Chapter 25: The Murder Case

Li Po went to the back kitchen and washed the blood from his hands. Although he had been extremely careful, traces still remained on his body, a problem he had no way to resolve. The kitchen was well-stocked with wine and meat, which was undeniably tempting, but Li Po did not touch a thing.

He returned to the room where the large man had been staying and began to search carefully. He could not find the most important deeds or documents. There were plenty of signed papers, but he had no time to study them. In truth, Li Po was not even fully literate, and having never seen a property deed before, he could only guess at what he was looking for. Eventually, he concluded that the man must have had another residence in the city where the important documents were kept, so he abandoned his fruitless search.

He slipped quietly out of the house, this time using the front door. His priority now was to avoid leaving too many footprints. In this era, law enforcement likely lacked sophisticated methods—fingerprints were out of the question—so a killer's footprints were the most critical primary clue. Of course, this was just speculation; he had no idea if they would employ trained tracking dogs. Therefore, he pulled his clothes tight and did his best to walk only where the ground was already churned up, all while making sure no one spotted him. The exhaustion of this effort went without saying.

After climbing over the fence, Li Po did not head straight back to the refugee camp. Instead, he skirted the fence to the south and slipped into the residential district of Mayi. After walking quite a distance, he climbed over the wall of a house that looked wealthy, cut straight through the estate, and climbed out the other side. Only then did he feel it was safe enough to turn back toward the refugee camp. This was completely different from killing the skinny man and the limping man; this was clearly a major case, and he felt no amount of caution was excessive. If he still happened to run into some supernatural tracker capable of following his trail to the refugee camp hours later when the streets were crowded, he would simply have to accept his fate. If it came to that, he would have no choice but to fight his way out of the city.

When he returned to the hut, Li Po was nearly frozen stiff. It was still dark, but dawn was not far off.

The hut was warmer than it had been during the day because the stove fire had not been allowed to die out; Li Chun had been waiting for him the entire time. In these harsh times, having someone wait for your return was, for Li Po, a rather decent thing. He ruffled Li Chun’s hair without saying a word; the tacit understanding between them had not been built in a day. Li Po huddled next to the stove, soaking up the warmth, while Li Chun draped every piece of insulation she could find over him. Just like that night a few days ago, the two of them, one large and one small, sat by the fire, waiting for dawn, and in truth, waiting for an unknown destiny.

News of the case spread quickly. By the time Li Po learned of it, quite some time had passed since the crime was discovered. As he had expected, a massacre of seventeen people almost immediately shocked all of Mayi. By the time the noon porridge was served, squads of soldiers, officials, and constables were pouring into the market. Li Po went to collect porridge for himself and Li Chun as if nothing were amiss and returned to the hut. He knew that if these people had not tracked them to the refugee camp in the first instance, the chances of solving the case were slim; most of the traces would soon be destroyed by the sunlight and the passing crowd.

What he did not know was that this was the most shocking bloodbath in Mayi since the Assistant Prefect, Li Jing, had taken office—surpassed only by the time Li Jing personally led troops to patrol the four walls of the city, surrounded the estate of Li Shou, and, without consulting the authorities, had the heads of Li Shou and eleven others taken.

Most of the dead were idlers and scoundrels; such people were destined to die in the streets sooner or later, and few would care if one or two were killed. But to have so many die at once, including a merchant named Zhang Hu, two brokers, a minor official who guarded the market, and several regular garrison soldiers, was different. By noon that day, word had already spread of the Magistrate’s fury.

Soon, the status of those entering the market grew higher, and the crowds gathered in greater numbers. All four chief constables of Mayi arrived one after another. After making a tour, the four men gathered in one spot, their faces grim. To rise to the rank of chief constable in a place like Mayi, one need not say much more—they were certainly fiercer, crueler, sharper, and more cunning than anyone else, or they would never have attained such positions.

The four chief constables were all at least thirty years old. In peacetime, they were constables of Mayi, but if war broke out, each of them would become a corporal or a platoon leader among the scouts of the Mayi army. They were skilled in archery and horsemanship and carried significant reputations. But at this moment, as they exchanged dark glances, their expressions were anything but pleasant.

"The killer entered the house from the back, killed the one who was taking a night leak first, and then..."

"Cut the nonsense. Whoever can track the person down now, I’ll kowtow to them."

"It must have been someone from the military, an old veteran, probably..."

"Check the military registers? Save it. There are at least eight hundred to a thousand old soldiers in the city. How long would that take?"

"The footprints are too blurred. They must have wrapped their feet in something. If we’d come yesterday, we might have found something, but now... it’s no use."

As they spoke, the other three looked toward the oldest among them. One of them asked softly, "Chief Li, what do you think we should do?"

This was an old man over forty with greying hair. After pondering for a long while, he pursed his lips and said, "The perpetrator is gone. As for the person who ordered the hit..." He paused, looked at the others, and added, "You’ve all heard of Master Zhang. He certainly had plenty of enemies. This is clearly a case of paid murder. We don't actually need to exert much effort; once the higher-ups make their decision, we just follow orders."

"At worst, we’ll take a few strokes of the cane and be done with it. Who knows, we might even come out with a little extra in our pockets afterward."

It was a vague statement, but the others understood perfectly. They could not simply brush off a case of this magnitude. Their superiors would set a deadline, and if they failed to catch the killer, they would inevitably be punished. But for a human trafficker like Zhang, there were countless people who wanted him dead. In a case this big, the more pressure the higher-ups applied, the easier it was for the men below to do their work. They wouldn't care who was guilty or innocent; they would simply round up anyone who had a grudge against Zhang and interrogate them. When the time came, who actually committed the crime would be determined by whatever the constables said it was.