Chapter 41: A Brute?

"No..."

At this moment, Shiyu's gaze flickered with a hint of anxiety as she hurriedly shook her head.

"Definitely not!"

"I didn't even get a clear look at his face!"

"My Lord!"

Shiyu trembled incessantly, dropping heavily to her knees on the floor.

"My Lord, I have not uttered a single word of falsehood!"

"I beg the Lord to show mercy outside the law!"

"Guards!"

"Take her away!"

"Throw her into the dungeon!"

Zhou Zheng's expression remained calm, unmoved.

He was a magistrate, and had served as one for many years.

Zhou Tong's death certainly filled him with exceptional anger, but it was not enough to make him overly sorrowful. A mere nephew, after all, not his own biological son. Even if it were his own biological son, in the face of what he set out to do, it would still be utterly worthless!

"What was the murder weapon?"

Zhou Zheng asked once more.

"Reporting to the Lord, the murder weapon is believed to have been an icicle!"

"However, by the time we arrived, the icicle had already melted."

"Therefore, no clues were left behind, except for the realization that the killer simply used whatever was at hand, because one of the icicles on the eaves was missing precisely."

An attending guard spoke up.

Zhou Zheng glanced outside.

"How did the killer know Zhou Tong was in that room? Or could the killer be someone from within our own estate?"

Zhou Zheng inquired.

Yet his tone remained remarkably calm, as if he did not place much importance on the matter!

"That shouldn't be the case. Last night, a servant was patrolling the backyard when he was threatened by someone and forced to reveal the young master's whereabouts."

The yamen runner's voice was crisp.

"So there were accomplices after all!"

Zhou Zheng nodded indifferently, then continued, "Round them all up and throw them into the dungeon for a thorough interrogation. I'd like to see whether their mouths are tougher, or the instruments of torture in the dungeon."

With that, Zhou Zheng strode outward!

Before long, he arrived in front of a carriage. The carriage was crafted entirely from fine red sandalwood, hard-grained and emitting a faint, delicate fragrance.

The delicate and beautiful grain was evenly spread across the carriage body.

The roof of the carriage was fashioned from meticulously tailored silk!

Zhou Zheng stepped inside the carriage.

A brazier was burning within the carriage, and shielded by the silk canopy, the interior was as warm as spring.

An alluring woman sat quietly to one side!

"Tell me about the black market again, from the beginning, exactly as it happened. Especially that man—what did he do..."

Zhou Zheng's voice at this moment turned icy cold to the extreme.

The woman seemed to sense the air inside dropping sharply by several degrees and instinctively shrank her neck. "My Lord, that man shouldn't be the problem. Aside from you and me, there is only one other person who holds a key to those coals!"

"And only that person could have transported those coals out without a sound!"

"Now that he has met with misfortune..."

"Could it be him..."

The woman's voice was soft, yet it deliberately guided suspicion toward Zhou Tong.

Zhou Zheng said nothing further.

Certainly, Zhou Tong was not the one who did it. Either this woman before him or Zhou Tong himself could have been involved!

Yet, at this precise, critical juncture, Zhou Tong had died!

The likelihood of this woman's involvement diminished slightly as a result.

"Did that man definitively say he wanted a hundred stones?"

"Yes!"

Zhou Zheng nodded. "Who gave you the courage to lower the price?"

Zhou Zheng narrowed his eyes.

He asked the question directly.

The woman fell silent for a moment. "My Lord, ordinary households have no use for this stuff. And households that do have a use for it generally lack nothing. The actual sales volume of the coal in our black market is not very high."

"Now that someone is finally willing to buy!"

"Naturally, we must seize the opportunity."

The woman began, "Besides, this man gave me a certain feeling. Although he was dressed in coarse cloth, his eyes possessed an indescribable nobility."

"Perhaps he could be a long-term client!"

Zhou Zheng nodded. "So, I authorized you to lower the price?"

"..."

The woman took a deep breath, pondered for a moment, and said, "If he really follows through with the purchase, I will make up the missing money myself."

At this moment, the woman felt a trace of panic in her heart. Having followed Zhou Zheng since childhood, she knew his temperament all too well. Some matters seemed light and breezy to him, but others had to be kept firmly within his grasp!

"That is not what I meant!"

Zhou Zheng looked at the woman before him, a hint of a smile curving his lips. "You have been by my side since you were a child. I merely wanted to tell you that in matters like this, you should at least give me a heads-up first!"

"Yes!"

Only then did the woman let out a sigh of relief.

"Since the coal is lost, and Zhou Tong is dead..."

"Then these two matters should be connected. At the very least, it gives me an explanation to offer my worthless elder brother. After all, he entrusted his child to me!"

"I don't need to spell out what must be done next, do I?"

...

After waking up in the morning, Lu Chuan took Sun Lazy to the lower floor to grab a bite to eat.

Due to food scarcity, most people nowadays skipped the midday meal entirely!

They would eat a meal in the morning, and another in the afternoon.

And that was how they scraped by through the day!

"Waiter, waiter..."

At that moment, an exceptionally rough voice rang out, carrying a bold and unrestrained quality!

"What is the meaning of this?"

"I came specifically for the game meat at your establishment! And now you dare substitute a farm-raised chicken for a wild pheasant? Have you grown tired of living?"

The man slammed his hand down hard upon the table.

His anger instantly flared forth!

"Patron, patron, please calm your anger."

The waiter hurried over to soothe him. "It's simply because winter has arrived, and wild pheasants are truly difficult to find. Hunters willing to venture into the mountains are also few and far between. Our supply of wild pheasant has been cut off for at least four or five days now!"

"Driven by sheer desperation, we had no choice but to use a farm chicken as a substitute!"

"Besides, if you look closely at the menu, we never cheat young or old. This dish is called 'Roast Phoenix', and its price is vastly different from the original. Our proprietor also knows that farm chicken doesn't taste as good."

"That's why he specifically lowered the price!"

"Damnable nonsense!"

The man waved his hand dismissively. "Along my journey here, I had long heard that this tavern possessed two treasures: one was the Roast Phoenix, and the other was Apricot Blossom Brew!"

"The Roast Phoenix uses wild pheasants from the mountains."

"The Apricot Blossom Brew uses flower buds gathered in spring!"

"Who would have thought, the Apricot Blossom Brew is gone, and now, when I come to eat Roast Phoenix, it turns out to be nothing more than a barnyard chicken!"

The man raised his head.

"Could it be that seeing I am not a local, you thought you could bully me?"

He slammed his table once more, glaring fiercely at the waiter before him!

"Patron, what a thing to say!"

"If you had come three months later, I guarantee you, everything you asked for would be in stock!" the waiter hastily replied with a chuckle.