Nine Chapters of Strange Cases

Chapter 146 The King of Chu Slaughters a Pig

The two fat pigs in the pigpen were eating happily, making gurgling noises, and the juices from their pig feed were splashing everywhere.

Suddenly, a clicking sound rang out.

Zhou Zhao looked toward the pig's snout and saw that it was holding a bone in its mouth. It had eaten half of it, and the other half had fallen into the trough.

"It should be one finger!"

Zhou Zhao thought for a moment, then took out some money from his pocket and handed it to the pig farmer, saying, "We'll buy these two pigs."

These pigs have eaten people, so they definitely can't be allowed to live. Besides, they've just eaten them, so who knows what clues they might have hidden in their stomachs.

As Zhou Zhao spoke, he glanced at Liu Huang, who nodded. Liu Huang then raised his fist and slammed it down on the head of one of the pigs. With just that one punch, the huge fat pig collapsed into the pigpen without even uttering a sound.

The one next to it doesn't have a heart.

As if nothing had happened, they continued to happily eat their pig feed.

Liu Huang didn't stop and raised his fist a second time. Just then, the seemingly carefree pig let out a squeal and charged headlong into the pigpen fence. This time, it actually smashed a hole and rushed out.

It was like a headless fly, rushing around wildly, instantly turning the small courtyard into a chaotic mess.

Upon seeing this, the Union soldiers shouted, "Close the gate! Close the gate! Catch the pig! Catch the pig!"

The piglet, shaking its head and charging wildly, headed straight for Min Zangzhi.

Zhou Zhao looked closely and saw that ever since Min Cangzhi met Chu You, she had become more and more like a peacock spreading its tail feathers.

Although he was not on leave today and needed to wear his official robes, he still ingeniously wore a transparent Zen robe over them. He not only had all the sachets and ornaments on his body, but he also changed the flower in his hair and even the fan in his hand. Even if he were to be a groom now, he would not be inferior to anyone.

The large pig still had pig feed stuck to its mouth. Min Cangzhi was horrified when she saw it and turned to run away.

But as soon as I turned my head, I saw a corner of the wall covered in moss. Urgent! Extremely urgent!
"Zhou Zhao!"

Zhou Zhao swore that Min Zangzhi's shout was absolutely heart-wrenching; his voice even cracked!

She chuckled. "What does Min Wenshu want me to do?"

Min Zangzhi is going crazy!

He gritted his teeth, reached up, and hung on the wall. "Young Master Zhou, get the pig away!"

Zhou Zhao raised an eyebrow, but did not move.

As Ah Huang approached, he reached out and punched the pig's head. The pig grunted and finally collapsed to the ground.

Seeing that there was no movement behind him, Min Zangzhi turned around in fear. Seeing that the pig was no longer moving, he breathed a long sigh of relief.

"Zhou Zhao! You're ruthless!"

Min Cangzhi jumped down from the wall, looked at the moss on his sleeves, and without hesitation took off his plain gauze robe and threw it on the ground.

With a firm resolve, he thought of Chu You again, looked at Zhou Zhaoqing, cleared his throat, and said, "It would be excellent if you asked the King of Chu to save me."

As he was speaking, he heard a voice from under the straw hat beside him, "You stepped on a corpse." Min Zangzhi immediately jumped back, only to find a footprint he had just made on the pig's front leg. His expression turned pale and then red, and finally he pretended to cough.

The Northern Army loaded the two pig carcasses onto a cart, and Zhou Zhao and Liu Huang returned to the pigsty gate once again.

"This should be a person's right hand, missing a little finger. The palm is so large, it should be a man, right, Ah Huang?"

Liu Huang nodded upon hearing Zhou Zhao's words. "The first thing that was gnawed off by the pig was also a finger, but not the little finger. There were obvious knife marks on the finger bone, and the knife marks showed no signs of healing, but they were very fresh. It wasn't old bone; it was a fresh corpse."

Someone killed someone and then dismembered the body; the time of death was yesterday.

The killer likely attempted to cut flesh from the body, but the technique was not skillful, as a large amount of flesh remained, indicating they were not an experienced killer.

Flesh on a body is easy to remove, but flesh on a person's hands is not. The murderer probably tried it once and then gave up.

As Zhou Zhao listened, he picked up a pair of fire tongs that were leaning against the wall and began rummaging through the pig trough. Upon seeing what was inside, he couldn't help but frown. The woman hadn't lied; in addition to pig feed, she also fed the pigs swill and leftover food.

There are chicken bones, fish bones, pork bones, and all sorts of other bones here. It's not easy to distinguish which ones are human bones.

"What is your surname, ma'am? Do you feed all these pigs by yourself? And where do you get the swill from?"

Ever since the woman discovered human bones in her pigsty, she was terrified, and even the money in her hand couldn't stir any joy in her.

Upon hearing Zhou Zhao's question, she snapped out of her shock and knelt down with a thud. "My lord! I didn't kill anyone! I don't know how there were human bones in the pigsty. My surname is Gan, and my given name is Gan Lin. My husband's surname is Wang, and the people here call him Wang Sanmazi."

He was a master chef; whenever there was a wedding or funeral in the urban village, they'd call him to cook. I'd usually go along to help out, washing dishes and such. These days, nobody has much to eat; there's hardly any leftovers, and the slop buckets are mostly just scraps of bone.

As the woman spoke, tears welled in her eyes. "I always make arrangements with the family to bring these back to feed the pigs. Yesterday, in the alley next to ours, a family got married, and I just brought them back."

Pigs eat anything. Yesterday, we came back from the banquet after dark, almost curfew. I was too lazy to start a fire and cook pig feed, so I just fed them the swill. This morning, I fed them pig grass.

My daughter Chunhua often plays near the pigsty, and I don't know where she found this strange thing..."

As the woman spoke, she burst into tears, "Sir, I really didn't kill anyone! I don't even know where these bones came from."

Zhou Zhao listened attentively and said to the woman, "You should get up first. Whether you killed the person or not, the authorities will make their own judgment. The more clues you can recall, the easier it will be to prove your innocence."

Gan Lin, with tears in her eyes, paced anxiously in circles.

Zhou Zhao looked at her and asked again, "Did you hear any noise last night?"

Gan Lin shook her head, then her eyes lit up and she said, "I also have a dog at home, and I heard it barking. After the dog barked a few times, Old Yu from next door got up in the middle of the night to take a shower and cursed a few times. Old Yu and our family have a long-standing feud, and he'll yell at us over the smallest things."

I heard him yelling at the dog and pushing my husband, but he was too tired to get up and even scolded me. The dog didn't bark for long, only a couple of times. I thought Old Yu had scared it; he'd even argued with his wife this morning.

This is easy to confirm; if a dog barks in the middle of the night, the neighbors should be able to hear it.

Zhou Zhao thought for a moment, then looked at Gan Lin and asked, "Where is Wang Sanmazi? He can't still be in bed by now, can he?"

Gan Lin shook her head. "Today, a family in Xiahe Township is hosting a three-day banquet. He took his tools and my two sons and left early this morning. Since we're going for three days, there's no one at home to feed the pigs, and no one to take care of Chunhua, so I didn't go with them."

As she spoke, she added, "Because I didn't go, he even asked Dai Shi from next door to do the work. You can ask Dai Shi's wife if you don't believe me."