The Murder Case

Li Nuo had been at the Chang'an County Office for several days, but today was the first time he had met the assistant magistrate and the county lieutenant.

In a county, the magistrate was the chief official, while the assistant magistrate and county lieutenant were his deputies. Their duties were to assist the magistrate in handling government affairs. The assistant magistrate could be thought of as a deputy magistrate and could temporarily assume the magistrate's duties if the post became vacant. The county lieutenant, meanwhile, was specifically in charge of apprehending criminals and catching thieves, making him roughly equivalent to a modern county police chief.

Li Nuo remembered that in ancient times, the assistant magistrate and magistrate were usually far apart in rank, and the county lieutenant was even lower—just a junior official who had barely entered the ranks. But in this world, Great Xia seemed to have given the assistant magistrate and county lieutenant fairly high ranks to keep the magistrate's power in check.

The Magistrate of Chang'an held Principal Fifth Rank, the assistant magistrate Principal Sixth Rank, and the county lieutenant Principal Seventh Rank. All were appointed directly by the court. As the head of the county, Magistrate Pei could not call all the shots at the county office.

Still, judging by how obsequiously the two treated Magistrate Pei, although Lord Pei was deathly afraid of his wife, he seemed quite skilled at managing his subordinates. Both Assistant Magistrate Zhang and Lieutenant Wang showed him great respect.

With an assistant magistrate and a county lieutenant at the county office, Pei Zhe no longer had to do everything himself.

Promoting agriculture and sericulture, collecting taxes and corvée labor, encouraging education, and caring for orphans and widows could all be left to Assistant Magistrate Zhang. Lieutenant Wang had eagerly taken on the dirty, exhausting work of apprehending criminals and catching thieves. Hearing lawsuits and passing judgment were left entirely to Li Nuo. As for the magistrate himself, all he had to do was drink tea and catch up on sleep in the rear hall, or go to Phoenix Perch Tower under the pretext of making an incognito inspection, to help out those poor women...

With an official life like this, what more could a man ask for?

Unfortunately, every gift of fate came with a price tag hidden in the shadows.

There was a reason Assistant Magistrate Zhang and Lieutenant Wang had become so obedient. They weren't afraid of him; they were afraid of the Minister of Justice behind him.

Wait, how did he have the Minister of Justice behind him?

But everyone believed it, and he was caught in a mess he couldn't talk his way out of.

Pei Zhe sighed. For more than a decade, he had done everything cautiously, just to avoid getting drawn into the power struggles of officialdom. He hadn't expected that, in the end, he still wouldn't be able to escape.

He could only console himself that even if he had been forced to choose a side, he had chosen the all-powerful Minister of Justice. At least until the Minister fell from power, he would be completely safe. Not only safe, but free to throw his weight around in Great Xia's officialdom. And if Prince Chun ever took the throne, he could claim credit for having backed him from the beginning—perhaps even rise another step in rank...

Pei Zhe had just changed clothes and was about to head out to inspect the people's circumstances. He hadn't even left his room when Lieutenant Wang came hurrying in and said gravely, "Something's wrong, Lord Pei. There's been a major case!"

Judging by Lieutenant Wang's expression, this case had to be serious. Pei Zhe abandoned his plans to go out and hurried to the county office's front hall.

He had just reached the front hall when he saw the two corpses on the ground. He turned and retched against the wall, bringing up all the breakfast he had eaten not long before.

A little farther away, Li Nuo wasn't doing much better.

He had just finished throwing up.

He had been mediating a marital dispute, but when he heard there had been a murder, he dropped the case he was hearing and ran out at once.

After all, for a minor case like this, he had to judge ten before he could add a single day to his lifespan. Solving a murder, on the other hand, earned him at least ten days. A hundred minor cases were worth only one murder case.

And if the killer was a high-realm Martial Artist, the lifespan he gained could multiply who knew how many times over those ten days. He'd take off like a rocket.

So Li Nuo had rushed out at top speed.

But he retreated just as fast.

The two corpses laid out outside the Court Hall appeared to have been burned first, then soaked in water for who knew how long. They were so horribly mangled that words could hardly describe them. Li Nuo had handled quite a few criminal cases, but he had only ever delivered verdicts; he had never visited a crime scene. The gruesome sight hit him like a punch to the eyes, and he nearly brought up last night's dinner.

Most of the people present were retching against the walls. Only Lieutenant Wang and the constables, who often went out to crime scenes, managed to stay on their feet, though most of them were pale as well.

Pei Zhe ordered the bodies moved to the morgue. After taking a long while to recover, his complexion finally improved.

He looked at Lieutenant Wang and asked, "What happened?"

Lieutenant Wang stepped over to him, cupped his hands, and said, "The report came from two fishermen. Early this morning, they went to fish by the river and found these two bodies in a bend of the water. I inspected the area, and it doesn't seem to have been the primary crime scene. The bodies were burned first, then soaked in water for a long time. The coroner couldn't determine the exact time of death, but according to the fishermen, they spent all day fishing at that bend on the eleventh day of the seventh month, and the bodies weren't there then. Based on their condition, we believe the dead are one man and one woman, killed sometime between the twelfth and fifteenth days of the seventh month..."

Li Nuo remembered the twelfth day of the seventh month vividly. That was the day he had crossed into this world.

Today was the nineteenth, which meant the two victims had probably been killed about seven days ago—around the time he had crossed over.

Lieutenant Wang continued his report. "The two corpses were burned. The woman had a fatal wound to her chest. The man was missing his head, and the cut at his neck was smooth. He was likely decapitated in an instant with a sharp weapon before he died. We suspect the killer was a Martial Artist at the Internal Breath Realm or above. I've already sent men to the nearby villages to ask whether anyone has gone missing recently..."

When it came to investigating cases and hunting down criminals, Lieutenant Wang was undoubtedly a professional.

The first and most important step in solving a murder was to identify the victims.

Only after identifying them could they investigate their relationships one by one and determine what direction to take next.

Once the victims' identities were confirmed, finding the killer would be much easier for Li Nuo.

Judging by the cut at the male victim's neck, the killer was likely an expert. If they could capture him and bring him to justice, Li Nuo would gain at least a month of life. He looked forward to it eagerly.

And then he waited seven days.

During that time, the county constables made inquiries in several places, but they couldn't even identify the two victims. The case had reached a dead end, without the slightest progress.

Li Nuo was a little disappointed, but he couldn't blame them.

The bodies had been burned and soaked, and one of them was missing his head. Without DNA testing, even their own relatives might not have recognized them.

According to Magistrate Pei, in Great Xia, solving even one in ten murder cases counted as doing well. Most cases never reached a conclusion.

Although the murder case he had pinned such high hopes on remained unsolved, Li Nuo had still gained plenty over those seven days. After the case involving the son of the Official of the Ministry of Personnel, the county office's credibility among the people had soared. Over the past seven days, Li Nuo had personally handled more than a hundred cases, and his lifespan had reached ninety-three days.

Compared with the three-day countdown he had faced half a month ago, having three months left finally let him breathe a little easier.

Tomorrow was another day off. Li Nuo planned to give Lord Pei and the others a break, and take one himself. He didn't plan to go to the county office.

For the past half month, he truly hadn't taken a single day off.

He got up at daybreak and went to the county office. He worked all day, sometimes without even having time for lunch. In the evening, after returning home and explaining arithmetic problems to Mu'er, he would read by himself until late. His days were unbelievably full.

It just made him feel like there was no point in being alive.

So he planned to take a day off and get himself back on track.