At that moment, sheer terror caused Zeng Su to completely lose control of himself; his pants were drenched in an instant.
He dropped to his knees, kowtowing like a pestle pounding garlic until his forehead was streaked with blood, all the while babbling incoherently with pleas like "I've wronged you" and "Please spare me!"
To Constable Head Zhou, such a reaction was more than enough.
In Zhou Wu's eyes, the case was as good as solved right then and there. The culprit had been found; as for getting him to confess, that would be the easiest part.
Never mind a mere Zeng Su—even if it were Song Gongming himself, once the heavy wooden planks came down in the courtroom, how many men could truly hold out?
To make a long story short, by the time Zeng Su finally realized what was actually going on, Zeng Laoye, Constable Head Zhou, Sun Yixie, and Huang Donglai were already seated before him.
The Second Lady's corpse had been placed temporarily upon the couch in Zeng Su's room, and the Liuli Carp still rested on the table.
As for the other servants and household retainers, they were ordered to wait outside. After all, this was family shame... not something to be aired in public.
"All right," Zhou Wu said, assuming the stately air of a constable head and speaking in a tone that mingled benevolence with severity. "You and I share some acquaintance, so I'll offer you a bit of friendly advice... A real man owns up to what he does. As long as you step forward and come clean so I have something to account for to the yamen, I promise you won't suffer any unnecessary physical torment. Otherwise..."
These were standard formulaic lines, yet there was genuine truth in them.
Many murderers knew that a confession meant death, so they harbored faint hopes and stubbornly dug their heels in. In situations like this, magistrates rarely condescended to offer personal persuasion, leaving figures like constable heads to step up and lay out some hard truths to the prisoner.
The gist of this pitch was essentially: If you hold out to the bitter end, nothing awaits you except being dragged out for hearings every day, beaten with the planks daily until your wounds fester, heal, and fester anew... living in agony day after day, only to die of infection in a prison cell—dying an ugly, excruciating death.
"On the other hand, if you confess, you at least leave behind the reputation of a man who owned his deeds. Once you press your thumbprint to the confession and get remanded to custody, you won't have to suffer in the cells. When autumn comes and you finish your final pre-execution meal, you can march to the market, shout, 'Eighteen years from now, I'll be another fine fellow!', and let the executioner grant you a swift end. You'd depart with some dignity. Meanwhile, our yamen can file a clean closing report, earning merits for both His Honor and the runners."
Such practices were an unwritten rule that went hand in hand with confessions under torture in Da Ming's judicial process. While the system behind it certainly had its efficiencies, it frequently gave rise to miscarriages of justice.
Sadly, this was already considered the most advanced system of that era.
In those times, so-called "penetrating insight" amounted to nothing more than a magistrate's experience in judging cases—reading micro-expressions, gauging tone, and so on. Sometimes, the verdict in a case even hinged on the magistrate's mood during the trial...
Thus, while villains escaping justice and unlucky souls wrongfully condemned to death might not have been ubiquitous, they certainly existed.
Fortunately, in Zeng Su's case, there was no mistake.
With his psychological defenses thoroughly shattered, Zeng Su was hardly the type to hold out...
After a long silence, he asked for a pot of wine. Sitting on the floor, he downed three cups in rapid succession, and then laid out everything from start to finish.
Listening to the confession, Zeng Laoye's face turned livid, tinged with a sickly green. His body shuddered from time to time, but he managed to rein in his emotions and refrain from losing his composure.
Once Zeng Su finished confessing, Constable Head Zhou waited a few seconds before leaning in to whisper in Zeng Laoye's ear, "Master... what do you think should be done about this?"
Zhou Wu was a sensible man; this question was indeed meant for Zeng Yun.
Everyone in Luzhou City knew that around here, "magistrates come and go, but Master Zeng stands firm." When it came down to how this matter would ultimately be settled, the magistrate's word didn't carry the final weight—it was Zeng Yun who called the shots.
Only after Zeng Laoye calmed his emotions did he speak: "A life for a life. You may handle it according to official protocol..."
Zhou Wu knew there ought to be a "but" following that sentence, so he held his tongue and waited.
Sure enough, after a brief pause, Zeng Laoye continued, "It is only that... I do not wish for this dirty laundry of my Zeng family to kick up a storm and become the talk of the entire city..."
"Then..." Zhou Wu pondered aloud. "How about this... For the previous murders, we stick with the original story of a 'haunting.' We pin only the final death, He Da's murder, onto Zeng Su. We'll claim the two of them had bad blood to begin with, and after He Da left the manor, he continued pestering Zeng Su to extort more money from the family, which drove Zeng Su to murder by poison... What do you think, Master?"
Having heard this, Zeng Laoye mulled it over and felt that, for outsiders in the dark, this explanation was sufficiently seamless. He nodded. "Very well. Then I shall trouble Constable Head Zhou." Pausing, he added, "In a moment, I will draft a letter to inform the magistrate of this matter. I will have to trouble Constable Head Zhou to deliver it as well."
"As it should be," Zhou Wu agreed readily.
With those words settled, Zeng Laoye cast a chilling glare at Zeng Su. "Hmph... In the end, I've even preserved a decent reputation for you. I suppose I've treated you well enough, haven't I?"
Zeng Su hurriedly shifted from sitting to kneeling, knocking his head against the ground once more before Zeng Laoye, though he could not utter a single word.
"Right..." At that moment, Zhou Wu recalled something else and turned to remind Zeng Yun, "The Second Lady's personal maid knows a great deal about the inside story. Master Zeng, if you don't want word leaking out..."
This single remark revealed the sinister side of Zhou Wu's character.
In truth, even if he had not brought it up, Zeng Yun was well aware and would have disposed of the maid afterward anyway. But mentioning it now was an overt prompt for Zeng Yun to cut the weeds and pull up the roots as soon as possible.
Listening from the side, Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai were secretly startled, thinking to themselves, *Good thing we're both seasoned slickers who never got too close to this guy. Otherwise, who knows when he might have sold us out.*
Hearing Zhou Wu's words, Zeng Yun let out a cold grunt, seemingly having made up his mind.
He immediately stood up, walked to the doorway, and summoned several servants waiting outside, ordering them to fetch the maid.
Unexpectedly, a few minutes later, one servant came tumbling and crawling back to report that the maid had already hanged herself in her room.
And so... yet another life was claimed.
Zeng Yun, however, hardly cared about this one; even if she hadn't hanged herself, she would have ended up beaten to death.
That night, Zhou Wu summoned several night-duty subordinates from the yamen to transport the Second Lady's corpse back to the temple and collect the maid's body while they were at it... To him, the case had reached its conclusion. He had secured a "culprit," which was plenty to report to his superiors and claim credit, all while doing Zeng Laoye a favor.
Yet for Zeng Yun, a major mystery remained—who exactly was that "faceless woman"? And for what purpose had she instigated Zeng Su from behind the scenes?
Until this puzzle was solved, Zeng Yun could not let the matter rest completely. Thus, that very night... he had already decided to find someone as soon as possible to start investigating through the pawnshop proprietor, in an attempt to track down that woman...
...
The following morning.
Zeng Laoye personally came to see Sun and Huang off.
By this time, Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai were no longer dressed as Daoists. After the case was cracked the night before, they had revealed their true identities to Zeng Laoye and explained why they had posed as priests.
Zeng Laoye was endlessly grateful to these two young heroes who had drawn their swords to help those in need. Upon learning that they were journeying far off to Luoyang, Zeng Yun said not another word and had his servants select two fine, top-grade horses from the stables to gift them.
Sun and Huang did not refuse, either. Since the tickets Huang Donglai bought for the High-Speed Rail Gang's passenger coach had already expired, they would have had to purchase horses anyway. Accepting them spared Zeng Laoye any loss of face.
Around nine in the morning, Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai rode out of Luzhou City, continuing their journey northwest.
Zhou Wu... did not come to see them off.
Although Constable Head Zhou had indeed heard them mention when they would be leaving today, his bond with these two "worthy brothers" clearly did not run that deep.
Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai cared little about this. After all, both of them carried themselves far beyond their actual years; they had seen through Zhou Wu the previous night. Getting genuinely tangled up with a man like that would only invite trouble.
And so, the two departed Luzhou, urging their horses on with a whip, heading straight for their next stop—Yingzhou.
Chapter 18