Chapter 39 The Fourth Division of the Ministry of Punishments
Before dawn the next day, Zheng Lingxuan woke up early. She sat on the bedside and looked around, and quickly recalled the memory of yesterday. After getting up, she dressed up and put on a light green official uniform.
Compared with male official uniforms, the female official uniforms of the Tang Dynasty did not have so many patterns and were lighter in color. The two small tails on the hats were thicker and shorter, making them look like regular uniforms.
After leaving the small courtyard and walking on the corridor, I saw many servants in the mansion already busy, some boiling water for cooking, and some cleaning the floor.
Suddenly, a person walked towards him, it was the deputy housekeeper Cao Qi. After approaching, he said with a smile: "Miss Zheng, you got up so early. How did you sleep last night?" He looked up and down.
Zheng Lingxuan gave a soft "hmm" and walked quickly past him. Unlike the gentle and gentle Wen Rong, Cao Qi had a bit of a ruffian in his body and his eyes were also very rude. Zheng Lingxuan did not like to talk to him.
After leaving the palace, there were many breakfast shops and hawkers on the streets who worked from early to late, including those selling steamed buns, cakes, and candy cakes.
Zheng Lingxuan found a shop with a small family, ate a bowl of porridge and two steamed buns, then left Pingkangfang and headed northwest to the Imperial City.
After passing through the Zhuque Gate and walking for a quarter of an hour, the courtyard complex where Shangshu Province is located appeared in front of us.
The Shangshu Province is divided into six departments and twenty-four divisions, each with four divisions. Among them, the criminal department is the Criminal Division, the Duguan Division, the Bibu Division and the Simen Division.
The chief of each department is called Langzhong, and the deputy chief is called Yuanwailang.
Zheng Lingxuan is the commander of the Criminal Department, and is mainly responsible for work such as Xing Prison. After entering the Criminal Department and showing her official credentials, a civil servant took her to meet Jiang Rong, a doctor in the Criminal Department, and Shen Xu, a foreign minister.
The two of them had seen her resume and knew that she had a title, so they were very polite and did not make things difficult in the slightest.
Later, the civil servant took her into a "letter's room".
There are three envoy rooms in the Criminal Department, and each room has six desks. After Zheng Lingxuan entered one room, all the envoys who were immersed in work in the room raised their heads, with expressions of surprise on their faces.
They heard yesterday that a female official would be coming to the Ministry of Punishment, but they didn't expect that she would become their colleague, and she would be very good-looking.
After Zheng Lingxuan sat down at an empty seat, the envoy behind him immediately spoke to me: "My Qin Tao, if you have anything you don't understand about government affairs, you can ask me."
Zheng Lingxuan nodded slightly and said, "Thank you very much." She was straightforward and not polite, so she immediately asked about the various tasks that the envoy needed to do.
Soon, two envoys nearby also joined the conversation and introduced various work-related matters to her.
By noon, Zheng Lingxuan was almost familiar with what she was going to do.
Generally speaking, it is to screen cases from all over the country and register them one by one. In addition, there are also some coordination tasks with other departments, and occasionally I will go to other prefectures and counties to inspect matters related to Xing Prison.
After the yamen drum sounded, Zheng Lingxuan stood up and prepared to go out for dinner. Qin Tao smiled and said: "Zheng Lingshi, please sit down and someone will bring lunch."
Although Zheng Lingxuan was a little confused, she still sat down as instructed. Several other people immediately moved their chairs next to her and started chatting around her.
Among them, the one they inquired about most carefully was Zheng Lingxuan's family background. They always liked to bring the topic to this aspect. Ma Lingshi laughed and said: "We haven't had a female envoy in the Ministry of Punishment for many years. Ordinary women can't enter the Ministry of Punishment.
.”
Zheng Lingxuan would smile and say nothing every time this happened. Others gradually understood that she did not want to reveal her identity, so they stopped discussing the topic.
A quarter of an hour later, a clerk came in and reported, and Qin Tao said: "Let them in."
After a while, two men who looked like shopkeepers entered the house under the leadership of a clerk. One of them was holding a food box in his hand. Qin Tao clapped his hands and said with a smile: "Lunch is here."
There was a table in the corner of the room. Two waiters and clerks put the food boxes on the table and worked together to move the table to the middle. The older waiter smiled and said, "Young officials, you can eat now."
Qin Tao waved his hand and said, "Okay, you go."
After the waiter left, everyone gathered around the table. The food was excellent, including a fat duck, a plate of anchovy fins, a bowl of braised pork, four kinds of side dishes and a pot of wine.
Zheng Lingxuan snorted secretly, thinking that these officials really knew how to enjoy it.
After eating for a while, Qin Tao poured Zheng Lingxuan a glass of wine and said with a smile: "Today's meal can be regarded as a welcome to Zheng Lingshi. Can Zheng Lingshi also have a drink?"
Zheng Lingxuan raised her glass and drank it up without saying a word. The other five people looked at each other and then cheered loudly, and the atmosphere immediately became lively.
After three rounds of drinking, Zheng Lingxuan saw that everyone was drunk, so she said: "My little sister has heard for a long time that Dali Temple and the Ministry of Punishment are the two most powerful departments in the imperial court, and both have the ability to solve crimes. I don't know which one is better, the Ministry of Punishment, or the Dali Temple."
Stronger?"
Qin Tao waved his hand, shook his head and said: "Dali Temple, that's bullshit! I'm not very good at handling cases, and I just like to brag everywhere. Our Criminal Department is not responsible for most of the cases in the world, so they can only find faults in the eggs!"
Ma Lingshi burped and said with a smile: "Sister Zheng, don't think that Dali Temple is famous. In fact, they are just showboats and arrogant people. Before Zhuge Sanyuan and Nie Ziyun entered Dali Temple, they were in a rough world and had no understanding of the roots of law.
, I don’t understand at all! How can you compare with us?”
Another short and fat envoy slapped the table and said: "Zhuge Sanyuan is the third rank, and our Yang Shangshu is the third rank. On this point, it means that his Dali Temple is not on the same level as our Ministry of Punishment!"
"But I heard that a few days ago, Dali Temple snatched a case from the Criminal Department?" Zheng Lingxuan said softly.
"Wrong, wrong, we actually robbed Dali Temple's case. If the young minister of Dali Temple hadn't been from the Wu family and came to ask for it in person, we wouldn't have returned it to them at all!" Qin Tao groaned.
"Then why do we want to rob the Dali Temple case?"
"Then I don't know." Qin Tao shook his head.
Ma Lingshi tilted his head and said: "By the way, talking about this, I heard that the Baekje man we arrested was demoted. When he first entered the prison, he kept shouting that he was wronged, and then he inexplicably confessed his crime!"
"How could this be?" Zheng Lingxuan's heartbeat accelerated.
The short and fat envoy smiled mysteriously and said: "When I was drinking with Mr. Deng from the prison, I heard him mention this matter. He said that as soon as the demoted official was put into prison, a man in a black cloak came into the prison to see him.
, I don’t know who the hell let him in. The two of them chattered a lot of rude words, and then the demoted man changed his tune.”
Zheng Lingxuan perked up and thought: "There is indeed a ghost. From this look, the murderer is probably not Heijichangzhi."
Throughout the afternoon, Zheng Lingxuan was pondering various possibilities. After thinking over and over again, she felt that she had to find a way to get Hei Te Changzhi to speak. As long as he could obtain his testimony, the key to the case could be solved.
At four o'clock in the hour, the drums of the lower office sounded. Zheng Lingxuan declined the invitations of several colleagues to listen to the music and went straight to Dali Temple.
When we arrived at Dali Temple, most of the officials in the temple office had also returned home. In the courtyard outside Shaoqing's office, a man in black walked towards him.
This man had ape arms and wolf waist, and was taller than Di Renjie. After seeing Zheng Lingxuan, he cupped his hands in greeting and said, "Miss Zheng, I offended you last time."
"No, luckily you stopped me last time, otherwise I might have regretted it for the rest of my life." Zheng Lingxuan whispered. The man in black was none other than Nie Ziyun who restrained her in the prison last time.
Nie Ziyun smiled and said, "Are you here to see Wu Shaoqing?"
Zheng Lingxuan nodded: "Is he at the temple office?"
"No, he and Zhuge Nan went to the major drug stores in the city."
"Drug store? What are they doing at the drug store?" Zheng Lingxuan asked curiously.
"After Zhugenan inspected the bodies of Lu Zhining and Gao Lan, he found that what they had in them was a medicine unique to Baekje, called cabbage. A small amount can cure diseases, but an overdose can turn it into poison."
Zheng Lingxuan was slightly shocked. If she hadn't heard those words in the Ministry of Justice today, she would have thought that the murderer was Hei Te Changzhi.
But it was different now. She thought to herself: "The murderer must have deliberately purchased Baekje's poison to frame Heijia Changzhi."
She pondered for a moment and thought that this kind of poison must be rare. As long as she found out which drug store or Baekje merchant in the city sold this kind of medicine, and then asked about the sales records, she should be able to gain something.
Thinking of this, she decided to do something else while Wu Chengsi and the others were investigating.
"Nie Si Cheng, does anyone in your Dali Temple speak Baekje dialect?"
"Why are you asking this?" Nie Ziyun asked confused.
"I have a plan that may lead to a breakthrough in the case, but I need someone who is proficient in Baekje dialect!"
"So that's it." Nie Ziyun touched his chin and said with a smile, "What a coincidence, there is indeed a person in our Dali Temple who can speak Baekje."
"Who is it? Can you take me to find him?" Zheng Lingxuan said happily.
"No need to look for it, that person is standing in front of you."
Zheng Lingxuan was surprised and said: "Is it you? Can you still speak Baekje dialect?"
Nie Ziyun smiled slightly: "Two years ago, I chased a criminal in Dengzhou. The man was from Baekje. After committing the crime, he fled back to Baekje by boat. Later, while handling other cases, I learned Baekje language. I learned it in half a year.
Take a boat to Baekje and arrest that man!"
Zheng Lingxuan was shocked: "This person's will is really terrible. In order to chase a criminal, he actually spent half a year learning barbarian language." He raised his hands and said, "I wonder if Nie Si Cheng has time to do me a favor?"
Nie Ziyun thought for a moment and said: "To be honest, I also have other cases to handle, so I can't delay for too long."
"It won't take long, I just need to borrow you for half an hour!" Zheng Lingxuan said anxiously.
Nie Ziyun looked up at the sky, nodded and said, "Okay then."