Ye Cijiu frowned, "What do you want this for?"
"I want to solve the case," Ye Tian said in a low voice. "I want to know what happened, so I can at least die with a clear mind. Otherwise, I won't be at peace."
He didn't directly say he wanted to solve the case, knowing Ye Cijiu would probably think he was crazy. Instead, he chose a phrasing that matched the original host's personality—after all, the original Ye Tian was a stubborn and obstinate man.
Ye Cijiu pondered for a moment. "I've seen the file. I can tell you about it."
For the past few days, he had been running around for the Ye family's crisis. He found the case too complex, and no one dared to help. With no one to turn to, he changed his approach, trying to find a way out by recovering the tax silver. He had used the Ye family's connections, his ties to the academy, and some bribes to get a Jingzhao Prefecture clerk to copy the case file for him. However, with no experience in criminal investigation, he eventually gave up.
"You need to write it down. A verbal account is useless," Ye Tian interrupted.
All the details of a case were in the written text, which needed to be carefully scrutinized. If he had to divide his attention to listen, his brain wouldn't be able to calmly analyze and deduce. In his past life, Ye Tian's logical deduction skills were top-notch, making him the best in his class.
Normally, Ye Cijiu wouldn't have indulged him, but thinking that this separation might be their last, he agreed to his cousin's final request. "Wait a moment," he said softly, and hurried off.
As the sound of his footsteps faded down the corridor, Ye Tian sat down with his back against the bars, his heart a mix of anxiety and apprehension.
He wasn't confident he could turn the situation around. The desire to solve the case was just a wish, but his unwillingness to give up was genuine. This was the only way he could think of to save himself; he had to try, to make one last desperate struggle.
In modern criminal investigation, a crime scene investigation, surveillance, and an autopsy are three indispensable parts. The tax silver case had no casualties, ancient times had no surveillance, and he was stuck in a prison cell. He had no access to any of these. Fortunately, the case file could, to a certain extent, reconstruct the crime scene.
As he absorbed the original host's memories, he forced himself to discard all negative emotions. Only a calm mind could have a clear thought process and make rigorous deductions.
"Whether I live or die depends on what happens next..." he murmured.
An incense stick's time passed, and Ye Cijiu rushed back, handing him several sheets of paper with ink that was still wet.
"Time's up. I have to go," Ye Cijiu said, hesitating for a moment. "Take care of yourself."
Ye Tian didn't reply, his eyes already drawn to the writing on the paper. The writing was in a hurried, cursive style. If he hadn't attended a few years of private school, he wouldn't have been able to read the scribbles. "Studying is useful after all. If the original host were illiterate... it would be completely hopeless," Ye Tian thought, mocking himself.
The details of the tax silver case were as follows:
[At 6:30 a.m. three days ago, Ye Hongtu was escorting a batch of tax silver into the capital. At 7:15 a.m., they were on Guangnan Street. Just after crossing the bridge, a strange gust of wind suddenly appeared, startling the horses and causing them to bolt into the river by the street.
Shortly after, a deafening explosion was heard. The river water shot up twenty feet high, and the waves surged.
The soldiers in charge of the escort jumped into the river to search for the silver, but only recovered one thousand two hundred and fifteen taels. The rest of the silver vanished without a trace...]
In addition to the case details, the file also contained testimonies from passersby and the escorting soldiers collected by the Jingzhao Prefecture. Amid these testimonies, Ye Tian noticed a phrase highlighted in red cinnabar: A demonic creature was at work!
"A demonic creature?!" Ye Tian's pupils contracted, and his heart sank to the bottom.
Jingzhao Prefecture, Rear Hall.
After three consecutive days of running around, the three main officials in charge of the lost tax silver case gathered.
The Prefect of Jingzhao, Chen Hanguang, held a white porcelain and blue flower teacup, his expression grave. This fourth-rank official, in a crimson robe embroidered with wild geese, sighed softly. "We have two more days. His Majesty has ordered us to recover the tax silver before Ye Hongtu's execution. My lords, we must hurry."
The two officials Chen Hanguang referred to were a middle-aged man in a black uniform and dark cape. He had a prominent nose, slightly sunken eyes, and light brown pupils, showing his half-barbarian heritage.
The other was a young woman with a goose-egg-shaped face wearing a yellow skirt. She had delicate features, skin like polished jade, and a captivating gaze. She held a piece of sugarcane in her hand, and a small deerskin pouch and a bagua compass hung from her waist. A pair of small, embroidered boots swung gently beneath her skirt.
These two were assisting the case. The middle-aged man was named Li Yuchun, from an organization that officials of the Great Feng Dynasty greatly feared: the Night Watchman Office.
The "Night Watchman Office" was an organization that handled reconnaissance, arrests, and interrogations. It also collected military intelligence and worked to turn enemy generals. It belonged to neither the six ministries nor the military system; it was the imperial family's intelligence organization, a guillotine hanging over the heads of all officials. Every official in the Great Feng Dynasty knew the saying: "Those who do no evil in the daytime fear not the Night Watchman in the evening."
The young woman in the yellow skirt was from the Si Tian Jian, an astronomical bureau. Her identity was not low; she was a disciple of the Directorate of the Si Tian Jian.
The middle-aged man with a silver gong embroidered on his chest glanced at the sugarcane residue the young woman had spit onto the floor. He frowned, then spun his hand, and a gust of air gathered the residue into one spot. A fleeting look of satisfaction crossed his face.
Then, his expression grew serious again as he spoke to Prefect Chen. "This case is shrouded in mist; it is very strange. Perhaps we're looking in the wrong direction."
"What makes you say that, Lord Li?" Prefect Chen frowned. The analysis so far had largely concluded that a demonic creature was at fault for stealing the tax silver.
"We don't have much time. What we should be doing now is quickly capturing the rogue demon, not thinking about these confusing things," Prefect Chen said. In recent years, the national treasury had been empty, and disasters were frequent. One hundred and fifty thousand taels of tax silver was equivalent to a year's revenue for a normal county, so the Emperor's fury was understandable.
I have no money to begin with, and you mess things up for me. How infuriating!
Prefect Chen had diligently taken on this case, and the burden was so heavy he couldn't eat or sleep well.
The middle-aged man shook his head without arguing. He changed the subject. "Is there any new information from Ye Hongtu's end?"
Prefect Chen shook his head. "He's just a common soldier who keeps yelling that he's been wronged. He doesn't even know how the tax silver was lost."
The young woman in the yellow skirt said flatly, "I observed his 'qi'. He's not lying."
Li Yuchun and Prefect Chen nodded and didn't continue to discuss him. As the suspect, Ye Hongtu was the first to be investigated and interrogated. His social connections and financial situation were thoroughly checked. With the aid of the Si Tian Jian's Qi Observation Technique, he was now cleared of suspicion. Of course, with the tax silver lost, he was still guilty of dereliction of duty, and the death penalty was unavoidable.
The middle-aged man and Prefect Chen looked grave and felt heavy-hearted. Only the young woman in the yellow skirt, who had the least pressure, was carefree as she gnawed on her sugarcane.
At that moment, footsteps sounded, and a yamen runner hurried in. He held a small bamboo tube in his right hand and a hot, steaming meat bun wrapped in paper in his left.
The runner first offered the bamboo tube. The young woman didn't take it. Her bright, starlike eyes glanced at the meat bun. The runner shrewdly changed the order. The young woman happily began to gnaw on the meat bun before accepting the bamboo tube, pulling out a note, and reading it:
"My man said that for twenty miles along the river, no demonic aura was detected in the water, and there were no traces on the riverbanks."
Bang!
The tense atmosphere finally broke. Prefect Chen slammed the table, his face ashen with fury. "One hundred and fifty thousand taels of silver—where could it have gone? It had to have come ashore! It had to have! It's been three days, and we still haven't found a single trace of the perpetrator."
"Damn it! What kind of demon dares to intercept the tax silver of my Great Feng Dynasty? I will make sure it is utterly destroyed!"
If he couldn't recover the tax silver, he would have to take the blame. The Emperor wouldn't care if he was wronged. By sitting in that position, he had to take the fall. That's how it was in officialdom: you worked hard to climb up, but it was easy to fall.
The middle-aged man, Li Yuchun, let out a sigh and returned to the previous topic. "Could it be that we're looking in the wrong direction? Maybe it wasn't a demonic creature's doing."
Prefect Chen looked at him, took a deep breath, and suppressed his anger. "If it wasn't a demon, then where did that strange wind come from? How could the silver vanish into thin air after falling into the river? And how could an explosion create a wave twenty feet high, cracking the riverbanks?"