Back then, a brothel’s procuress had happened to bring her ladies to shop for accessories. The procuress was 42. Although she was not young, she lived like she was in her 30s. She was quite popular in the Imperial City.
Not only that, but that lady was just like what Xie Qiao had described her. She smelled extraordinarily nice.
Compared to other procuresses, she may be old but was coquettish. There was a mole under her eye. At her age, she still had many customers who asked for her!
Most importantly, this person came from Qingzhou.
Back then, an official from Qingzhou had brought his wife and daughters to travel, and they had been killed. The culprit was still at large!
Nobody dared to capture her directly without any evidence.
After some careful investigation, they found out that the procuress’s name was Qi Xiang. Her life was miserable.
A drought had struck her hometown when she was young, so her family had sold her. Fortunately, a wandering old Taoist master had taken her in. The man may look like an expert, but he had actually been a traveling swindler. He would always use her to make money, causing her to lose her virginity when she was only 13.
Later on, the old Taoist master had been beaten to death, and someone then sold her to a brothel.
She had many returning customers because of her pretty looks. There was even an educated man who was in love with her.
The both of them loved each other. Unfortunately, Qi Xiang had been valuable back then. The man had had no money to release her from the brothel. As such, he had helped someone cheat in the provincial examination in order to make money. Unfortunately, the official had found out about it.
It was serious for one to cheat in examinations.
That scholar had lost his dignity, his future ruined. He had not had enough silver to release Qi Xiang. He had been in despair as he didn’t know what to do, so he had committed suicide in prison.
Qi Xiang had been devastated back then.
According to someone, she had been pregnant with that scholar’s child, and she had lost the child due to unknown reasons. As such, she had left the town and arrived in the Imperial City.
Naturally, Qi Xiang had only moved when the official’s family died.
She had been a major suspect.
Moreover, she had been living with a Taoist master from a young age, so she should be familiar with the skill of sealing one’s soul that Xie Qiao had mentioned.
Some of these details matched with the cold case, which made Xie Pinggang more certain that something was wrong with her. Therefore, he reported the exact situation directly!
The superior took the case seriously, so they had captured Qi Xiang for interrogation.
Naturally, the people around her had been captured as well. Two of them looked panicky when they were captured. They knew there was nowhere for them to run.
He had found the suspect out of nowhere, and the people from the Criminal Division wanted to worship him.
Only he knew that it was pennies from heaven!
Xie Pinggang recounted everything about the case to Xie Qiao.
She was rather confused. “What does the man who recently died have anything to do with the case from 20 years ago?”
“That Mei Ziwu was the official’s posthumous child. It was the concubine’s child. After that family died, the concubine married someone else. Mei Ziwu’s identity was inadvertently forgotten. However, I looked at the official’s portrait from years back and noticed that he and Mei Ziwu looked similar. Perhaps Qi Xiang happened to see him and killed him from the grudge.”
The resentment still remained after she killed him, whereby she had to pin him with nails.
However, didn’t it mean that official had suffered a wrongful death? As a superior, was it not his duty to prevent scholars from cheating in examinations?
Xie Qiao should not comment on it.
This Mei Ziwu was not a good man. Her responsibility was to solve his confusion and find out how he had died so that he could reincarnate properly. That was all she had to do.
Xie Qiao sighed and said with a smile, “After solving this case, will Eldest Brother be promoted?”
Xie Pinggang chuckled. “They should promote me. Forget other cases, this case is related to that official from 20 years ago. Since such a mysterious cold case has been solved, they should reward me. However, even if they promote me, I’ll be a ninth-grade official at most.”
