Chapter 147

Chapter 147: She Didn’t Want to Dirty Her Hands

“Only, he was your father, and a grown man. You did not have the strength to kill him.”

“You also did not want to dirty your own hands.”

“While you tossed and turned, not knowing what to do, Li Guang Zhu showed up.”

“He had not married all these years. Women with good prospects looked down on him, and those with poor prospects he looked down on. Three years passed and his life only got worse. He had little money and became more and more sloppy. You even felt a bit relieved, thinking: [If my father had not broken us up back then, I do not know how much hardship I would be suffering now.]

“Unlike him, after three years you had become even more lovely. When he met you again by chance, he started plotting to make you leave your family and be with him.”

“In your heart you spat at his foolish dream and scolded him: [You think you deserve me?] Outwardly, you played along. You said your life was bad now and you were very annoyed with your husband, that you wanted to leave with him, but you did not dare because you feared your father.”

Hearing this, Li Guang Zhu exploded as he said: “So, you smiled at me on the surface, but in your heart you were cursing me?”

Wang Chun Juan shrank behind the constables, a little guilty as she said: “I… I did not.”

Whether she admitted it or not, Yu Zhi Yi went on as she said: “After your father broke you up years ago, Li Guang Zhu hated him. Now, hearing you say your father was the only obstacle between you two, he gave rise to murder.”

“So he acted.”

Li Guang Zhu denied it at once as he said: “Don’t make things up! I did not!”

Yu Zhi Yi spoke as if she had not heard him and said: “First you asked Wang Chun Juan for fifty copper coins to buy a drug and some wine. Then you climbed over the wall into the Wang clan’s yard and set the wine bottle on Old Wang’s table.”

“Old Wang loved wine more than life. Seeing wine on the table, he felt it was odd, but he did not think much. He believed one of his two daughters had sent it. That night, he drank the wine with his dinner.”

“Before long, the drug took effect and he passed out.”

“You had been lurking in the dark. When Old Wang collapsed, you cleared the dishes from the table, then dragged him into the bedroom and laid him on the cold floor. You cut him eighteen times.”

Lord Sun frowned and said: “Why go to all that trouble? If the victim is unconscious, one or two cuts would do. Also, killing him right at the dining table would be faster and easier.”

Lord Peng agreed as he said: “Yes. The more he did, the more likely he would slip up.”

Yu Zhi Yi said: “Because he knew no one would be visiting Old Wang. After his two daughters married out, Old Wang drank more and stopped hiding it. Outsiders thought he drank because his wife died and he lived alone, always in a foul mood. When he drank too much, he often quarreled.”

“At first, people still dropped by. But the more he quarreled while drunk, the fewer people came. In the end, no one visited at night.”

She continued as she said: “That is one reason. The second is that he often stood outside the teahouse to listen to storytellers. Sometimes they told mystery tales about solving cases or hauntings. Li Guang Zhu listened so much that he remembered the tricks.”

“Before the murder, he started planning. He knew that if he simply killed Old Wang, a careful yamen search might lead to him. The best way was to stage a scene. For example… a locked room.”

“Yes,” Lord Peng said: “Wasn’t the room where Old Wang was killed a locked room?”

Lord Sun added as he said: “We have examined it. The doors and windows were all locked. If he really killed someone, how did he get out?”

Li Guang Zhu nodded hard as he said: “Exactly! I don’t know invisibility and I can’t fly. If I really killed him, how could I leave?”

Yu Zhi Yi shook her head and said: “You cannot turn invisible and you cannot fly. But who said that room was truly a locked room?”

Everyone said: “What do you mean?”

Li Guang Zhu’s face changed as he said: “The yamen already examined it. Don’t talk nonsense!”

Yu Zhi Yi looked at him coolly and said: “You were the one who ‘broke the door open’ later. You pretended it was hard, but you had practiced that move many times. There were many eyes on the scene, and no one watched your hands closely.”

She turned to Lord Peng and said: “This is how Li Guang Zhu did it. He first bought the drug and wine and placed them in Old Wang’s room, then he went home. One reason was to wait for the drug to work. Another was to break the door bolt at his own house.”

“Once Old Wang fainted, he took clothes out of Old Wang’s cabinet and threw them into the yard to fake a burglary. Then he went in and killed Old Wang.”

“Next, you removed the door bolt from Old Wang’s courtyard gate and braced it against the door so it looked closed from the outside. This fooled the neighbors into thinking Old Wang had barred the gate and gone to sleep.”

“Early the next morning, you came back and pushed open the courtyard gate. Then you hid in a nearby alley. As soon as someone noticed something was wrong in the yard, you dashed out, got to the bedroom door before anyone else, pretended you could not push it open so everyone would think it was barred from the inside, and then you ‘smashed’ it open.”

“Everyone knows you do heavy labor and are strong, so no one found it strange that you could break the door with one hit.”

Li Guang Zhu turned pale. He could not understand as he thought: [How does this woman know my steps so well, down to the smallest detail?] But he would not admit anything.

“You are making this up!” he shouted as he said: “I never did any of that. You invented it!”

Yu Zhi Yi gave a cold smile and said: “Would I accuse you without evidence?”

She felt the hard, cold heart of a man who treated human life like grass, and the stench of it seemed to come from his soul.

“I said you bought wine and a drug. That wine jug is buried under the old locust tree in your yard. Although you covered it with soil, the drug inside did not vanish. Pour in some water and let an experienced coroner test it, and it will show.”

“Most importantly, the knife you used to kill Old Wang is the one inside your bundle.”

“Match the knife to the wounds, and you will have ironclad proof.”

Lord Peng gave a deep order as he said: “Men, seize this suspect!”

Li Guang Zhu turned to run.

But the constables on the scene were seasoned. Their martial arts might not be the best, but they reacted quickly when facing a killer.

Li Guang Zhu was pressed to the ground in no time.

The later work of finding and testing the evidence no longer required Yu Zhi Yi.

She returned to the manor.

At the same time, inside the Chancellor’s Manor, a sneaky figure slipped into Du Zi Heng’s Bright Radiance Courtyard.