Chapter 98

After the county town's "special task force" set the direction for solving the case, the Prison Clerk and the County Lieutenant immediately issued orders to every post in Anlu County, instructing each post chief to investigate all men over eight chi tall within their jurisdictions — although footprint analysis can estimate approximate height, it inevitably varies slightly from person to person, so Heifu suggested that when searching for suspects, setting the height threshold at eight chi and above would be more prudent.

During this period, Heifu further applied his footprint knowledge and identified a characteristic the suspect was very likely to possess.

"The front section of the shoe print has dense patterns, four cun long; the middle section has sparse patterns, five cun long; the heel section has dense patterns, three cun long..."

Heifu raised his head and asked Nu, "Clerk, do you find anything unusual about this footprint?"

Nu stroked the beard on his chin, thought for a moment, and said, "The thief should be wearing a pair of square-mouthed, boat-shaped cloth shoes, which are normally wide at the front and narrow at the back. Yet this footprint is narrow at both front and back, and wide in the middle — truly a strange thing."

Heifu, however, knew that this pattern occurred because the suspect exerted greater pressure on the forefoot and heel, and because the arch area showed sparse patterns rather than being half-present or completely absent, it could be deduced that this tall suspect had low arches or even collapsed arches, possibly flat feet or even splayed feet.

"From this we can infer that the person who left these footprints is not only tall and large, but also has some issue with his walking posture."

After Heifu and Nu reached an agreement on this point, they addressed the assembled post chiefs who had come to receive orders: "Gentlemen, you must rigorously investigate any man over eight chi tall who has recently gone out, changed his blade or sword, or replaced a wooden scabbard, and pay special attention to those who walk differently from normal people!"

"Understood!"

After the post chiefs received their orders and left, they had barely stepped out the door when they began whispering among themselves.

"He's the chief of Huyang Post, just a post chief like us — how come he's giving us orders now?" someone grumbled unwillingly.

Another post chief said sourly, "Isn't it just because the County Right Lieutenant promoted him, letting him work on the case alongside the Lieutenant Clerk and the Clerk? Look at that attitude, as if he were our superior officer."

But his words drew no agreement; the other post chiefs sneered, "Save your snide remarks. This is simply because Chief Heifu has the skill. If you two had any ability, why aren't you sitting in his position, instead of running around on errands with the rest of us?"

Because Heifu had earned his post chief position through solid merit in capturing criminals and passing his performance review. After taking office, he had repeatedly achieved great merit and gradually built a reputation in the county that left no room for fault-finding; some post chiefs had even begun to admire this colleague of theirs...

"Better listen carefully. Who knows, by next year, he really might become our superior officer!"

On the other side, Heifu dispatched those post chiefs to search and investigate, while he himself remained in the township, sitting before his desk and continuing to ponder the case.

During the earlier investigation, the clerks had already questioned the relatives, friends, and neighbors of the two deceased in detail, and the deposition recorded: "Further asked whether there were any fellow villagers with whom they had quarreled or held grudges, or hired laborers; whether any neighbors, acquaintances, brothers, or poor men were suspected of killing the village gatekeeper. Reply: The village gatekeeper was fond of keeping stud pigs and frequently visited the widows of the village; he bore no other grudges."

This deceased village gatekeeper had truly led a dissolute life — he had a wife and children at home, yet dallied everywhere, seducing the village widows and even sleeping with married women. Aside from the hunter, who was kept in the dark, quite a few people in Willow Tree Village knew of and disapproved of this, but not to the extent of killing him to uphold the village's moral standards.

Apart from his unseemly private life, the village gatekeeper had done rather well in other respects. He held high prestige in the village, was kind to his neighbors, treated the hired laborers on his household well, and often aided the impoverished residents of the left side of the lane. Over all these years, he had never quarreled with anyone, and he was not particularly wealthy either...

In this way, possibilities such as revenge killing and crime of passion were all ruled out, leaving only one major possibility: murder for money.

Clerk Nu excelled at on-site investigation, while Le excelled at questioning informants. After meticulous interrogation, he reported his new findings to Heifu and the others.

"The village gatekeeper's wife said that a few days before the crime, the village gatekeeper suddenly brought home two thousand coins. When she asked where the money came from, he refused to say."

"In my view, these two thousand coins are very likely the reason the village gatekeeper died!"

"But the village gatekeeper hid those two thousand coins at home, which has now been sealed off. When he went out, he only carried two or three hundred coins."

Heifu raised his doubt: in this day and age, anyone could tell how much money you were carrying just by the weight of your cloth sack. Since the murderer had planned this for a long time, he couldn't have failed to notice.

"If it were a robbery, why not simply strike at the village gatekeeper's empty home, instead of choosing the hunter's house? Judging by the murderer's methods and planning, he wouldn't make such a mistake."

"Wasn't the murderer also momentarily greedy, ransacking the hunter's house of all its money and valuables, and taking the village gatekeeper's sword as well? Perhaps he isn't as clever as Heifu imagines."

"There were two murderers," Heifu emphasized.

Because the height deduced from the footprints was very tall, they could only assume there were two murderers: the tall one stayed outside the house, helping the other break through the window, using his own body as a ladder to send him inside to kill, which was why the other man left no footprints in the mud.

But all of this was merely deduction. The true facts of the case would probably only be known once they found one of the two...

That evening, Lieutenant Clerk Anpu, who was in charge of making arrests, brought back good news.

The suspect had been caught!

"We caught him in Yidong Village, which neighbors Willow Tree Village."

Anpu held a clay pot and gulped water down his throat in great mouthfuls; he seemed parched.

After drinking, he continued, "This man is named Shi. He is eight chi and two cun tall, and his right foot limps slightly when he walks. When we went to question him, he was harvesting rice in the field. From a distance, he saw the post chief's red headband and panicked, fleeing deep into the rice paddy. It took us considerable effort to capture him..."

At that moment, the suspect was brought forward. Like a captured wild beast, he was bundled in a fishing net and dragged in by four men. He was tall and large; even curled up as he was now, one could still feel the power of his physique. His body was covered in rice awns, his bare hands and feet were crisscrossed with bloody cuts from the net's mesh, his expression utterly wretched, and his eyes held a trace of fury.

"Sure enough, a burly fellow." Le laughed heartily, then immediately stiffened his face and questioned the man: "Speak. During a routine inquiry by the post chief, why did you flee?"

After the chase and struggle, the big man was also exhausted. He panted for a while inside the net, then said, "I feared the officials, so I fled in panic. There was no other meaning."

"If you have committed no crime, why fear the officials?"

"When they arbitrarily detain over a hundred and execute more than ten, how dare I not fear?"

"You wretch, you still dare to talk back!" Anpu kicked him in anger.

Heifu shook his head, increasingly convinced of this man's guilt. "Though he appears stout and large, he is unexpectedly glib."

Le, however, thoroughly enjoyed this cat-and-mouse game. He picked up the blade the man wore and smiled. "The blacksmith in the village said that three months ago, you had him forge a thigh-slapper dagger. Let us have a look at this item."

With that, Le drew the weapon from its scabbard — but it was not a thigh-slapper short blade; it was a short sword!

Seeing this, Shi's face instantly changed color.

"A sword inside a blade scabbard. If I am not mistaken, this sword must belong to the deceased village gatekeeper of Willow Tree Village!"

The height and the murder weapon both matched. According to the post chiefs' reports, after questioning Shi's neighbors, they learned that on the day of the crime, during the busy farming season, Shi had made an excuse to go to the township market. He left before dawn and only returned around breakfast time. During those two shichen in between, no one knew where he went or what he did.

Faced with such evidence, Shi lowered his head and said, as if resigned to his fate, "Since it has come to this, I will confess. I did kill that village gatekeeper... The two villages are extremely close. That day, I saw the village gatekeeper carrying a cloth sack and walking outside the village wall. Coveting his money, I followed him to that household, jumped through the window, and killed the two of them..."

"Stop spouting nonsense. With your fat, bulky frame, how could you jump through a window to commit the crime?" Heifu cut off Shi's rambling and pressed him, "Speak quickly! Who is your accomplice, the real murderer, and where is he!"

If Shi had merely been surprised before, now he was utterly stunned. But after Heifu exposed him, he shut his mouth and refused to say another word.

After several fruitless attempts to press him, Heifu had no choice but to say, "Clerk, this man is tight-lipped. He should be detained immediately. Lieutenant Clerk, perhaps we should first interrogate his family and close friends to find out whom he has been intimate with in recent years. Whoever dared to risk committing the crime with him must be an acquaintance."

After Anpu left, Le questioned Shi a few more times but received no response. He said angrily, "Since you refuse to talk, we have no choice but to resort to the last measure."

He waved his hand. "Drag him away and apply corporal punishment!"

Half a shichen later, Clerk Nu went to the suspect's home to investigate. Meanwhile, inside the township office, Shi, now covered in bloody welts from a round of flogging, was dragged back up. He was already extremely weak, held down before Lieutenant Clerk Anpu, Heifu, and Le by two post soldiers.

Lieutenant Clerk Anpu said, "Shi, your fellow villagers have told us everything. Over the past year, you have been very close to a group of hired laborers. Was it one of them who committed the crime with you?"

"I'll talk..." Upon hearing this, Shi raised his head and said weakly, "I'll talk. I only hope the Clerk can loosen my ropes a little. They are bound too tight; I cannot speak..."

There were five people in the room, all armed. Le suspected nothing and had someone loosen Shi's bonds slightly.

Shi seemed a bit more comfortable. He murmured, "The person who committed the crime with me, his name is..."

Suddenly, Shi stood up violently. The explosive strength of this eight-chi-two-cun giant was terrifying. Even with his hands bound together, he still managed to send the two pavilion guards behind him flying with a ram of his back! Scribe Assistant Anpu was shocked and moved to draw his sword to stop him, but Shi lowered his head and rammed him too! Anpu slammed into the wall, feeling a sharp pain in his chest — it felt like his ribs were about to break!

Immediately after, Shi lunged at Scribe Clerk Yue right in front of him, scaring him so badly he fell to the ground.

Yet Shi's target was not Yue, but the sword on the table! The sword being held as evidence!

Having seized the sword, Shi laboriously raised his bound hands. But instead of slashing at anyone, he aimed the bronze blade at his own neck!

He wasn't trying to escape — he was trying to kill himself!

"Clang!"

In the nick of time, Heifu, who was farthest away, made his move. He drew his sword and used the flat of the blade to fiercely strike Shi's hands, knocking the weapon from his grip in a single blow!

"Trying to protect your accomplices through death? Too bad it won't be that easy!"

(End of Chapter)