Chapter 22: Feels Like Raising A Silly Son
Lord An hurried over with quick steps, his face ashen as he glared at Tian Sheng, “Tian Sheng, to trample on human lives in public, you sure have some nerve!”
Tian Sheng never expected Lord An to appear, and he was so frightened that he dropped to his knees with a thud.
“Lord, this official is innocent! It was that woman who killed first, such a vicious criminal—if not dealt with promptly, she might endanger the people. This official was merely concerned for the people’s safety! Please investigate clearly, Lord!”
“The people?” Lord An was so infuriated by Tian Sheng’s words that he burst out laughing, “If you cared even a little for the people, why poison their parents official? Why make an innocent person take the blame?”
“Lord, this official did not, this official is innocent!” Tian Sheng cried out his innocence repeatedly.
“Did not? Hmph!” Lord An snorted coldly and flicked his wide sleeve, pacing two steps to the side, “Take a look at who this is!”
Tian Sheng looked up and met Lu Chengjing’s pair of bottomless black eyes.
Lu Chengjing sat on a simple stretcher and questioned coldly: “Lord Tian, I does not know where I offended your eyes, it was not enough to make I take the blame, you also ordered someone to murder I on the way to the prefectural city. Can Lord Tian give I an explanation?”
“You’re slandering me!” Tian Sheng cursed angrily, “It is clearly you who harbored malicious intentions, jealous that Lord Li took the Lu Family’s eldest son as a disciple but not you, so you poisoned him to death. Now you push the poisoning onto this official. Lu Chengjing, you despicable villain, Lord An sees clearly and will certainly not let you have your way!”
Lu Chengjing sneered coldly: “Lord Tian has a sharp tongue, distorting right and wrong as easily as turning over his hand.”
Shang Wan walked over, “It was clearly your dog that bit and injured someone, yet you blame it on me, an outsider. Have you no shame?”
“You all!”
“Shut up!” Lord An had no patience to hear Tian Sheng continue to quibble, “Drag him away and lock him in prison. Without this official’s permission, no one is allowed to visit!”
Two constables stepped forward, gagged Tian Sheng, and dragged him away.
“Lord An, those two are Geng Hao and Niu Baoqing.” Shang Wan pointed at the two huddled quail-like figures.
Lord An waved his hand, “Take them to prison as well!”
Geng Hao looked at Shang Wan pitifully. Wasn’t it agreed that his life would be spared?
Shang Wan could not understand his little look, but considering how he desperately protected Niu Baoqing, the key witness, she still pleaded for him in front of Lord An.
Lord An said he would consider it appropriately and also ordered a guard to fetch a doctor to treat Geng Hao’s wounds.
The two were taken away.
Guards arrived with a large group of constables, temporarily sealing off the Tian Mansion, and no one from the Tian Mansion was allowed to leave.
Lord An went to pay respects before Li Wen Hua’s spirit tablet. All the Li Family came to pay their respects. Lord An comforted everyone and then took three guards to stay at an inn.
The court session would be tomorrow. Lu Chengjing was still a suspect in custody and had to return to prison. But Lord An, understanding that he was injured, specially allowed Shang Wan to accompany and care for him.
Shang Wan originally wanted to return to Elm Tree Village, but thinking it had only been a day, nothing major should have happened, so she settled down and occupied half of Lu Chengjing’s straw mat.
In order to bring Lord An back as quickly as possible, Shang Wan had rushed to the prefectural city at top speed, and returned on horseback, thus making it in time to save Lu Chengjing.
Having gone almost a day and a night without sleep, once she relaxed, drowsiness overwhelmed Shang Wan, and she tilted her head slightly and fell asleep.
Lu Chengjing, however, could not sleep. First, because his wounds ached faintly; second, because there was someone lying beside him, which he was not used to.
His left hand rubbed the small porcelain bottle. Lu Chengjing stared at the wall for half the night before very lightly turning his head. By the faint moonlight coming through the window, he quietly studied the face of the person beside him, both familiar and strange.
Shang Wan was so alert that she smacked her lips, “Staring at me in the middle of the night instead of sleeping, what for?”
Lu Chengjing: “……You weren’t asleep?”
“I was.” Shang Wan turned her head and half-opened her left eye, “But with you staring like this, even a dead person could come back to life.”
She yawned sleepily, “Speak up, what are you thinking about instead of sleeping?”
Lu Chengjing was silent.
Shang Wan tsked lightly and opened her eyes, “Don’t make me deal with you in the middle of the night. Speak quickly, I want to sleep.”
Lu Chengjing found an excuse, “I’m worried about tomorrow’s court session.”
“Tomorrow is just a formality, what’s there to worry about?” Shang Wan reached out and patted him like she would Yuan Yuan, “Be good and sleep. Sleep well, and your wounds will heal faster.”
Lu Chengjing softly agreed and closed his eyes, feeling the slight pressure from the bedding, and unknowingly fell asleep.
Hearing his breathing become even, Shang Wan withdrew her hand and sighed inwardly. Why did she suddenly feel like she was raising a silly son?
The next day, a startled cry woke Shang Wan from her sleep.
She opened her bleary eyes, “Who died?”
“Tian Sheng.” Lu Chengjing was also awake—or rather, he had been awake for a while, just lying there resting with eyes closed.
Shang Wan’s stretching motion paused. She threw off the bedding, got out of bed, and ran over to watch.
Tian Sheng had died of poison, just like Li Wen Hua, with blood flowing from all seven orifices, a terrifying death.
Was this suicide out of guilt?
Shang Wan stared at Tian Sheng’s corpse, feeling that Tian Sheng did not seem like someone who would commit suicide, and certainly not choose such a painful way to die.
Lord An hurried over upon receiving the news. After the coroner examined Tian Sheng’s corpse, he discovered poison under the nail of his left thumb. When scraped off and tested, it was the same poison that had affected Tian Sheng.
Lord An’s brows furrowed so tightly they could crush a fly. Tian Sheng had been prepared in advance.
As the saying goes, better to cling to life than die well. Even if death was inevitable either way, one more day alive was one more day.
Moreover, yesterday Tian Sheng had no time to bid farewell to his family. Given his doting on his children, even if he were to take his own life, he should have done so after seeing them one last time.
This matter was somewhat suspicious.
“First, carry the corpse to the morgue.”
Two constables stepped forward and carried the corpse away.
Lord An turned his head and instructed the guard, “Strictly investigate everyone who came into contact with Tian Sheng in the prison yesterday.”
“Yes!”
Shang Wan had finished watching and was about to leave when Lord An called out to her, “Lady Shang, your hearing is excellent. Did you hear any strange movements last night?”
Shang Wan looked up at the sky and recalled for a moment, then shook her head. “No.”
In her heart, Tian Sheng was already a dead man, not worth paying extra attention to.
Lord An was clearly somewhat disappointed. After asking about Lu Chengjing’s condition with concern, he left with the guard.
Although Tian Sheng was dead, the case still needed to be tried.
No poison had been found in the Tian Mansion yesterday, so the physical evidence had been somewhat lacking, but with Tian Sheng dying from poisoning and his death matching Li Wen Hua’s, the physical evidence was now in place.
Xie Zhiqiang had confessed without hesitation to Tian Sheng instructing him and the bailiff to kill Lu Chengjing during the escort, and Niu Baoqing had also confessed to being forced by Yang Rang to poison Li Wen Hua.
Upon learning that Tian Sheng was dead and that he himself was seriously injured with an unknown time left to live, Yang Rang felt utterly despondent and confessed honestly.
The reason Tian Sheng schemed to poison Li Wen Hua was exactly as Lu Chengjing had deduced: he feared Li Wen Hua would expose his affair with Zhang Shi and ruin his official career.
“Lord,” Lu Chengjing bowed to Lord An, “I have one thing I don’t understand and want to ask Yang Rang.”
Lord An nodded in approval.
Lu Chengjing turned his head and looked at Yang Rang. “How exactly did Tian Sheng learn that Li Wen Hua knew of his affair with Zhang Shi?”
