Nine Chapters of Strange Cases

Chapter 149 Seven Dead

She deliberately avoided Old Yu next door, whom Gan Lin had mentioned, and Dai Shi's wife, and chose two naive young men instead.

By this time, the Northern Army had finished their search, finding some silver ingots and other belongings in the two houses on either side, but nothing else.

The group, carrying pigs and escorting people, made a grand procession towards the Tingwei Temple, attracting many curious onlookers along the way.

"What happened? Who died and who is the murderer?"

"I heard that these two pigs ate the whole family next door, and now their owner has been arrested and taken to the Court of Justice!"

"That can't be right! I heard that this family was so poor that they couldn't find a daughter-in-law, so they married two pigs! The officials thought it was immoral and arrested them all!"

"You're wrong too! It was clearly a pig demon who transformed into a bride to deceive people into marriage. The two pigs married three families, and there were so many families that they all tried to kill them with knives, so they were all arrested, and the pig demon was beaten to death! I even went to the wedding day, and the bride was so beautiful with her fair skin!"

"Where did you all hear that? It's clearly their son who turned into a pig! Now the government is taking him away to have a Taoist priest perform a ritual!"

As Zhou Zhao walked along, he listened to the discussions on both sides of the road, and he was truly speechless.

She and Su Changying exchanged a glance and quickened their pace in unison, worried that if things continued this absurdly, people would say that Li Tingwei was going to take two pigs as concubines and that the officials of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices were going to fetch the bride with the Northern Army.

When everyone returned to the Court of Justice, they couldn't help but let out a long sigh of relief.

Zhou Zhao looked over at the three families. Everyone was bowing their heads and covering their faces with their hands, as if they wanted to touch the ground with their heads.

Once they were imprisoned in the Court of Judicial Review dungeon, they seemed to wake from a dream and began to cry anxiously.

Zhou Zhao didn't say anything else. He called them in one by one for interrogation, making them recall how many corpses they had disposed of, what the physical characteristics of each person were, what belongings they had, and where their wounds were located...

After this, he entered the left courtyard with Su Changying, Min Zangzhi, and Ahuang.

Normally, everyone is in the main hall looking at files, and the side rooms are all empty. Zhou Zhao randomly chose one and went in.

She carried a basket filled with the remains, and as she arranged them, she said, "They disposed of a total of seven bodies. This Qian Liu'er is very likely a serial killer. Based on their confessions, I divided the remains into portions."

As Zhou Zhao spoke, he looked around and saw a chessboard and chess box by the window. He took out three white pieces and four black pieces from it.

"There were four men and three women among the deceased. The first deceased was a young man of seventeen or eighteen years old, dressed in brocade and wearing a jade pendant that looked to be of good quality, suggesting he was from a wealthy family. The jade pendant was engraved with the character Chen, which was probably his surname."

He was wearing a white robe, his chest was covered in blood, and he had been stabbed eight times; his abdomen was mangled. When they arrived, the blood had dried, the body was stiff, and his eyes were wide open, looking utterly terrified.

As Zhou Zhao spoke, he placed the first black chess piece in front of the jade pendant.

"The second victim..."

Zhou Zhao paused, looked out the window, and saw a large crowd gathered outside, looking very lively.

She glanced at Su Changying standing by the door. Su Changying walked over, opened the door, and Han Ze, who was standing in front of the door, was pushed in and almost bumped into the corner of the table. Seeing the four people in the room looking at him, he smiled awkwardly and stepped aside. Behind him stood a large group of people, led by Chen Jiyuan, who was smiling obsequiously.

And then there's Xu Jin, whose nose isn't a nose, whose eyes aren't eyes, and who turns his head to the side.

"Sister Zhao, we'd like to hear your investigation, is that alright?" Chen Jiyuan's eyes sparkled, clearly full of anticipation.

Ever since Zhou Zhao made him play the role of a young lady, he was so excited that he wore a ruqun (a type of traditional Chinese dress) at home for three days in a row, which resulted in his mother beating him with a bamboo stick before he had to change back.

"This case was assigned to Lord Li Youdao. We all have a share. How can you monopolize it all by yourself?" Xu Jin snorted and squeezed in on his own.

Zhou Zhao shrugged at Xu Jin, "Then you come in, and I'll leave?"

Xu Jin's face instantly turned bright red. He wanted to be that capable, to just say "I'll do it" and solve the case in the blink of an eye, slapping Zhou Zhao's face repeatedly.

But he could only think about it in his mind.

"I won't cause trouble, but can't I at least listen? Is it because Lord Zhou is solving a case that no one can listen to?"

Zhou Zhao raised an eyebrow indifferently. Han Ze, who was standing to the side, couldn't help but mutter, "This isn't Li Youdao's case. Our General Su instructed us to find Lord Zhou if there are any cases."

He thought his voice was soft, but after Xu Jin finished speaking, the room fell silent, making his voice seem exceptionally clear.

Han Ze immediately covered his mouth, his eyes darting around, but he dared not look at Zhou Zhaotong and Su Changying.

Good heavens! Did he do a good thing or a bad thing?
The room remained silent. The people in front of the door hesitated, wanting to leave, while Xu Jin's face turned a deep purplish-red.

He discovered that ever since Zhou Zhao arrived, he had not had a single day without being humiliated.

What's most infuriating is that Zhou Zhao didn't humiliate him at all; he just went and provoked him.

"Come in! We're all old folks here, we know what we can and can't touch. The Northern Army brothers found human bones in the pigsty today, and confirmed that three families were paid to dispose of the bodies and feed them to the pigs. All they know is that the person's name is Qian Liu'er, an ordinary middle-aged man."

"There were seven dead in total, four men and three women. The first person was a seventeen or eighteen-year-old boy, whose belongings were jade pendants. Now let's talk about the second person, a very young woman. According to the descriptions of the three families, she was heavily made up and wearing a pink gauze dress. Judging from her appearance, she was a Hu woman."

Zhou Zhao continued talking about the case. She pointed to a piece of red tulle on the table that had been made into a bridal fan, and then took out a hairpin earring from the basket.

"When the second victim was brought in, the Yu family got involved. Yu Si Niang, because she liked the ring on the Hu woman's finger, carefully observed her hand. At that time, one of her fingernails was broken, and there was blood under the nail. So I guessed that she had fought with the murderer and directly scratched him."

The victim had knife marks on her neck, indicating the killer attempted to slit her throat but failed. Then, similar to the first victim, the killer stabbed her several times in the abdomen. The exact number of stabs is unknown, but one thing is certain: this time, the victim's abdomen was not completely ruptured.

Su Changying frowned as she listened to Zhou Zhao's words. "The murderer's methods are evolving."

Zhou Zhao nodded, his expression grave, and said, "That's right, exactly. By the time of the seventh person, the murderer had become skilled and killed with a single blow."