Sun Shaozong stroked the slightly rounded dent and felt suspicious.
According to the autopsy report, the penetrating wound on Jie Ming's chest was indeed caused by repeated chiseling, which basically conforms to Master Qi's inference of "an iron chisel in one hand and a hammer in the other hand".
But why didn't Jie Ming resist?
Or...
When the murderer attacked, Monk Jieming was still unconscious. Although he later woke up due to the severe pain, it was too late for him to recover. He only had time to desperately grab the iron rod on his chest?
How was he transported out of Fayuan Temple while he was unconscious?
Sun Shaozong was deep in thought, but the two monks who came to greet him could no longer hold back. They put their palms together and bowed, saying, "Amitabha, may I ask, have you found any clues since you came here?"
"Is that something you can ask?"
Qiu Yunfei twisted his eyes at them and scolded them, "Go, go, quickly call Jie Chen and Jie Xiu to the main hall..."
"Let them wait in the detention room."
Sun Shaozong stood up and brushed off the dust on his hands, then said, "I am going to take a look at Jie Zhi and Jie Ming's meditation room first."
The two little monks looked at each other, and one of them immediately turned around and went into the temple.
The remaining one put his hand inward and said indifferently: "Then everyone please follow me."
It is said that big stores bully their customers, and this famous temple is no exception. Even the young monk guarding the door has a bad temper. After being scolded by Qiu Yunfei, he even refused to call him "Master".
However, after investigating for more than half a month, they did not find anything, and two more monks died. It is no wonder that everyone in Fayuan Temple was dissatisfied with Shuntian Prefecture.
Therefore, Sun Shaozong used his eyes to stop Qiu Yunfei's impulse to lose his temper, and led everyone into the Fayuan Temple in silence.
As the most precious temple in the capital, Fayuan Temple naturally covers a large area. After entering the gate, we headed west, passing the main hall, side hall, bamboo forest, rockery, clear stream, and small bridge. The little monk pointed to the rows of houses in front and said, "Master Jie Chi lives in the second row, and Master Jie Ming lives in the third row. I wonder which one you would like to see first?"
Upon hearing this, Sun Shaozong first turned around to look at the hall hidden in the bamboo forest, and roughly measured it in his mind. He found that the distance between the meditation room and the main gate was at least one mile away, and there was also a Taoist temple wall blocking the way.
"Besides the gate we saw earlier, does this Zen room have any other entrances and exits?"
"Of course not."
The young monk who led the way shook his head decisively and said, "Not to mention that there are no other entrances and exits, even the only gate to the courtyard must be locked at the second watch."
Tsk~
According to the autopsy report , Jie Ming died between the third and fourth watch, most likely at midnight - since the lock was to be closed at the second watch, it would be even more difficult to get Jie Ming out and kill him without anyone noticing.
It seems that only Jie Chen, who holds the key, can...
Shaking his head, Sun Shaozong temporarily suppressed his preconceived judgment and pointed at the third row of courtyards with his chin, saying, "Let's go to Jieming's house first."
It is said that all beings are equal, but the monks in the temple are treated differently according to their different identities.
For example, the young monks of the Xuan generation who lead the way usually sleep in a large bunk bed with sixteen people in a room. As for the monks of the Jie generation, they are assigned to four-person rooms or double rooms according to their different duties. Only the first disciples like Jie Chen and Jie Nian are qualified to have their own meditation room.
The four monks who followed Jiechen to the house of confinement that day all had duties in the Reception Hall, so naturally they stayed in double rooms.
But when they arrived at Jie Ming's meditation room, they saw seals of Shuntian Prefecture on the doors and windows. Zhao Wuwei led a few yamen runners forward and checked carefully. After confirming that it had not been demolished by anyone, he used his sword to cut off the door seals.
Sun Shaozong stretched out his hand and pushed it, and saw that it was empty inside. Apart from tables, chairs, beds and a half-person-high cabinet, there was almost no other furniture.
But he still scanned it carefully several times before stepping in.
Master Qi followed closely behind, pointing at the two beds and saying, "The one on the left is Jie Ming's bed, and the one on the right is Jie Xiu's."
"Retirement?"
Sun Shaozong frowned and said in a deep voice, "So, Jie Xiu also lives here? Then why didn't you note this in the case file?"
Master Qi was a little embarrassed by his questioning, but he still explained truthfully: "After all, Jie Xiu has a solid alibi, and after Jie Ming died, he temporarily moved to the guest room in the east wing and did not sleep in this meditation room, so..."
Sun Shaozong nodded, barely agreeing with his explanation, but turned around and asked about the relationship between Jie Ming and Jie Xiu.
"It is said that these two were childhood friends before they became monks, and they were ordained at Faming Temple at almost the same time, so their relationship must be very good, otherwise they would not live in the same meditation room."
"However, after Jie Chi died, Jie Ming was identified as the primary suspect because he was the only one without an alibi. Jie Xiu was inevitably suspicious and wary of him, so he moved to the East Cross Courtyard to stay temporarily."
While listening to Master Qi's explanation, Sun Shaozong looked around - he didn't find anything else, only a stack of hand-copied scriptures on the desk, about twenty pages in total.
The handwriting on the first ten pages was messy, but when I turned to the back, the handwriting gradually became neat.
At the end of the scripture, it was written 'Jie Ming of Fayuan Temple, copied on July 14, the eleventh year of Guangde' - and this was exactly the day before Jie Ming was killed.
Master Qi saw Sun Shaozong flipping through the scriptures and said, "This must have been copied by Monk Jieming in a state of panic in order to calm his mind, so it was disorganized at first, but as he gradually calmed down, he wrote it neatly."
Sun Shaozong did not comment on his inference, but took the stack of scriptures outside the door and looked at them repeatedly in the sunlight.
"grown ups."
Qiu Yunfei came closer out of curiosity and took a few glances, but he couldn't see anything interesting. He couldn't help but wonder, "You looked so carefully, what did you find so special?"
“It’s not rare.”
Sun Shaozong said calmly: "However, these scriptures were not written on the same day, but were written over several days. In addition, he did not become calmer as he wrote, but more irritated. The reason why his writing became neater later on has nothing to do with the scriptures themselves."
Upon hearing this, Master Qi also hurried over, asked Sun Shaozong for the scripture, and imitated him just now, carefully screening it line by line and word by word.
Not long after, he cried out "Oops!" and said in annoyance, "Sure enough, it was not written on the same day! I was really careless. I quickly flipped through it twice and saw that it was just an ordinary scripture, so I didn't pay too much attention to it. Who would have thought..."
Qiu Yunfei, who was standing by, still couldn't figure out what was going on and wondered, "How do you know that this scripture wasn't written in one day? Besides, even if you know it wasn't written in one day, what's the point?"
"Please look, Yanei."
Master Qi naturally did not dare to neglect him, and pointed at the scripture and explained: "Although there is no difference at first glance, if you look closely under the sun, you can still vaguely distinguish some differences in the ink color between the characters - these color differences should be caused by re-grinding the ink after a considerable period of time."
"In these places with color differences, the neatness of the characters above and below is also more different than in other places - and it is obvious that the characters above the color difference are more chaotic. It can be seen that he was getting more and more upset as he wrote, so he failed to finish copying this scripture several times."
"As for knowing the usefulness of these..."
"Since it wasn't the copying of the scriptures that had the effect, then Monk Jieming must have encountered something that suppressed his fear and anxiety."
"And since this change occurred the day before death, it is very likely related to this case."
"So, if we can figure out what caused his mood changes, we might be able to find clues to solve the case."
As he spoke, he bowed his hands in shame and admiration and said, "Your Excellency's ability to see the big picture from the small details really makes me ashamed."