Chapter 115: Zhou the One-Eyed

In the dead of winter, the frozen ground was as hard as stone. It was next to impossible to dig even a small hole the size of a fist, let alone a large pit big enough to hold an adult man.

But there was one exception:

As Ad observed, Liu Shan had not built a dedicated kitchen in order to cut costs. Instead, he erected a large tent on an open space outside, where several large pots were constantly placed and kept boiling year-round.

The meals for the guests and the hot water for daily use all came from those pots, and the fires beneath them burned day and night.

Under such continuous heating, even the bitter cold seemed powerless.

Xie Yu immediately led people to dig, but after turning over the ground around the pots and within dozens of steps in every direction, they found nothing except a pile of something resembling rotten meat.

There were no bones.

According to the staff, those pots had been in that exact spot for several years without ever being moved.

They occasionally disposed of the inedible scraps from slaughtering pigs and sheep by burying them nearby, which was nothing unusual.

One of the constables boldly speculated, “Chief, could it be that Liu Shan went mad and actually cut people up, cooked them, and then disposed of the remains?”

Xie Yu shook his head. “That’s unlikely.”

The pots were openly placed there, and guests often impatiently came to fetch their food themselves. If there were human remains being boiled inside, wouldn’t someone have noticed?

But then, how could there be absolutely nothing?

Xie Yu furrowed his brow deeply, feeling somewhat unwilling to accept this.

In the middle of winter, there were very few places suitable for burying a body. How could they find nothing?

Could it be that Liu Shan didn’t bury the body at all, but instead… discarded it elsewhere?

Xie Yu stood up and looked around. As far as the eye could see, there were only endless woods and wilderness, with autumn wind howling through them.

Wild animals occasionally roamed outside the city, and the wilds were rarely visited by people.

If Liu Shan was willing to go through the trouble, it would indeed be a good place to dump a body.

But Liu Shan had livestock and a cart. With fast travel, he could easily cover a hundred miles in a single night, making anywhere within a few hundred miles possible. Where exactly could it be?

Where exactly was Gao Fa?

Liu Shan, his wife, and more than ten staff members were all brought in for questioning, filling every interrogation room in the Kaifeng Prefecture.

Several of them started crying the moment they saw the torture instruments hanging on the walls, and confessed not only to incidents like spitting into guests’ food on certain days but also to having affairs with others’ wives.

The others either claimed ignorance or remained defiant and even joked around.

But after receiving a few slaps from the constables, they quickly quieted down.

Only Liu Shan kept repeating the same few phrases. When asked anything else, he simply pretended to be clueless.

Magistrate Song felt somewhat frustrated.

In fact, many of Liu Shan’s statements were clearly evasive and untrue, but without evidence, they couldn’t do much.

His wife was even less helpful. She fainted as soon as she entered the courthouse and, upon waking, only cried and sobbed, causing everyone a headache.

No one could understand where all the tears came from in such a thin, frail woman!

Ma Bing even specially came to check her pulse and regretfully concluded that it was indeed due to fear, making it difficult to continue pressuring her.

After two days of this, it couldn’t exactly be said that nothing was gained, but everything obtained was trivial.

For example, the stableman couldn’t endure and confessed that their master had repeatedly poisoned the livestock of travelers leaving the city, then bought them at a low price and sold his own at a high price.

Most travelers leaving Kaifeng were in a hurry and couldn’t return, and there were no other places to buy replacements nearby, so they usually agreed.

Through this cycle of transactions, Liu Shan made a significant profit, while the dead animals were skinned and their meat stewed.

Magistrate Song finally felt relieved.

At least now there was a legitimate reason to continue detaining Liu Shan.

These people had already been in custody for two days. Without finding concrete evidence soon, according to the law, they would have to be released.

After discussing with Xie Yu, he decided to release the staff members with the least suspicion, though temporarily forbidding them from leaving the Kaifeng area.

As for the others, since they each had minor offenses like petty theft, there were sufficient grounds to keep them detained.

Another day passed, and finally, one of the staff members began to talk.

“Your humble servant has something to report, but begs Your Excellency not to disclose that it was I who informed you.”

As he spoke, his heart was already pounding.

Why were the officers taking this so seriously? Could it be… could it be that the master actually killed someone?!

But if he didn’t say something, it seemed he wouldn’t be able to leave…

Upon hearing this, Magistrate Song became alert.

This was clearly an important clue!

“Alright, just speak. This official guarantees that he won’t find out.”

Liu Shan and the other staff members were detained separately, so he had no way of knowing who had been released and who hadn’t, making it difficult for him to guess.

The staff member said, “When Gao Fa came to the inn that day, he looked unwell. At the time, your humble servant didn’t think much of it, but later when he vomited in his room, it was your humble servant who went to clean it up. Since he had visited several times before, your humble servant remembered him somewhat, and that time also helped him search for replacement clothes, so I was very familiar with his belongings.”

His mouth seemed dry as he swallowed hard and continued, “Later, your humble servant noticed that Gao Fa had disappeared, but didn’t think much of it, assuming he had left early. Still, there was something a bit strange at the time—how could Gao Fa, looking so ill, just leave without seeing a doctor or buying medicine?”

Magistrate Song asked, “So, does that mean no one actually saw Gao Fa leave?”

The staff member nodded. “That’s right.”

“Did he leave anything behind in his room? Or were there any unusual traces?” Magistrate Song inquired.

The staff member thought carefully for a moment. “Nothing at all. It was completely clean.”

He was the one who had cleaned the room at the time, so he knew for sure there was nothing.

Actually, everyone rather liked the job of cleaning up after guests checked out, because careless guests often left things behind, which the staff would secretly pocket.

However, for anything particularly valuable, they dared not take it themselves and would hand it over to Liu Shan.

Liu Shan would claim he would report it to the authorities, but whether he actually did or not, no one knew.

“Completely clean?”

Though a simple description, Xie Yu sensed something unusual about it.

“How exactly do you mean ‘clean’? Was it as clean as when Gao Fa usually left?”

This question left the staff member momentarily stunned.

He opened his mouth, furrowed his brow, and recalled carefully, “Hmm, now that you mention it, it does seem a bit different from usual.”

Most of the guests at their inn weren’t particularly fastidious people. Typically, the rooms were messy when they checked out, with all sorts of stains and garbage like tea spills and leftover food.

As for the bedding, it was often as chaotic as a pigsty.

Many travelers, exhausted from the road, would even lie down without washing their feet or taking off their shoes, making the lower part of the bedding turn black and dirty.

Although Gao Fa wasn’t that sloppy, he never tidied up his bed. Sometimes when the staff came in, they’d find the pillow thrown on the floor.

But his last visit was different.

“At the time, when your humble servant entered the room, it was somewhat messy, but that bedding…” The staff member scrunched his face, tilted his head, and tried hard to recall. “Yes, the bedding—it seemed as if someone had deliberately pulled it, making it look quite neat.”

Not the kind of neatness from careful arrangement, but rather as if someone had tugged hard to eliminate large wrinkles, making it appear somewhat crooked yet smoother than before.

Xie Yu and Magistrate Song exchanged glances.

After all, would a rough man preparing to check out really care whether his bed was wrinkled or not?

Magistrate Song ordered the scribe to record this carefully and said, “Very good, this is very useful. Think again and see if there’s anything else.”

Receiving praise, the staff member became more motivated. He thought for a while but couldn’t recall anything else at the moment, so Magistrate Song asked him to continue with what he had previously mentioned about the belongings.

“Oh yes,” the staff member had almost forgotten what he originally intended to say, “about half a month after Gao Fa left, a guest was cursing in the lobby, saying he didn’t know which damned pickpocket had cut his bundle wrap, and he hadn’t noticed during his journey, so everything fell out along the way…”

Although there was nothing valuable, it was still frustrating.

At that time, Liu Shan was fiddling with the abacus. Upon hearing this, he went over to comfort the guest and then said, “Your bundle wrap is no longer usable with such a big tear. How can you mend it? Why not buy a new one from us?”

The guest, in need of a replacement, asked the price and found it reasonable, so he agreed to buy it.

“At the time, your humble servant didn’t think much of it,” the staff member said. “But after the guest received it, he discovered it was second-hand and came out to confront the master. At that time, your humble servant was wiping the counter and happened to look up, noticing that the bundle wrap was actually Gao Fa’s.”

Magistrate Song became alert. “Are you sure?”

The staff member nodded vigorously, afraid they wouldn’t believe him.

“How could I be unsure? Before, your humble servant had even helped the vomiting Gao Fa search for replacement clothes in that bundle wrap. Because he liked to smoke dry tobacco, there was even a small burn hole the size of a fingertip on the wrap, which Gao Fa himself had sewn up late that night. Your humble servant saw it clearly!”

But Liu Shan was persuasive, and the guest indeed needed a bundle wrap, so eventually, the matter was settled with a deduction of two days’ room charge.

The color, fabric, and size of the bundle wrap were all normal, but if even the patch was the same, that would be highly suspicious.

Magistrate Song rubbed his hands together, his usually dark face flushed with excitement.

Previously, the constables had searched Liu Shan and his wife’s room and found many small items suspected to belong to Gao Fa, consistent with the stock Xie Yu had discovered in his rented house, but those couldn’t be used as evidence.

Because Liu Shan could easily claim he had bought them from Gao Fa before, and in fact, that was exactly how he explained it.

But this time was different.

A bundle wrap was something essential for traveling. The guest who accidentally bought a second-hand one knew he needed to purchase a new one temporarily, let alone Gao Fa?

If he sold his own bundle wrap for wrapping clothes, what would he use himself?

Even if Liu Shan really wanted to buy Gao Fa’s bundle wrap, he should have bought a new one.

Even if he was stingy enough to buy a used one, it was unlikely he would immediately resell it.

Magistrate Song paced back and forth a few times, then suddenly turned around to ask the staff member, “Do you remember which guest Liu Shan sold the bundle wrap to? Where is he staying now?”

The staff member nodded. “He’s a northerly sheep trader who comes here every year. He has one eye that doesn’t work well, so everyone calls him Zhou Duyan. Now that autumn has arrived, it’s the time when the sheep up there are fattest. He might be coming with his flock these days.”

The people of Kaifeng loved to eat mutton, but unfortunately, the local area focused mainly on agriculture and didn’t produce much sheep. Even when there were some, they had a strong gamey smell, which the nobles disliked.

Thus, the fat sheep from outside the pass were very popular. Every year, many sheep traders traveled back and forth between the two regions, then bought silk, tea, and other delicate goods from within the pass to bring back outside the following spring.

This round trip was never empty, yielding profits many times over.

However, the journey was long and arduous, with harsh conditions. In the wilderness, one had to guard not only against bandits but also against wolf packs. Many people who set out never returned.

Magistrate Song asked where Zhou Duyan would go after entering the city and immediately dispatched people. One team stayed at Liu Shan’s inn to wait for Zhou Duyan, while another went to a small inn where Zhou often stayed upon entering the city, to prevent him from changing his route and missing them due to unexpected circumstances.

They waited like this for more than half a month, with the constables constantly asking each other, “Has he arrived yet?”

“No.”

They almost turned into stone statues.

It wasn’t until late July when the weather suddenly turned cold, and everyone started wearing slightly lighter autumn clothes in the mornings and evenings. Several constables who had been stationed at the inn went out for a meal and to look around as usual when suddenly the constable who had climbed a tree shouted, “He’s coming! He’s coming! The sheep are here!”

Another person also climbed up to look and indeed saw a cloud of dust at the end of the road. Beneath the dust, there was a moving mass of grayish fuzzy creatures, among which came the sound of “Maa~ Maa~”

The few constables couldn’t wait and rushed out directly. Sure enough, they saw a scruffy, dirty shepherd, who looked up in confusion, his one eye appearing grayish in the sunlight.

“Are you Zhou Duyan?”

The shepherd nodded. “Yes.”

The constables exchanged glances, and tears of excitement streamed down their faces.

They had been waiting outside the city for half a month, enduring wind and sun, feeling as if they had been exiled.

Finally, their wait was over, and they could go home!