The gate of the house was wide open. Seeing Lin Fei and the others arrive, the constable standing guard stepped forward and called out, “Lin Shaoqing.”

Lin Fei nodded to them and looked inside from outside the gate: The house was not large; one could see the situation inside from the outside. After entering the small, square courtyard, there was a row of houses. The houses were simple and easy to see at a glance. There was a main house, a kitchen for cooking, and a storage room for miscellaneous items.

“He moved here five days ago. According to people at the market, he liked to cause trouble whenever he went to the market. He hasn’t been seen since about three days ago,” the constable said.

According to Wu Bucai’s autopsy results, Feng Tong was murdered two days ago. If that’s the case, considering the circumstances of Feng Tong’s death, he was taken away by the murderer less than two days after moving in, killed a day later, and then his body was dismembered and disposed of in a swill bucket with the intention of making Feng Tong disappear without anyone noticing.

“Judging from the way the body was destroyed, it’s quite possible it was a revenge killing,” Liu Yuan thought for a moment and said. “This person’s personality is one of making enemies everywhere.”

“It’s hard to say!” Bai Zhu, standing to the side, shook his head upon hearing this, saying, “Revenge killings are often for venting anger. When a person dies, it’s like a lamp going out. In the cases handled by the Dali Temple, the murderers who truly hated their opponents often did so while the victim was still alive, when they could scream and feel pain, torturing them to vent their anger.”

This reasoning was not without merit. Otherwise, after the death of Han Gaozu Liu Bang, why would his wife Lü Zhi—who could easily have simply killed his favored Cèfēi Qi—choose instead to torture her to death in every possible way rather than grant her a quick end?¹

“On the contrary, the purpose of destroying evidence is mostly not revenge killing but to avoid being discovered.” Bai Zhu said, glancing at Lin Fei beside him, “If it weren’t for Lin Shaoqing yesterday, the contents of that swill bucket would have been buried, and the dead Feng Tong might never have been discovered.”

But because of someone’s accidental discovery…

“Today, Feng Tong’s remaining body was also found in a swill bucket, but unlike yesterday, it wasn’t mixed in to try and blend in. Instead, it was carelessly discarded on top so that the people throwing away their trash could spot it at a glance.” Bai Zhu said, “Doing this, they obviously thought that we would find out sooner or later that Feng Tong was the owner of the body, so they simply returned the remaining body.”

Such a blatant “return” of a complete body to them was clearly not the murderer’s act of kindness.

Liu Yuan thought for a moment and said, “The murderer’s original plan was to get rid of Feng Tong without anyone noticing. Now that they think we’ll find out Feng Tong is dead sooner or later, they’ve changed their plan and simply sent the body out, revealing Feng Tong’s identity. It seems they’re not afraid of us investigating Feng Tong…” At this point, Liu Yuan’s expression changed slightly, and he opened his mouth, subconsciously muttering, “The murderer must have…”

“They must have already erased Feng Tong’s connection to them, making it difficult to investigate,” Bai Zhu interrupted Liu Yuan, following Lin Fei’s gaze to the house in front of them.

Lin Fei didn’t speak but stepped into the house.

Because Feng Tong had disappeared less than two days after moving here, many of his belongings were still stored in trunks and hadn’t been taken out.

Besides some everyday clothes and bedding, everything else was thrown into trunks and trunks.

Bai Zhu walked to a sack piled high with clothes, towels, and other belongings. He picked up a few pieces of clothing and examined them, then remarked, “These clothes are worn and patched; they must have been worn when he was a laborer at the docks.” He paused, then picked up a towel. Seeing the holes in it, he thought for a moment and said, “These must have been what Feng Tong used when he was a laborer at the docks. He probably threw them in the sack to get rid of them.”

The life of a dockworker was arduous, as evidenced by Feng Tong’s past attire. Judging from Feng Tong’s reaction after gaining power, he would surely discard all his old, worn-out clothes and replace them with items befitting his status as “Feng Shìlìng”.

Lin Fei nodded, glanced around, and saw that after Feng Tong moved in, he had only hastily tidied up the tables and chairs and the bedding; everything else was untouched and even covered in a layer of dust. Lin Fei touched the dust on the empty shelves, put his hand down, and turned to walk out the door.

Inside, Bai Zhu, seeing the thick layer of dust, couldn’t help but say, “If Feng Tong wasn’t just lazy, then he was either too concerned about his position as the Shìlìng and wasn’t planning to clean the house himself but was instead planning to hire someone to serve him.”

This wasn’t a small expense! Liu Yuan nodded and followed Lin Fei out with Bai Zhu.

Lin Fei went to the kitchen, which was completely empty, showing no signs of being used. Even the pots on the stove were covered in a layer of dust, untouched. The storage room was the same.

“It seems Feng Tong just moved his things in to sleep,” Bai Zhu said, wiping the dust off the kitchen counter. “He ate out for every meal, three meals a day. This Shìlìng was really putting on airs!”

“In that case… quite an expense,” Liu Yuan calculated. “The rent for the house, the old clothes he’s planning to throw away, plus the cost of new clothes—just those few items alone are equivalent to several years’ salary for a Shìlìng. Where does he get all this money?”

“That’s right!” Bai Zhu nodded, saying, “Even if there’s some profit to be made at the market, with his troublemaking ways, how many merchants would be willing to spend money to bribe him? Even if they managed to get something out of him, they wouldn’t have this much money.”

It seemed that the “Swallowing Gold and Treasures” banner on the door really did have some merit.

Of course, they needed to ask the owner of the house and investigate how Feng Tong became the Shìlìng.

They did not meet the homeowner, only the broker who arranged the lease.

“The owner of the house isn’t in Chang’an. He usually lists it with me for rental purposes”, the middleman explained. “Although the location is good, the house isn’t cheap, so it’s often vacant. It was vacant for almost half a year before Feng Shìlìng came to rent it. It was only rented a few days ago, with a year’s rent deposited.” He then handed over the lease agreement signed by the two.

The agreement followed all the legal procedures of the country, complete with the deed and land deed rubbings. Seeing Lin Fei carefully reviewing it, the middleman deducted this month’s rent and returned the remaining money to the Dali Temple, effectively “collecting it for public use”.

He had initially thought it was only a three-month rent deposit, but it turned out to be a full year’s rent deposit, and the lease was for five years, indicating a long-term intention to stay.

After the middleman left behind the contract papers, copied land deeds, and other documents before departing, Liu Yuan could not help but say to Lin Shaoqing, who was flipping through the contracts, “Lin Shaoqing, I did the maths. Feng Tong had at least several hundred taels of silver in hand, and he probably even had a long-term source of money backing him to afford living like this.”

Bai Zhu, who was standing nearby, nodded in agreement, saying, “His bullying of people as the Shìlìng was purely for amusement after gaining power. From beginning to end, this Feng Tong didn’t mind the Shìlìng’s monthly salary and the bribes from the vendors.”

These words… all pointed to the period three months before Feng Tong suddenly rose to power. So what exactly happened that allowed a former dockworker to not only amass wealth overnight but also transform into a Shìlìng?

(End of Chapter)

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Footnote

1. Lü Zhi (Empress Lü) was the wife of Han Gaozu Liu Bang, the founding emperor of the Han Dynasty. Cèfēi Qi was one of Liu Bang’s favored consorts and the mother of a prince. After Liu Bang’s death, Lü Zhi seized power and became notorious for brutally persecuting Cèfēi Qi out of political rivalry and personal hatred.