"You... you just want money, why did you have to kill him?" Zhao Chuhai stuttered and said intermittently.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk, I'm telling you, Lord Zhao, are you really muddled or just pretending to be? Don't you know that this wrinkled brain of yours is now worth 5,000 taels of silver?" Wu Xiu walked around him in a circle, as if inspecting goods, wanting to see what was so special about this brain that was worth 5,000 taels.
"Five thousand taels, five thousand taels..." Zhao Chuhai muttered non-stop, "Hahaha! Who would have thought that the head on my neck is only worth a mere five thousand taels!"
Zhao Chuhai slowly got up, stepped over the body of Zhang Shifu, and walked to the courtyard. He stretched out his arms, lifted his head, closed his eyes, and let the autumn rain wash him clean.
"Boss! Shall we tie him up?" Wu Qiu's younger brother suggested.
"Never mind, this old bone can't run with anything. A weak scholar who can only hold a pen and write, I'll let him run 50 miles first and still catch up to him. Let him be alone for now, after all, he was our previous client. When we send him on his way later, let's make sure to do it quickly and smoothly so he can leave safely." Wu Sou hugged his arms and looked at Zhao Chuhe who was getting rained on, shook his head and sat down by the fire pit...
"I am Zhao Chuhai, who passed the imperial examination at the age of 20 and was appointed as an official at 25. I have successively held the position of county magistrate for three counties. If it were not for the fact that I had no connections in the court, with my talent, I should be holding a position equivalent to that of a vice-minister of one of the six ministries."
"Alas, I have talent and learning but no opportunities. Now, my precious head is only worth a mere 5,000 taels! In these years, I've helped you secretly sell official grain and occupy farmland, each of which has brought in tens of thousands of taels of silver. Even the annual tribute I pay isn't less than 5,000 taels!"
"How ridiculous! How ridiculous... Hahahaha!" Zhao Chuhai pointed to the sky and scolded loudly, looking like a madman. The rain scattered his hat, and with his hair disheveled, he had no more scruples at this moment.
"Boss, what's gotten into him?"
"He's one of those bookworms, always looking down on others from a high place, thinking they're the only ones with real knowledge and can look down on everyone else. But in the end, they can only be a county official, sacrificing themselves for their superiors. Once something happens to them, those big shots upstairs will dispose of them like trash, and we're the ones who clean up the trash." Wu Xiu wiped the rain from his face and looked sideways at Zhao Chuhai, who was still kneeling in the courtyard, staring up at the sky.
The rain continued to fall, showing no signs of stopping. Flashes of lightning streaked across the sky from time to time, and the rumble of thunder echoed through the air. This autumn rain washed over the earth, as well as Zhao Chuhao's soul...
"Alright, Mr. Zhao's last words are almost done, it's almost time to go. Don't worry, sir, you don't have to be nervous, you're not alone on the road to the underworld, your old wife and two children have already gone ahead to pave the way for you." Wu Sou drew out an iron rod from behind his back and walked over to Zhao Chuhai's side.
"Did they leave safely?" Zhao Chuhai was not surprised at all by the departure of his own family members. Since the people above had already decided to kill and silence them, they would naturally not leave any flaws behind. Only when he and his relatives were dead would they be at ease.
"Don't worry, our master has personally taken action. Compared to them, the three of them are not worth even 5,000 taels." Wu Qiu patted Zhao Chuhai's shoulder and smiled.
Zhao Chuhai nodded slightly, adjusted his clothes, brushed aside the hair covering his face, closed his eyes and sat up straight, waiting...
"Few words, sir, I'll see you off on your journey now!"
"Thud!" Wu Qiu's iron pestle heavily smashed onto Zhao Chuhai's occipital bone, without any blood or brain matter splashing out, only a dull thudding sound.
Zhao Chuhai, who was kneeling, fell to the ground like a wooden stake, his face hitting the muddy water, his body weakly lying on the ground, with only a pool of fresh blood flowing out, but it was quickly dispersed by the increasingly heavy rainwater, disappearing without a trace...
……
"Leave a few of you here to guard the gate, and the rest follow me to the county government!" Li Dan wiped away the rain from his face and instructed his subordinates.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!" Soldier Ding pounded heavily on the county government gate, but no one came out to respond for a long time. Logically speaking, Zhao Chuhai should have left someone to guard the gate, so why was there not a single person?
"Go! Break it open for me!" Li Dan hesitated for a moment, feeling that the situation was urgent and couldn't care about the crime of breaking the gate, waved his hand to signal his men to break open the big gate.
"Bang!" The county government's main gate was burst open by the soldiers, and everyone rushed in quickly. To their surprise, there was no one on the public platform.
"Sir! There's no one here!"
"Go! Follow me to the inner hall!" Li Dan felt that something was amiss and hastily led his men towards the inner hall.
As soon as the soldiers lifted the curtain, they found this shocking scene in front of them. In the courtyard of the inner hall, there were dead people everywhere, and judging from their clothes, they should be the attendants left behind by Zhao Chuhai.
"Search for me! See if there are any survivors!" Li Dan commanded loudly. Now, this matter was no longer just a case of Zhao Chuhai's corruption. A majestic county government office had been bloodbathed, and such a shocking and outrageous event had never occurred since the founding of the great Ming dynasty!
The scattered soldiers searched house by house, but all they found were cold corpses, without a hint of life.
"General Qianhu! Something has been found here!" a soldier shouted loudly.
Li Dan hastily rushed over and arrived at a side house, where there were five corpses on the ground. Two of them were yamen runners, while the remaining three, one big and two small, had all lost their heads.
"The adults and children have all been accounted for, and the only ones left in the inner courtyard are Zhao Chuhai's family members who haven't been found. Now, these three corpses match up perfectly with Zhao Chuhai's family - this adult is his wife, Shen Shi, and these two children are his son and daughter. The only thing is, they're all missing their heads."
"Hmph! It's still unclear, the murderer took their heads as trophies and went to collect the reward!" Li Dan walked out of the house with a gloomy face.
"Go and inform Qiu Qianhu, tell him what's happening here, and let him protect those people on the mountain."
"Promise!"
The gloomy and drizzly weather made Li Dan's mood even more irritable. Zhao Chuhai was already guilty, but so far, no one had found him. The Pinggu County government office had been slaughtered, and the killer obviously did it to silence them. It could be seen that Zhao Chuhai must have some unspeakable secrets in his hands.
Li Dan now only hoped that Zhao Chuhai could hide a little better, letting the killer find him one step later, but he was ultimately disappointed, because Zhao Chuhai had also gone to the road to Huangquan with his family at this time.
All that happened in Pinggu County was recorded by a group of people wearing straw sandals, bamboo hats and rain cloaks. They appeared in the inner hall of the county government before Li Dan arrived and witnessed Zhao Chuhai's death process with their own eyes, but they just kept silent and wrote quietly on bamboo slips.
These bamboo slips were finally gathered into a complete confidential document and sent to Nanjing City, Jiangning Prefecture via the four major postal stations of the Ming Dynasty.
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