Su Xingfang, Part One

Inside the carriage.

Sun Shaozong opened the iron chest on his right and took out a ceramic flask filled with hot water from between two hand warmers, one cold and one hot.

Having been stored alongside the hand warmers, the hot water the servants had poured in that morning was still around forty or fifty degrees by this time.

He poured some of the warm water onto a handkerchief, soaked the dirt on his hands loose, and rubbed them repeatedly a few times. Then Sun Shaozong lifted the curtain and casually tossed the handkerchief out the window.

Before long, a commotion erupted outside. It turned out that roadside peddlers and two beggars were arguing over the fine brocade handkerchief.

Such a handkerchief was nothing to a wealthy household, but if it were washed clean and sold to some fallen family trying to keep up appearances, it could still fetch quite a few copper coins.

The noise was soon left behind by the carriage, and Sun Shaozong's thoughts returned to the case at hand.

In truth, based on deductions from the traces at the scene, they had essentially already identified the murderer as none other than Su Xingfang.

Yet they still lacked the two most crucial things: motive and evidence.

There was no need to say more about the absence of a motive.

Although those traces could be linked together to infer that Su Xingfang was the true culprit behind it all, they still lacked sufficient weight to use as grounds for arresting a sixth-rank county magistrate.

What a pity!

He had actually been fooled by the man at the time. Otherwise, if he had discovered something amiss a step earlier, he could have found the rope from the mechanism on him.

Then the case would naturally have become ironclad.

Regret