Warden Wang sat in the seat of honor, face set in stone, silent.
These days the first thing Magistrate Zhu did on waking was inquire about the case's progress, and when Warden Wang produced nothing of value, out came the foul-mouthed abuse.
All the pressure landed on his constable's shoulders. His subordinates sheltered beneath his umbrella, safe from wind and rain — and instead of sharing his burdens, they argued with him!
Warden Wang had every right to be angry. He felt he was shouldering pressure no man his age should bear.
The constable with the case file in hand, Xu Qian, sat at the table studying it with total concentration, surrounded by colleagues silently exchanging glances.
Xu Qian's thinking was quite simple: the best way to soothe old Wang was to crack the case.
Failing that, he could always treat old Wang to a spin through Peach Blossom Grotto — they'd known each other for years, and the little boat of their friendship was still seaworthy.
Besides, Xu Qian hadn't blocked the scapegoat-fishing merely out of moral objection. He genuinely meant to ease old Wang's troubles.
[The deceased, named Zhang Yourui, fifty-one years old, a wealthy dog-tycoon of Kangping Street. Over ten qing of prime fields in the Changle County outskirts. Three shops in the capital, selling silk, cosmetics, and sundries respectively.
His first wife died young. He remarried a respectable woman twenty years his junior. Zhang Yourui had one son, a child of his late wife, and no other descendants.]
Twenty years his junior — an old staff into fresh oyster, pear blossom crushed beneath crabapple, thought Xu Qian wryly.
This was what people meant by: work hard enough at making money, and your future wife might still be in kindergarten.
Four days ago, Zhang Yourui rode out to collect rents, returning home around the Hour of the Tiger in the dead of night. In the house, his sleeping wife suddenly heard a bloodcurdling cry. She came out to look, and Zhang Yourui lay dead in the courtyard. The wife saw a dark figure vault over the wall and flee...
That was the whole sequence of events.
When Xu Qian reached the coroner's autopsy report, he caught another discrepancy.
He read on patiently, finishing the depositions of the deceased's family and servants. Then he closed his eyes, untangling his thoughts.
Warden Wang gave a cold snort, needling him: "Pray tell, Constable Xu, who is the killer, and where is he?"
"Not so fast, Boss." Xu Qian opened his eyes. "I saw in the file that footprints were found on the outer wall of the Zhang residence, right? From that you inferred the thief vaulted the wall to flee, and the little wife's account held water."
Warden Wang grunted in assent.
"The prints face outward, so they were left during the escape." Xu Qian said.
"What of it?" Warden Wang frowned.
"Why were footprints left behind?"
"Because the soles carried mud."
"Why the mud?"
"Because the flower bed ran along the wall."
Xu Qian nodded. "Then why does the file record no footprints entering the courtyard?"
Warden Wang went blank.
In the silence, the other constables thought he'd lost face and filled in for him: "Maybe the thief noticed when entering and left no trace."
Another chimed in: "But after the killing, desperate to get away, he left footprints in his hurry."
Xu Qian swept his gaze across them. "That's possible. Then, since the flower bed is at the foot of the wall, are there footprints in the flower bed from the entry? By all rights, if the thief could leap from outside the wall and clear the flower bed without leaving a mark... with qinggong like that, he'd have no need to plant a foot on the wall for leverage when fleeing."
They exchanged bewildered looks and could not answer.
They didn't need to answer — Xu Qian already knew. It wasn't "yes" or "no." It was: they didn't know.
The constables had never even checked.
"Ningyan, what's there to argue about?" someone objected.
Xu Qian didn't answer. He looked at the frowning, mulling Warden Wang and pressed on: "The deceased was killed by a heavy blow to the back of the head from a blunt object, correct?"
Warden Wang nodded. "Died on the spot."
Xu Qian said, "I have a question. Why a blunt object? A man doing this sort of work would be armed. Wouldn't a blade have been cleaner and faster?"
The side hall fell quiet. Clearly, everyone had come to realize the problem. Xiao Li guessed, "Maybe the thief never meant to kill at first?"
"Wrong!"
This time it wasn't Xu Qian refuting — it was Warden Wang. He stood up, eyes widening slightly: "A blunt blow to the back of the head, one strike to kill. That's murderous intent."
He sank back into his chair, muttering: "Yes... why a blunt object? Why not a blade?"
"Unless the killer had no suitable weapon at hand." Xu Qian said.
Warden Wang's eyes suddenly lit up, as if he'd seized hold of something, though he hadn't yet grasped it wholly.
"And the last point — the one I care about most." Xu Qian glanced at the file. "When the deceased's family was summoned to the yamen for questioning, Zhang Yang-shi collapsed from kneeling too long. When the physician examined her, he found she was pregnant."
"A posthumous child."
"How tragic. The child has lost its father before ever being born."
The peanut gallery was insufferable, each chiming in over the other.
"Zhang Yang-shi has been married to the deceased for nearly ten years. Why, of all times, does she get pregnant now?" Xu Qian waited until they finished to get a word in.
"Maybe the child isn't the deceased's at all?"
If both were healthy and sound, a couple couldn't go ten years without a child unless they were deliberately avoiding one.
One of them must have a problem with their body, making fertility difficult. And with the antiquity's techniques for treating infertility — not impossible, but the odds of success were certainly low.
Warden Wang's breathing grew heavy. "Ningyan, speak clearly. Speak clearly..."
Xu Qian took a sip of tea to wet his throat. "Perhaps this isn't a home-invasion theft at all, but a case of adultery and murder. Zhang Yang-shi cuckolded her husband with a lover — either a man from outside, or the dead man's own son. The two carried on their secret tryst while the deceased was out collecting rent. Who could have predicted the deceased would return early, catch them red-handed, and a fight break out? In a rage, the lover snatched up a vase or some other blunt object and beat the deceased to death."
"Zhang Yang-shi and her lover hastily cleaned up the scene and dragged the body into the courtyard, making it look like a thief had broken in to rob."
"Since the lover was coming for a tryst, he'd scouted the ground in advance, memorized the night-patrol rounds, and that's why the Patrol Watch never spotted him. If the thief had truly been after money, he would never have chosen that night — he'd have waited until the deceased converted his rent silver into notes he could stuff in his pocket and carry off."
"Zhang Yang-shi's story simply rode the tailwind of the rent collection, steering your thoughts toward 'in it for the money.'"
The whole roomful of constables stared, wide-eyed and dumbstruck.
"This... this... judging the killer just from reading the file?"
"Ningyan, this isn't a game. Don't talk nonsense."
"But... doesn't it make sense?"
What Xu Qian had just pulled left them with one feeling, summed up in four words: bafflingly brilliant.
"I'm only making bold guesses from the case details. This may not be the truth — it needs to be verified." Xu Qian answered his astonished colleagues.
Cracking a case was simply: gather the clues, then reason and analyze, then verify; collect the evidence.
The thief slipping past the night patrols... the wrong timing for a burglary... killing with a blunt object instead of a blade... Zhang Yang-shi's pregnancy. Through Xu Qian's sifting, these seemingly inconsequential details had knit themselves into clues that fit the logic.
Warden Wang felt a whole new door opening in his career. He drew a deep breath to steady his surging emotions. After savoring it, he found one thing in Xu Qian's words confused him: "Why do you think the lover is the deceased's son?"
"My suspicion rests on two points." Xu Qian sipped his tea at leisure, and in the eager eyes of Warden Wang and the other constables, said measuredly:
"The deceased's son Zhang Xian stated in his deposition that he was reading the accounts in his study that night and did not sleep with his wife. If he was awake, how could he not have heard the commotion in the courtyard?"
"Zhang Yang-shi was startled awake by the scream, which shows the noise was tremendous. Yet he, wide awake, heard not a peep. Does that hold up?"
"Secondly, if we can't find any trace the thief left in the flower bed when sneaking in, then this so-called thief very likely doesn't exist. If that's the case, suspicion falls heavily on the dead man's son."
The pieces clicked. Scales fell from eyes.
Warden Wang asked, "So... those footprints on the wall were likely left deliberately to mislead us."
Xu Qian guessed: "Yes. Right, next step — just compare the deceased's son's boots."
"Surely he wouldn't leave his own footprints," Warden Wang said.
Xu Qian's face brimmed with admiration, and he laid on a thick shovelful of flattery: "Boss is truly brilliant and martial, understanding at a single word. Truly a divine constable of Great Feng."
Xu Qian had just spilled a jaw-dropping theory at length to build up his image, then swung around for a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree bout of sycophancy. Comfortable... The dark, farmer-like face of Warden Wang broke into a smile.
He felt his own stature rise a notch.
"I'll go to Magistrate Zhu right now. You lot, get ready — we're heading back to the Zhang residence." That weathered, farmer-dark face showed an agitation he could barely contain.
He jabbed a finger toward Xu Qian and let out two creaky, tractor-like laughs, then scurried out of the rest room, off to the inner hall to find his lord the Magistrate.