The next morning, Wu Dahu headed to the town together with Song Qinghan after their breakfast.
The seasoning was the top sold as always, while the they also sold more fruits today than ever. The customers coming over were mostly frequenters.
They shut the stakes earlier, and then went to the iron shop. Wu Dahu describe the features of the scalpel to the blacksmith, the shopkeeper.
Noticing that Wu Dahu had kept his every single word in mind, Song Qinghan couldn’t help but feel touched yet amused to the scene when Wu Dahu described something that wasn’t existing in this world.
Did the blacksmith get such capacity to make something like that?
Beyond his expectation, the blacksmith nodded after he listened to Wu Dahu’s description, saying, “I’ve never heard any shape of knife you’ve just mentioned, but I think I can make that out. How about this, I will first draw it out on the paper.”
After that, he walked directly to the inner room of the shop, picked up a carbon pencil and then started drawing on a random rice paper, carefully.
Wu Dahu and Song Qinghan looked at each other, then walked together into the inner room, waiting for the blacksmith to finish his drawing.
It could tell that the blacksmith got such an amazing capacity of memorize everything. Without asking Wu Dahu for a further details, he could draw a complete scalpel with no flaw at all.
Song Qinghan looked at the rice paper, he was amazed, he was stunned and shocked, taking a deep breath and saying, “That’s marvelous, just make this out according to your painting. How long will it take?”
The blacksmith pouted a bit while he was thinking for a moment, then he stretched two fingers of his waving in front of them.
Wu Dahu came to a surprise, asking, “Two days?”
“Two weeks!”
The blacksmith shouted and corrected, with a rather impatience. He was kind of dissatisfied with the random guesses of Wu Dahu.
Song Qinghan nodded aside by Wu Dahu, saying, “It’s already a good news to make that out in two weeks, how much is it?”
Again, the blacksmith stretched out his fingers of three, but it seemed that he wouldn’t give a chance to Wu Dahu to guess anymore, and then answered without hesitation, “Thirty silver coins.”
Song Qinghan got his eyes wide hearing that, grabbing the sleeves of Wu Dahu, saying, “That is too expensive! It’s okay if we give it up.”
Wu Dahu patted Song Qinghan on his hands trying to console, he then turned around to the blacksmith, saying. “Front money first?”
The blacksmith nodded and then extended his hands with palms up, saying, “Ten silver coins for the front money!”
Witnessing that Wu Dahu took the coins out of his pocket without hesitation, Song Qinghan couldn’t help but say with upset, “It’s our work for two days.”
Wu Dahu smiled big looking at his husband, saying with an amused tone, “Aren’t you eager for that kit? Don’t worry about that, it is quite worthy.”
Being as a doctor majored in Western medicine and treatment, of course Song Qinghan should own such a kit for his career and, crucially, for his patients. Since the scalpel costed that much, he rejected it from his deeper mind but still had to accept it and nodded for the moment, saying, “Yes, I want it. After all, I can use it for the operation in the future for a smoother treatment.”
The word, “Operation”, still remained its obscurity to Wu Dahu though, it never stopped him to console Song Qinghan. Wu Dahu then said with a big smile, “Take it if you want it, maybe we can make more money through this kit.”
They walked out and leaf the iron shop, but not long when they were walking leisurely on street, they were stopped by three yamen runners all of a sudden.
The head one of the three frowned standing in front of them, asking, “Are you Wu Dahu and Song Qinghan?”
Wu Dahu blocked Song Qinghan behind him, and answered firmly, “That’s right!”
“Then come with us!”
Being stared by the fierce eyes, Wu Dahu and Song Qinghan were enclosed by the three runners. It seemed that the runners were all set to crack down any resistance of the two.
The suddenness of the matter caused confusions to Wu Dahu and Song Qinghan. They looked at each other, puzzled and doubtful.
“Is it all because of the matter of Xiang Tiange and Mei Xilin?” Song Qinghan whispered.
Wu Dahu thought for a moment, and then patted Song Qinghan on his hands, consoling while they were walking, “Probably it is. Let’s see.”
In fact, Wu Dahu didn’t think so.
If it was really because of the matter yesterday. The yamen runners should have found them earlier in their house, but not today. Moreover, the way how the runners talked to them wasn’t a good one, it was more like that they were under arrest being as criminals.
The yamen Court wasn’t that far, and they arrived at it soon.
A body appeared right in the center of the lobby, a totally dead one. Noticing that, Wu Dahu frowned seriously and found something was going to be happened.
He then stopped walking ahead, blocking Song Qinghan in his back completely, asking, “Your Honor, do you mind me asking why you summon us to be here today?”
The county magistrate, an official master sitting right in the highest seat in this court, using the Jing Tang Mu (Judge’s Gavel) to knock the table and shouting aloud, “You rude and unruly man, how dare you not to deliver a salute to me, to the court?”
Wu Dahu clenched his fists but then he saw the surrounding guards staring at them in the look of fierceness. He had to try to calm himself down and kneed himself right away, pleading, “My husband is going to deliver the baby within months, he isn’t that convenient to knee, please let him stand right there, Your Honor.”
The county magistrate started chuckling and used the Jing Tang Mu to knock the table again, saying, “He is the principle offender of this crime, how can a murder not knee himself under this Court of Solemnity?”
Song Qinghan frowned, asking with confusion, “What case? What murder?”
As soon as he finished his words, a femina male kneeing aside the body started crying with shower of tears, mourning in a rather angry tone, “My husband. My dearest! How can you leave me alone in the world?! The murder still refuses to confess. I won’t let you die with grievance.”
Song Qinghan sneered and interrupted the crying face, “Hey you, just make it clearly! How can I just be a murder? How can I kill your husband as I’m pregnant currently?”
The femina male aside whimpered, saying, “Your Honor, I’ve told you all the fact. Now I plead for the justice from you!”
The county magistrate raised his eyelids, he noticed a trace of coldness showing up right in the eyes of Song Qinghan, sneering, “Are you the one selling the so-called seasonings next to the meat shop?”
Song Qinghan came to a confusion, but still admitted, saying, “Yes I am. I sell them for more than three hundred people.”
He mentioned the quantity of the purchaser aiming to gag the county magistrate.
If the county magistrate was about to accuse Song Qinghan of the murder over the seasonings, he had to prove the fact that why the other more than two hundred people were fine with that.
The county magistrate took a pause for a moment, and then continued to say, “What you’ve sold, the so-called seasonings, consists of one poisonous ingredient called ‘Ba Bu Dao’. At the day when you sold the seasonings to this family, the poisonous ingredient was involved. I had sent experts to make some detection. This man was poisoned by ‘Ba Bu Dao’, and died from it. So you tell me, if you are not the murder, who else would be?”
Being extreme furious, Song Qinghan turned to a laughter, sneering, “You, being as a county magistrate, accused me of a baseless crime without any proof. How can you ignore the law and constitute?”
“How can you make sure that the so-called ‘Ba Bu Dao’ was sold by me? There’s three scenarios I can think of it would be come from.” he continued to ask before the county magistrate would vent his rage on him.
“First, he is a money slave. He would pick the ingredient himself rather than purchase. He noticed that the ‘Ba Bu Dao’ was quite similar to my illicium verums, and then he picked them up and took them back, cooked it with the seasonings and died from the poison.”
“Second, someone has a deep grudge with him. His personal enemy witnessed that he purchased the seasonings back, so he mixed the ‘Ba Bu Dao’ with his seasonings secretly. In this way, he got killed by his personal enemy without trace.”
“Third, the murder would be his HUSBAND right here. He could hoax him to intake the poison, and then accused me as a scapegoat. He probably is a liar, a husband killer, a REAL MURDER, mourning himself for nothing!”
The femina male aside got his eyes wide opened, waving his hands and saying in panic, “NO, it’s not me. That’s totally a bullshit, Your Honor.”
Song Qinghan didn’t even give a shit to the femina male beside him, he stared at the county magistrate, saying in calm, “Dearest County Magistrate, do you mind me asking how did you exclude all the suspicions at once?”
Nervousness and rage were blooming together in the county magistrate’s mind. Being humiliated in such way, he suddenly raised his hands and patted on the Jing Tang Mu angrily, shouting, “That man isn’t a fool, how can he kill himself? Moreover, he gained a great reputation of kindness within the area, he got no personal enemy at all. As for his husband, what’s the point for him to kill his husband?”
Song Qinghan smiled big all of a sudden, saying, “So Mr County Magistrate, do you believe that I am the foolish one to misunderstand the difference between ‘Ba Bu Dao’ and the illicium verums? Since the man is dead, no one would talk bad behind him except the murder. Moreover, how did you know it isn’t beneficial to this femina male if his husband die? Maybe he longs for the money, maybe for another man, or maybe for the freedom. Everything is possible. Isn’t it?”
The county magistrate erupted suddenly from his seat, angry and humiliated, shouting, “Give him some punishment. I don’t believe that you are such a tough one to deny your guilty!”
The yamen runners got the order from the county magistrate and then went up to grab the hands of Song Qinghan, they treated him as a sack instead of a femina male in pregnancy.
“Stop it! I confess the guilty!” Wu Dahu shouted.
He rescued Song Qinghan from the enclosure of the yamen runners, nursing a grievance and staring at the county magistrate.
The county magistrate was dumbfounded hearing that, he asked, “What… what kind of guilty?”
Song Qinghan knew exactly what Wu Dahu would say, he grabbed his arms tightly, shaking his head.
Wu Dahu acted as if he didn’t see Song Qinghan’s movements. He emphasized, “I confess that I am the one causing the death of this man.”
The county magistrate sat down back on the seat with anger, using the Jing Tang Mu to knock on the table, asking, “You didn’t sell the seasonings, why did you confess the guilty?”
After receiving the signal, the femina male nodded and pointed at Song Qinghan, shouting, “Yes, yes, that’s the one sold the seasonings. The one with the big belly!”
Wu Dahu glanced at the femina male for a moment, saying slowly, “I did pick the ingredients from the tree, it’s no business to the seller. According to what you said, it is my guilty when I messed up the poisonous stuff and the illicium verums. It’s not my husband’s fault at all.”
The femina male blenched himself since he noticed the sharp coldness flowing from the eyes of Wu Dahu. He got no more words to retort.
Everything seemed to evolve into an unpredictable consequence, the county magistrate frowned a bit, saying, “Are you sure that they were all picked by you? And your husband wasn’t involved? You should know that this is a capital crime. Are you sure to bear it yourself alone?”
Wu Dahu could read out all the intentions the county magistrate meant, he just kept his countenance in equanimity, saying, “I don’t care whether it is a capital crime or whatever, you should blame all the guilty on me. My husband didn’t do anything. If the one behind the scene keeps playing the tricks. Tell him, I will haunt him till his death no matter what.”
The county magistrate got his expression plain and sullen hearing the confess from Wu Dahu, he used the Jing Tang Mu to pat on the table and made a final judgement, sentencing, “Arrest Wu Dahu, Take him to the jail!”
Song Qinghan stood there with tears, he couldn’t even say something facing everything just happened.
Wu Dahu loosened his hand and slowly put his hand down. He said in a low voice to Song Qinghan, “Go back home and pack yourself, and you should find Doctor Luo in Huichun Shop, Doctor Luo is kind of caring. He probably would love to accommodate you. After you delivered to the baby, go wherever you want. Stay or leave, all depends on you!”