Chapter 457: Fortune and Longevity Meeting
Since he failed to detect the trap set by the murderer, Sun Shaozong carefully searched the area around the corpse while trying not to destroy the crime scene.
After making sure that no details had been missed, he picked up Jie Nian's body and left the center of the open space following the same footprints he had left.
"grown ups."
As soon as he placed the body on the door panel that the yamen runners had found, Qiu Yunfei immediately came forward and asked eagerly, " How did the murderer kill people? Have you figured it out?"
Then, he lowered his voice and asked, "Could he really have been bitten to death by a wild dog?"
Sun Shaozong glanced at him silently until Wei Ruolan, Master Qi, and Zhao Wuwei gathered around him. Then he said, "First, tell me the results of my simple inspection."
"The deceased's Dharma name was Jiexian, and he was the head monk of the Zhikeyuan Hall of Fayuan Temple. Judging from the stiffness of his body, he died between 8:00 and 10:00 a.m."
"The fatal wound was on the victim's neck, a horizontal wound about two and a half inches long, running from left to right. Judging from the cross-section of the wound and the damage to the cervical vertebrae, the murder weapon seems to be a hatchet or something like that, a single-handed weapon that is good for chopping."
"After the victim died, the murderer tried to create the illusion that the victim was mauled to death by wild dogs on the victim's wounds."
"The positions of the five fingers on the deceased's right hand were very uncoordinated. It is very likely that someone forcibly pried open the deceased's fingers and took away something after his death."
" There is a faint fresh scratch on the lining of the inside of the sleeve of the deceased's right arm. It seems to be caused by a sharp object. However, the force and speed were not very fast. It should be a mark left by accidentally taking out a sharp object from the sleeve pocket."
"Apart from the deceased's own footprints, no other footprints were found at the scene. Also, because the deceased fell down, there was a gap of about four feet in the middle of the footprints. Therefore, it is impossible to carry the deceased to the scene and then walk back along the same path after committing the crime."
“And there are no traces of ropes being set up on the stone tablets on both sides.”
Having summarized here, Sun Shaozong paused and silently waited for everyone to digest this information or raise their own questions.
But after hearing this, Wei Ruolan just frowned and pondered, while Master Qi and Qiu Yunfei stepped forward almost at the same time and began to examine Jie Nian's body.
It’s not that I don’t trust Sun Shaozong, but some details can only be seen with my own eyes.
After all, he often went to Old Xu to learn from him, so Qiu Yunfei's method of autopsy was more skilled than Master Qi's. He quickly examined the fatal wound on the neck, and began to look at the gestures of the right hand and the scratches in the sleeves.
“This seems to be…”
He muttered to himself, bent down and pulled out a dagger with a cat's eye from his boot, gestured back and forth in Jie Nian's palm for a few times, and said with certainty: "If my guess is correct, he should have been holding a dagger in his hand!"
“Tsk tsk tsk!”
Qiu Yunfei exclaimed in exaggeration: "It seems that this monk has no good intentions. It's a pity that he was a step slower than others when he took action. Otherwise, the person lying here might be the murderer."
Master Qi also echoed, "Judging from the angle and length of the scratch on the sleeve, and the arc drawn by his little finger and ring finger, it does look like a dagger."
But he then added: "It's just that we can't be sure at the moment whether he took out the dagger after the other party showed his malicious intentions, or whether he had the dagger in his hand all along - so whether he has malicious intentions or not, I'm afraid we still need to ponder and discuss it."
Wei Ruolan frowned and asked, "Why did the murderer take Jie Nian's dagger away?"
"Of course, it was also to create the illusion that the wild dogs were hurting people."
Sun Shaozong explained, "Otherwise, wouldn't it be strange for Jie Nian to hold a dagger in his hand but show no signs of fighting with wild dogs?"
After a pause, seeing that no one had any other questions, he called Jie Chen and Jie Xiu over and asked them when was the last time they saw Monk Jie Nian.
Jie Xiu answered honestly, saying that he had met Jie Nian once in the Main Hall during morning prayers, but he just greeted him quickly and did not stop to talk in detail.
Jie Chen seemed quite impatient after hearing Sun Shaozong's question. He first muttered a set of theories about 'evil spirits harming people', and finally, under Qiu Yunfei's repeated questioning, he reluctantly said: "I did see him, but Senior Brother Jie Nian has always suspected that I was the real culprit behind the scenes, so I avoided him from a distance."
Upon hearing this, Sun Shaozong asked Jie Xiu again with a serious face: "Master Jie Xiu, was Jie Nian really avoiding him during his lifetime just as Master Jie Chen said?"
"this……"
Jie Xiu hesitated for a rare moment, and after a while he shook his head apologetically and said, "Because of the accidental death of fellow monk Jie Nian, I have been depressed and rarely ask about trivial matters in the temple, so..."
Jie Chen interrupted impatiently, "If you don't believe it, just go ask other monks in the temple, or just ask my master!"
"Amitabha."
Before he finished speaking, someone was heard chanting Buddhist scriptures, and then more than a dozen monks came out from behind the monument of merit in the southeast. The leader was none other than the Zen Master Liao Chi with his white beard and five willow branches.
The little monk who followed closely behind Le Chi with his face flushed with excitement was actually the little monk Xuan Ci who was the first to discover Jie Nian's body. It turned out that when the people from Shuntian Prefecture were conducting an expanded search, this little monk saw that no one paid attention to him, so he went to the temple to call for people.
"Master."
"Abbot."
Jie Chen and Jie Xiu hurried forward and paid their respects.
However, Le Chi walked right past them and came to Jie Nian's body. He lowered his head in silence for a long while. His lips, which were almost covered by his white beard, trembled a few times, as if he wanted to say something. But suddenly his legs went weak and he fell backwards with his head raised!
Fortunately, the monk behind him was quick to support him, otherwise, at his age of seventy, he might have gone straight to the Western Paradise.
“Master?!”
"Abbot?!"
But even so, Monk Liaochi had his eyes closed and was unconscious, which made the other monks panic.
In the chaos, someone shouted, "Master is in such a state, we can't go to the Longevity and Happiness Meeting on the first day of August!"
"Of course! Send someone to inform the palace immediately and tell them that Senior Brother Jie Nian died unexpectedly and that Master was traumatized and cannot host the Emperor's birthday celebration!"
"Will this be disrespectful to the Emperor?"
"I can't care about that anymore! Three monks died in the temple in a row, and the government didn't even give an explanation. Now even Senior Brother Jie Nian is dead. If the emperor wants to blame someone, it can't be us!"
When everyone in Shuntian Prefecture heard this, their faces darkened.
