No war in the Northern Song Dynasty

Chapter 76 Clues to the Demon Case
The guest Su Ze was meeting was Li Tong, the fat commander of the Imperial City Division, and his thin subordinate, the captain.

Both of them had happy expressions on their faces, and it was obvious that there had been some progress in the case of the demon.

"Su Tiju is truly a prophet. We went to Jixiang Lane to investigate and indeed found a clue!"

"The two of us went to Jixiang Lane and inquired about the demon monk incident a month ago. It was exactly the same as the demon in the Privy Council!"

"Exactly the same?"

Commander Li nodded and said:
"According to the residents of Jixiang Lane, a month ago, a glowing bald head rose from a house, danced in the air for a while, and then disappeared. This is consistent with the testimony of the clerks in the Privy Council. The two cases are indeed related!"

"and then?"

If the case was solved, the two would definitely not rush to come to see me again. It must be that the case encountered some obstacles again.

As expected, Commander Li said:

"But the family that was plagued by the demon was a retired official named Feng Ming. After the demon occurred in his home, he immediately returned the rented house from the store and returned to his hometown with his family."

"The tenants around Feng Ming have all moved out. We finally managed to track down a few new addresses, but their testimonies are consistent with what we've already gathered. There are no new leads."

"The testimonies of other residents who lived further away were often contradictory and unclear because it had been a month since the incident."

They thought that they had discovered a similar case and could get further clues from the testimony of eyewitnesses, but they did not expect that Feng Ming, who was most relevant to the case, had already left Bianjing City, and the testimony they collected did not provide any more useful clues.

Li Tong secretly regretted that if he had come to Su Ze immediately after the Privy Council demon case, he might have been able to find some clues.

Su Ze thought for a moment and asked:
"Where does Cai Yong, the clerk in the Privy Council who fainted from shock, live?"

Li Tong immediately said:
"Cai Yong also lives in Jixiang Lane, but his home is quite far from Feng Ming's, the home of the demon-monk. We also interrogated Cai Yong's family, and they said that when the demon started happening in Jixiang Lane, Cai Yong had gone to bed early and didn't witness it with his own eyes. His family tried to persuade him to move out, but Cai Yong refuted the idea with stories of supernatural powers and refused to move."

"So you believe it now?"

Li Tong nodded and said:
"After Cai Yong woke up, he was still detained in the Privy Council. Censor Bao interrogated him several times. He was already in a trance and unconscious. Minister Yan asked the imperial physician from the Imperial Pharmacy to examine him, and he was told that he had suffered from the Soul-Separation Syndrome."

Li Tong sighed. Cai Yong, the first eyewitness, was scared to death and lost many key clues.

This case was so bizarre that many powerful agencies, including the Censorate, Kaifeng Prefecture, and the Imperial City Administration, were investigating it together, but they still found no clues.

Su Ze had a flash of inspiration, and he said to the two of them:

"Wait a moment, both of you."

Then Su Ze picked up the pen and called the servant in front of the hall, ordering him to take out some archival records from the storage room.

After a while, when the clerk in front of the hall brought the files, Su Ze flipped through the rental records and showed them to the two men, "Commander Li, take a look. Were these houses all rented out after the demon incident in Jixiang Lane?"

Li Tong immediately said:
"Exactly! These are the people who vacated the house after the demon incident. Look, this is Feng Ming, the owner of the house where the demon incident occurred!"

Su Ze continued reading. The reason he thought of this was because Li Yuntongzi A Zhang had pointed out problems when he was checking the account books.

These houses were rented out immediately after the tenants moved out, which did not comply with the house rental procedures of the store and house affairs department. Therefore, A Zhang suspected that these houses were embezzled by Sun Dayou, the official in charge of renting houses in the store and house affairs department.

But after Su Ze's investigation, Sun Dayou admitted that the store and property he had occupied did not include the house in Jixiang Lane.

According to Sun Dayou, these new tenants took the initiative to rent from the store after the old tenants moved out.

At that time, there had just been a demon disturbance in Jixiang Lane, and Sun Dayou was worried about how to rent out the vacant houses. These people came to rent the houses and gave Sun Dayou a hefty bribe, so he rented them out.

Now it seems that there is something behind this matter.

Su Ze pointed at these entries and said:

"Something's wrong." Li Tong looked for a long time but still couldn't see anything wrong. He raised his head and looked at Su Ze.

Su Ze said:

"The time is wrong."

"According to what you said, after the demon incident, Feng Ming, the owner of the demon house, gave up his lease and returned to his hometown, and the surrounding residents all gave up their leases, right?"

Li Tong nodded.

Su Ze said:

"But you see, Feng Ming was the last one to give up his lease."

"Normally, if there's a demon haunting your house, shouldn't you be the first to leave? Why is Feng Ming the last one to vacate his lease, after all his neighbors have already done so?"

"this?"

Li Tong suddenly said:
"Yes, we visited the tenants who moved out of Jixiang Lane. Some of them didn't see the monster. They only moved out after hearing Feng Ming's description of it."

"So, after Feng Ming's house was plagued by demons, he made a big fuss about it, scaring the neighbors away. He was the last one to give up his lease and leave Bianjing City!"

"There's something wrong with this Feng Ming!"

Li Tong slammed the table and said:
"I'll go back right now and ask Li Jiedu to send a letter to Feng Ming's hometown! Arrest him and bring him to the capital!"

Su Ze said:

"If there's really something wrong with Feng Ming, he might not have even returned home. How are you, the Imperial City Division, going to catch him?"

Li Tong was discouraged, and Su Ze said again:

"It's not just Feng Ming who has problems. Those who rented the house after the demon incident also have problems."

"There's a demon haunting in Jixiang Lane, and everyone living here is trying to evacuate. Why are there still people rushing to rent here, and why are they renting it as soon as someone else moves out?"

"Did you see these new tenants when you were investigating in Jixiang Lane?"

Li Tong thought about it carefully and said with some self-doubt:

"I don't think I saw anything. I thought these were new tenants and they certainly didn't know what happened that day. We knocked on the door but no one opened it, so we left."

"Now that you put it that way, something is indeed wrong!"

Li Tong slapped himself, he actually didn't notice such an obvious clue. He stood up and rushed back to Jixiang Lane to investigate.

Feng Shiyuan, who was waiting at the side hall door, saw two people, one fat and one thin, rushing out of the side hall angrily. He quickly sat in the side hall and looked at Su Ze worriedly:

"Lift?"

When Su Ze saw Feng Shiyuan coming in, he casually asked:

"By the way, yesterday I asked you to go to Kaifeng Prefecture to inquire about the demonic incident in Jixiang Lane. Do you have any new clues?"

Feng Shiyuan was stunned for a moment. He had just been busy with the affairs of the Municipal Exchange and had forgotten to report this matter.

He immediately said:
"I have heard some things."

(End of this chapter)