Text/Murong Zijun
During the Qing Dynasty, as soon as Zhao Xianling went to church on this day, someone came to complain, only to see two young men kneeling in front of the hall. Both were wearing cloth pants, kneeling on the east side of the man with good features and a kind face, and the man kneeling on the west side had a round face and a short nose.
Zhao Xianling asked: Who are the plaintiffs of the two of you?
The person kneeling on the east side said: My name is Yao Guang, my family lives in He Village, I have lived in my aunt's house since I was a child, and now I am Chinese New Year's Eve two years old, I came out to hang out yesterday, I met Zhang Youren, and he pointed to the young man kneeling in the west. The two of us hadn't seen each other in a long time, and we were so happy to see each other by accident that he enthusiastically dragged me to the tavern for a drink.
After the two of us had a few drinks, I asked him where he had made his fortune these days, and Zhang Youren said: I made an unexpected fortune today, and then he took out two silver letters from his arms, put them on the wine table, and said: If you want to use it, take one and use it. I hurriedly resigned and asked him what kind of windfall he had made, and he actually said that he had killed a person at the lotus station, and then threw the man into the well, which was the result of the silver two.
His words frightened me, and I immediately got up and rushed home, not sleeping all night. I was afraid of being implicated by him, so I came to complain, I had no grievances against him, only afraid that he would have an incident in the east window, and then I would be guilty of knowing and not reporting it, so I forcibly dragged him over to confront the court.
Zhao Xianling rebuked Zhang Youren and said: Why kill people and rob money?
Zhang Youren hurriedly distinguished: I am also an orphan and live with my uncle, my uncle's name is Liu Hai, he works in the capital. A few days ago, my uncle came back to rest for a few days, bought sixty acres of land, and negotiated a good price with the seller Tian Liu. At this moment, his uncle's family suddenly asked him to go back.
Because my uncle had no children, my uncle and aunt treated me as my own son, and before my uncle left, he asked me to ask my aunt for one hundred and two pieces of silver and give it to Tian Liu as a deposit. Who knew that when I arrived at Tian Liu's house, he just happened to go out to run errands, so I had to carry the silver two home. I met Yao Guang on the way, so I dragged him to the tavern to drink.
I joked with him at the wine table, saying that I had killed someone, and I thought he had taken it seriously. If I did kill someone, could I tell him? If the adult still doesn't believe me, can he send someone to ask Tian Liu if it is clear?
Zhao Xianling felt that what he said was also reasonable, so he sent a public messenger to summon Tian Liu to come and ask questions, and as he was speaking, suddenly two people from the Lotus Station came to report the case. The two men were the local mayor and the ancestral chief, and the two knelt down and said: There is a well in front of the Tianxian Temple of our lotus station, and the people nearby eat the water in the well, who knows that early this morning, someone found a dead body in the well, so we came to report the case.
Zhao Xianling was also shocked to hear this, and he severely reprimanded Zhang Youren and said: Do you know the crime? Confess quickly, so as not to suffer from the flesh and skin, who is the victim?
Zhang Youren was suddenly frightened and pale, and hurriedly prostrated his head and said: "Qingtian Grand Master, I am really wronged, I really did not harm anyone, why am I so unlucky, I encountered this coincidence." Zhao Xianling pondered for a while and then ordered the official to first temporarily detain Yao Guang and Zhang Youren, and then he took the official to the Lotus Station for inspection.
When Zhao Xianling and the official arrived at the Station, the governor had already organized people to set up a corpse shed, and after Zhao Xianling sat down, he ordered him to quickly salvage the body. Who knew that what was salvaged was a female corpse, looking to be about twenty years old, with obvious strangulation marks on the neck, which should have been thrown into the well after being strangled. The two body snatchers said: There was another body in the well, and as they spoke, they salvaged the corpse of a headless man.
After the examination, he reported that the woman was about twenty-three or four years old and had been strangled to death by a rope, and that the male body was about twenty-five or six years old from the physical point of view, and there were many knife wounds on her body. Zhao Xianling secretly thought to himself: This Zhang Youren should not be a murderer, and at this moment, suddenly an old man came and shouted injustice.
Seeing that this old man was sixty or seventy years old, he had just been brought before the public case, and he threw himself on his knees in front of Zhao Xianling. Zhao Xianling said: Don't worry, speak slowly. The old man was already in tears at this time, and he forced himself to cry and said: My name is Jiang Benqing, I am a local, my wife and I only gave birth to a daughter named Huiniang, and I only married Gu Xu, a local villager, last year.
Zhao Xianling asked: How are the two of them doing? The old man said: The two are very affectionate, and I have not heard that the two have quarreled. Today I went to see my daughter, only to see the door open, but there was no one inside the house, I waited for a long time and did not see my daughter come back, so I hurried to the tea house opened by my son-in-law to find it, but the son-in-law said that he did not see Huiniang.
I hurried back to check again, just saw a lot of people around here, and when I inquired, I knew that it was Lord Zhao who was handling the case here, and when I came to take a look, I found that the female corpse was actually my daughter Huiniang, who killed my daughter? He also threw my poor child into the well.
Zhao Xianling said: If you look at the male corpse again, can you recognize him, Jiang Laoweng watched for half a day and said: The villain can't recognize it. Zhao Xianling comforted him and said: You go back and wait first, if there is anything I will send someone to find you, I will definitely give you a fair return." Then he asked the governor to arrange for someone to buy the coffin, temporarily collect the two corpses, and let the official go to the Lotus Station Tea House and summon Huiniang's husband to yamen for questioning.
The two tolerances arrived at the tea house, Gu Xu was not there, the guy said that he went to the Huang family on East Street, from the sixth house of this number, the two tolerances quickly came to the front of the Huang family. Tolerance knocked on the door knocker, and only half a day later did a woman ask delicately: Who is it? When I opened the door and saw that it was a tolerance, my face immediately turned pale, so I coldly asked: What is the business?
I saw that this woman was about twenty years old, standing tall, and her hair was combed and shiny. The two tolerances said: We are going to find Gu Xu, and the woman immediately pulled her face and said: Who said that he was here? During the conversation, a man stepped on his shoes and asked: Who is looking for me?
The two tolerances did not talk as much nonsense as he said, and immediately tied him up with chains, and then said: Please go to the gate and ask questions. Gu Xu was frightened and scattered, but the woman dragged her errand and said: What royal law did he violate? Why arrest people for no reason? The tolerance took the opportunity to tie her up and escort her to the yamen together.
Zhao Xianling looked closely at the man and woman under the hall, only to see that the man was twenty-five or six years old, looking white and pure, and was a handsome man. Look at the woman again, her skin fair, her eyebrows full of emotion, and she looks like a restless woman. So Zhao Xianling asked the man: Is your name Gu Xu? Where do you live and what do you do?
Gu Xu replied: The little man lives in He Village, and has opened a tea house at Hezhan Station, three miles away from home, where my parents live with my brother, and there is only me and my wife Huiniang in the family. Zhao Xianling asked sternly: Don't you know that Huiniang has been tragically thrown into the well? Why don't you report to the government?
Gu Xu hurriedly said: I also just heard about it at the tea house, and I was going to report to the officials, and asked the county commander to avenge my wife, saying that his eyes were red and he wiped his tears.
Zhao Xianling pointed at the woman again and asked, "What is your relationship with this woman?" Why are you at her house? The woman hurriedly said: He and my man are good brothers who are married.
Zhao Xianling severely reprimanded her and said: Who wants you to talk more, say it again when you ask, and suddenly the servants on both sides shout together, scaring the woman into not being able to make a sound again.
Gu Xu looked at the woman and said: I have a friendship with her husband, who has been doing business in Tongzhou for many years and often brings me tea leaves from that place. This time I just went to her house to inquire about the tea, but the two tolerances did not ask her and arrested her, and asked the adults to let her go back.
When Zhao Xianling heard this, he already had a number in his heart, so he asked the woman: What business does your husband do, and who else is in the family? The woman said: The woman Li Shi, the man's name is Huang Yong'an, this year is twenty-three years old, his parents have been living in his hometown in Shandong, so only me and my husband live together, he is in the grain business in Tongzhou.
Zhao Xianling asked: When did your man leave? How many times a year do you go home? Li Shi listened to it and unconsciously changed her face, and then she calmed down and said: After the Dragon Boat Festival, he did not go for a few days, he went home three or four times a year, most of them only came back during the New Year's Festival.
Zhao Xianling said: It turned out that you and Gu Xu murdered Huang Yong'an and Huiniang, and then threw them into the well, and quickly explained the motive and process of the crime. Both of them shouted that they had been wronged, and they refused to admit it, and Zhao Xianling saw that the two men and women also gave each other a look, which meant that there was no evidence, no witnesses, and you could help us.
Zhao Xianling immediately saw through the trickery of the two people, so he had a plan in mind and said: Gu Xu, if this matter is really not involved with you, the county will not be wronged with you, you go back first, wait for the county to find out the murderer for you, you will take care of the funeral for your wife, don't cause trouble in the past few days, and say that you will be released together with Li Shi.
When the two men walked out of the gate, Zhao Xianling sent two more tolerances to secretly follow them, and once they were found to have suspicious behavior, they could be immediately arrested.
The two tolerances silently ambushed near Li's house, and when it was almost dark, they saw Gu Xu come to the door of Li's house, he looked left and right, knocked on the door gently, and then Li opened the door and welcomed him in. When it was time for the first change, the two tolerances flipped over to the courtyard, only to see that there was still a faint light in the house, and the sound of the two talking was heard.
The two tolerances quietly came to the window, and gently broke the window paper with their hands, and looked into the house, only to see a small table on the kang, and there were wine and vegetables on the table. Gu Xu sat opposite Li Shi, and Li Shi smiled and said: "Drink a few more drinks tonight, I see that you were almost scared out of your guts in the courtroom, I was in a terrible heartache, how come you are a man who is not as bold as me?" In the future, you must be calm in the future.
Gu Xu drank a glass of wine and said: "I am afraid when I think about it now, the county order must be suspicious of both of us, you must quickly dispose of the thing in the pit box as soon as possible, so that I will get rid of my heart disease." You really could go down and get your hands on it, so how did you kill him with a knife?
Lee said: How do you talk like this? Aren't I also for us to be a long-term husband and wife in the future? Didn't you strangle Hui niang to death too? Oh, fortunately, I hid the wrongdoer, otherwise we would have died in prison.
When the two tolerances heard this, they kicked open the door and broke into the house, and before they could react, they were chained, and then both were arrested and taken to the gate.
Early the next morning, Zhao Xianling had already sent someone to summon Tian Liu to the court and asked: In Shimoda Six, do you sell land to Liu Hai? Tian Liu replied: Yes, the price has also been agreed, Liu Hai went back to the city because of a temporary matter, and asked his niece Yao Guang to send me a hundred taels of silver as a deposit, and I was not at home at that time. Zhao Xianling said: You go back, there will be nothing for you.
The next two missions took Gu Xu and Li Shi to the court and told Zhao Xianling in detail about the process of capturing them. After Zhao Xianling heard this, he loudly rebuked the two people: What else do you have to say?
Gu Xu knew that this time he was doomed, so he honestly confessed: Just because I love Li's posture, I desperately fell in love with my friend's wife, and since I had an affair with Li, I had to listen to her everywhere. But Li Shi hated this sneaky private meeting, so he said to me, first kill my man, you must also kill your wife, otherwise, we will not have to interact with each other from now on.
I couldn't leave her anymore, so I agreed, just a few days before the Dragon Boat Festival, Huang Yong'an came back from Tongzhou, and then I went to his house to drink, and during the banquet, Li Shi and I drunk him.
Li Shi gave me a knife to make me move, I was so scared that she snatched the knife from my hand, personally killed Huang Yong'an, and buried the head in the kang box. Then he forced me to go back and kill my wife, and I didn't dare to use a knife, so I strangled Hui niang with a rope, and waited until the middle of the night to throw the bodies of the two into the well.
When Li Shi heard this, he glared at Gu Xu fiercely, stood up and spat at his face.
Zhao Xianling immediately sent a public servant to escort the two to Li's home to search, and sure enough, Huang Yong'an's head was found in the Kang Box, and Li Confessed.
Zhao Xianling's judgment: Gu Xu killed his wife for adultery and was executed according to the law. Li Shi murdered her husband for adultery and execution according to the law. Yao Guang and Zhang Youren, complaining for joking, should have beaten the forty large boards with a staff, but did not cause harm to society, and were not punished and acquitted.