Chapter 237: The Truth Revealed
As soon as Gong Changan said this, the crowd immediately quieted down, and the shop assistant stopped crying.
His words were very clear: Suo Zhen, this insect, recognizes the scent of a thief. It doesn’t necessarily mean that whoever has the stolen item is the one who stole it.
Only the person who truly stole the item will be recognized by it, so the person who transferred the stolen goods will not escape either.
The shop assistant wiped his face and said, “If that’s the case, then that’s great.”
“However, if you are the real culprit, then the insect will not go after anyone else,” Gong Changan said. “So you must tell the truth.”
“I am telling the truth, I was framed. The shopkeeper and the shop assistants can testify for me, I never entered the shop.” the shop assistant said, puffing out his chest.
“That’s right, that’s right, he really didn’t come in,” the shopkeeper testified for him.
“If that’s the case, then you must all remember who was in the shop when the beaded string was stolen. Just call out those people,” Gong Changan narrowed down the number of suspects further.
There were over twenty people in the shop at the time, and each shop assistant had their own guests to attend to, so they wouldn’t remember incorrectly.
When these twenty-odd people stepped forward, Gong Changan said, “I’ll give you one last chance. Whoever stole the beaded string, come out and admit it. Suo Zhen will definitely find the real culprit, and being shamed is inevitable. Do you really want to lose your life?”
An autumn wind blew, scattering a few yellow leaves.
Everyone felt a chill.
With a thud, someone knelt down.
“It was me! I was blinded by greed for a moment!” The person who knelt down covered their face and wept.
It was none other than the shop assistant who had been whipped by the barbarian girl earlier.
“What? Feng Liu! It’s you! You’re an old shop assistant here, how could you do such a thing?!” The shopkeeper was so angry he jumped up and down.
“Shopkeeper, I’m not human!” Feng Liu covered his face and refused to move his hands, “I’m not human! I was truly desperate… My father owes gambling debts… he wants to… sell my twelve-year-old younger sister to… to a disreputable place… I can’t… I can’t…”
“Alas, you! You must have committed sins in a past life to have such a father.” The shopkeeper went up and punched Feng Liu a few times, but his heart ached more than his anger.
Feng Liu’s father was a gambler, and the shopkeeper and shop assistants knew some of it. But Feng Liu was a filial person and never spoke ill of his father.
So, how excessive his father was, and how difficult it was for the family to make ends meet, the people in the shop did not know the truth.
It was only through Feng Liu’s words that they learned his father owed over two hundred taels of silver to the gambling house and was even thinking of selling his own daughter to a brothel to pay off his gambling debts.
Feng Liu was just a shop assistant, and he absolutely could not come up with over two hundred taels of silver.
As the saying goes, poverty breeds cunning. Looking at the full cabinets of gold and silver jewelry, he couldn’t help but have wicked thoughts.
If he wanted to steal and frame someone, he needed a scapegoat, so he chose these two barbarian women.
They were foreigners, unfamiliar with the Capital City, and not lacking money. They would likely accept the blame if they suffered a loss.
Even if they couldn’t find anything on them, they could be accused of handing it over to an accomplice outside the shop, and the stolen goods would have already been taken away.
At that point, the matter would be complicated, and they would likely pay money to avert disaster and make peace.
And the shop would not investigate further after receiving compensation, as the beaded string was not a particularly rare treasure, worth at most three hundred taels of silver.
But they never expected that this barbarian girl, though young, had an unusually tough backbone.
Not only did she refuse to admit to stealing, but she also whipped herself, making it impossible for him to extricate himself for a time.
Feng Liu’s original plan was to hide the item when he had the chance and sell it after the matter had passed.
However, he found it difficult to extricate himself, and then Gong Changan and others happened to pass by and intervene.
Gong Changan’s colorful bee could actually find the thief.
And it was incredibly poisonous, capable of killing a person with a single bite.
Feng Liu was naturally terrified. In the chaos, he secretly stuffed the beaded string into the robe of a shop assistant from the silk shop, thinking he could escape.
But he didn’t expect Gong Changan to say that the insect recognized the scent of a thief, not just the scent of the object. He knew then that he could not escape no matter what.
“Regarding what happened before, even if you were forced and had your reasons, did you not consider that the other shop assistant might have lost his life because you framed him when you transferred the stolen goods?” Gong Changan showed little sympathy for Feng Liu.
“I… I know I shouldn’t have done that, but I was just trying to protect myself…” Feng Liu lowered his head. His clothes were torn by the whip, and the rags shivered in the autumn wind, just like his current predicament.
“Zhuola Han!” A call with a heavy accent cut through the crowd, and then a burly foreign youth rushed over.
“Brother!” The barbarian girl smiled and jumped up, hugging the youth’s neck. “You’re late! You missed the show.”
Then she chattered in a foreign language with the youth, using both words and gestures, clearly describing the situation.
“Are you the shopkeeper?” After listening to his sister, the youth strode like a tiger to the shopkeeper and lifted him with one hand. “You dare to frame my sister and search her?!”
“No, no… Esteemed foreign… Young Master… this is all a misunderstanding, a misunderstanding…” The shopkeeper was so scared he stammered. Although the other party was not old, he was broad-shouldered and burly, towering over him by two heads.
Looking at his attire, with large turquoise and yellow jade beads, a blood jade thumb ring, and gold-inlaid knives. Behind him followed several imposing men with swords, clearly of considerable status.
The shopkeeper smiled obsequiously and begged for mercy. The youth snorted and let go, and the shopkeeper fell to the ground.
“As for you few, take care of the business here.” The youth waved his hand, and the imposing men accompanying him walked over and blocked the shop door.
For the next few days, they wouldn’t go anywhere. As long as the shop was open, they would stand at the entrance, and see who else dared to come in and buy things.
“And you, thief,” the youth lifted Feng Liu with one hand again. “If this were the grassland, I would have your heart cut out to see if it was black. This is not the grassland, but I won’t let you go either. Mr. Jia, you are Han, this person will be handled by you.”
He was accompanied by a middle-aged man who looked like a Han, wearing a robe of bamboo-root green, thin and refined.
“Yes, yes, I will send him to the authorities later,” Mr. Jia replied.
“You are a good person.” The youth finally came before Gong Changan. “You protected my sister, so you are my friend. This is for you!”
Saying this, the youth unbuckled his gold-inlaid saber and placed it heavily in Gong Changan’s hand.
