A female coroner arrived at the Jingzhao Prefecture.

Chapter 425 Ending (94)

Although Lin Chuan was blind during his trial, he listened to the entire process.

After the constables removed the black hood from Lin Chuan's head, they escorted him to the courtroom.

Song Zi stared at Lin Chuan's face as if she had seen a ghost, twisting her body as if she wanted to pounce on him or dodge backward. In any case, the constables held her down without thinking!
Seeing the agitated and indignant Song Zi, Lin Chuan was stunned for a moment, then lowered his eyes and said, "Lin Chuan failed to obey the orders of the mistress and committed suicide after the mission was completed, which disappointed the mistress."

Song Zi was speechless, but her furious expression made it easy to guess what she wanted to say.

Lin Chuan bowed deeply, thus severing the master-servant relationship he had once shared.

Then, Lin Chuan knelt before Song Shuyu. Unlike his previous sharp and cold attitude, Lin Chuan had shed his fierceness and spoke in a very calm tone, "Lord Song, I promised Master Mu that as long as I see Duke Song, I will no longer hide anything and will confess everything."

Upon hearing this, Song Shuyu naturally looked at Mu Qingcheng. Receiving her affirmative response, he said, "Alright, then you may narrate your case! Today's public trial is not bound by any particular form; on-site confrontation and mutual debate are both permissible!"

Lin Chuan turned slightly to find Song Yan, a complex emotion rising in his eyes. "The five skeletons from Eagle Beak Mountain and I were originally six skilled fighters secretly trained by the old Duke Song in the army. Later, we were sent to the palace to serve the Empress at the time, who is now the Empress Dowager. But we only follow the Empress's orders in daily matters. In important matters, we still follow the orders of the old Duke Song and the Duke of Song."

"One day, the Empress suddenly summoned us, ordering the six of us to rush to Jiangnan and carry out the extermination of the brothel 'Shuiyunjian.' After the mission was completed, we were not allowed to return to the capital but to end our own lives to ensure that the truth would not be revealed and would not implicate the Empress! Fearing that we might have ulterior motives and refuse to comply, the Empress had already taken control of our families' lives. She appeased us with generous sums of money while simultaneously using the Duke of Song's token to force us to obey military orders!"

"Military orders cannot be disobeyed. We had no choice but to follow the rules and, on New Year's Eve that year, disguised as江湖人士 (jianghu figures), slaughtered thirty-two lives of 'Shuiyunjian'! But during the killing, we were inadvertently witnessed by two young boys. Not wanting to commit further atrocities, we only stabbed one of the boys a few times, forced him into Taihu Lake, and then left without a second thought for the other. Afterwards, we found a cave in Eagle Beak Mountain as our burial place. Our plan was to kill each other so that we wouldn't be unable to bear ending our own lives. But when it was my turn to die, I suddenly thought of my young sister and couldn't bear to die in vain. So, I fled Eagle Beak Mountain and lived in anonymity ever since." "However, these twelve years of living on have been extremely painful for me. I learned martial arts and joined the army, and I should have been fighting on the battlefield to protect my country, or protecting the emperor and empress and ensuring the stability of the nation. But instead, I killed so many unarmed and innocent people. In the middle of the night, I was always plagued by nightmares and felt unbearably guilty. It wasn't until last year, when the son of the Duke of Song became the Prefect of the Capital and helped the female coroner Mu Qingcheng solve the case of the hanging corpse at the temple gate, that I finally woke up from my dream."

“I am guilty, but the greater sinners are the Empress and the Duke of Song. The truth should not be buried, the thirty-two wronged souls of ‘Shuiyunjian’ should not have died in vain, and my five companions should not have lost their lives in confusion! Therefore, from the moment of the female corpse in the Suhe River, I exposed myself to the sight of the Jingzhao Prefecture, plotting step by step, and finally led the people of the Jingzhao Prefecture to Eagle Beak Mountain, deliberately fainting at the entrance of the cave, so that they would discover the skeletons and then investigate the truth behind the skeleton case.”

Lin Chuan's account of the events leading up to the incident was basically the same as Song Shuyu's speculation, except for Song Yan's token.

"No wonder you are so hostile to the Duke of Song, and have repeatedly reminded Master Mu to be careful of the Duke of Song and not to trust him completely."

Song Shuyu finally understood the question that had puzzled him that day. He addressed his father in a businesslike manner and interrogated him without any empathy: "Duke Song, do you admit to the accusations Lin Chuan made against you? Did you give the order to exterminate the 'Shuiyunjian' family?"

Song Yan remained calm and showed no displeasure. He said, "I knew nothing about this matter. It was Song Zi who forged my token, falsely conveyed my military orders, and deceived Lin Chuan and others into committing a major crime. After the incident, the three judicial departments intervened. I heard people from the Ministry of Justice talk about the case and realized something was wrong. I immediately sent people into the palace to investigate and learned that all six masters had disappeared. After checking the list of the dead, I understood everything."

"Therefore, Duke Song concealed the truth and interfered, exiling me to Jiangnan, both to protect the lives of my father and daughter and to safeguard Song Zi and the Song family!" Mu Yan was upright throughout his life, and even though he knew that Song Yan was not the real mastermind, he was extremely angry about Song Yan's cover-up.

A look of shame appeared on Song Yan's face, but his gaze remained calm. "Yes, that was the only solution I could think of back then. But the reasons, besides what Brother Mu said, were mixed with other factors, which forced me to suppress the case and keep it a secret."

At this point, he finally looked at Song Zi again, ignoring her tearful eyes, and ruthlessly revealed Song Zi's unknown secret, "Song Zi has served the emperor for many years, but has never become pregnant because she has been secretly drinking contraceptive soup without the late emperor's knowledge. After the case was exposed, the court was shaken, and Song Zi panicked. In order to increase her chances of survival, she deliberately became pregnant with a prince, but did not announce it to the public."