TSBFL Chapter 73
Chapter 73.2: 真相
[The Truth]
Liao Hui threw the hawker’s melon seed money to him, and then walked to the door of the Chen family’s small restaurant with big strides, banging on the door.
That hawker watched that young master knock the door for a while before the door of the shop was opened, and then he walked in. The peddler shook his head and gave a low sigh, “This Gong Zi is really strange”, then he went to greet the next customer.
***
Inside the Yamen office,
Gu Lang, as well as a group of people from Yamen, as well as the newly found coroner, all gathered in the empty room in the Yamen, right in the middle of which was parked the man’s body, the live chicken that Gu Lang needed, as well as a few plates of leftover food.
The woman who claimed to be the dead man’s wife was staring at Gu Lang with a wary face, not knowing what the meaning behind his poker face or intention was. Her face was slightly distorted due to too much nervousness, which made her look a bit horrible.
Xu Shi Ye looked at everything that was ready, came to Gu Lang and said softly, “Gu Gong Zi, since everything is ready, is it the time to start?”
Gu Lang nodded. Without hanging on to the crowd’s appetite, he first came in front of the woman, pointing at the few plates of leftover dishes, and faintly asked, “You said that your husband died of poison because he ate these few plates of dishes?”
The woman looked at ‘the calm and collected Gu Lang’ in front of her, loosened her clenched lips, and gently nodded her head in response, “Yes, my husband died from eating this stuff. This civilian wife didn’t know anything about it and thought that these dishes should be brought along, so I let people bring it along.”
Gu Lang listened to the woman’s explanation, snorted softly, and said in a low voice, “Contrary, I think that madam is smart as hell.”
The woman’s heart jumped, raising her eyes to meet Gu Lang’s cool eyes, her hand tugging tightly at her handkerchief, feeling her palms filled with sweaty stickiness.
After Gu Lang finished asking the woman, he turned his head to look at Xu Shi Ye next to him and directly said, “Can you have this coroner examine these dishes, which plate is poisonous?”
Hearing this, Private Adviser Xu nodded, towards the coroner he gave a certain gesture, the coroner was extremely nimbly as he carried his own toolbox to the several dishes; very quickly found the poisonous two dishes.
Seeing that the coroner had selected a dish with wood ear or jelly ear—a kind of edible fungus as the main ingredient, and the other dish was the fried shrimp that they had recently introduced, Gu Lang nodded his head, and then looked at the county magistrate and continued, “Can you have someone pour out a little bit of those two dishes and feed them to that chicken?”
Although he didn’t know what Gu Lang was selling or keeping people guessing, the county magistrate was still very willing to give him a face, and urge the officials standing next to him, soon afterwards two people came out, one of them was the same official who had originally escorted Gu Lang over.
Those two officials firstly made a little dish out of the two dishes, and put it in front of the chicken, but they didn’t know whether the chicken was not hungry, or sensed the danger, so it refused to eat the dish. Finally, having no other way, still one of the officials grasps the chicken, while the other official opens the chicken’s mouth, forcing it to eat.
The chicken swallowed the dish less than an incense stick of effort, from the original spirit of the living, began to become chaotic, fluttering, shortly after that, it lay on the ground, motionless.
Seeing that the chicken died so quickly, the people around were vaguely afraid, but only Gu Lang from beginning to end was exceptionally calm watching this scene in front of him.
Seeing the chicken completely cold, only then did Gu Lang slowly open his mouth, “Alright, we can start the next step. However, before we begin.”
Gu Lang paused when he said this, and then immediately turned his gaze to the woman who was filled with nervousness,
and in a voice that just about everyone in the room could hear, he continued, “I still want to ask madam one more time. Is your husband poisoned to death because of this dish?”
Obviously it was a very cool indoor, but the woman’s forehead was dripping with very dense cold sweat, and at this time when she heard Gu Lang’s question, she nervously bit her lip, and only after a long time did she nodded her head fiercely, and as if to give herself some courage, she said loudly, “Yes, my husband died because he was poisoned.”
Gu Lang hooked his lips, causing his handsome face to pair a few points of cool indifference. He no longer looked at the woman, and turned his head towards the coroner, saying in a low voice, “Sir, can you possibly find out if the person died of poisoning?”
That coroner is accustomed to observing and discern what somebody thinks from his body language, so when he came, he saw the county governor and Private Adviser Xu curry favor with Gu Lang, at this time, when he heard him called him Sir (doctor), he waved his hand repeatedly and said:
“Gong Zi, you’re too polite. I’m not really an expert. It’s just that if you want to find out if someone is poisoned, it’s quite simple; there are two methods, one is to use a specially made gauze. If the gauze changes color, then the person must die poisoned. Second, to open the abdomen of the deceased, directly see if there are any poison substances inside the patient.”
As soon as the coroner’s words fell, the woman shouted out as if she had gone mad, “No, you guys can’t let my husband’s chest and belly cut open, he already died so tragically, he absolutely can’t be insulted by you guys like this. If you guys want to touch my husband, I will kill myself here, and become an unjust soul on this Yamen, haunting you guys for forever!”