also widening his eyes with an expression of disbelief.

"Yes, they must have done so many evil things, so their graves are covered with black flowers. The God of the Underworld took good care of them."

"Black flowers?"

"Yes, that is clearly a ghost flower that can only bloom in the underworld. Young master, you will know if you go to the mass graves. You can see it at a glance."

The beggars gathered the food in their arms and said, "Sir, we have told you everything we know. We don't know anything else."

Lin Lezhi sighed and said, "I was hoping to get rich, but it seems there is no hope. Thank you very much."

After leaving the mansion, the three of them came to the mass grave.

The stench of the mass grave was unbearable.

Mass graves are basically filled with unclaimed bodies that are dumped here, so they are just thrown directly on the rotten bones.

Just as the beggars said, their burial place is full of underworld flowers.

Because of this, there were only their corpses in that area.

Sun Wan'er thought the flower was very rare and wanted to touch it, but Lin Lezhi stopped her in time and said to her, "Miss Wan'er, don't touch it. This flower is a datura and is poisonous."

After hearing what Lin Lezhi said, Sun Wan'er immediately withdrew her hand, her face pale with fear.

Lin Lezhi turned over the soil around him and found a stick of incense that had not yet burned out, buried between the bones in the soil.

Lin Lezhi put it to his nose and sniffed it, it had a faint musky scent.

It is exactly the same incense that Village Chief Ji lit in the inn.

Lin Lezhi patted the dirt off his hands, stood up and said, "Let's go back."

Xiao Xu said, "Are you not going to check anymore?"

Lin Lezhi looked at the incense in his hand and said, "That's why I have to go back because I need to check. I came here just to confirm it."