"Wh-what grudge?"
By now, the burly flatbread seller had regained his senses, his face utterly blank.
What on earth had he just said?!
"I... I didn't kill the little Golden Crow Prince!" The burly man wanted to cry but had no tears.
Lin Ke turned and shot Li Hanlin a meaningful look.
Ordering me around? Li Hanlin raised an eyebrow, but recalling Lin Ke's recent performance, he went along with it and waved his hand again. "Interrogation!"
At once, an unseen force descended, and the burly man's eyes changed again.
"Did you kill the little Golden Crow Prince?"
"No."
"Then why did you just say you..."
"You asked whether I'd killed anyone. I did, sixteen years ago."
"..."
With just three sentences, Wu Dalang had stunned the transmigrator Lin Ke into silence.
Then, just as he was about to continue questioning him, Li Hanlin spoke up beside him.
"Are you talking about the case sixteen years ago, when Xi Menqing was suddenly raped and murdered?" Li Hanlin sounded quite surprised.
"Yes. Xi Menqing was my lover, but my older brother Wu Song seduced him, and the two got together..." Wu Dalang's voice was filled with rage. Even after sixteen years, those feelings had remained bottled up inside him.
Once Wu Dalang's questioning was over, Li Hanlin and the others fell silent, not saying a word. The Golden Crow Prince Jingang also sat down and said no more.
Lin Ke, meanwhile, felt rather wistful. It seemed every world had people whose love turned to hatred!
"My condolences for your heartbreak, but murder must be punished by law." Lin Ke cupped his hands toward the two constables behind Wu Dalang. "Constables, sorry for the trouble, but please take Wu Dalang away."
The two constables immediately led the utterly bewildered Wu Dalang away.
"All right, looks like I've solved an old cold case." Lin Ke patted his own shoulder. "Just what I'd expect of you, Young Master Xiaolin."
The assembled crowd: (ㅍ_ㅍ)?
"Hmph." Li Hanlin snorted. "Esteemed Young Master Xiaolin, don't forget you only have a few days left!"
Acting as though he had heard nothing, Lin Ke called outside, "Next!"
Seeing Lin Ke behave like this irritated Li Hanlin, so he said softly, "By the way, Xi Menqing was a man."
Lin Ke froze, then looked again at the sturdy man the constables were escorting outside: those broad pecs, those prominent abs, those firm, pert buttocks...
He could not help shuddering, then hurriedly called outside again, "Next! Hurry up, next!"
No sooner had he spoken than heavy footsteps sounded outside.
"Thud..."
"Thud..."
"Thud..."
An enormous, gigantic, vast figure entered through the doorway.
This figure made Lin Ke forget the oppressive feeling that man had just given him.
Simply because this figure felt even more oppressive!
He did not know how to describe her, nor whether "vast" could describe someone's body.
But if this person needed a title, even "sumo wrestler" would undersell her. She probably needed to be called the Great Demon King of Flesh Mountains.
He checked the list, then checked again. It really did say Pan Jinlian of the Water Margin Entertainment House!
Lin Ke beckoned toward the back. "Constables, constables, bring Pan Jinlian up! What brings this mighty warrior here?"
A six-foot-tall burly man popped out from behind the Great Demon King of Flesh Mountains, looking like a bamboo pole beside her. "Young Master Xiaolin, this mighty... this lady is Pan Jinlian."
"I'm Pan Jinlian. My respects to you, honored officials." The Great Demon King of Flesh Mountains-no, Pan Jinlian-bowed, her voice delicate and pitiful.
"Hiss!"
Everyone sucked in a breath of cold air.
What was this peculiar blend of soft, syrupy, faux-innocent sweetness and rustic farmhand flavor?
Lin Ke took a deep breath to settle himself, then glanced at Li Hanlin, who had already sat down, and nodded to signal that they could begin.
"Interrogation!"
The same familiar sensation, the same familiar flavor.
That force pressed down toward the crown of the extraordinarily hulking Pan Jinlian's head.
Once Lin Ke felt the force crash down, his expression turned stern, and he asked in a serious voice:
"Tell me, Pan Jinlian, why did you, yesterday-that is, between the sixteenth and nineteenth of the third month in year 998 of the Great Wei calendar-use some means to kill those three people and the Golden Crow Prince of the Golden Crow Clan within the Great Wei Imperial Capital?"
"I'm just a cook. I didn't kill anyone." Pan Jinlian's eyes were vacant. "I did kill a big golden crow, though..."
Jingang shot to his feet again, but no flames ignited around him, and he made no cry. He was being very cautious.
Pan Jinlian continued, "...Oh, right, sir, is a golden crow a gold-colored crow? Yesterday, a big bird fell into our cesspit and got stained all yellow-brown, so I..."
"Stop, stop, stop!" Lin Ke waved his hand, holding his forehead with a bitter smile. "Next, next..."
And so Pan Jinlian regained her senses and was led away.
Jingang sat down too, feeling slightly numb.
His youngest brother's death had originally left him terribly grief-stricken, so why did he feel a little numb now?
Lin Ke also turned back to ask Jingang, "Prince Jingang, may I ask your younger brother's name? That way, I can be more specific when questioning them."
There was no helping it. These people were far too difficult to question.
"My younger brother was Jinganglang," Jingang replied, his face sorrowful. "Tiger, leopard, and wolf are the characters in my second, third, and fourth brothers' names. They represent our father's hopes for us."
Lin Ke: ?
Your dad was a transmigrator too, wasn't he?
Jingang was one thing, but Jinganglang too...
Just then, the next person entered.
"Liu Laoye, why don't you confess the truth already..."
Too drained to mock the names in Jingang's family, Lin Ke resumed questioning the suspects.
He questioned them one by one, going through each matter in exhaustive detail.
By the time the questioning was finished, it was already evening.
The last person's interrogation had also ended. Fifteen people had been interrogated in total.
Among them, they had unearthed six murders, three rapes, eight attempted rapes, five thefts, and one case of tax evasion...
And that was with five of them having committed no crimes at all. Otherwise, there probably would have been more.
The other ten all faced combined punishment for multiple offenses.
But now, whether it was Li Hanlin, the Golden Crow Prince Jingang, or the Chaoyang crowd watching the spectacle around them, their eyes showed varying degrees of admiration.
For one, they admired Li Hanlin. After all, that interrogation method was impossible to guard against.
For another, they admired Lin Ke.
From his intellect to his approach, from his logic to his thinking, from his methods to his words and actions, Lin Ke seemed nothing like a porter's relative. Instead, he seemed like the son of some official family, perhaps a minister's or the like.
Of course, everyone knew that this relative of the porter Qi Dayan also belonged to the lowly commoner registry or held servile status. Otherwise, he would surely have been busy studying at a time like this. Who would have time to come out and do all sorts of odd jobs?
Even Li Hanlin felt that Lin Ke was a promising talent. Aside from disregarding rank and showing him no respect, everything else about him was quite good.
The other onlookers marveled that Lin Ke could solve so many cases, and every one of them eagerly anticipated the cases he would solve next.
Of course, Lin Ke did not see it that way.
Because these cases could all be said to have been solved not by him, but by Li Hanlin.
All the credit belonged to Li Hanlin's "Interrogation"!
As for why these cases had not been solved before?
Simply because they were too low-level!
It was like in his previous life: with an ordinary theft, say your electric bike went missing while you were buying groceries, they would probably just file a report at most. They probably would not even bother helping you look for it, not even an auxiliary police officer.
But someone like Li Hanlin, who was on the Confucian Registry and held official office, was far above an auxiliary police officer. His position was probably equivalent to a section chief or division chief.
If your bicycle or electric bike went missing, and you wanted someone like that to investigate for you? That would be difficult.
That was why so many cases in this era became injustices, false accusations, or miscarriages of justice, or even minor cases that simply went unresolved.
It was only because these accumulated cases had all been solved within a single day that the spectators found it impressive.
In fact, Lin Ke was in an awful mood.
He had already questioned everyone who could possibly have had contact with the victims and everyone who could possibly have been a suspect.
Yet not a single one had anything to do with this case!
The little Golden Crow Prince, "Jinganglang," actually had no connection to these suspects?
What should I do next...
Lin Ke frowned in thought.
Meanwhile, all around him, the crowd was clamoring.
Before you continue