Taichang Ming Dynasty

Chapter 258: Still a Child
In the main hall of the South City Military Command, Lu Yangping, a sixth-rank commander of the Military Command, was leading his four deputy commanders and a group of officials, standing in the center of the main hall with their heads lowered, as if waiting for something.

Beside them stood several military officers wearing the uniforms of sixth and seventh rank officials.

Soon, a low-lying group of red figures, surrounded by a group of people in green robes, entered the Military Command Office. As soon as they walked around the screen wall standing in the courtyard of the office, the military officers standing in the main hall collectively greeted them.

"Greetings to Chief Wang, and Admiral Luo." Shen Lian, who had been promoted to the rank of Chief of the Imperial Guards, and the other Imperial Guards in the hall knelt on one knee in greeting to Wang Chengen and Luo Yangxing. Meanwhile, Commander Lu Yangping and the other military officers of the department knelt on both knees and kowtowed to Wang Chengen.

In front of the gods from the Western Factory, the military commanders who usually shout and yell don’t even have the qualifications to raise their heads and speak.

"Everyone, stand up." Luo Yangxing waved his hand, disarming the Jinyiwei who were saluting. However, only the East Office personnel seemed to understand his gesture. The other military officers, including Lu Yangping, didn't stand up until Wang Chengen, standing beside Luo Yangxing, nodded silently in agreement a moment later.

"Where is the body?" Luo Yangxing was so focused on the case that he didn't notice this little detail at all.

"Mortuary." Lu Yangping replied.

"Lead the way." Luo Yangxing ordered in a deep voice.

"Yes." This time, Lu Yangping didn't wait for Wang Chengen's instructions. Instead, he walked ahead, hunched over, to lead the way. The curve of his hunchback was smooth and natural, as if he was already a hunchback with a back problem.

After a few detours, Lu Yangping led them to a small courtyard, unadorned but not entirely desolate. There wasn't much open space, and just a few steps past the gate was the mortuary. "Here it is," Lu Yangping said, pushing open the door. A stale, stale smell immediately washed over him. Fortunately, it wasn't summer, or else the staleness would have carried a foul stench.

"So many dead bodies!" Wang Chengen looked at the corpses in the room. He couldn't help but feel pity and sympathy in his heart.

"Come here." Lu Yangping didn't understand what Wang Chengen meant. He just thought the young eunuch was getting annoyed.

"Command." A yamen runner who followed the team quickly walked to Lu Yangping and waited for orders.

"Most of these corpses have been lying there for long enough. It's time for them to come back to life." Lu Yangping waved his hands anxiously and said, "Hurry and drag them to Chongfu Temple to bury them."

"Yes."

While it's common to sympathize with one's own kind, Lu Yangping, accustomed to the sight of death, felt no such emotion. In the summer, there were those who died of heatstroke, in the winter, of cold, and even in the mid-season, there were those who starved to death. Clearing the bodies strewn across the road was the job of the Military Command. The piles of bodies in the mortuary were because they remained there for three days after being collected. If a person's death was a false alarm, the Military Command would generally offer them a bowl of porridge, congratulate them on their resurrection, and ask them to leave.

The yamen runners who followed Lu's orders were very stubborn and only cleaned up the bodies that had been there for three days. Therefore, after they left, there were still many remains in the mortuary.

"Which one?" Luo Yangxing asked.

"Here." Lu Yangping brought Luo Yangxing to a fat corpse wearing a brocade robe.

The entire face of the corpse had been completely smashed, its left eye was bursting out, and the right eye socket was deeply sunken, obviously missing an eyeball.

"Who reported the case?" Luo Yangxing asked with a frown.

Lu Yangping immediately replied, "No one reported it to the police. It was discovered by the patrolling soldiers."

Pedestrians or vendors who found a body on the roadside generally didn't report it to the authorities, as this would only bring trouble upon themselves. The dead were more difficult to deal with than the living. If the authorities didn't want to cause trouble, they could simply collect the body. However, if the authorities became overwhelmed and wanted to cause trouble, or simply to generate revenue, they would likely try to pin the blame on the discoverer. Therefore, bodies lying on the roadside were either discovered by government-run or privately run cemeteries or collected by patrolling soldiers.

"Who's the officer leading the team?" Luo Yangxing looked around and asked, "Is he here?"

"Here it is." Lu Yangping pointed to the small flag where the body was found. "He was the one who found the body."

"What's the situation at the scene? Is there anything unusual?" Luo Yangxing was not interested in knowing the name of this middle-aged and almost decayed flag officer.

"It's nothing unusual. I just listened to the watch and then led the men to patrol along Mule and Horse Market Street and Vegetable Market Street. When I got to the intersection, I saw a person lying against the wall. I went over to take a look and found that the person was dead, so I asked people to bring him back." The flag officer replied.

"Is it that simple?" Luo Yangxing's brows were almost squeezed together.

"I would never dare to deceive you," the flag officer said, bowing hastily. "That's all."

The flag officer hadn't lied, but he had omitted some minor details. When a patrolling soldier found a body on the roadside, they wouldn't immediately take it to the morgue. Instead, they would first thoroughly examine the body, looking for any valuables. Only after thoroughly cleaning it, inside and out, would they bring the body back.

When the flag officer saw the body in its brocade robe, he initially wanted to strip it and replace it. However, he had sharp eyes and could tell at a glance that the deceased's clothes were valuable. He could take them to a pawnshop he knew and at least get half a dozen copper coins. Just because the face was rotten and looked like a murder wasn't a big deal. The government didn't want to bother investigating unsolved cases, as the public wouldn't report it. If the family reported the case to the Shuntian Prefecture Office, they could simply say the murderer had taken the property.

Fortunately, the young flag officer could read. When he saw the badge identifying him, he was so frightened he nearly peed himself. The damn guard commander was a third-rank official. If he even got a little bit of it, he'd be utterly annihilated. To avoid further calamity, he even put the belt he'd already ripped off and was about to take away back on, preserving the corpse's original appearance.

"Where is the badge?" Luo Yangxing lifted the right corner of the corpse's clothes, but did not find the deceased's badge.

"Hang it on the other side." The flag officer took the waist badge from the soldier and hung it back on. Because he was in a hurry, he forgot to hang it back to its original place.

Upon hearing this, Qi Fengen, the chief flag-master of the External Inspection Division who was standing behind Wang Chengen, immediately stepped forward, took off his badge and handed it to his own chief.

Wang Cheng'en was observing the corpse, suppressing his nausea. When the badge was handed to him, he withdrew his gaze and examined it carefully. "Is Shen Caiyu left-handed?" Wang Cheng'en murmured.

Hearing this non-specific question, the flag officer's face paled. But he was still clear-headed and didn't try to argue. Instead, he continued, omitting some facts: "He's probably not left-handed. I put the badge back on. My eyesight is blurry, so I had to remove it to confirm the deceased's identity."

"Oh, I see. Got it." Wang Chengen had no doubts.

To minimize counterfeiting, the waist badges for local garrison officers were all produced and issued uniformly by the Governor's Office. Wang Cheng'en had seen the waist badges of other officials in the rear office and quickly confirmed that this one was likely genuine. "Captain Luo, do you think this is Shen Caiyu?" Wang Cheng'en handed the waist badge to Luo Yangxing.

"Do you think he's Shen Caiyu?" Luo Yangxing took the badge, turned it over, and without a close look, just glanced at it before handing it to the accompanying Jinyiwei. "Put away the evidence."

When Lu Yangping heard Wang Chengen's question, he didn't think anything of it. But when Luo Yangxing asked this question, the hairs on his back immediately stood up.

What is this!?
Lu Yangping was terrified. He didn't want to stay here any longer, but he couldn't find a reason to retreat. He could only stand there like a wooden chicken, enduring the pain brought by his pounding heart.

Wang Chengen was stunned by the question. After coming to his senses, he did not answer Luo Yangxing's question. Instead, he turned to look at Lu Yangping and continued to inquire about the case. "Have you investigated the body?"

"No!" Lu Yangping answered firmly.

"Why?" Lu Yangping lowered his head, and Wang Chengen could only look at his forehead and ask.

"The Military Affairs Department is just a small, sixth-rank government office. How dare they investigate such a major case without authorization?" Lu Yangping tried hard to maintain a twitching smile that no one could see. "After discovering the badge, we immediately reported what happened here to the Imperial Guard."

As Lupinyang finished speaking, a tall, bearded sixth-rank military officer stepped forward and said, "Chief Wang, we've already sent people to the surrounding households and Chongfu Temple to conduct preliminary investigations. However, we haven't received any useful information yet."

"Who are you?" Wang Chengen had never seen this person before.

"All the hundred households in the West Office, practice martial arts together." The sixth-rank military officer bowed and saluted, almost touching his forehead to the tip of Wang Chengen's nose.

The East and West Offices are not subordinate to each other and exist independently, and the Five Cities Military Command Office is not connected to the East Office.

When Lu Pingyang learned that a third-rank official was suspected of having died in his jurisdiction, he immediately reported the matter to the West Office, which was responsible for maintaining public order in the southern part of the city. However, upon learning of the incident, the head officer of the West Office, Qi Xiuwu, did not pass the news on to the East Office, but instead sent someone to report it to the Commandery.

Upon receiving this news, the Commanding Officer, knowing his own officer was investigating Shen Caiyu's case, made a special effort, writing an urgent report, bypassing the Chief Guard Officer Luo Sigong and sending it directly to the Eastern Office. While this seemed a bit of a detour, it was actually quite quick. If Luo Yangxing hadn't also been a concurrent officer in the Department of Experience, or if the Chief Guard Officer wasn't his father, it would have taken the Eastern Office at least another half day to learn of this matter, either through an order or a reprimand from the Commanding Officer.

"Okay." Wang Cheng'en didn't think too much about the twists and turns. He nodded to Qi Xiuwu and asked, "Qi Shi Bai Hu. Let me ask you, besides this waist badge, is there anything else on the deceased's body that can prove his identity?"

"Aside from the badge and clothes, there's nothing else of value on the deceased. Either he was robbed," Qi Xiuwu suddenly turned to look at the soldier who had discovered the body. "Or, some reckless individual touched the body as usual."

"No! I absolutely wouldn't do such a thing! Even if I were greedy for money, I wouldn't dare do such a thing." Xiaoqi's legs suddenly gave way. He fell to his knees and kowtowed several times.

"Chief Justice, you may not know this, but these guys specialize in touching things on the dead." Qi Xiuwu said with a sinister smile, "Just send him to the Northern Court for an interrogation. You'll get the answer you seek."

"I don't think that's necessary." Luo Yangxing interrupted Qi Xiuwu and said to Wang Chengen, "Wang Sizheng, can I have a word with you for a moment?"

Wang Chengen was silent for a while, and finally nodded and said, "Okay."

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After a while, the two followed Lu Yangping's instructions and came to a quiet room near the morgue.

As soon as Lu Yangping's footsteps disappeared, Luo Yangxing spoke up: "Wang Sizheng, I don't think it's necessary to investigate this body anymore."

"Why?" Wang Chengen asked.

"This body is most likely not Shen Caiyu's." Luo Yangxing rubbed his eye sockets.

"Have you seen him?" Wang Chengen asked again.

"Of course I haven't seen him. And even if I have seen him, the corpse's face is so rotten that I can't recognize him." Luo Yangxing shook his head.

"Then how do you know this person is not Shen Caiyu?"

"I guessed," Luo Yangxing explained. "Think about it. A fugitive, afraid of his crime, knowing he's about to be captured by the Imperial Guards and brought to the capital, doesn't run far away, but instead runs to Beijing. Is he worried his life isn't long enough, that he's afraid he won't die quickly enough?"

"If he is not Shen Caiyu, then why does he have Shen Caiyu's badge?" Wang Chengen said, "I think that badge looks quite real."

"It wouldn't be difficult for someone knowledgeable to forge a fake badge like this," Luo Yangxing said. "The Imperial Guard has uncovered numerous cases of forged officials defrauding others and even claiming stipends. And the badge on the corpse is so new, it barely shows any signs of wear."

"If he is not Shen Caiyu, then who do you think it is?" Wang Chengen nodded in agreement.

"He could be a refugee, a domestic servant, a merchant who came to Beijing to do business during the New Year holidays, or even just any random person. But does it matter who he is?" Luo Yangxing saw that Wang Chengen was not getting the point, so he simply gave up.

"I think it's very important." Wang Chengen raised his head, looked up at Luo Yangxing, and said sincerely.

"Is that what you think?" Luo Yangxing put an emphasis on the word "you".

"Yes, I think it's important." Wang Cheng'en didn't understand the implication of Luo Yangxing's words and continued, "If this man is Shen Caiyu, then his death is his death. It's retribution. But if this man is not Shen Caiyu, but is just a refugee, a servant, or a merchant as you said, then why kill him? And smash his face to pieces."

"Heh." Luo Yangxing laughed bitterly. He thought to himself: He's still a child after all.

(End of this chapter)