Mo Junyang’s face didn’t change color after Mo Junzhan’s blame. He squinted at Ye Zhixin coldly.
He said coldly, “Tears can do nothing. It can’t bring your mother back to life or avenge her.”
Mo Junyang’s voice was not loud, but each word stabbed the heart.
Ye Zhixin was rendered speechless. She stared at Mo Junyang without a word.
Mo Junyang said again, “I have given you a chance to tell us the truth, but you didn’t out of some unknown reason. The truth is that you didn’t tell us anything. Now that you’ve given up the idea of telling the truth, why do you complain that no one takes revenge for you?”
Ye Zhixin’s tears rolled down again. She was helpless and pathetic. “I know. I know. But I really can’t. I can’t say anything!”
She was bathed in tears and collapsed on the ground.
Maybe she was moved by Mo Junyang’s words. She didn’t expect other people to save her but was immersed in deep despair, unable to get out.
Mo Junzhan couldn’t bear it, but the cold words of Mo Junyang also woke him up.
Ye Zhixin was the one who held the crucial key, but she finally chose to keep the secret.
Since she didn’t trust them, it would be an imposition if she asked them to help her and to right the wrong for her.
But Mo Junzhan was a little dissatisfied and asked with an unpleasant face, “Even if she doesn’t tell the truth, we can conclude that Magistrate Yan is not a good man based on the information we have got now, and it is possible that he led to Mrs. Ye’s death. We can’t leave it alone!”
Mo Junzhan was confident that Yan Xu murdered Mrs. Ye.
Mo Junyang asked calmly, “Any evidence?”
He got Mo Junzhan here.
Mo Junzhan stared at Mo Junyang angrily. If he had any evidence, he wouldn’t stand here to talk nonsense with Mo Junyang but would go to arrest Yan Xu instead.
Mo Junyang pointed out the fact directly and said, “You have no evidence to prove that Yan Xu killed Mrs. Ye, but I have evidence to prove it was not a human who killed her.”
“What?”
All the people asked in one voice and they looked at Mo Junyang with different degrees of suspicion.
Mo Junzhan asked unconsciously, “Are you absolving Yan Xu from it?”
Mo Junyang replied, “I’m telling the truth.”
Mo Junzhan sneered, “Fine, I want to hear what the truth you mentioned is.”
Mo Junyang didn’t keep them guessing this time. He said in a straightforward tone, “Have you noticed the shoes Mrs. Ye wore?”
The old doctor who came to check the corpse was the one who handled Ye Zhixin’s illness before, and when he was doing his job, all of them watched from aside.
Mo Junzhan knew nothing about postmortem, so he didn’t watch attentively.
Hearing Mo Junyang’s question, Mo Junzhan didn’t think much but replied casually, “I saw them, just a pair of ordinary embroidered shoes, and you can buy them on any street of Jiangzhou. They are not something valuable.”
It was rare that Mo Junyang didn’t reply. He just looked at Mo Junzhan silently.
Of all people here, only Shi Qingxue learned the speechless despair of the man. She explained, “Junyang didn’t talk about what the shoes are made of. He just wanted you to pay attention to the soles.”
Mo Junzhan finally had the right attitude. He asked seriously, “What’s wrong with the soles? They’re clean and have nothing on them. There isn’t any evidence needing attention, is there?”
“It is suspicious because the soles are clean,” Shi Qingxue said closely following Mo Junzhan’s question.
All the rest people were startled and looked at her puzzlingly.
Shi Qingxue sighed and explained in detail, “It was raining from afternoon until late night yesterday. It was muddy all over the ground, and your shoes would be stained with mud if you put your feet on the ground. Then how could Mrs. Ye come to the gate and hang herself there without staining her shoes?
“It meant that Mrs. Ye was carried there by someone else and she never put her feet on the ground.”
Mo Junzhan was suddenly enlightened, but he still felt that Yan Xu was the most suspicious.
“Even so, it just proves that the gate was not the place where the murder took place. Maybe Yan Xu hung Mrs. Ye somewhere else and moved her there.”
“Then he moved her body and hung it in front of his mansion to let people discover it, right?” Shi Qingxue rolled her eyes and continued Mo Junzhan’s story.
Mo Junzhan smiled embarrassingly and stopped talking.
Hearing Shi Qingxue’s words, he learned that his conclusion was sort of absurd.
“According to your analysis, Mrs. Ye was not murdered by Yan Xu, and it has nothing to do with him?” asked Mo Junzhan weakly.
Shi Qingxue shook her head again and said, “Not exactly.”
“Why?”
“Now we only know that Mrs. Ye was not hung to death at the gate of the magistrate’s mansion. As for whether she hung herself or someone else hung her, we can put it aside for the time being. For the fact that her body was hanging there at the gate, their purpose is to make us watch Yan Xu carefully and we can conclude that it has something to do with Yan Xu.”
Shi Qingxue explained the puzzle on their mind little by little.
She didn’t figure out what role Yan Xu played in the death of Mrs. Ye.
At this moment, she cared more about the words Mo Junyang said, why he said that the murderer was not a human, and what he was up to.
Mo Junzhan asked the question for Shi Qingxue. He asked, “The people who moved the body have sent Yan Xu’s loophole to us, and they’re giving us a chance to push Yan Xu. Why did you let him go?”
“Who told you that I let him go?” Mo Junyang retorted calmly.
“If you didn’t let him go, why did you say that Mrs. Ye’s death has nothing to do with him?”
Mo Junyang said with a smile, “Even if I can deduce that her death has something to do with him, what can we do? It is just a corpse hanging at the gate of the magistrate’s mansion. We can’t even get to know whether she killed herself or someone else killed her, and can we prove he is the murderer now?”
Mo Junzhan froze and had to admit that Mo Junyang was right.
But he couldn’t let it go like that.
Someone had sent Yan Xu’s loophole to their hands, but they had to watch him roam at large. How could he bear it?
Mo Junyang cast him a glance and said slowly, “Although we can’t put Mrs. Ye’s death on him, it indeed gives us a chance to find out the truth. No matter how she was killed, the murderer cannot be a human.”
He mentioned it several times as if he were absolving Yan Xu from it, which also puzzled the rest people on the spot.
Suddenly Shi Qingxue was enlightened. She said, “Not a human? Then her death must be caused by a natural disaster!”
“Right! Mrs. Ye died in the plague in Jiangzhou,” Mo Junyang replied with a certain expression.
In Jiangzhou, people would turn pale when they heard the word.
Even though most of the people there weren’t from Jiangzhou, they all moved a step back subconsciously to keep a distance from the corpse.
Shi Qingxue looked at these people who apprehended danger in every sound and rolled her eyes. She said, “What are you doing? The doctor has checked. Mrs. Ye was in good health and she died from suffocating.
Mo Junzhan heaved a breath of relief and felt his face burning.
He felt that Mo Junyang embarrassed him by mentioning the plague suddenly, so he stared at him angrily and blamed, “Jiangzhou was just struck by the plague, and naturally people will be scared of it. It took many efforts to eliminate it, but why do you have to mention such things? Aren’t you afraid of arousing people’s panic?”
He would never admit that he was scared because of his cowardice.
Shi Qingxue sniggered and immediately pretended to be serious. She said, “We won’t let the people know and it is enough for the magistrate of Jiangzhou to know it.”
“He won’t believe it.”
“He won’t believe it.”
Two people spoke at the same time, and the ones who talked surprised the rest people.
One was Ye Zhixin who they ignored because she refused to tell them the truth, and the other was the old doctor who they invited over to check the corpse.
The two of them looked at each other after speaking and hurriedly looked away as if they were startled. They all shut up, lowered their heads and pretended to be wooden men.
“Why doesn’t Yan Xu believe it?” Shi Qingxue asked as she ran her eyes over them suspiciously.
The two just kept their silence and refused to talk.
It was clear that they knew the inside information that the others didn’t, but they just kept quiet.
They were asking for trouble for the rest of them.
Shi Qingxue was helpless and didn’t bother to push the two. She said to Mo Junzhan who was still puzzled, “Relax, we don’t need Yan Xu to believe us, and all we need is an excuse.”
“An excuse?” Mo Junzhan was even more puzzled.
“A right and proper excuse to investigate the plague of Jiangzhou.”
Mo Junyang spoke it out slowly and calmly.
Mo Junzhan then realized that Mo Junyang made so much trouble to investigate the plague of Jiangzhou.
He didn’t understand and asked, “The plague was a natural disaster. No one knew where it came from. Why do you have to investigate it?”
Besides, it was the duty of doctors to cure the sickness.
Why did they have to get involved?
Shi Qingxue shook her head, “Not exactly. It started from the flood caused by continual heavy rain. The plague burst out in the middle, which added the people’s misery and made things more complicated.
“Since we want to make clear the puzzle, we naturally have to investigate the most mysterious plague.”
“How will you investigate it?’ Mo Junzhan believed Shi Qingxue’s conclusion. He didn’t doubt anymore but came straight to the point.
Shi Qingxue sneered, “It was calm before, and if we want to investigate the plague, Yan Xu will say that we’re asking for trouble. But now since the plague is making a comeback, it won’t do if they stop us from investigating.”
These days, something was troubling Shi Qingxue all the time.
Generally speaking, since they had conquered the natural disaster, especially something terrible like the plague, the magistrate must be so proud and would take credit for himself from the imperial court.
But Yan Xu didn’t. More than that, he never mentioned the plague in Jiangzhou in front of them.
It was too suspicious.
Shi Qingxue got a strong feeling that the plague would be a good breakthrough to reveal the secrets of Jiangzhou.
But none of them had expected that the breakthrough almost took the life of one of them.