Chapter 1696: The Man I Killed, The Clan I Wiped Out

Qu Yuan jerked his head up and stared at Chen Chen Guanlou. "Chen Jiang Jiang Yucheng, you know someone surnamed Zhou?"

"Zhou Zongyan was killed inside the yamen, and the entire Zhou clan was wiped out. The Ministry of Justice is following up on this case. As the Jiang Jiang Yucheng of the Heaven Prison, it's perfectly normal for me to know about it."

Qu Yuan lowered his head, his lips moving. "Lord Zhou once served as county magistrate in our county. I knew him, but he didn't know me. Back then I was just a little beggar."

A beggar?

Chen Chen Guanlou looked Qu Yuan over again. "You're a beggar? How did you end up walking the path of martial arts?"

"Poverty breeds scholars, wealth breeds warriors!"

The cost of training in martial arts far exceeds the cost of studying for the exams.

Tan Zhang, the top scholar, understood this best and wisely chose the path of books. Even with a brain that clever, it took several hundred taels of silver just to go from his first lessons all the way to the provincial graduate exam.

Swap in an ordinary, less clever brain, and without a cost of over a thousand taels of silver, passing the provincial exam would be utterly impossible.

The costs of study — brushes, ink, paper, and inkstones, travel expenses for the exams, fees for taking on a teacher, academy fees, the necessary socializing and entertaining of guests…

Not a single one of those expenses can be cut!

When the poor pursue study, it really can drag a family to ruin.

Let alone martial arts — a family could be ruined and still not produce a single notable warrior.

"I was lucky! Probably the luckiest break of my whole life." Qu Yuan clearly didn't want to say more.

Chen Chen Guanlou couldn't be bothered with small talk and asked him straight out, "Did you kill Zhou Zongyan? Was the extermination of the Zhou clan your doing?"

Qu Yuan fell silent, silent for a long while.

Chen Chen Guanlou thought he'd get no answer today and was about to leave, when unexpectedly the other man suddenly spoke.

"The man I killed. The clan I wiped out."

What a man!

Chen Chen Guanlou knew his intuition wouldn't fail him.

The first time he'd seen Qu Yuan outside the gates of the Heaven Prison, he'd felt the man was interesting, and vaguely sensed they would meet again, that there would be some entanglement between them.

Who would have thought that the true culprit Sun Sun Daoning had investigated for so long without result was at this very moment secretly held in the Heaven Prison.

This is what they call a lucky stumble — one village after the darkness, another bloom of light!

"Tell me about it. Why the killing, why wipe out the entire Zhou clan? You're a beggar — what grudge did he have against you?"

"Zhou Zongyan had no grudge against me. But for his own selfish gain, for the sake of so-called reputation and advancement, he exterminated my benefactor's entire family. I know how to repay a kindness. Avenge my benefactor's family — that's perfectly reasonable, isn't it?"

"That's all there is to it?"

"How complicated could it be." Qu Yuan gave a cold laugh. "I've fallen into your hands, and I know I can't escape. Ask whatever you want, just grant me a clean end. If you let me kill the last one, in my next life I'll serve you like a horse or an ox to repay the debt."

As if I want your repayment.

"I ask, you answer!"

"Who was your benefactor, and why did Zhou Zongyan want to wipe out his whole family? And how did you come to know about it?"

"My benefactor's surname was Zeng…"

Changshui County lay several thousand li from Jingcheng — a mid-sized county with fairly abundant supplies and a mid-sized population.

In the county there was a Master Zeng, a locally famous wealthy household who dealt in cloth and grain.

Master Zeng was neither a good man nor a bad man. On occasion, when his conscience stirred, he would put up money and effort to relieve those in peril and help those in need.

In those years, winters in Changshui County were terrifyingly cold, and many people couldn't endure it and froze to death.

Master Zeng was praying for his newborn grandson when a sage cast the child's fortune and told him he must do more good deeds, and the precious grandson would grow stronger and stronger. Master Zeng believed it.

For three winters in a row, every three days he set up sheds to distribute porridge, and gave away cotton-padded jackets free of charge.

At that time, Qu Yuan — a beggar — in his hardest, hardest hour, relying on Master Zeng's sheds and porridge for three winters running, and on the tattered cotton-padded jacket Master Zeng had given him, endured through the most grueling years.

Regarding Master Zeng's acts of charity, some people dismissed them with contempt, some mocked him for currying fame and praise, some sang his praises while enjoying his kindness and then forgot him the moment they turned around. Of course, there were also those who remembered the kindness.

Among them was Qu Yuan.

No matter how others gossiped about Master Zeng, in Qu Yuan's heart Master Zeng was the finest person under heaven.

Those who mocked and jeered, those lofty people with their fine words — not one of them ever parted with a single coin or lifted a single finger, only quick with their tongues, watching coldly as others froze to death by the roadside.

In those three years, how many people survived because of Master Zeng's kindness.

A hundred times better than those moral gentlemen who talk a good game but never lift a finger!

After enduring those three hardest winters, Qu Yuan had grown into a half-grown lad, and encountered the greatest opportunity of his life — he entered a sect and began training in martial arts. Once he left, it was for over a dozen years!

More than a dozen years later, when he returned home wanting to repay the kindness, he learned that Master Zeng's entire household, old and young, had long since been dead — for over a dozen years, not long after he had left for the sect.

The whole thing started with a murder case.

A family of five in a village was killed. The dead family's daughter, in the bloom of sixteen, had at the moment of death been clutching a fan pendant.

Following the fan pendant as a lead, the investigation traced it back to Master Zeng's second son.

Further digging suggested that Master Zeng's second son and this woman appeared to have had some romantic entanglement.

Zhou Zongyan, the county magistrate at the time, acted without hesitation and ordered the arrest of the Second Young Master Zeng.

Master Zeng and the Eldest Young Master Zeng were seized as well. For according to the crime-scene examination, there had been three killers. Father and two sons were thrown into prison together, savagely tortured, and forced to confess and sign their names and press their fingerprints.

At this point, at the local gambling house, a gambler red-eyed from betting let something slip — something that seemed to be tied to this case of five murdered souls. The news reached the county yamen, reaching the ears of Liu Liu Guanshi in the Criminal Affairs Office.

Liu Liu Guanshi passed it on to Zhou Zongyan — was it possible they had arrested the wrong people, should they investigate more deeply?

Zhou Zongyan refused!

And he urged them to hurry and write up the case-closing report, submit it to the prefectural yamen for approval, and set a date to behead Master Zeng and his two sons, to satisfy the public.

If the case had ended there, it could only be counted as a botched case, nothing that would drag the entire Zeng household into extermination.

Just when everyone had decided that Master Zeng and his two sons were the killers, Changshui County was struck by another vicious case — a home-invasion robbery and murder.

One of the victims did not die, and on the spot identified the culprits — three of them — and had seen their faces.

Constables were dispatched to arrest them, and caught all three at the gambling house.

Under severe torture, he not only confessed to the case he had just committed, but also confessed to a murder case of a five-person family committed over a month earlier. This was precisely the case for which the Zeng family father and sons had taken the blame.

The truth came out!

The Zeng family father and sons are innocent!

They should be released!

However…

Because of Zhou Zongyan's eagerness for quick success and his self-righteousness, he had reported the Zeng family father and sons murder case to the Prefectural Yamen early on. The Prefectural Yamen, seeing the case solved so swiftly and so cleanly, issued a document to the entire prefecture, naming Zhou Zongyan for commendation, praising him for handling his duties diligently and judging cases like a god, leaving criminals nowhere to hide.

Calling on everyone to learn from Zhou Zongyan.

With reputation in hand and merit in hand, barring any accidents, once his term ended he could be promoted and get rich.

At this point, to come clean about having mishandled the case, arrested the wrong people, and manufactured a wrongful and false case—once the truth was made public, the consequences would be unthinkable.

What was to be done?