The walls of Xu City are not very generous, so the guards who were woken up could clearly see who they were.
Four or five disheveled villagers were sitting on a donkey cart, holding torches, with black ash on their faces.
"Fire?" the guard said angrily, "Why did you come into the city when there was a fire? Xinghua Mountain? Isn't it right next to Xinghua Lake? Why do you still have to come to the city to fetch water?"
If the fire is too big to put out...
"Then you might as well gather people from nearby villages, run to the city, and gather the patrols one after another until daybreak and the fires are all burned out!"
Have these stupid villagers been burned into confusion?
After the gatekeeper cursed, the villagers finally had a chance to speak.
"Master Bing——" a villager shouted, "he is dead——"
Dead people are inevitable when they catch fire. The guards remained calm and unmoved.
"It's not a dead person." A villager next to him thought of something and corrected him, "It's a murder--"
These words brought other villagers back to their senses, and they all shouted, "Yes, it was murder--" "We are here to report the crime-" "Master Bing, someone committed murder and set fire-"
Murder and arson? The guard's eyes narrowed, then this was different.
Nowadays, the official in charge of military affairs and patrolling the city is no longer Zhang Laizi.
Previously, the magistrate ransacked Ning Li's house in a violent move, and many subordinate officials were implicated and were unlucky. However, things in the world are interdependent, and some people are unlucky, while others are lucky.
Wang Erqing is the lucky one.
When the magistrate rectified the administration of officials, he cut off some people and promoted some people.
The condition for promotion is that he has no backers and is not connected with people like Ning Lu.
Wang Erqing is one of them. He is not so upright and does not collude with Ning Lu, but he has no qualifications, money and power, and Ning Lu doesn't even bother to look at him.
Without a backer in the government office, I could only be a servant in this life. Unexpectedly, I suddenly became a useful person in the eyes of the prefect. From a servant who could only patrol the streets and do odd jobs, I became a person in charge of a department.
Official.
Wang Erqing couldn't sleep well these days, fearing that when he woke up it was just a dream.
In order to prevent this from being a dream, Wang Erqing worked hard and lived in the Yamen for a period of time. When he heard people coming to report that there were murders and arson outside the city, Wang Erqing knew that the time had come to show off his abilities!
"There are such evil people in broad daylight." He shouted and immediately called for the police patrol to assemble.
The officers did not correct the new magistrate. It was night at this moment, and they all obeyed the orders one after another, and each one of them was aggressive. They took advantage of the new magistrate to rectify the affairs of the officials, so that everyone could have a good future.
No subordinate would want to be as rich as Ning Lushi.
Of course, no subordinate thought that he would end up like Ning Lu.
Ning Lu's fault was that he was too trusting, stretched his hands too far, and failed to serve the new master well.
They won't, they will take a lesson and become a subordinate official who can make a fortune and still keep their wealth.
The officers worked hard, leaving behind the villagers who came to report to the official from a distance. When the villagers rushed the skinny donkeys and ran back, the sky was already bright and the fire was put out. The incoming villagers blocked the outside while the officers surrounded them.
What to check out together.
"How about it?"
"The murderer wasn't burned to death, was he?"
"No, I dragged it out early."
"Hey, it's a pity that the house Ah Qi and Xiao Qing just built was burned down."
"Thank God that the person is okay."
"This is too scary. Someone actually comes here to rob."
Robbery? Wang Erqing looked at the corpse on the ground and the knife marks on the neck of the corpse.
This was the first time I saw the robber and the deceased being the same person.
"So, he killed himself?" He raised his head and looked at the victim aside.
These are two girls, fifteen or sixteen years old. Like the villagers around them, their clothes are messy, and their faces and hair are covered with ashes. But they are just like the villagers around them, shocked, angry, scared... and not dead.
The one who escaped was devastated, but his face was paler, while the other one even had the same face as usual.
The girl with a normal face nodded and said: "We two orphan girls are very cautious when we live alone. We put the door on top when we sleep at night. When this man pried open the door, he was hit by the stick I placed at the door, and it hit the knife.
As a result, the knife bounced back and killed me."
At this point, she glanced at the corpse.
"This is probably because you have a guilty conscience as a thief. God has an eye for evil. Evil will be punished, and you will not be able to survive if you do it yourself."
Wang Erqing understood that this girl was probably surviving the disaster, and her anger offset her fear.
And according to what she said, the thief set a fire and rushed in to kill people. She had just woken up and before she could face the hatchet and experience life and death, the thief died.
The fear of being afraid is not as good as the fear of truly experiencing death.
However, the way this thief died was too ridiculous, right?
He was hit with a wooden stick against the door and hit his neck with a knife, and he died.
But otherwise, it couldn’t have been this girl who was beaten to death with a stick, right?
Wouldn’t that be even more ridiculous!
Wang Erqing looked again at the girl called Ah Qi by the villagers.
It looks so weak that it is worse than a wooden stick.
Wang Erqing withdrew his gaze, looked at the police officers around him, and shouted, "Have you found it? Are there any accomplices?"
The policemen around shook their heads: "The scene was chaotic due to the fire fighting, so no traces could be seen."
When Wang Erqing looked at the ground again, he raised his foot and pushed it gently. The half-prone man lay upright, revealing his burned face, which was ferocious and terrifying, which also made his face unrecognizable.
Ah Qi said that the man rushed into the house while setting fire, in order to prevent them from escaping after they woke up.
So he cut himself to death and when he fell down, the fire oil was sprinkled on his body, and the fire was burning.
The thief should be thankful that he fell in the main house. Although the master and the servant were panicked, they rushed to put out the fire and poured water to put it out, otherwise the whole person would have been burned down.
What kind of thief is this?
Why did you come to rob the orphan girl?
Is it a robbery?
Wang Erqing looked at Ah Qi. Although she was still young, dressed simply, and looked embarrassed at this moment, she could still tell that she was a beauty.
But Jie Se just carried the person and left without making a sound, so why did he set a fire and use a knife?
Making money?
Wang Erqing looked around and saw that the wooden shed was burned. The remaining three rooms were also very simple. He also looked at all the furnishings in them. None of them looked like anything. They were all made of wood. The only valuable ones were those.
My head is too thin.
What's the point of robbery?
"There are also cows -" the village children who were watching shouted loudly, feeling sad and angry, "burn the cows too."
Cow? Cows are more valuable than donkeys. Wang Erqing looked at the guard. The donkey ran out and was grazing by the lake. Was the cow too slow to run out?
"Boss," the guard whispered, "I asked, and they said they are wooden ornaments, and they seem to be for the village children to play with."
Wang Erqing glared at the village children over there and signaled to the officers to stop them and not let anyone else cause trouble.
There was no money to rob and no one to rob, so this case was actually simple. Wang Erqing looked at the girl again.
"Miss Qixing." He asked in a deep voice, "Do you have any grudge against anyone?"