A crime of passion

Since Shen Shixu had not attended morning court that day, the others figured there would be no gossip to hear and wanted to finish up quickly. Court ended in just over an hour.

The moment the end of court was announced, everyone felt a gust sweep past their faces. The elderly prime minister smoothed his wind-tousled beard, wondering where Xiao Jinyi was rushing off to.

"Why is His Highness Prince Jing running so fast? You'd think an entire army was chasing him!"

Walking beside him, Xiao Yuanqi said nothing, but thought, There's no army chasing him. There's an utterly, utterly precious treasure drawing him forward.

Xiao Jinyi went to the Shen Residence first. After learning from Xiaoshi that someone from the Court of Judicial Review had summoned Shen Shixu in the middle of the night, he realized a case had come up there and Shen Shixu must be investigating it.

Knowing that Shen Shixu was not ill finally put Xiao Jinyi's anxious heart at ease. He mounted his horse again and headed for the Court of Judicial Review.

Shen Shixu was listening to the report from the clerk sent to make inquiries in Springwater Alley. Guo Yongshun did indeed live there, and he was exactly what Shen Shixu had suspected: a scoundrel and a thug.

Everyone living near his house—no, everyone in the entire alley—could not stand him. As the clerk questioned the residents about Guo Yongshun, he could feel their hatred for the man.

One man had even said, "If I didn't have my family to think of, I'd have fought that bastard to the death long ago."

As the clerk relayed the residents' accounts, Shen Shixu gained a deeper understanding of Guo Yongshun. The man truly was a shameless piece of scum. Though he should not have said so, he had deserved to die.

Guo Yongshun had been dishonest since childhood and enjoyed petty theft. One day he would take eggs from one household, the next he would pick someone else's vegetables, and the day after that he would steal their chickens.

Even when caught, he stubbornly denied everything, insisting that they were falsely accusing him. He would throw a tantrum and demand compensation.

If they refused, he would slam his head against their door, or urinate and defecate on their doorstep. Reporting him to the authorities did no good. These were not life-threatening offenses, so at most he received a scolding.

Worse still, the lack of any real punishment after being reported only made him more brazen.

After that, everyone else gave in. They let him take whatever he wanted and treated it as feeding a stray dog.

The clerk also learned that the residents of Springwater Alley had not always been on such bad terms with Guo Yongshun. He had no parents and had been raised by his grandfather. His grandfather was already old and died early, leaving the eight- or nine-year-old Guo Yongshun to grow up alone.

At first, the neighbors had felt sorry for him and occasionally brought him food and other necessities. But he was rotten to the core and took their kindness for granted.

One day, when a household failed to bring him a meal and left him hungry, he went straight to their door and hurled abuse at them.

Because of that, everyone stopped helping him. It was also then that Guo Yongrui began his life of petty theft.

Though the petty theft was irritating, the residents of Springwater Alley could still tolerate it. Besides, the late Grandpa Guo had often looked after them, so for the old man's sake, they turned a blind eye.

The real problem was that, after growing up, Guo Yongshun began recklessly ruining other people's reputations and nearly destroyed one young woman's honor.

A family who sold tofu lived in the alley. Their daughter was beautiful and good-tempered, and she helped her father make and sell tofu. The neighbors and customers affectionately called her the Tofu Beauty.

Guo Yongshun took a fancy to her and went to her home to propose marriage, but neither the young woman nor her parents wanted him.

Guo Yongshun's reputation in Springwater Alley was already ruined. What family would marry their good daughter to someone like him? Besides, the Tofu Beauty was already engaged to the son of a butcher who also lived in Springwater Alley.

Naturally, they could not accept his proposal. Guo Yongshun bore a grudge against the family over it and spread rumors to ruin their reputation, claiming they cheated customers by giving them less tofu than they paid for.

He also claimed they sold tofu left over from the previous night. Fortunately, their neighbors trusted them, and the good reputation they had built up over the years meant their business was largely unaffected.

When that scheme failed, Guo Yongshun came up with another, inventing baseless stories to ruin the Tofu Beauty's reputation.

He claimed she had been carrying on with him for a long time, embellishing his story with convincing details. For a while, the Tofu Beauty was so ashamed and furious that she did not dare leave her house.

Eventually, in despair, she found a rope and tried to hang herself outside Guo Yongshun's door. Had her fiancé not been so worried about her that he secretly kept watch outside her home, she might have died.

Since it had nearly cost a life, the Tofu Beauty's family reported him to the authorities. Officials from the Capital Prefecture investigated, confirmed that Guo Yongshun had spread false rumors and nearly caused someone's death, and arrested him. He was imprisoned for six months.

During those six months, the Tofu Beauty married the butcher. When Guo Yongshun was released, he no longer dared cause trouble for her, and behaved himself for a while.

Later, he became an enforcer for a gambling den and went off to torment other people, giving the residents of Springwater Alley a period of peace.

Before long, however, Guo Yongshun started making trouble again. Although he had no shortage of spending money, he still could not break his habit of petty theft, stealing from one household today and another tomorrow.

Those he harassed eventually could not bear it anymore and wanted to report him. But the moment they said so, Guo Yongshun brought his fellow enforcers over, beat them up, and smashed up their home.

He also threatened them, saying the gambling den's owner valued him highly, and that a powerful figure backed the owner. Reporting him would do them no good.

Guo Yongshun's threats frightened them into submission. They all knew ordinary people could not fight officials. Though he was no official himself, he had someone backing him, so they endured it.

And Guo Yongshun gradually became more and more outrageous. One day he would take a chicken, the next he would steal a fish, and the day after that he would steal silver outright.

Worst of all, he stole the money one family needed to save a life, causing their elderly mother to die. They could not even afford a coffin for her burial. Unable to stand by and watch, the neighbors each contributed a little money and bought a flimsy coffin.

The son who had lost his elderly mother was the very man who had said that, if not for his family, he would have fought Guo Yongshun to the death.

After hearing the clerk's findings, Shen Shixu understood that this was a crime of passion. The true killer was in Springwater Alley.

He turned to Jiang Bin, who had arrived a while earlier and was listening nearby, and Zhang Ming, who had been involved in the case all along. "Who do you think the killer is?"

Zhang Ming answered as though it were obvious. "It must be the man whose elderly mother died because of him. The murder of one's mother is an unforgivable blood feud, and he said himself that he wanted to fight Guo Yongshun to the death."

After hearing his answer, Shen Shixu turned to Jiang Bin. "What do you think?"

Jiang Bin held the opposite view. "I don't think it was him. He has too much weighing on his mind. He's worried about his family, so he wouldn't do something so irrational."