Nine Chapters of Strange Cases

Chapter 161 A Clue Delivered to Our Door
Zhou Zhao's words came true before the gates of the neighborhood were locked.

On an autumn night, Chang'an is unusually quiet, devoid of birdsong and cicada chirps.

From the shadows of the long alley next to the Tingwei Temple, two people wearing black cloaks and straw hats emerged. Every few steps, they couldn't help but look back twice, as if they were being chased by evil spirits.

They were breathing heavily, and beads of sweat occasionally slipped from their feet.

Upon reaching the steps of the Court of Justice, their legs suddenly gave way, and they collapsed to the ground.

The round, thick straw hat suddenly fell off and rolled a long way on the ground before coming to a stop.

Seeing this, the two ignored the sweat pouring down their foreheads and crawled towards the gate of the Court of Judicial Review. They looked up at the gate in a panic.

Inside the gates of the Court of Judicial Review stood a slender figure, dressed in a dark robe and holding a lantern. The night breeze billowed her wide sleeves, making her appear as if she were about to ascend to immortality at any moment. Yet, she stood there motionless, like a pillar of strength.

The two people crawling on the ground instantly felt relieved.

They struggled to their feet and stumbled toward the door, one of them shouting, "Lord Zhou! Lord Zhou, isn't that right! Save us!"

The first female official in the history of the Court of Justice, Lady Zhou, who has solved many strange cases.

Everyone in Chang'an knows you.

"Lord Zhou! Save us! We were forced into this situation, we don't want to die! If only we had known..."

Unlike Zhou Zhao's confidence, Min Zangzhi and Chen Jiyuan, standing in the shadows, were both extremely shocked.

Zhou Zhao told them to wait for the mountain to come, and they did as he said. But they never expected that the mountain would actually come on its own! They couldn't find any clues in the case, but with a little trickery from Zhou Zhao, the clues actually came to them on their own.

"We have been waiting for you two for a long time. There is no need to panic. No one in the Court of Justice would dare to take your lives casually. Rest assured."

The two men breathed a slight sigh of relief and jogged after Zhou Zhao.

Only after entering the small interrogation room in the Tingwei Temple prison did the two seem to finally feel at ease and remove their hoods.

Zhou Zhao set up the lamp and turned to look at the two of them.

A man and a woman were present. The man appeared to be about thirty years old, and he looked emaciated, as if a gust of wind could blow him over. His face was so thin it was almost unrecognizable, and his eyes bulged out as if they might pop out at any moment.

The woman looked to be about twenty-five or twenty-six years old, with a worried expression and blisters on the corners of her mouth.

Before Zhou Zhao could ask any questions, the man spoke first, “My name is Su Youde, and I am a scholar. I consider myself to be very learned, but I was born with a serious illness and have been taking medicine since I was a child. I cannot hold an official position, marry, or do any work. About half a year ago, I found a note.”

Zhou Zhao's spirits lifted; they'd arrived.

As Su Youde spoke, snot and tears streamed down his face, his eyes filled with terror.

"The post said it could grant one wish, and I really wanted to be a normal person. So I followed the post and went to a mansion in the south of the city! There were ten of us in total, but only nine of us survived..."

Su Youde choked up as he spoke, his mouth moving frantically, but he couldn't make a sound.

Seeing this, the woman beside him glanced at him and said to Zhou Zhao, "Young Master Zhou, let me explain!"

Zhou Zhao looked at the woman. Although her brows were furrowed, she had clearly regained her composure.

"My name is Qian Fang. After I got married, I finally had a son named Kang'er. My Kang'er was chubby and cute, with a chubby face. Our whole family was overjoyed. But when he was one year old, I noticed something was wrong. He couldn't speak or walk, and he seemed to be mentally challenged. We sought medical help, medicine, and even prayed to gods and Buddhas, trying everything we could, but nothing worked. So when I received that invitation, I went there immediately."

As Qian Fang spoke, her eyes reddened.

At the time, the ten of them were locked in a secret room and told that only nine of them could get out alive.

"The ten of us all had our own troubles, and we were all fellow sufferers in this world. We even made a pact at the beginning that none of us would commit murder. At worst, we would all die there, and at least we would have each other on the road to the underworld. So we shared our stories and talked about our own experiences."

“I remember clearly, there was a young man in white robes named Chen Ying. He was only seventeen or eighteen years old, and he was the most lively and optimistic of them all. He was in love with his widowed cousin who was eight years older than him, but he didn’t dare to say it out loud, so he came here.”

"He said that we should all live and die together, so that the villains would not succeed."

Zhou Zhao listened and matched this person with the seven dead. This Chen Ying should be the first person killed.

"Yan Ji, she's a Sogdian dancer, exceptionally alluring. I've never seen anyone so beautiful. She said she's a dancer at Tianxiang Tower and wants to be the lead dancer."

This is the second victim, a Hu woman dressed in a pink gauze dress. Min Zangzhi has already confirmed her identity at Tianxiang Tower.

"Grandma Xiang, who sells oil, has been selling oil in Chang'anfang all her life. She is a widow who has raised three sons with great difficulty, but the three sons have taken over her oil mill and joined forces to drive her out."

This was the third victim. Zhou Zhao smelled an overwhelming, unmistakable odor of oil among her belongings.

"There was an old man named Sun Yang. When he came, he was carrying a pot of orchids. He had injured his body when he was young and could not have any offspring. His only son was born from a child he had borrowed from a neighbor, which cost his wife two taels of silver. That son's nickname was Two Taels."

A few years ago, when his wife passed away, he told his son this secret. His son refused to forgive him, severed ties with him, and went away to work elsewhere.

Zhou Zhao's lips twitched, while Min Zangzhi, who was sitting there diligently writing down his confession, gaped in disbelief and almost forgot to put pen to paper.

This is the fourth deceased person; they confirmed his identity using half a piece of ink from the Manmoji.

"Cheng Yuan is a spoiled brat with considerable wealth. Although he is only in his early twenties, he has one wife, four concubines, and three mistresses who have borne him eight children. Not long ago, he discovered that all his wives and concubines had affairs with his cousin, who is handsome but lacks other qualities."

He didn't know which of the eight children was his, and which wasn't...

This... Zhou Zhao was speechless.

Min Zangzhi even plucked a feather from the fan. See? The Court of Justice is just that interesting!
Zhou Zhao mentally counted on his fingers; this was the fifth victim, stabbed three times. One in the neck, one in the abdomen, and one in the chest. The killer had used the most comfortable method of murder on him.

"Xu Xiaodie is the daughter-in-law of the wealthy Yao family. Her husband recently passed away in an accident. The Yao family suffered the loss of their son, and the sudden accident caused business problems. Many people came to their door to collect debts."

Zhou Zhao immediately thought of the sixth victim, who had a butterfly birthmark under her eye and wore butterfly-shaped earrings.

She loves butterflies, which probably matches her name.

"The snake catcher, Mengshan, was exceptionally fierce-looking and had tattoos all over his body. We were all afraid to talk to him. He only said a few words, and he didn't reveal a single word about any of his troubles."

The seventh victim was the owner of the hand they found in the pigsty.

As Qian Fang finished speaking, she pursed her lips, a hint of guilt flashing in her eyes.

Zhou Zhao understood her pause, because the last one should be the tenth person they had killed together.