During the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, a murder case occurred in a county named Qinghe County in the south of the Yangtze River.
On this day, Wu Haiyi, the county magistrate of Qinghe County, was taking a nap in his courtyard when he suddenly heard someone beating a drum to protest his grievances. Wu Haiyi had no choice but to change into an official uniform and come to the county government office. But there was a man in his thirties kneeling in the hall, with silk and satin, he could be seen as a merchant at a glance.
“Who is in the hall? Why are you complaining?” Wu Haiyi asked, slapping the gavel.
“My lord, my villain’s name is Chen Dong. He lives in the west of the city. Because he is doing business all year round, he spends very little time at home. But when I got home today, I heard that my concubine committed suicide at home. She already has my own flesh and blood, and that concubine has always had a very good relationship with me, and she will never hang herself for no reason! I hope you will be the master of the people!” After speaking, tears flowed out of her eyes.
As soon as Wu Haiyi heard about the death, it was a dead body and two lives. Not daring to be negligent, he immediately took the policeman and Wu Zuo to Chen Dong’s house.
It didn’t take long to arrive at Chen’s house, and the servants in the family had already started to make funeral arrangements.
Wu Haiyi and others followed Chen Dong to the room where his concubine committed suicide. His concubine’s body had been removed from the white silk and placed on the bed, and the scene had been destroyed.
Wu Haiyi was very angry when he saw it, and asked Chen Dong, “Who took down the corpse?”
Chen Dong replied honestly: “It was the villain who made it down. The villain saw Xueer like this, and his heart ached!” After speaking, he began to cry.
“Do you know that you ruined the scene like this! If your concubine was really murdered, some clues will be destroyed by you doing it like this!” Wu Haiyi didn’t care whether Chen Dong was hurt or not. A reprimand.
Chen Dong knew that he had done something wrong, so he lowered his head and stood aside. Wu Haiyi asked Wu Zuo to go for an autopsy, and he looked around in the room. There were already many footprints in the room, and even if there were any clues left by the murderer, it was completely destroyed. After searching for a while, I found no useful clues at all.
At this time, Wu’s autopsy report also came out. The deceased died in the early morning and had no external injuries. It was preliminarily determined that the death was not murder.
After Chen Dong heard the report, he knelt on the ground and cried, saying that his concubine must not have committed suicide. Seeing Chen Dong like this, Wu Haiyi couldn’t scold him anymore. Wu Haiyi walked to the bedside and looked at the corpse. He rolled his eyes, his face turned blue, and he stuck out his tongue slightly.
Suddenly, Wu Haiyi’s head flashed, and he immediately said to Wu Zuo: “Master Li, measure the height of the deceased!”
Wu Zuo took the order to leave, and after a while Wu Zuo said to Wu Haiyi: “My lord, the deceased is four feet seven inches tall!”
“Well, you go and measure the distance between the white silk and the chair!” Wu Zuo had no choice but to obey.
“My lord, there is a distance of five feet!”
After hearing this, Wu Haiyi nodded and asked Chen Dong, “Who first discovered your concubine died in the room?”
“It’s a maid who served my concubine during her lifetime!”
“Go and call everyone in your family to the hall, I have something to ask!”
Chen Dong’s father, Chen Xiang, was a scholar. After going to Beijing several times to take the exam, he returned home disheartened; Chen Dong was the only son in the family, and his wife gave him a daughter. The concubine who came back to die, this concubine was originally a prostitute, and his father Chen Xiang had strongly opposed Chen Dong to accept her as a concubine.
After asking about the situation, Wu Haiyi felt that Chen Dong’s main wife was the most suspect in this case. First, Chen Dong’s main wife often had trouble with concubines; The concubine is pregnant with Chen Dong’s flesh and blood, and if she gives birth to a son, her status will definitely be shaken; the third is that last night a maid saw Chen Dong’s main wife entering the concubine’s room, and came out after a while.
Wu Haiyi asked the police to take Chen Dong’s wife back to the county government and imprison her first. Chen Dong’s wife kept yelling for injustice.
After returning to the county government office, Wu Haiyi asked Chen Dong’s wife, “Mr. Chen Li, I ask you, what did you do in Han Xueer’s room last night? Tell me honestly, if not, you will be punished!”
“I only went to her room to chat for a while!” Chen Li replied.
Wu Haiyi was furious when he heard this, he slapped the gavel and said to the yamen servant: “Come here, I will serve you with great torture!”
When Chen Li saw the yamen servants coming up with torture tools, she was so frightened that she kowtowed, begging for mercy, “I confess, I confess everything! Last night, I boiled a bowl of anti-abortion medicine for Han Xueer to drink.”
“Is your medicine a miscarriage medicine?”
“It’s a miscarriage medicine!” Chen Lishi nodded.
“Come here, punish this criminal woman!”
“Ah!” Mrs. Chen Li was pinched to death by the bamboo clamp.
“My lord, I’ll recruit, I’ll recruit them all!” Mrs. Chen couldn’t bear the severe punishment. Wu Haiyi told the yamen servants to stop using torture.
“What I gave Han Xue’er was not a miscarriage medicine, but a miscarriage medicine!”
“Why did you give her abortion pills?”
Chen Lishi gritted her teeth and said: “Since the master brought that bitch Han Xue’er home, the master no longer pays attention to me, I hate, I can’t wait to kill that little bitch! I know that if the little bitch gives birth to the master The next one is a man and a half woman, and I will have no status in the family, so I want to get rid of that bitch’s child. Who knows that bitch hanged himself when he knew that he was drinking abortion pills, not abortion pills. You have eyes!” Chen Lishi laughed out loud after finishing speaking.
“Did you see Han Xueer hang herself?”
“I didn’t see it. After she drank the abortion pill, I left.”
After the yamen guard put Chen Lishi in prison, Wu Haiyi thought about what happened today in his mind, and felt that Chen Lishi was not the murderer, but other than her, no one else was suspected. Wu Haiyi felt that he still had to visit Chen’s house tomorrow.
After breakfast the next day, Wu Haiyi and others came to Chen’s house, and Han Xueer’s body had already been buried. Han Xueer’s death did not seem to have caused much pain to the Chen family. Only Chen Dong and his mother were more sad, and it was impossible to tell from Chen Xiang’s face that it was his daughter-in-law who died.
Wu Haiyi felt very strange and asked: “Master Chen, you don’t seem to have much pain for the death of Han Xueer and the child in her womb?”
“Master County Magistrate, what do you mean by this? It is a misfortune for the old man’s family to have such a thing happen! The old man is heartbroken now!”
“Master Chen, I made a slip of the tongue just now, please don’t take offense!” Wu Haiyi accompanied him with a salute.
“Master County Magistrate, don’t do this, it’s a shame to be old.”
“Master Chen, the night Han Xueer died, you didn’t hear any abnormal noises in her room?”
“Didn’t the old man tell the county magistrate yesterday? On the night Han Xue’er had an accident, the old man was reading in the study and didn’t go back to sleep until late at night!”
“Master Chen never went out?”
“Magistrate, what do you mean by your words? Do you suspect that the old man is the murderer?” Chen Xiang seemed very excited.
“I’m just asking, I don’t doubt Master Chen. Master Chen hasn’t answered my question yet.”
“The old man didn’t step out of the study room that night!” Just as Chen Xiang finished speaking, he heard the little girl next to Chen Xiang blurt out: “Grandpa was wrong, Yan’er clearly saw that night…”
“My lord is talking, so why don’t children get in the way, hurry up and get out!” Before the little girl could finish speaking, Chen Xiang cut her off.
“Why does Mr. Chen have the same knowledge as a child, little girl, come here!” Wu Haiyi waved to the little girl.
The little girl seemed frightened by Chen Xiang’s scolding just now, she stood aside and lowered her head.
“Master County Magistrate, children are not sensible, let’s talk about us!” Chen Xiang looked very nervous.
“Master Chen, sometimes children’s words are more reliable than adults’. Children can’t lie! Little girl, come here, uncle wants to ask you something.”
The little girl still stood still, looking at Chen Xiang, Wu Haiyi walked to the little girl with a smile, touched the little girl’s head and asked, “Little girl, what’s your name? How old are you?”
“My name is Chen Yan, and I am six years old this year.”
“You just said that you saw where your grandfather went that night, can you tell uncle?”
Chen Yan looked at Chen Xiang and said, “I saw Grandpa enter Aunt Xue’s room!”
Wu Haiyi patted Chen Yan’s head with a smile, and said, “Yan’er, you go out first! Uncle still has something to say to your grandpa.” After hearing this, Chen Yan obediently went out.
“Master Chen, don’t you plan to say something?”
“I don’t have anything to say, the county magistrate won’t arrest me just because of a child’s words!” Chen Xiang looked very calm.
“Of course not, but I want to know what you were doing in Han Xue’er’s room that night? Mr. Chen is a man of poetry and books. He ran to his daughter-in-law’s room in the middle of the night to compose poetry, right?”
“Master County Magistrate, you are also a scholar after all, how can you say such a thing!”
“Master Chen, since you know that you are a scholar, you should tell the truth, or else you have spent so many years studying the teachings of Confucius and Mencius!”
After Chen Xiang listened, he lowered his head, sighed and said, “Han Xueer was killed by this old man.”
“Why did you kill him?”
“Who told her to be disobedient…”
It turns out that Chen Xiang has always opposed his son Chen Dong accepting Han Xueer as a concubine, and this Han Xueer is a prostitute. Chen Xiang was deeply impressed by Zhu Licheng’s thoughts, and thought that marrying Han Xueer would be a disgrace to the family. But Chen Dong insisted on taking Han Xueer as his concubine, and Chen Xiang had no choice but to agree. But after marriage, except for Chen Dong and his mother, no one else gave Han Xueer a good face. Within a few days after the marriage, Chen Dong went out to do business and rarely returned home. Two or three months later, Han Xueer felt unwell, and asked the doctor to come and tell her that she was pregnant. After Chen Xiang heard the news, he was very angry. He thought that the child in Han Xueer’s womb belonged to someone else, and that Han Xueer hooked up with other men because of his loneliness after his son went out. For the sake of the family’s reputation, Chen Xiang decided to kill the child in Han Xueer’s belly.
That night, shortly after Han Xueer drank Chen Li’s abortion pill, her stomach began to hurt and she passed out. It just so happened that Chen Xiang came in at this time. After Chen Xiang came in, without saying a word, after hanging up the white silk, he picked up Han Xueer and hung it on the white silk. He didn’t leave the room until Han Xueer died.
Chen Xiang originally thought that the clothes he made were perfect, but who knew that everything was secret and nothing was sparse. I was seen by my granddaughter entering Han Xueer’s room; and this Han Xueer was only four feet seven inches tall, but the distance between the white silk and the chair was five inches. Obviously Han Xueer did not hang herself, but was killed by someone else. murdered.
Chen Xiang knew that he had committed a capital crime, which was unforgivable, so he slammed his head against a pillar in the hall and died of bleeding.