Since things weren’t yet clear, Yan Tongshu didn’t dare make any bold claims. He only said, “It’s just a guess for now.”
Xu Qiu nodded, stealing glances at Yan Tongshu. This Lord Yan truly seemed to have some skill.
After finishing the injury examination, Yan Tongshu and Xu Qiu walked out of the Shenming Pavilion. Yan Tongshu went to a corner to wash his hands and asked Xu Qiu, “Brother Xu.”
Xu Qiu clasped his hands and bowed respectfully. “Lord Yan, please speak.”
Yan Tongshu said steadily, “Brother Xu, before I came, I heard that many people ‘saw’ Zhao Sheng beat his father to death, and that with so many witnesses, there was no denying it. But Zhao Sheng says the conflict with Zhao Gengtian happened inside the house, and he never touched him. I want to confirm—did everyone really see it? Did they actually witness Zhao Sheng and Zhao Gengtian fighting?”
Xu Qiu replied, “Lord Yan, you’ve hit on the right question. No one actually saw it. But Zhao Gengtian had been cursing all the way to Aunt Yang’s house. Quite a few people came to watch the commotion. Everyone heard Zhao Sheng and Zhao Gengtian arguing fiercely, even the sound of things breaking. Then, when a life was lost, the authorities were called.”
Yan Tongshu nodded and asked, “Who closed the door?”
Xu Qiu was taken aback. “Huh?”
The question was shrewd, and Xu Qiu didn’t know what to make of it.
Yan Tongshu smiled. “Never mind. It’s been a long journey. Thank you, Brother Xu, for giving me this courtesy.”
Xu Qiu clasped his hands. “I wouldn’t dare, I wouldn’t dare.”
After thanking Xu Qiu, Yan Tongshu and Pearl left Kaifeng Prefecture.
Pearl couldn’t wait to ask, “Young Master, have you figured it out? Can Aunt Yang finally let go of her hopes?”
Yan Tongshu’s gaze was cold and sharp. “Zhao Sheng wasn’t lying. Zhao Gengtian wasn’t killed by him.”
Pearl was stunned. “Ah?”
She was bewildered. “So that thug really is innocent this time?”
Yan Tongshu nodded. “It seems so for now.”
Zhao Gengtian had avoided conflicts for a full seven days, then deliberately made a scene while cursing all the way to Aunt Yang’s house, drawing a crowd of onlookers.
At the time, Zhao Sheng had just woken up from a hangover and was drinking cold water when he was immediately harangued.
In his testimony, Zhao Sheng hadn’t mentioned closing the door, likely because it hadn’t even occurred to him.
Moreover, Zhao Sheng was shameless and didn’t care if people saw him.
If the door wasn’t closed by Zhao Sheng, then it had to be closed by Zhao Gengtian.
Why would a man storming in to demand payment, deliberately drawing the villagers’ attention and hoping to escalate the situation, close the door himself?
Unless Zhao Gengtian closed the door after entering, intending to argue with Zhao Sheng to make others think they were fighting, so he could pin his own injuries on the Yang family. Under the pretense of filial impiety, he could then extort money.
That would explain why, after Zhao Sheng refused to steal the braising sauce recipe, Zhao Gengtian didn’t press the matter.
But the current problem was: if the wound on Zhao Gengtian’s head wasn’t fatal, what was the cause of his death?
At the scene, only Zhao Sheng and Zhao Gengtian were present. Without finding the cause of death, Zhao Sheng couldn’t be cleared.
Yan Tongshu rubbed his aching head. “Come on, let’s go see Aunt Yang first and ask a few more questions. Maybe with more inquiries, we’ll get some leads.”
Pearl nodded, thought for a moment, and followed Yan Tongshu, saying, “Well, if Zhao Sheng really is innocent, then once he’s released, Aunt Yang will see her son is fine, and she’ll recover quickly. Ah, Aunt Yang is truly pitiful.”
The two soon arrived at the medical clinic.
By then, Aunt Yang had woken up and was drinking her medicine.
Her heart was bitter, so the medicine didn't taste bitter at all. She downed it in two gulps and was about to get out of bed to continue her pleas for justice.
"Young Master Yan."
Yan Tongshu quickly stepped forward and gently pressed her shoulder, coaxing warmly: "Aunt Yang, please lie down first. Don't rush."
She bent down and tucked the corner of the blanket around Aunt Yang, then spoke slowly: "I've already met Zhao Sheng."
As soon as Aunt Yang heard this, tears streamed down her face. "Young Master Yan."
She wept, "My son may be a bit reckless normally, but he's really a good child. He's very filial to me, his mother. Whenever he has money, the first thing he thinks of is buying cloth to make me clothes, or buying cakes and pastries..."
"Alright, alright." Yan Tongshu quickly soothed her. Once her emotions had settled, she asked, "Aunt Yang, why do you insist that Zhao Sheng is innocent?"
Aunt Yang wiped her tears with her rough hands. "That's what my son said. He keeps crying out that he's wronged. And my father-in-law, he'd come to our door every few days just to fight over the recipe for the brine. It wasn't the first time. My son never hit him before, so why would he hit him this time? My son says he didn't hit him, so he didn't."
Though the reasoning was steeped in a mother's unconditional trust and defense of her son, it held a little weight.
Yan Tongshu pondered for a moment and asked, "Aunt Yang, tell me about your father-in-law and Zhao the Second—everything, no matter how big or small, as detailed as possible."
Hearing this, Aunt Yang's eyes lit up. "Young Master Yan, do you mean you have a way to clear my son's name?"
Yan Tongshu didn't dare make grand claims and simply said, "I don't know if it'll work, but I'll do my best to try."
This was the last hope. Aunt Yang dared not neglect it and quickly laid out the grudges between her family and the Zhao family in full detail.
The conflict between the two families wasn't much different from what they had heard earlier, or from what Zhao Sheng had said.
So Yan Tongshu paid special attention to the temperaments of Zhao Gengtian and Second Brother Zhao.
Zhao Gengtian's temper had already been clearly described by Zhao Sheng earlier. The main focus was on Second Brother Zhao.
Second Brother Zhao was about thirty years old, with a son around fifteen.
Zhao the Second lazed about, doing no work. The family's fields were cultivated by his wife, son, and daughter-in-law. But he had a sweet tongue and knew how to flatter, managing to charm Zhao Gengtian completely. So much so that, while Aunt Yang's husband was still alive, Zhao Gengtian often took money from First Brother Zhao to support Zhao the Second.
Aunt Yang elaborated, "It started about two years ago. My father-in-law got his comeuppance—his health began to deteriorate."
Yan Tongshu's eyes sharpened. "Health deteriorated? How so?"
Aunt Yang shook her head. "I don't know the details. He often had headaches. Sometimes, after drinking too much, he'd fall to the ground and convulse—maybe epilepsy.
My father-in-law had no money. The medical money I gave him separately either went to Zhao the Second or was spent on drink. So he'd just get some random medicine from the village doctor and leave it at that.
That casual approach wouldn't do, and over the past two years, his health got worse and worse. I was also afraid something would happen to him and he'd blame our family, so I always told Little Sheng not to get into a fight with him."
Yan Tongshu frowned. Poor health—could he have died of illness?
After finishing her talk with Aunt Yang, Yan Tongshu reassured her to rest peacefully in the medical clinic without worrying about money, then led Pearl and Jinbao out of the clinic.
She told Jinbao to drive the carriage over and head to Aunt Yang’s house to see the scene of the incident.
Around dusk, Yan Tongshu arrived at Aunt Yang's home.
Jinbao guarded the carriage, while Yan Tongshu and Pearl walked into Aunt Yang’s courtyard.
After the incident, the yard had been sealed off with official strips and kept exactly as it was. That was why Yan Tongshu couldn’t enter now and could only peer inside through gaps in the seal.
The windows of the Yang house were locked.
The Yang house sat next to the main road, where the area was bustling and chaotic.
Aunt Yang had to leave before dawn every day to set up her noodle stall. Zhao Sheng was lazy and drunken, spending his days in a stupor at home. Fearing thieves, Aunt Yang would lock the doors and windows tightly each morning before she left.
Yan Tongshu pushed the door, opening it a crack, and looked inside.
Zhao Sheng’s room was not large. It contained only a bed, a table, a chair, and a cabinet.
The floor was packed earth, littered with many messy footprints.
There were bloodstains at one corner of the cabinet, and beside it, the government had marked the position of the body as it was found.
Yan Tongshu let go of the door. “There’s not a lot of blood. It matches the wound on the back of Zhao Gengtian’s head.”
Add up all the blood from both spots, and it wouldn’t even be fifty grams. Besides, the skull was intact—nowhere near enough to be fatal.
Yan Tongshu then took Pearl to question the neighbors, once again confirming his two earlier guesses.
First, Zhao Gengtian had closed the door himself.
As soon as Zhao Gengtian entered the house, he shut the door behind him, and then sounds of arguing came from inside.
Second, no one had actually witnessed a fight between Zhao Gengtian and Zhao Sheng.
Everyone had only heard Zhao Gengtian roaring that he would beat Zhao Sheng to death.
After the incident, Zhao Sheng was the first to open the door and call for help, his lips trembling as he shouted, “Oh no, something terrible—the old bastard hit the cabinet himself and died.”
Having gathered what he needed, Yan Tongshu sent Jinbao to find the itinerant doctor.
That doctor frequently wandered through several nearby villages, so at that moment, it was hard to say which village he was in.
With no other choice, Yan Tongshu decided to return home first.
The next afternoon, Jinbao finally tracked down the itinerant doctor.
The doctor’s surname was Wang, and he was in his forties. He had a sixty-year-old mother and three children to support. Unskilled in medicine, he couldn’t make a living in the city, so he traveled the countryside to earn a meager income for food.
Yan Tongshu asked him about Zhao Gengtian’s condition. Doctor Wang stroked his beard. “Zhao Gengtian? Seems vaguely familiar. Is that the foul-mouthed guy who’s always swearing—damn this, bastard that—filthy tongue?”
Yan Tongshu: “That’s him. What ailment did he have?”
Doctor Wang: “His condition? Hard to say. I couldn’t pin it down. At first, he said his eyesight was blurry. I figured it was old age, so I just prescribed some mild herbal tonics and told him not to worry about it. He said I was cursing him to die, cursed me out, and didn’t pay.
Hah, the shameless man. Six months later, he came back, saying he always felt weak in his hands and feet, with occasional numbness, couldn’t move properly, headaches, a stiff neck, and sometimes vomiting even without drinking. I told him that happens to everyone when they get old. Again, he cursed me out, and again, didn’t pay.”
Yan Tongshu pressed his forehead. This Zhao Gengtian really was insufferable.
Doctor Wang grew more irritated as he spoke. “Three months after that, he came to see me again. This time, he said he’d collapsed headfirst into a field ridge early one morning, convulsing all over. I knew then—that old scoundrel had no intention of paying again—so I didn’t want to treat him. I just made up a few nonsense lines to send him on his way.”
Yan Tongshu carefully pondered Zhao Gengtian's appearance and symptoms before his death, then asked, "Zhao Sheng said he couldn't see things fully—does that mean his field of vision was impaired?"
Doctor Wang replied, "Field of vision? I'm not sure. But Zhao Gengtian did mention that he could see much less than before, that he couldn't even see his own land fully, and that someone had stolen vegetables right under his nose."
Yan Tongshu was suddenly thrilled, feeling she had grasped the truth, and pressed urgently, "Then did he see double images?"
Doctor Wang nodded.
Yan Tongshu felt a surge of clarity. She clenched her fist, slapped the table, and stood up. "So that's it! Zhao Gengtian essentially brought about his own death—truly fitting those two words."
