Daming: Internship also counts as work experience

Let's turn the page on Chapter 141.

Jia Chuan's reaction made the village chief somewhat uneasy: "You..."

“It’s not that I trust you so much. I only figured it out before you came. People are afraid that when they calm down, some things become clear. On New Year’s Day, there will only be me and the people around me in the temple. The yamen runners will all be down the mountain. You can keep busy down there and easily get some information out of them that I have a bad relationship with the magistrate. If you have bad intentions… especially since you know that I have sent someone back to the capital to bring back people, that day and night will be your only chance. If I die, not only will the things down here be preserved, but your secret will also be preserved. If you are a meticulous person, you can even use Magistrate Zhao to help you get convicted.”

The village chief was somewhat agitated. He took a deep breath and asked in a low voice, "How did you know? Everyone who knew about this is dead, and even I don't know much. I don't even know what's hidden in that cellar! I came up the mountain last night to see just how much you know..."

"Those who came should know quite a bit, and you seemed a bit impatient last night."

The village chief sighed and said, "If they hadn't kept it in mind, or if this secret hadn't been kept secret for many years... no one would have known."

"The reason I value this case so much, even during the New Year, is not your fault; it's because the person who came made a fatal mistake."

Jia Chuan added a few pieces of firewood, and the village chief waited quietly to the side.

"Would it be necessary to hide the body of someone who froze to death? They most likely transported the body down the mountain via the eastern path, which is the one from the temple gate. That's why we didn't find any traces of them on the west side. The fact that they thought of not leaving any traces in the snow is a deliberate attempt to mislead anyone who discovers the body. Otherwise, why didn't they just open the temple gate and leave?"

Jia Chuan turned his head and looked at the middle-aged man, then said:

"The fact that they could leave no trace is already quite intriguing. The person froze to death. If they wanted to let the matter drop, the best way would have been to leave the body inside the house. Anyone investigating the case would have said it was an accident. But they insisted on hiding the body and creating the illusion that the temple door was locked and no one was coming or going..."

"Why can't I understand?"

“Murder needs a reason, and that’s the fatal mistake they made. The more we investigate, the clearer it becomes that everything was planned. Naturally, I won’t let this little temple go.”

"But they froze to death." The village chief clearly hadn't figured it out yet.

“Frozen to death can be accidental or man-made. Besides, it doesn’t make sense that the four bodies left the small temple. You were willing to let me know that the small temple had a cellar because you thought the cellar was nothing special, and you didn’t expect that those people came for the cellar. I also used this to conclude that you didn’t know what was in the cellar. Otherwise, you would have already thought that the deaths of the four people were related to the cellar, and you would not have taken the initiative to let me know about the existence of the cellar. You thought that telling the truth would increase my trust in you, but for me, knowing about the cellar means knowing those people’s purpose. Consider it clearing up my doubts.”

Jia Chuan paused for a moment, then turned to the village head and said, "They need time to dig the cellar, and they need to do so without being discovered, so that not only will the government not investigate, but the villagers will also not dare to come up."

The village chief immediately understood. He said, "They deliberately found the old Taoist priest at the end of the year, and they deliberately left the silver behind. If I had been too greedy, I would have covered it up and then forbidden the villagers from going up the mountain..."

"You can't do it, or rather, your role is only for a few days. They discovered that the cellar could only be dug at night, and progress was very slow, which made them very anxious. They wanted to go all out during the New Year holidays and get rid of the things in the cellar as soon as possible. So, they lifted the straw mats covering the dry well..."

"Huh? You mean the dry well wasn't opened by the children?"

"The stones weighing down the straw mat were still too heavy for the children. Since the villagers covered the well opening in the first place, they didn't want the children to fall in. Naturally, they would have given them a lot of warnings and even scared them at home. It's true that children are curious, but on that day, their curiosity was at its peak. They struggled to move the stones and lift the straw mat... The straw mat wasn't by the well, but the body was right at the well opening. Where did the children get the strength and time to throw the straw mat aside and then come back to look curiously into the well..."

"So it turns out that when you first arrived, you already realized that it was man-made, not the power of ghosts or gods."

"I was also distracted by one thing and forgot about the other, but the result was the same. At least it kept my eyes on the small temple." Jia Chuan smiled and said:

“They know that you discovered the body at this critical juncture, and even if you report it to the county government, they won’t care. The villagers will be curious for a day or two, but on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, they will stay away from the small temple and the back mountain to avoid getting bad luck. As the village head, you will also keep the villagers away from these two places so that you won’t have trouble explaining when the county government comes to investigate the case after the New Year. What they want is for no one to come. If the body hadn’t been discovered, it would have been hard for the villagers to stay away, especially since you have been leading people up the mountain so often. This makes them uneasy. Of course, the most important thing is that none of you expected me to come.”

The village chief nodded subconsciously. He went through what he had heard in his mind and asked, "So, when you suddenly brought people here on New Year's Day, did you know they would make their move during the day?"

“This is not something I expected. The two times I came before, it was during the day and there was no movement in the temple, but I knew they must have something up their sleeve. I didn’t expect to run into them, which saves me the trouble of looking for them again. I can’t always predict everything.”

Jia Chuan paused for a moment and then said:
"After the people from the capital arrived, they found that it was indeed difficult to dig. The things below were not arranged in a regular manner, but rather looked like they were being buried one hole at a time in a hurry. This is probably why they changed their strategy. They were not on their own territory, and there wasn't enough time... I didn't have much time to think about this case in detail, and they were too lazy to ask, but they still had to report to their superiors. They also needed to know the general outline, so I could only explain it over and over again. Explaining it was almost the same as thinking about it, at least for me. As I was explaining it, I realized where my deductions were wrong."

Jia Chuan turned to look at the people busily working on the construction site. He knew Xu Gong had an idea: the area under this small hill was full of boxes. But Jia Chuan knew it was impossible. Where would so much earth come from? There weren't any small ponds near the village. Besides, how much manpower would it take to build such a large hill? And how did so many boxes filled with gold and silver manage to evade the Yuan Dynasty government's notice and be transported here openly to be buried?
They could only arrive one box at a time, so the mountain must have been there first.

The village chief took a deep breath and asked, "Why are you so sure it wasn't us?"

Jia Chuan turned his gaze to the village head and asked, "Are you Han Chinese?"

"Yes!"

"That settles it. It's easy to figure this out. The person who brought the things here must have been waiting for something. What was he waiting for? Back then, it was still the Yuan Dynasty. I don't know who the emperor was, but the person who hid the boxes here must have been at odds with the court at the time. And this person couldn't have done this alone. He must have had his own family, his own group of people, or rather, loyal servants. The boxes weren't all brought here at once. It must have been done slowly and secretly, to avoid suspicion. He wanted to have a few more households around the hill, and then do something at night every now and then. Ten or eight years later, there was this small temple on the mountain and a village at the foot of the mountain."

Jia Chuan paused for a moment and then said, "Your problem is that you can't even feed yourselves, so how can you have such a big obligation to support the monks on the mountain?"

The village chief was stunned.

“The small temple doesn’t receive incense offerings because it doesn’t want outsiders to know about this place. If it’s said that the Bodhisattva enshrined in the small temple is efficacious, then it’s understandable that the villagers are willing to support the old monk in the temple. But the fact that no one in the villagers offers incense, yet they are willing to squeeze out some food for the old monk despite their own poverty, and willingly take care of the people on the mountain… this probably has little to do with kindness, but rather with family precepts.” Jia Chuan added a very quick amount of firewood to the fire.

"Kindness is something that only comes after one has eaten one's fill... This can be easily determined by asking the villagers, especially with the assistance of the Embroidered Uniform Guard. However, this process is beyond the villagers' capacity to endure, so I didn't do it. Of course, I'm letting you go not because I'm kind-hearted, but because I deduced that you..."

Jia Chuan turned to look at the village head:

"The secrets passed down to your generation are no longer secrets. You probably don't know what's hidden in that cellar, otherwise... to be honest, after so many generations, if even one person knew, the things in the cellar might not have survived to this day."

The village chief looked embarrassed.

"But you are indeed obedient. More than a hundred years have passed, and you are still sticking to your posts. However... the old monks on the mountain need to grow their own vegetables, and there are no young disciples anymore. And you probably don't even know what you are doing. Otherwise, if I show you kindness again, you would not hesitate to poison me when it's time to do so, and you would not hesitate to pay with your lives."

"Is the cellar filled with...gold and silver jewelry?"

Jia Chuan raised an eyebrow and said, "If I were you, I wouldn't ask. Those things had nothing to do with you initially, and now they have absolutely nothing to do with you. What good would it do to know? You can still come up here now. After dawn, the county government will take you away. From now on, let bygones be bygones!"

The village chief asked in a low voice, "Can you imagine others...?"

"You know what, right now I might be the only one who can think of this."

Aren't you curious about who we're protecting?

"you know?"

"I don't know." The village chief lowered his head in frustration. "My grandfather only told me to take good care of the monks in the temple, no matter who they were, whether they were old or young. I was to pass this on to my grandson until the monks were taken away. Other families in the village also passed it down like this. Nothing else was left. So when I suddenly found them missing, I was very panicked at first. Then I wondered if they had been taken away by someone?"

"The people who came are descendants of the Yuan Dynasty. Their ancestors must have known what was lost and had been searching for it. You are becoming less and less reliable with each generation, but they have never given up. How did they find this place? I think it has something to do with the new monks who are about to come here. If no new monks come, then they have found it and know about this place."

"You mean the old monks in the temple are all descendants of the original monk?"

Jia Chuan shrugged and said, "I don't know, maybe. None of you know. I'm just making this deduction. Right now, the only ones who probably know the truth are the people who came. They can only watch helplessly as such a big scene unfolds. If they are unwilling to make a move, then I will have a chance to find out the truth. But I bet they won't dare to make a move."

The village chief nodded.

"That's life. There's no need to be discouraged. Regret is everywhere. Don't think that you'll be ashamed to face your ancestors when you die. You should look at it from the other side. When you die, question them first: Why didn't they tell you the truth? In this situation, how can you deal with it? Save your life first. What's more important than continuing the family line?"

“I once had thoughts of killing you, yet you still comforted me.”

"I'm not doing this to save you. I can't afford to lose hundreds of lives. What does the changing of dynasties have to do with ordinary people? Just focus on living your own life first."

The village chief knelt down and kowtowed, then turned and left swiftly.

After a long while, Jia Chuan sighed. He was a little scared. He had spoken so righteously just now, but how could he have imagined that the village chief had once harbored the intention to poison him?
Poisoning? What kind of poison?
Jia Chuan regretted not discussing this topic more deeply with the village chief. According to the lessons the forensic doctor taught him in his previous life, the deadly poisons in martial arts novels that kill instantly upon contact with blood simply do not exist. Toxicity depends on dosage and purity. Ancient people were very clever, but purification was still very difficult. It's not that there are drugs that can kill with just a few sips, but you can tell from the smell and taste that something is wrong. Unless you force someone to drink it, it would probably take some time to poison someone silently.

But this is a summary from the previous life. What is the actual situation here? Jia Chuan hasn't had a chance to study it yet, what a pity he missed the opportunity just now.

Jia Chuan thought that since he had nothing else to do, he might as well go down the mountain to ask, but he was too lazy to do it. He didn't need to write a book to pass on to future generations, so it was useless for him to know so much. He would talk about it when he had the chance. Right now, he needed to think about how to leave this place.

Xu Gong seemed intent on leveling the hill. Jia Chuan felt that there was no need for him to stay up all night to accompany him during this process. There was a hermitage where people could stay during the day, but now if he wanted to sleep, he would have to go down the mountain to a farmer's house and then come back up after waking up? There was no need for that.

Just as Jia Chuan was thinking of another excuse to leave, Xu Gong strode over and said, "Let's go down the mountain and rest."

Jia Chuan quickly got up.

……

On the way down the mountain, Xu Gong was surrounded by several followers, while Jia Chuan could only follow along, without a chance to say anything. Of course, the cold wind also filled his mouth, so even if he could speak at this moment, he was too lazy to open his mouth.

The Imperial Guards found a farmhouse closest to the hill for Xu Gong to rest at.

The village chief took the family to stay at his home early in the morning, and Zhao Guang promptly delivered all the daily necessities. Although the farmer's house was simple, it was tidy enough to live in. In particular, the warm atmosphere that greeted Jia Chuan as soon as he entered made him feel comfortable all over, and sleepiness followed.

(End of this chapter)