“Transported here by someone?” Qin San frowned. “You’re saying someone carried a dead body here and carefully staged the scene to look like a suicide by jumping from the pagoda?”
Ning Yan nodded. “You could put it that way.”
Another constable asked, “Then it wasn’t suicide at all, but murder?”
“I’m not certain whether it was murder,” Ning Yan replied. “The body hasn’t been dissected yet. But the conclusions we’ve reached so far are accurate.”
She took out a handkerchief and wiped her hands. “You should investigate whether there’s a building or cliff nearby that’s around four zhang high. You may find useful clues there.”
As soon as Qin San heard this, he thought of an abandoned ceremonial platform nearby. It stood approximately three zhang and eight chi high. He immediately sent men to investigate.
“Don’t leave yet,” Qiao Lu said, blocking Ning Yan’s path. “You claimed you’d reached a conclusion. Is this the conclusion you were talking about?”
Ning Yan raised an eyebrow. “What? Did I discover less than you did?”
Qiao Lu was left speechless. For once, he had no retort. Whether this young woman was simply lucky or genuinely talented, everything she had said so far made sense. Which was exactly why he couldn’t let her leave.
“You’ve only solved half the case. You can’t go yet. Keep talking.”
A faint smile played on Ning Yan’s lips as she looked at him.
Qiao Lu’s face instantly turned red.
Just then, Pei Yan pointed at him. “Stop playing dumb. You lost the bet. Apologize and call her ‘Grandpa’ first.”
The remark was clearly meant to stir up even more entertainment.
The corners of Ning Yan’s mouth curved upward. She didn’t mean to make things difficult for Qiao Lu, but his earlier behavior had been utterly lacking in grace. Since that was the case, nobody needed to be particularly graceful now.
Qiao Lu’s face burned as red as a boiled shrimp. But since Pei Yan had spoken, he dared not disobey. Cupping his fists and bowing deeply to Ning Yan, he said, “My name is Qiao Lu. Greetings, Master Ning.”
“And please continue enlightening us, Master Ning.”
Qiao Lu was a street veteran, equally at home among law-abiding citizens and rogues. Normally he bullied the weak with arrogant ease. Now that he had run into someone tougher than himself, switching to a humble attitude felt just as natural.
The crowd burst into laughter.
With a bright red face, Qiao Lu stared fixedly at Ning Yan.
Ning Yan didn’t press the matter any further. Instead, she pointed toward the dark space beneath the pagoda. “Take a look. What do you see?”
Not only Qiao Lu, but everyone present followed her finger and looked up.
The area beneath the pagoda was pitch-black. Nothing could be seen.
“I don’t see anything,” Qiao Lu said, scratching his head.
It was the fifteenth day of the lunar month, but the sky was overcast. Thick clouds hid the moon, leaving only the faintest light.
“Exactly. You can’t see anything.”
As soon as those words left her mouth, Ning Yan sprang into action before anyone could react. She grabbed someone who was quietly backing away from the crowd and trying to leave. Twisting his arm behind his back, she threw him to the ground. Thud!
“Aiya! Cough! Cough!” The man cried out in pain and rolled about on the ground.
The crowd stared in confusion. Why had Ning Yan stopped Xu Tiao?
Ning Yan’s voice turned cold.
“May I ask how, exactly, you personally witnessed the victim jumping from the pagoda?”
As soon as she spoke, the crowd fell silent.
Qin San and Qiao Lu immediately understood.
The space beneath the pagoda had been pitch black. Xu Tiao had claimed he was climbing down from his donkey cart with his head lowered. How, then, had he looked up at precisely the right moment and seen someone jump? His story simply didn’t add up. He was clearly lying.
Qiao Lu drew his saber and pressed it against Xu Tiao’s neck. “You’re the murderer? Speak the truth!”
Xu Tiao immediately cried out in protest. “I’m innocent! I really did see it! How can you take the word of some little girl who’s talking nonsense?”
“If this is how you treat people, nobody will dare report a dead body to the authorities in the future. Who knows when they’ll end up being treated as suspects themselves?”
Qiao Lu was about to rough him up when Ning Yan stopped him. She seized Xu Tiao’s wrist and examined his hands from every angle. Then she searched him, pulling back his collar to inspect his shoulders. During the search, a letter fell out.
At once, Xu Tiao panicked and lunged to snatch it back, but Ning Yan unfolded it first.
It was a letter a man wrote to a woman, the handwriting elegant and refined. The writer expressed his happiness at becoming engaged to her and promised to cherish and protect her for the rest of his life.
“It’s mine!” Xu Tiao protested. “I wrote it to the woman I love. How can you read someone else’s private letter? That’s completely inappropriate!”
Ning Yan shook her head. “You didn’t write this.”
“How do you know?” Qiao Lu asked, leaning over to examine the letter.
Ning Yan held up Xu Tiao’s right hand. “This man’s finger joints are thick and coarse. There are no writer’s calluses on either his wrist or index finger. Yet he carries the distinct fragrance of cooking oil.”
“I also checked him earlier. Both of his shoulders are heavily callused.”
“If I’m not mistaken, he’s an oil peddler who travels from street to street selling oil.”
Xu Tiao’s face drained of color instantly.
The surrounding crowd broke into waves of astonished exclamations.
“That’s incredible!” someone whispered.
“She really is remarkable,” another person agreed. “Sharp-minded and efficient. This young lady alone is worth an entire yamen’s worth of constables.”
As the crowd murmured among themselves, Ning Yan stopped beside the corpse. “As for this victim, both his index finger and wrist bear writing calluses, and there’s a faint scent of ink on him. He was most likely a scholar.”
Then she turned to the seated Xu Tiao. “I imagine your beloved had feelings for you as well. But she and her fiancé were a perfect match: talented, attractive, and socially compatible. As a mere oil peddler, no matter how desperate you felt, you had no way of competing.”
“So when he arranged to go out tonight with his fiancée, you took advantage of the opportunity and pushed him off a high platform while he wasn’t paying attention, killing him in the fall.”
“Afterward, in order to conceal the truth, you loaded the body onto your donkey cart and transported it here.”
Before she could continue, Xu Tiao interrupted loudly. “You’re wrong! I’ve been here beneath the pagoda the entire time. Then how do you explain the footprints inside the tower?”
The crowd immediately seized upon the same question.
“That’s simple,” Ning Yan replied. “You had an accomplice.” After a brief pause, she continued: “That person climbed the pagoda and hid on the eighth level. After the constables came up, trampled over the footprints, and left, she came back down.”
Ning Yan spoke casually, almost as if discussing the weather. “And that accomplice would be the victim’s fiancée, wouldn’t she?”