kvmb Chapter 80 Interrogation (1)
Chapter 80 Interrogation (1)
Lin Ziping carefully squeezed the cloth bag, feeling that there were several items inside, one long and thin, and another roughly oval. Slowly opening it, he saw a gold hairpin, a jade pendant, and more than ten silver notes.
He unfolded the silver notes and examined them closely, discovering that each note was worth one hundred taels, totaling over a thousand taels. In that era, the average three-person family's annual expenses were around ten taels. Based on this, the sum, along with the gold hairpin and jade pendant, was enough to allow Hu Xinhua's family to live comfortably for many years. However, looking at the sparsely furnished Hu Xinhua home, it didn't seem like the kind of family that would leave over a thousand taels of silver to gather dust. Could he be a hidden tycoon with a peculiar mindset, simply enjoying displaying silver notes and waiting for their future appreciation?
The gold hairpin was exquisitely crafted, clearly belonging to a woman, unlike anything an ordinary person would possess. Hu Xinhua was the only one in Hu Xinhua's household who could afford to place such a valuable item on the roof beam, but what was his purpose in hiding it there? Was he secretly transferring assets? Lin Ziping pondered this as he stroked the jade pendant in his hand.
After a while, he felt something was wrong. Hu Xinhua's fighting ability under normal circumstances was far superior to Qin Niang's, so it was not reasonable for him to hide his private stash of money so secretly. Could it be that Qin Niang had put it there before?
Lin Ziping stroked the jade pendant and suddenly felt something was amiss; the patterns carved on it resembled characters. The light inside was too dim to make out what they were. He took the pendant to the courtyard and held it up to the light to examine it closely; it seemed to form the character "Yang".
Yang? Lin Ziping's heart skipped a beat. Could this be Yang Xiaobao's older sister, Yang Daya? She had suffered the same misfortune as Lin Ziping during the Lantern Festival of the fifteenth year of Shunhua. Although she survived, her parents sent her to another place. Later, when Yang Xiaobao went to study at Moshan Academy, Lin Ziping and Yang Xiaobao searched everywhere for her, but to no avail. Could Qinniang be Yang Daya?
Although Lin Ziping felt that judging by appearance was not very reliable, he still carefully recalled Qin Niang's appearance and compared it with Yang Xiaobao, trying to find similarities between the two.
The harder you try, the more frustrated you become.
Although Lin Ziping knew it was difficult to determine based on appearance alone, he still tried hard to recall Qin Niang's face and compare it with Yang Xiaobao's. However, the harder he tried to recall, the more blurred his memory became; sometimes he felt the two looked similar, and other times he felt they were completely unrelated.
Lin Ziping looked around the yard. Hu Xinhua's house didn't have many rooms. The bedroom was on the left and right sides of the door to the main room. The room on the left side of the main room was the kitchen and dining room, and the room on the right side was the storage room. Next to the storage room was a small door leading to the back yard.
Hu Xinhua and his daughter's bodies were found in the kitchen and dining room, and he was still afraid of those places. The other constables were still searching the main hall and hadn't come out yet. He had already searched the storeroom carefully, and apart from the cloth bag, he hadn't found anything else useful. Lin Ziping put the cloth bag in his pocket, intending to give it to the others later, and pushed open the door next to the storeroom to go to the backyard to take a look.
The backyard was quite spacious, with a well and a plot of land. The land had been neglected for a long time and was covered in weeds. There was a path in the middle of the land, probably because people walked there often. Behind the path were three simple sheds. From the remnants in the sheds, it could be seen that two of the sheds used to be a pigsty and a chicken coop, and the other was a toilet.
It can be seen that Hu Xinhua's house has a reasonable overall layout and complete functions, indicating that a lot of thought was put into its construction.
Just then, a commotion came from next door. Lin Ziping listened carefully and realized that it was a couple arguing.
"Zhang Ershun, do you have no heart at all? I've been married to you for over twenty years, given you a son to carry on your Zhang family line, and served your parents. What in this family didn't I do... Waaah..." The woman's shrill voice rang out.
Zhang Ershun? Hu Xinhua's neighbor is Zhang Ershun? I came to Pingding Village these past two days and went straight to Hu Xinhua's house. I don't know anything about the neighborly relations between Hu Xinhua and his neighbors. I wonder if Shi Yong and Lao Huang Zhiqing are unaware of this matter.
The faint sound of a woman crying drifted over. Lin Ziping, not intending to eavesdrop, prepared to leave. He had only taken two steps when he heard the woman say again, "Zhang Ershun, I knew you were eyeing that vixen next door. Otherwise, why were you running around helping them when they were repairing their house, and why did you have your son take good care of that Hu Xinhua? I could tell she was a troublemaker even when her leg was healed; sure enough, her husband broke her leg later..."
"What nonsense are you talking about? The officers are right here. Are you out of your mind?" the man shouted.
"Waaah... I'm going to tell you! What were you doing next door the day that woman killed her husband? Did you and that woman have your eyes on each other all along? Zhang Ershun, Zhang Ershun, have you no shame? That woman isn't much older than our son, and she's crippled now, yet you could still do that to her..."
Lin Ziping was shocked by the information in their conversation. Regardless of its truth or falsehood, Zhang Ershun, as Hu Xinhua's neighbor, must know a lot. He didn't care about what the two would argue about later and hurriedly ran to Zhang Ershun's house.
"Lin Ziping, where are you going?" Shi Yong met Lin Ziping as soon as he stepped out of Hu Xinhua's house. Seeing Lin Ziping rushing out, Shi Yong quickly asked.
Lin Ziping stopped and said, "Zhang Ershun lives next door. I just heard his wife say that Zhang Ershun went to Hu Xinhua's house on the day of the incident. Could this be related to the case?"
Shi Yong pondered for a moment and said, "We'll go with you to see if his son, Zhang Xiaohu, instigated Qin Niang to buy arsenic. This matter still needs to be verified."
The group walked up to Zhang Ershun's house and knocked loudly on the door, shouting inside, "Zhang Ershun, open the door!"
After a while, footsteps came from inside, and someone replied, "Coming, coming, who is it?"
Zhang Ershun opened the door impatiently. Seeing Shi Yong standing outside, he immediately put on a fawning smile and said, "Master Shi, what are you doing here? Come in, come in."
After saying that, he opened both doors and shouted into the house, "Old woman, quickly boil some water, we have guests."
Shi Yong pushed Zhang Ershun aside and walked straight into the house, looking around. Zhang Ershun, with a forced smile on his face, followed behind Shi Yong.
Lin Ziping followed Shi Yong into the house. Chickens and ducks chased each other in the yard, raising dust. The group went straight into the main room without stopping.