Song Qiming's formidable reputation had long spread far and wide during the recent bandit suppression campaign, putting the nerves of all officials, high and low, in Suining Prefecture on high alert.
A strict, self-disciplined, and highly capable superior was what many officials feared the most.
Sitting in the armchair of the main hall, Song Qiming wore a solemn expression.
"I have only recently taken office and am not entirely familiar with the situation in the various counties of Suining Prefecture. I have come this time firstly to observe the conditions of the people, and secondly to inspect the governmental affairs of Qingxia County. I will have to trouble Magistrate Jia for the next few days."
Jia Demao swallowed hard in sheer nervousness, raising his head with a bitter smile on his face.
"It is no trouble at all. It is my great honor that Your Excellency has come to inspect Qingxia County. I could not have asked for more."
The empty storehouses, the deficit in the accounts, and the hundreds of yamen runners guarding the county office—the situation was almost identical to that of Suining City.
Song Qiming calmly opened the Yellow Register of taxation and corvee, while Jia Demao, sitting beside him, felt his heart pounding like a drum.
However, when he noticed that Song Qiming was turning the pages extremely fast, merely glancing at them briefly rather than reading carefully, his racing heart gradually settled down.
He is young and completely inexperienced. Reading like that, he definitely will not spot any problems.
After flipping through the register, Song Qiming threw it forcefully onto the table, his brows furrowed so tightly they could crush a fly.
He glared at Jia Demao with extreme dissatisfaction.
"Qingxia County has a sizable population but pitifully little arable land. As the county magistrate, why haven't you mobilized the people to reclaim wasteland?"
Jia Demao put on a bitter face, regurgitating the exact same excuse he had used thousands of times.
"In reply to Your Excellency, Qingxia County borders the territory of the Wumeng tribe. The commoners have suffered from their harassment for years. They worry that the crops they work so hard to grow will be stolen by the Wumeng people, so absolutely no one is willing to reclaim the wasteland."
Song Qiming took a deep breath, his nose twitching as he exhaled, giving the impression of a man forcibly swallowing his raging anger.
"I am somewhat tired. Let us end things here for today."
After escorting Song Qiming to the post house, Jia Demao hurriedly returned to the county yamen.
He summoned his advisor: "Song Qiming knows martial arts and does not fear death. There is no guarantee he won't go to Yinma Town. Go there right now. The mouths that need to be shut must be shut. If they won't shut up, lock them up. We absolutely cannot let Song Qiming discover the hidden fields."
In the tavern opposite the county yamen, a hole had been poked through the paper window of a tightly shut room.
Seeing the advisor anxiously galloping away on horseback, the person in charge of keeping watch immediately picked up a brush to note down the time and the person's name in a ledger.
At the same time, two disguised guards quietly followed him.
In his room at the post house, Song Qiming was rapidly writing down the information he had gathered that afternoon.
On his way to Qingxia County, he had heard something from the local farmers.
There were many reclaimed fields at the border between Qingxia County and the Wumeng tribe's territory.
Some said they were reclaimed by the Wumeng people, while others claimed they were opened up by villagers from nearby settlements. No one could give a definitive answer, but now Song Qiming was certain of one thing: those fields were not recorded in Qingxia County's Yellow Register.
In the pitch-black night where one could not even see their own hand, Song Qiming and Lanxi, dressed in night-stalking clothes, used grappling hooks to scale the city wall and rushed out of the city.
Upon arriving at the ancestral graves where the Ding family members were buried, three other guards had already been waiting for a long time.
Song Qiming bowed deeply to the two newly made grave mounds, then uttered three words to the four men: "Start digging."
He intended to open the coffins and examine the corpses.
Whether it was the illness and passing of the Ding family head or the fatal fall of the young master of the Ding family from a cliff, the corpses were the most likely places to find evidence.
As the shovels dug down, the soft earth was tossed aside.
Half an hour later, the coffin of the Ding family's young master was unearthed first.
Upon prying open the coffin lid, a pungent stench of rotting flesh rushed out, clinging to their noses and mouths, making them nauseous.
The corpse no longer resembled a human form, exhibiting bloated signs of advanced putrefaction.
Song Qiming put on a mask and gloves, jumped into the pit, and leaned over the coffin to examine the body.
Maggots swarmed the top of the head, and the wound itself was especially gruesome to look at.
However, it could basically be determined that the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head from falling off the cliff.
Yet, Song Qiming discovered a lot of bloodstains and rotting skin flakes under the deceased's fingernails, which were likely caused by scratching an opponent during a struggle.
Unfastening the collar, he found a black footprint on the chest—someone had kicked him.
In other words, it was highly likely that the young master of the Ding family had been kicked off the cliff during a fight.
After digging up the other grave, they found no obvious issues with the corpse of the Ding family head.
Staring at the two bodies, Song Qiming coldly ordered, "Move the corpse on the left into the coffin on the right. Take the young master's body with you and find a place to preserve it with ice."
The three guards nodded in compliance: "Your subordinates obey."
