touchnovel Chapter 8 Muddy Waters
Chapter 8 Muddy Waters
Meng Chen immediately got up and left the kitchen.
The sun had just risen in the east, and yesterday's torrential rain and wind seemed as if they had never happened.
The coolness after the rain lingered, and a gentle breeze occasionally swept by, causing water droplets on the jujube leaves to fall with the wind, dripping softly.
Meng Chen held the steel knife, and only felt slightly relieved after hearing Qingyu's voice.
Meng Chen hid the knife in the ashes under the stove and opened the door.
Old Chen and Qingyu were standing at the gate of the courtyard, both wearing straw hats, looking like they were about to go to work in the fields.
"I've been calling you for ages!" Before Meng Chen could even speak, Qingyu said anxiously, "Someone in the Yan family has died! Let's hurry and see what's going on!"
"Someone died?" Meng Chen was stunned for a moment.
The body was just dumped last night, and it's already been found? That's a bit too fast, isn't it? Was the stone I tied not secure enough, and it got washed out by the rain?
Are the constables arriving soon?
Meng Chen was somewhat dazed, feeling that he had been exhausted half the night before and it would have been better not to have bothered at all! If he had run away last night, even if the roads were difficult and he couldn't tell which way to go, at least he would have made it out.
There was no time for regrets. Meng Chen immediately considered whether to stay home and wait for his death, or to run away. If he ran away, should he take Yan Bao's knife with him? Carrying a knife would be more conspicuous, but being able to fight to the death was better than being tortured again.
"What are you staring at?" Old Chen suddenly tapped the ground with his crooked wooden cane and said, "I heard from Crooked Mouth that Yan's second son was killed by some villains last night. Let's go see what's going on!"
What? The one who died was Yan Hu, the second son of the Yan family? But I clearly killed Yan Bao, the third son of the Yan family! Could the information have been misinformed?
"Where did you die?" Meng Chen asked, puzzled.
"I heard he died in the county town, but I don't know if it's true or not," Old Chen said.
Then it wouldn't be Yan Bao! Meng Chen calmed down a little.
"They also said their house was completely looted, losing over ten thousand taels of silver!" Qingyu said seriously. "How much land would they have to cultivate, how many fish would they have to sell to earn that back!"
"Don't listen to their nonsense." Old Chen pointed at the bluefish and said, "It rained heavily last night; you couldn't even carry a person more than a few steps, let alone tens of thousands of taels of silver. Even a carriage couldn't pull it. Besides, the Yan family has only been wealthy for a few years; how could they have accumulated so much?"
"That makes sense! Let's go take a look!" Seeing that he was still innocent, Meng Chen perked up and was no longer afraid. He even wanted to see for himself and find out what was going on.
"You two go and check, don't worry about me. I'm going to check the fields. It rained heavily last night, we can't let it wash away my family's old graves," Old Chen said.
"Okay, be careful not to fall!" Qingyu gave a few words of advice, then quickly pulled Meng Chen along and rushed forward.
The road was really muddy, and every step left a hole, so Meng Chen simply took off his shoes and carried them in his hands.
Qingyu followed suit; country girls don't have many scruples, and she even asked Meng Chen to carry her straw sandals.
Upon arriving at Laolongtan, Meng Chen saw that the water level had risen by at least seven or eight feet. The water was murky and covered with wheat stubble, straw, broken leaves, and twigs.
And then there was someone else's excrement that got mixed in with the water, it was really filthy and smelly.
After crossing the Old Dragon Pool, a large crowd had already gathered in front of the Yan family mansion, with people coming in twos and threes along the road to watch the spectacle.
Now that the wheat harvest has just ended, and with the heavy rains preventing people from working in the fields, the villagers have no entertainment and naturally all gather around to watch the spectacle.
Besides, since it was the Yan family who suffered a disaster, everyone was even more eager to see it.
Qingyu was a lively girl. Whenever she met someone she knew, she would ask about the Yan family. She would talk on and on, but she never got any answers.
Meng Chen kept observing the road for any remaining traces.
Two constables stood guard in front of the Yan family's gate, and the two stone lions were exceptionally clean after being washed by the rain.
The two arrived at the mulberry tree, where there were even more people. The place where the crime had occurred yesterday had long been trampled and there was no trace of it left.
Meng Chen leaned forward and strained his ears to listen.
But these people were all talking at once. One said that Yan Hu was beaten to death for not paying for prostitution, another said that Yan Hu's arrival caused a stir, and yet another said that Yan Hu's wife caught him in adultery, which scared him to death.
Anyway, everyone has their own version of events, but what is certain is that the Yan family was indeed robbed, and Yan Bao has disappeared without a trace. This was said by Liu Laoguai, who guarded the Yan family.
Master Yan hasn't returned yet, but Clerk Gao from the county government has brought people here and is still questioning people at the Yan residence.
Meng Chen was a little confused at this moment. He only killed Yan Bao, and did nothing else!
The sun rose higher and higher, and the weather became hot and humid. Meng Chen snatched Qingyu's straw hat to fan himself, and after a while, a group of people walked out of the Yan family's gate.
The leader was Gao, the county clerk, whose clothes were covered in mud, indicating that he had indeed come in a hurry, wading through water and mud.
The others weren't much better off; they were clearly the village heads and elders from the nearby villages.
The clerk, Gao, stood in front of the Yan family's gate, gave a few more instructions to the village head and elders, and then waved his hand. Immediately, two men carried out a sedan chair.
Gao Dianshi sat on the palanquin, with the other constables following behind. Only four constables remained at the Yan family's residence before heading straight back to the county town.
"..." Meng Chen thought that Gao Dianshi would definitely take the lead in investigating the case, but he didn't expect him to just leave.
As soon as the official left, a crowd of onlookers surrounded the village head and elders.
After some frantic inquiries, it turned out that Yan Hu had indeed been killed.
Yan Hu, the second son of the Yan family, had offended some powerful figure. Last night, he went to a brothel and was stopped by someone as soon as he returned home.
The murderer was a skilled fighter; he easily knocked down several constables who were with Yan Hu, and then directly took Yan Hu's head.
After receiving the news, Master Yan and Yan Bao headed to the county town in the middle of the night. However, they hadn't gone far when Master Yan realized he hadn't brought any money, so he asked Yan Bao to go home and get some.
Because of the heavy rain last night, Master Yan didn't arrive in the county town until almost dawn. However, he found that Yan Bao hadn't followed, so he sent someone to pick him up. But unexpectedly, Yan Bao had disappeared, leaving only a white horse behind.
Even more strangely, the three guard dogs kept by the Yan family all died, without a single wound on their bodies, leaving only a few droppings and urine, supposedly because they were scared to death.
Anyway, after investigating for a long time, Gao Dianshi said that thieves had indeed broken in at night. As for how much silver was stolen from the Yan family, he couldn't say for sure. They could only wait for Master Yan to come back and settle the accounts.
After listening to the village head and elders argue for a long time, Meng Chen finally understood what had happened last night.
The constable who came last night was indeed there to deliver a death notice. But Yan Bao turned back halfway, apparently to retrieve money!
Meng Chen clearly remembered that when he tripped the horse, there were still dogs barking in the Yan residence, but the barking stopped after he killed Yan Bao.
At the time, Meng Chen thought the vicious dog was frightened by the power of the thunder and rain, but he did not expect that someone had sneaked into the Yan residence and scared the vicious dog to death.
"What kind of ability does it take to scare a vicious dog to death? The walls of the Yan residence are so high, did they fly up there without a ladder?" Meng Chen was shocked, but he felt that something was wrong.
He had inadvertently taken advantage of the chaos caused by Yan Hu's death to have the opportunity to ambush and kill Yan Bao.
He killed someone and hid the body, then used the heavy rain to wash away the traces, but unintentionally stirred up the waters even more.
Because Yan Hu died and Yan Bao disappeared shortly after, and the Yan family was robbed, most people would assume that it was the same group of people who committed the crime, and would never have imagined that it was such a huge coincidence.
However, this matter also has its advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantage is that Meng Chen does not know whether the villain saw him ambush and kill Yan Bao, or even remembered his appearance.
The advantage lies in the fact that, after this incident, the government's primary target will inevitably be the martial arts expert who killed Yan Hu. Meanwhile, he, a farmer's son who only knows how to harvest wheat, has unwittingly become entangled in the mess.
Sure enough, over the next three days, the county magistrate sent people to investigate the nearby villages, but only those who had gone to the city to learn martial arts were investigated.
Moreover, news has come that martial artists are being strictly investigated in Qingshui County, and even the guards of passing merchants are being checked repeatedly.
Poor Meng Chen killed someone and hid the body, planned many escape routes, and worried for many days, only to find that no one even came to inquire about his whereabouts. All his efforts were in vain.
The weather was getting hotter and hotter, and the water in the Old Dragon Pool was still very murky, as if someone had defecated in it.
Yan Bao was still nowhere to be found, but rumors were circulating in the surrounding villages that he had been kidnapped.
Two days later, on the last day of early June, the constables who had been guarding the Yan family's residence also left.
Meng Chen finally became certain that no one had noticed him being caught in the crossfire.
That morning, Meng Chen was in a good mood. When he saw Old Chen going to the field to spread manure, he went up to help him.
After spending the whole day scattering manure with the grass carp, I was exhausted when I got home.
Old Chen stir-fried some soybeans and said he wanted to invite Meng Chen to a drink.