Chapter 28(1/2)
Suizhou really didn't know what expression to use to face Lord Tang.
You say that a person with the talent of the top scholar failed to become the top scholar in the end, but he was also the fourth in the country and was personally praised by the emperor. If you write something like "The Interpretation of the Analects of Confucius" and "The New Interpretation of Zhu Zi", it can be considered as applying what you have learned and it will be the only one. But now you go to write those Fengyue Stories and Talks to make a fuss?
Lord Tang smiled, not ashamed, but rather proud: "The salary is low, you can earn some money. Guangchuan doesn't have to be so surprised. Anyway, no one except you know that it was written by me, but this book has been published by a book merchant for 1,000 copies, which is considered to be a very good seller."
Suizhou was completely aroused his interest, and he pulled out the book alone: "I will read it."
Tang Fan: "That's great. I received my book and I'm going to trouble you."
Sui Zhou raised his eyebrows and expressed his doubts.
Tang Fan felt that the other party had accepted his book, so he could also trouble the other party to do something small: "How about you help me pick the locust leaves outside?"
Suizhou: "…"
He thought this was a human exchange?
It turns out that after a long time of trouble, the other party hasn't given up eating cold noodles yet?
He is really the best foodie in the world!
Of course, Lord Tang would not think so. He felt that a person as interested in life as himself was born to save the wood of Suizhou. Look, with his own joining, the other party's life was immediately filled with sunshine.
But until the end, the locust leaves he was thinking about couldn't eat them.
Because Suizhou took the two of them directly to the restaurant outside and picked up a meal.
There is no cold noodles with locust leaves, but there are crab-stuffed oranges and steamed shrimps. The shrimps have just been caught from the river. They are not as sweet as sea shrimps, but they are not bad. Sliced with sesame oil on the soy sauce, and chopped garlic, peel the shrimps and dip them into a bite. This is the enjoyment of the world.
Lord Tang was satisfied with his meal, and his sense of happiness arose: "Guangchuan, look at the noisy and bustling moments, and you can steal half a day of leisure in your life, while eating and watching the various aspects of the world. That is the leisure that you can't even ask for, and it is also a kind of enjoyment. You can sit down and taste it slowly."
This person is very well raised, neither too straightforward and difficult to interact with those honest officials, nor as many as those honest officials, nor as many people in the world want golden houses and thousand millets, to wake up and hold the power of the world, and lie drunk on the knees of beautiful people.
Suizhou's cold eyes showed a smile, and he shook his head and said, "Even if I am Xiu Mu, I usually stay in the Beizhen Fushi Department to review the files, and I rarely come out. Otherwise, if I am promoted to a hundred households at my age, if I don't work harder, it will only make people think that they were promoted by nepotism."
Tang Fan yelled: "What do others like to think? That's someone else's business. We each have a pair of hands, and no one can stop everyone. As long as we have a clear conscience, we still have to enjoy what we should enjoy on weekdays."
This was very reasonable. Suizhou was about to say something, but he heard Master Tang change the subject, "That, let the store pack two cold dishes for us later, and it will be time to eat for the night."
Sui Zhou looked at him expressionlessly.
Lord Tang blinked: "That one can be stopped?"
A Dong could not help but smile while covering her mouth.
With one Suizhou and one A Dong, Lord Tang thought that he would have been running into a happy life without touching the spring water from now on, but unexpectedly, he attracted two old mothers to himself. He was always in charge of food, especially when it comes to food, so he could only look at those snacks and sigh.
But overall, this kind of life is still pretty good. After all, every day when you go home, you can have one or two people waiting for you. You can have a hot meal, see a smile, and hear greetings. His sister married away from another place, but now she seems like she has two more families, and it feels completely different.
For A Dong, she was in the Li family before. Although Zhang was good to her and A Chun was willing to take care of her, she was still a servant after all, not to enjoy her happiness. There was a difference between superiority and inferiority. No matter how lively she was, she could not be too presumptuous. That was why she liked to always go over to find Tang Fan. Now she recognized Tang Fan as her brother. This feeling of having family is also indescribable. When she moved to the Sui family, the little girl was so excited that she couldn't sleep well for several days.
But in fact, it is not just Tang Fan and A Dong, but Sui Zhou didn't say that since he went home more and more often, the time was getting earlier and earlier, he did not even spend the rest in the North Town Fushi Department. His idea was probably similar to Tang Fan.
However, the whereabouts of Chen's family were not smooth. If Chen was alone now, she would definitely not be able to run far, because after strict investigation, she would need an ultimatum document to go out of the city. But if Chen had collusion with the White Lotus Sect as Tang Fan guessed, it would not be difficult for her to get out of the city under the protection of the organization.
Once you leave the city, you will enter the fish like the sea, and the sea will be vast.
With the great powers of the Jinyiwei, after searching for several days, no trace of Chen was found in the city. This woman seemed to have completely disappeared from the crowd.
On the day of the incident, Tang Fan could have detained Chen, but at that time he had already found that this woman was a little strange, so he thought about taking a long line to catch big fish, to see if she had any other accomplices or tricks. Who knew that this woman was so cunning. Taking advantage of everyone's opinion that she was not very important, he just sent the yamen run away without a trace.
On the other hand, something even more bizarre happened on the eve of Li Man being taken out of Wanping County Prison and preparing to be moved to the Ministry of Justice.
Li Man is dead.
He committed suicide.
After Li Man broke the bowl of food served by the prisoner in prison, he deliberately hid the sharp fragments, and then inserted them directly into his chest in the dead of night. He died of fatal wounds and excessive blood loss. When he found out, he was already exhausted.
On the wall next to his body, there were two words written by him with his heart and blood.
Tang Fan.
These two blood-red and blood-red words were really shocking, reflecting Li Man's body with his eyes open and his eyes were dying. The jailer who was used to this kind of scene screamed at that time.
There have always been many prisoners who committed suicide by being tortured in prison, but the only way to die in the ages is to die. Even if many people were sentenced to death, they would rather be cut off by a knife until the last moment without the courage to end their lives.
What's more, prisoners like Li Man have not yet finalized the case. Maybe there is still a chance to overturn the case in the end, or it may be exiled rather than being directly sentenced to death.
When Tang Fan heard the news, he went to check it out. Li Man's body was gone. The cell where he was originally detained was dark and wet. He had to look at the candlelight in broad daylight to see the situation inside. The two words written in blood had solidified and changed color, but you can still see what was written.
Li Man deserves his crime, and Tang Fan directly exposed his motives and thoughts to kill people naked. It is not surprising that he hated Tang Fan. However, can this hatred be so great that he still remembers it before he dies, and he insists on engraving Tang Fan's name on the wall? You know, even if there is no Tang Fan, the murder case may have been revealed by someone else, and there is no suspense at all.
When Li Man was dying, what he was thinking about was not his only son, his own wealth, his desire for survival, but his hatred for Tang Fan?
Looking at these two blood words, Tang Fan always felt that there were still many mysteries lingering in his heart and many doubts waiting to be solved.
He rushed to the Li family again.
After Li Man's body was found dead by coroner test, he was taken back by the Li family and prepared to be buried. The dead were the most serious, and even if he rebelled, he would allow him to collect the body, not to mention that Li Man just killed his wife.
The Li family did not welcome Tang Fan, especially Li Lin. When he saw Tang Fan, his face looked extremely ugly and he started to drive him away.
Tang Fan said: "I just came here and left immediately after reading it."
Li Lin sneered: "What's the good thing about it? Is it that my father died and you won't even let go of the body? I've heard that before he died, he wrote your name on the wall. I haven't asked Lord Tang, what did you do in my father's death?"
Tang Fan asked back: "I have no grudges and no grudges with your Li family, so why do you have to deal with me?"
Li Lin: "That's hard to say. Who doesn't know that Axia admires you before, but later Axia did, it's not impossible for you to avenge her. Anyway, my father has been in prison, so you can do whatever you want."
Tang Fan was too lazy to defend himself: "Li Man's crimes are subject to national laws. As a court official, now that he is dead, I will come over to find out the situation."
Li Lin refused to give in: "My father has been buried in the coffin soon, and no one can disturb him! The national law does not say that the dead will be punished!"
Tang Fan waved his hand directly, and the left and right yamen runners behind him stepped forward and pushed Li Lin and others away. Tang Fan Yue came forward and asked Lao Wang to push open the lid of the coffin.
A pale, bloodless face was revealed, and the clothes on her body were also replaced with a new set.
But it was indeed Li Man.
Just as Tang Fan was pondering, Li Lin rushed forward and pushed Lao Wang and the others away, protected him in front of the coffin, and looked at Tang Fan angrily: "Have you seen enough? My father doesn't want to see you, get out!!!"
He was a civilian, but he dared to be so rude to the imperial court. Lao Wang and others were very angry and wanted to scold him when they stepped forward, but Tang Fan reached out to stop him.
The Li family originally planned to go south, but now that Li Man has died, he has simply arranged the hall into a mourning hall to mourn and burn incense to his family. However, because Li Man committed the crime of killing his wife, it was absolutely impossible for Zhang's mother's family to come, so the mourning hall is deserted, and Li Lin is wearing mourning clothes, and he looks even more lonely and helpless.
If an outsider is here and sees the confrontation between the two sides, he will definitely think that Tang Fan is bullying Li Lin because of his identity.
Tang Fan didn't say anything, but just walked around the coffin, lit a stick of incense for Li Man, and then said to Li Lin: "The dead are the most important, so I won't disturb you. But I hope you will study hard and be serious in the face of your dead mother. Don't repeat your father's mistakes. I believe your father is willing to make progress."
Li Lin stared at him coldly: "It won't cost you any more people to worry about it."
Since his mother's death, his voice has become hoarse, and he probably cried a lot in private, so that he almost lost his voice.
Tang Fan frowned, feeling that the boy's character has changed a lot since his parents died. Although he didn't see Li Lin many times before, the other party was definitely not as unreasonable and inhumane as today.
Perhaps the death of Zhang and Li Man was really a big blow to him, right?
Seeing that Li Lin was so discomfortable, Tang Fan did not stay for too long and quickly left the Li family.
However, the matter has not been finished yet.
The night when Tang Fan came to the Li family, a fire broke out in the Li family. Li Lin and other servants of the Li family escaped, but the butler, Lao Li, missed the opportunity to escape because he wanted to protect Li Man's body and was burned to death.
In addition, the two blood words written by Li Man in prison before his death made the whole thing cover a veil of mystery.
A few days later, Tang Fan was impeached.
The person who impeached Tang Fan was the right clerk of the Zheng Department, named Zhuoxing.
The Criminal Department is not the Ministry of Justice. In the Ming Dynasty, in addition to the Six Ministry, there was another department called Six Ministry. The officials here were either the seventh rank or the seventh rank. The grade was very low and could not be compared with the Six Ministry. However, they also had a general term, also called the Kedao Censor.
The six statutes were set up by the emperor in the past, so that these people could specifically supervise all officials and impeach any corrupt and abuse of power. They were given great authority and even the cabinet could not hold their memorials. However, in order to prevent them from being lawless, they were given the lowest rank, which was considered to be mutually controlled.
Previously, Li Man once threatened Tang Fan, saying that his family's ancestors were third-rank ministers and that there were old elders in the court. This was not a false threat, because Zhuoxing's father and Li Man's grandfather were old friends, but they were all friendships of the previous generation. When Li Man came to Li Man, the friendship was very shallow, otherwise no one would have been for him after he was imprisoned.
But the incense is still somewhat serious. Li Man's evidence was confirmed before, and the Ministry of Justice did not finalize it. Zhu Xing couldn't help him. Now Li Man is dead and wrote Tang Fan's name before his death. Everything seemed to be full of doubts, so Zhu Xing submitted a memorial to impeach Tang Fan for the mistake of investigating the case, believing that Li Man suddenly died before the case was concluded and could not be separated from Tang Fan.
In the Ming Dynasty, no one had written a few impeachment memorials on his back, and he was embarrassed to say that he was an official when he went out. Moreover, Li Man's incident was indeed a bit strange. In order to avoid suspicion, Tang Fan simply stepped down and faced the wall at home to be punished.
He thought it was nothing, but Pan Bin was so angry.
Although Lord Pan couldn't talk much about this junior brother on weekdays, he was his man after all. Now he was bullied by others. Pan Bin had to give in to Wang Zhi, Wu Anhou and others because everyone had different fields and different powers, and pretended to be like a grandson. But now he is not so polite to his colleagues who are also civil servants.
Everyone has several old friends in the same year. You have them, can I not?
In anger, Lord Pan also initiated a relationship. Then a censor impeached Zhuo Xing to establish a wrong position. Knowing that Li Man's evidence was conclusive and irrefutable, he also intended to overturn the case for him. In order to slander the imperial officials in the court, he did not know how many bribes he had accepted from the Li family.
After a while, the two sides fought lively.
As the person involved, Tang Fan sat alone at home thinking.
Why did Li Man commit suicide in prison?
Why did he write his name before he died?
Why did the Li family suddenly catch a fire and just burn the body?
Is there something wrong with the death of the housekeeper Lao Li?
There were pen, ink, paper and inkstone on the table, and Tang Fan wrote several names on his head.
Li Man, Li Lin, Zhang, Chen, A Xia.
To be continued...