The Golden Hairpin

Zhou Ziqin opened his mouth, but after all he put these small bowls on the tray and brought them back to where he lived.

Li Shubai and Huang Zixia followed him to the courtyard, waiting by the door.

Neither of them spoke a word. The weather was hazy and gloomy, shrouded on the low-hanging veranda of the pumila, the last few lotus flowers in the late summer stood alone on the pavilion and the green cover, an unusually bright and dazzling red.

Chang Feng took the last heat of summer, rolled over the lotus pond, rushed towards Huang Zi Xia, and enveloped her body.

There was thin sweat on her body, and needles stabbed on her skin. It was quickly evaporated by the hot wind, leaving only a trace of unnoticeable pain.

Only the wind on the surface of the water is left, oblique Hui pulses.

Huang Zixian leaned on the railing, taking a long time to breathe, staring blankly at Li Shubai in front of him.

And Li Shubai also looked at her without saying anything.

The dusk shrouded them, and the entire county guard mansion was silent.

The setting sun fell like broken gold on the water surface near and far, with the waves jumping, sparkling and dazzling.

Four years.

Here, she transformed from a little girl who couldn't understand the world to a desperate girl; also here, she was a talented woman envied by everyone, and cast down the murderous suspicion of being spurned by adults.

She had thought that she had experienced the most painful experience in the world, and had tasted the most heart-piercing taste. She had also thought that in this world, there should be nothing more terrifying waiting for her. ——

However, she did not expect that the moment when the truth arrived was even more terrifying than she had imagined.

Her body trembled violently, but in the late summer and early autumn sunset, her whole body was cold, and the cold sweat on her forehead and body oozes out, thin and pinpointed.

She grasped Li Shubai's hand tightly and asked him in a hoarse and dry voice, "Is it really me... I personally sent the bowl of poisonous soup and put all my relatives to death?"

Li Shubai looked at her silently and saw that her eyes were so wide, but those eyes were the same color as dead gray, without any light flickering.

The girl who had traveled thousands of miles and was embarrassed by him in the carriage, but stubbornly said that she wanted to wash away her grievances for her relatives, the flame in her eyes was extinguished.

The belief that had been supporting her to walk down disappeared.

Li Shubai held her hand and felt the bone-chilling coldness. Because of the chill on her body, there was also a tingling chill in his heart. He slowly raised his arms, held her in his arms, suppressed his trembling voice, and said in a low voice: "No, it's not you."

"It's me! I brought that bowl of soup with my own hands, and I served them one by one. I asked them to drink one by one. Everything... it's me!"

She yelled out of control, her body was hugged tightly by Li Shubai, unable to struggle, but the muscles on her face twitched slightly, very terrible.

Li Shubai was frightened for a while, he leaned her crazy like on the railing, looked straight at her and shouted, "Huang Zixia, calm down!"

She grabbed his arm hard, trying to throw him off her body. But how could she be his opponent, easily suppressed by him, her random struggling can only be exchanged for messy breathing.

She heard him whisper in her ear: "I said it wasn't your fault, it wasn't yours. You are only part of this murder with a knife. You are being used without knowing it. And you should hate it the most. It’s not me, but the person behind him."

She slowed down and stared at him blankly.

He stared at her and said word by word: "You have gone through ups and downs and finally came here step by step. Instead of repenting and blaming yourself here, it is better to take a blow and expose the other party's conspiracy, reverse the case for yourself, and for your parents. , Elder brother, grandmother and uncle to capture the real murderer is the business!"

Huang Zixian stared at him for a long time before finally opening her mouth, and squeezing out a few broken words from her hoarse throat: "Reason... I have to know his reason..."

"Yes, this is the next important thing for you, not remorse!"

In his words, she gradually calmed down. After a long time, mist finally rose in those dead gray eyes, and big teardrops slid down and fell on his hand with slight pain.

He looked down, and it turned out that she had just scratched several small wounds on her hand, and the tears dripping in from the wounds made him feel a slight pain.

He silently raised his hand, gently wiped her tears away, and then squeezed the scattered hair on her temples behind his ears. His always cold eyes are now very gentle and clear. There is a lake that no one knows about. When he presents it to her, he can contain her. The wind and rain in the world will never be able to Invasion.

He stared at her and said slowly: "If you are really tired, you can rest for a while. Give me peace of mind, and I will take you away."

She burst into tears and wept uncontrollably in his arms for a long time.

But in the end, he finally heard her choking and muttering, but finally squeezed out word by word, with great difficulty: "No, I was right...I finally walked here through ups and downs, this last moment, I will try my best to do it well, and I will... personally end it all!"

I don't know how long it took, Zhou Ziqin's closed door suddenly opened, his face was blue and his eyes were round, he rushed out to stand in front of them, his mouth widened and panting, but he couldn't say a word in his mouth.

Li Shubai had already let go of Huang Zixia, and the two sat on the railings of the veranda, half a foot apart, not too far away.

Huang Zixian straightened up, let his back break away from the pillar, and stood straight in front of Zhou Ziqin.

Li Shubai asked, "What was the result?"

Zhou Ziqin was breathing fast, barely suppressing the violent ups and downs of his chest, finally suffocated four words: "Poisonous poison! Five bowls!"

Huang Zi Xia's stiff body softened as if she had lost her strength. Li Shubai supported her, let her sit on the waterside veranda, and patted her back.

And she finally took a sigh of relief, and the black shadow in front of her eyes and the roar in her ears gradually faded away.

She leaned her head on the pillar, closed her eyes and said softly: "The case is closed."

Zhou Ziqin opened his mouth wide and looked at her blankly: "Case closed? Which case? Is it Fu Xinruan's case? Or Qi Teng's case? Tang Zhuniang's?"

"All, and the case of Huang's family, the former Shu county prefect." She exhausted the last strength in her chest and said word by word, "These three cases are connected by an invisible thread. Now this one. We have grasped the end of the thread. Next, we only need to pull it hard to cover everything and the case will be over."

"It's over...?" Zhou Ziqin chewed her words, feeling extremely sad in his heart-he still has no clues at all, how could the other party already understand everything?

"Yes, this case, no, it should be said that these three cases have all ended."

It's getting late, and Shen Shen twilight has enveloped the entire Chengdu Mansion. However, Wang Kui gave an order, and before he took the lamp, all the people involved came here.

Although it is still unknown what happened, even Xichuan Jiedu Envoy Fan Yingxi hurried to the prefecture with his son.

Wang Yun came with them. He was dressed in a snow-blue Lingluo coat. When he saw Huang Zixia, although his usual gentle smile appeared on his face, his complexion was not so good after all.

Zhou Xu, the county guard, had already set up a seat at his Shuixie Wharf, and asked his daughter to slap her face into the Bisha cupboard.

Gongsun Yuan and Yin Luyi arrived at the same time. Seeing that all the people present had arrived when Qi Teng died that day, they nodded to Huang Zixia and Zhou Ziqin, and they both sat down in the water pavilion.

Yu Xuan also arrived immediately, wearing a azure shirt, sitting quietly beside the water pavilion, just as low-key as he has always been.

What puzzled everyone was that Mage Mu Shan of Guangdu Temple, who was not here at all that day, was invited over and set a futon for him outside the water pavilion.

The musicians who were present at Chengdu Mansion, the servants of the county guard mansion, Zhou Ziyan's maid, and even Tang Sheng's second-rate nephew, Tang Sheng, were all found and summoned.

After everyone was seated or standing, Li Shubai looked at Huang Zixia and nodded to her. Huang Zixian stood up and said to everyone: "I invite you to come over today because of a murder case that occurred in the county mansion a few days ago, that is, the case where Jiedu made the magistrate Qi Teng murdered."

After a word was said, everyone below was silent. Fan Yingxi twisted his beard without saying a word, Zhou Xu frowned and groaned. Gongsun Yuan lightly embraced Yin Luyi's shoulder to show his comfort, while Fan Yuanlong had already called out: "What? The Qi Teng case? Duke Yang already has a clue?"

"I already know who the perpetrator was and how the murderer killed Judge Qi and where he hid the murder weapon in full view."

Fan Yingxi looked at Li Shubai and saw that he was sitting behind Huang Zixian, but did not speak, he knew that he knew about it. So he immediately agreed: "Duke Yang, this matter is not trivial! Dealing with the judges in my house may be against me, perhaps against the county guard, the prince, and the court. He must be severely taught! "

"General Fan has the court in mind and worries about the prince. This is a good thing, but the cause of this incident has nothing to do with all the major events of the family and the country. The only cause is just a love word." Huang Zi Xia said lightly.

When Fan Yingxi heard this, his face was shocked, but Li Shubai saw the tension in his eyes relax slightly. After all, if it has nothing to do with the imperial court and King Kui, he doesn't need to be responsible for his modest envoy. As for the death of his judge, he doesn't particularly care about it.

"At the death of Judge Qi, everyone was here except Master Mu Shan." Huang Zixian's eyes swept across everyone's faces. Someone was nervous, some focused, some were shocked, and some were puzzled. Regardless of anyone's reaction, she only slowly pointed to the water pavilion, and continued, "In this case, there are two things that hinder us from solving the mystery and catching the murderer. The first is time."

Everyone nodded their heads involuntarily, obviously they all agreed.

"The murderer started to kill Judge Qi, of course, within a short time of that dance. Because before the dance, we were seated in a row. At that time Judge Qi also ran to the Bisha cupboard with a round stool, with the girl of Zhou's family. Talking. Even after the opening, he was talking to the Zhou family girl. He stopped talking until Fan Gongzi was vomiting by the bushes, and he couldn't speak anymore."

Zhou Ziqin nodded and said: "So, the time of his death was when or after Fan Gongzi vomited, that is, after the petals fluttered, the grandmother Gongsun entered the curtain and released the butterflies."

"However, at that time, all people had evidence that it was impossible to kill, because almost everyone was under the eyes of others. King Kui, Fan Jiedu, Zhou Junshou... and even the maids and servants in the mansion could not be quiet. Leave and go to the back to kill. The evidence at the scene shows that there is no sign of outsiders sneaking in. In other words, the murderer was on the waterside dock at the time, that is, one of us."