I bring bad luck to my husband, you bring bad luck to your wife.

There were too many unusual things about Wang Xiaoyu, so Yang Tongchuan couldn't let him go and could only detain him temporarily.

"I need to go home. My dad is waiting for me to cook dinner." Wang Xiaoyu was extremely nervous and wanted to leave the yamen immediately.

"If you continue to hide things from the authorities, your father might go hungry forever. Think about what you're going to say, and have the jailer call me."

Yang Tongchuan returned to the police station and wrote down all the information he had just learned.

Investigating a case is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle; you piece it together, and slowly you can deduce a general outline.

However, whether this outline is accurate remains to be verified.

"Officer Yang, we've found a house for County Magistrate Zhou," his subordinate reported.

"Has County Magistrate Zhou's fever subsided?" Yang Tongchuan was now burning the candle at both ends. He had to take care of both his superior's private affairs and the official business of the government.

"I've withdrawn from the hospital, but I still can't eat. I've had porridge for several meals now, and I don't even have the strength to get out of bed."

"How's the new house you found?"

"We found it exactly as Grandma Zhou requested. And as you instructed, it's quite a distance from the courtyard where the incident occurred; you can't even walk there."

"Alright, come with me to ask County Magistrate Zhou what he thinks. If it's okay, take his elders to see him. If possible, it would be best to finalize the deal right away."

Yang Tongchuan spent the entire afternoon dealing with the matter of Zhou County Magistrate's house rental.

After finally finalizing the deal, Grandma Zhou said she wanted to move in immediately.

Helpless, Yang Tongchuan had no choice but to assign several yamen runners to help the old lady move.

Suddenly, Yang Tongchuan had a flash of inspiration.

"Madam Zhou, when you lived in that courtyard before, did you see any strangers loitering around your door?"

"Stranger, what kind of stranger?"

"He was a fifteen or sixteen-year-old boy, very thin, with lifeless eyes."

Grandma Zhou pondered for a moment, but seemed not to remember such a person.

"Is he short? His clothes have several patches, and he's quite dark-skinned," the maidservant serving Old Madam Zhou suddenly said.

"Yes, you've seen him?"

"I remember it was not long after we moved in, and the old lady wanted to change the paper on the windows. The shopkeeper said he would send a worker to take the measurements that afternoon, so I sat at the door and waited."

The young maidservant tried her best to remember.

"I happened to see this guy loitering around the door, so I asked him if he was here to take measurements. He didn't answer and ran away. Soon after, the guy who was supposed to take measurements came, so I didn't think much of it."

"Can you still remember what the man who ran away looked like?"

"If I saw it, it would look familiar, but I can't quite place it."

"Grandma Zhou, could I borrow your maid for a moment so she can recognize someone?" Yang Tongchuan brought the maid back to the yamen and had her secretly glance at Wang Xiaoyu a few times.

"Is this the person?"

"It looks somewhat similar. It's been too long for me to remember."

"Has anything else happened in the yard lately?"

"Nothing happened. The old lady likes to eat everything fresh, and she doesn't stock up on vegetables. That cellar has never been used since the main family moved in. Besides, it's close to the master's room, and the old lady usually doesn't let me go there."

Yang Tongchuan made up his mind and led his men to Wang Xiaoyu's house.

Having just learned a few tricks from the soldiers who raided the house, they used them all on the Wang family, turning the already dilapidated house upside down.

There were still some warmed-up steamed buns in the kitchen, so it seems that Old Man Wang can still feed himself, unlike what Wang Xiaoyu said about needing someone to take care of him.

The group eventually found a small patch of soil where the chamber pot had been placed, indicating that it had been renovated.

Yang Tongchuan found a hoe and dug up the place, and sure enough, he found a large grain scout stained with blood.

There are plenty of these in the grain warehouses at the dock.

It is a hollow metal tube with grooves or small holes in the tube wall. After being inserted into a grain pile, it can take out grain samples at different depths to distinguish the quality of the batch of grain.

Later, other constables found a money bag in Wang Xiaoyu's room, containing a few taels of silver.

"Officer Yang, look at the embroidered characters on this money bag. This is the mark of the gambling den's lending." The money bag was embroidered with a large "win" character.

Many gambling dens will put a money bag like this on the outside of the money they lend to gamblers. This way, as soon as a gambler sits down at the table, the dealer will know that this person is desperate to lose and still has money on hand, so they can "rip them off".

"This money bag isn't old, so it shouldn't belong to Old Man Wang. Wang Xiaoyu doesn't gamble, so could it be Wang Dayu's?"

"Officer Yang, what if the people from the gambling den cut off the fingers of that corpse?"

"Even if it is, it's not a gambling den in Changxing County. Go ask the owner of a gambling den which one in a nearby county likes to cut off people's fingers."

Yang Tongchuan walked up to Old Man Wang with the money bag in his hand.

"Does this thing belong to your eldest son or your youngest son?"

"Hehehe," Old Wang mumbled, unable to make out the words.

"Is it Wang Dayu's? If so, blink."

Old Wang indeed blinked.

Yang Tongchuan understood, but he didn't understand why they chose that empty courtyard.

Back at the yamen, Yang Tongchuan took out the various case information he had written over the past few days and read it repeatedly.

At this moment, the yamen runners came to find Yang Tongchuan and asked if the broker who had been detained earlier could be released. He had been detained for several days and they hadn't gotten anything out of him. Today, his family members came with money to "smooth things over."

[Oh no.] Yang Tongchuan had forgotten about the tooth-wielding man.

"If there's nothing else, just let it go." Yang Tongchuan was truly overwhelmed with work.

"Wait a moment."

"What's wrong, Officer Yang?"

"I'm going to see him one more time."

Yang Tongchuan arrived at the place where the brokers were being held.

These past few days, the broker has been terrified, thinking that Yang Tongchuan is going to keep him around to take the blame.

As soon as Yang Tongchuan entered, he knelt down, grabbed Yang Tongchuan's leg, and kept crying out that he was innocent and begging Yang Tongchuan to let him go.

Yang Tongchuan was too embarrassed to admit that he thought the man had gone home long ago and had forgotten that he was still being held captive at the yamen.

"I'll ask you one more question. If you answer me truthfully, I'll let you go home."

"I will definitely tell the truth, I will definitely tell the truth."

"You previously said the homeowner was a distant relative of yours."

"Not a distant relative of mine, but a distant relative of my wife's family."

"It means the same thing. You said at the time that your child was adopted, but where was he adopted from?"

"Well, I really don't know."

"If you don't understand, stay in the yamen until you figure it out before you speak."

"I'm just saying, I'm just saying, I've only heard rumors that the child was bought, not really adopted." The broker's voice grew softer and softer.

"Where did you buy it?"

"I really don't know about this. I only heard it mentioned when I was visiting relatives during the Chinese New Year. I don't know if it's true or not."

The Wang family sells their child, and this family buys their child.

Yang Tongchuan seemed to understand why the murderer chose this place to kill.