Zu An glanced at the child and hesitated to speak.
The woman understood and patted her son: "Huzi, go play in the backyard by yourself."
"Great!" The kid had already wanted to test his new weapon, and he ran back happily after hearing this.
"Be careful not to get hurt by the sword." Zu An reminded, the other party was still young after all, it would be bad if he was accidentally hurt by the sword.
"It's okay. He used to secretly play with his father's sword and was beaten several times." When she heard that he was really worried about her son, the woman's expression softened a bit, "Why have I never heard from the child's father before?
Have you ever had friends like you?"
"Hello, sister-in-law, my name is Anman. Brother Shen saved me once on a mission in the early years. Later, we went our separate ways due to different errands. When I came back to Yunzhong County this time, I originally wanted to catch up with him and thank him for saving my life in the past. Who knows?
But I heard the bad news about him." Zu An sighed, with a hint of sadness in his tone.
Pei Mianman glanced at him in surprise. This guy's acting skills were so good. His emotions were so easy to enter.
Before, I was worried that he would be deceived by a woman, but now I think I am thankful that a woman is not deceived by him.
But thinking about the other person calling himself Amman, wouldn’t it be a combination of their names?
Thinking of this, she couldn't help but feel a sense of sweetness in her heart.
At this time, the woman's eye circles suddenly turned red, and she was obviously aroused by the pain of losing her husband: "It's all the fault of that damn smuggler..."
"My condolences, sister-in-law." Zu An took out a hundred taels of silver from the glazed orb, put it in a wooden box and handed it over, "This is my little thought, I hope my sister-in-law will accept it."
"I can't, I can't, it's too much..." The woman looked embarrassed and stood up in a hurry to refuse. She wiped her hands on her apron again and again, not knowing where to put them.
One hundred taels of silver is nothing to the wealthy nobles, but it is indeed a huge sum of money to ordinary people.
"How can the grace of saving a life be measured in money," Zu An said seriously, "I only regret that I was too late and failed to save Brother Shen. The only thing I can do now is to help him take care of his family."
Seeing that the other party still refused to accept it, Pei Mianman on the side also smiled and said: "Sister-in-law, if you don't think about yourself, you also have to think about your children. Wouldn't it be better to let your children grow up in a more relaxed environment?"
Hearing her mention her son, the woman accepted it. While thanking the two of them, she looked at Pei Mianman and said, "This girl is so handsome. Is she your wife?"
Zu An nodded and held Pei Mianman's hand: "Yes, she is my wife."
Hearing him introduce herself in this way, Pei Mianman's eyes were slightly red. Because of her friendship with Chu Chuyan, she had actually been deliberately avoiding their relationship, but her mother died in depression because she had no reputation or distinction back then.
How could she not care about this?
Now that she heard the other person say this, she suddenly felt that all the efforts she had made in the past were worth it.
"What a blessing. You two hit it off right away." The woman sighed, "Shen Zhou is not so lucky..."
As she said this, she wiped away her tears silently.
Pei Mianman handed over a handkerchief, but the woman did not take it. Worried that her white handkerchief would be stained, she casually picked up her apron and wiped it at the corner of her eyes.
"Sister-in-law, does she know where Brother Shen is investigating the smugglers? I want to see if there is a chance to help him get revenge." Zu An took the opportunity to ask.
The woman shook her head: "He never tells me about his work, and the investigation this time is extremely secretive, and he won't tell me. Only the government office will know the specific investigation...Brother An, you Just don't get involved in this matter. Your brother Shen has already lost his life. If we get you involved, we won't be able to have peace of mind for the rest of our lives."
"Sister-in-law, don't worry. I have my own sense of discretion and will not act rashly." Zu An then asked, "By the way, after Brother Shen's accident, have you received the pension money the government gave you? If not, I will help you to collect it. , we must not chill the hearts of our brothers."
"It has been implemented. A few days after the child's father had an accident, someone from the government came to the door. The leader was the former commander-in-chief, and his surname seemed to be Gong or something..." The woman couldn't remember it for a moment.
"Miyaban?"
"Yes, yes, that's him," the woman continued, "Master Gong is a good official. After the child's father happened, I just felt like the sky was falling. Fortunately, Master Gong came with his men to help with the funeral arrangements. We The two of us have just gone through the most difficult days."
"The pension in the mansion was also given to us by Lord Gong. Later I inquired about it and found that it was more than the normal pension money. I think it was paid by Lord Gong personally."
"I've been thinking about finding a chance to repay him, but now I can't leave to take care of Huzi, and Mr. Gong has a lot of things to do, and I'm worried about disturbing him. Brother An, how about you help me bring the money to Mr. Gong."
Zu An hurriedly declined: "Sister-in-law, you are too outspoken. It must be Master Gong's feelings for my colleague. If you go back and let him deal with himself? You can just take it with peace of mind."
The woman looked touched: "You are all good people. Although the child's father is not lucky, but with colleagues like you, this life is worth it."
Zu An chatted with her for a while and suddenly mentioned casually: "By the way, I heard Brother Shen mention that he had a broken leg in his early years. Although the wound healed later, he still had a dull pain on windy and rainy days. I specially asked him this time. When Duanyu Ointment came, I originally thought it could relieve his pain, but I didn't expect it would be useless, so I left it to my sister-in-law."
As he spoke, he took out a bottle of ointment.
The woman looked stunned: "Did Shen Zhou break his leg? Why don't I remember it?"
"Maybe he didn't tell his family because he was afraid that you would be worried." Zu An thought that was indeed the case.
The woman had a puzzled look on her face and was obviously thinking about the past interactions with her husband.
Zu An originally wanted to ask if Shen Zhou had left any last words or anything, but he felt that it was too abrupt to ask, so he changed his mind and said: "By the way, sister-in-law, because Brother Shen's case has not been solved, I want to see if there is any There are no new clues to bring the murderer to justice or to avenge Brother Shen."
"I wonder if Brother Shen did anything unusual the day my sister-in-law last saw him?"
The two of them had just been chatting, and the other party was sending money and gifts. The doubts in the woman's mind had long been dispelled, and she replied after hearing this: "There doesn't seem to be anything unusual."
Just when Zu An was disappointed, he suddenly heard the woman say again: "There is one thing I don't know if it counts."
"There may be clues hidden in any little thing." Zu An was overjoyed and asked hurriedly.
The woman fell into memories: "The child's father didn't say anything to me that day, but he seemed a little worried and played with Huzi for a long time. You must know that he never takes care of children on weekdays, so he must have
It’s probably because he had a premonition before he died.”
After speaking, she couldn't help wiping away tears.
The two comforted him for a while, when Huzi "charged" plausibly with his dagger in his mouth, Zu An grabbed him and asked what his father had said to him that day.
"I can't remember clearly..." Huzi scratched his head and thought for a long time before saying, "It seems that he didn't say anything, he just played a war game with me."
Zu An asked for some more details, but unfortunately it was just the most common house game without any code words or anything like that.
At this time, Pei Mianman also spoke: "Sister-in-law, can we take a look at Brother Shen's room? There may be clues left by him in it."
She is extremely beautiful, and her peach blossom eyes bring a smile, which gives people an inexplicable affinity. During this period of chatting with that woman, one sister-in-law is longer than the other sister-in-law, and she has already called her to her heart.
Talked.
"Of course." The woman couldn't help but hold her hand and admired, "Young girl is so handsome!"
Pei Mianman felt a little embarrassed and hurriedly went to Shen Zhou's room with Zu An to investigate.
Unfortunately, the two of them searched the room for a long time and found nothing of value, only some common daily necessities.
"By the way, the government came here once before and took away many of his work-related items, saying that this was a common practice and needed to be taken back for investigation." The woman said at the side.
Zu An thought that it was no wonder that there were so few things in the house. He asked, "Does sister-in-law know the name of that official?"
"That's the lady," the woman replied.
"Oh?" Zu An raised his eyebrows, thoughtfully.
The two chatted with the mother and son for a while and then stood up to leave. On the way back, Pei Mianman finally couldn't help but asked curiously: "Why don't you go check on the families of the other two people? Why did you come directly to Shen Zhou's house?"
"There is no need to go to the other two," Zu An explained. "I have already analyzed that Cheng Ba before, and the probability of his fakery being so flawless is too small. The other Yu Li was also sucked dry by the Taoist with thick eyebrows.
I can prove this myself, and even though the mummy’s face has changed drastically, as a family member, there is no way that they can’t recognize each other, so there is no problem with their identities.”
"On the contrary, although this Shenzhou was indeed burned to death, because his face was destroyed, it was impossible to prove that it was him who died. I noticed that there were some abnormalities in the leg bones of the charred corpse, and the wounds had long since healed. It was obviously An old injury he suffered during his lifetime. So I came here specifically to ask his wife, and she told me that Shen Zhou had never broken his leg before."
"Obviously the charred corpse was not Shen Zhou himself, but was forged by someone using someone with a similar body shape. As a result, they were so careful that they never expected that the person they selected had a broken leg before, and this was the flaw."
"So Shen Zhou is the person you are looking for to report the news to the capital?" Pei Mianman was a little confused, "But why did he go all the way to the capital to report the news? Can't he just inform his superior Gong Pan or Mrs. Yu?"
"There are two possibilities. First, he was unable to contact these two people under the circumstances at that time; second..." Zu An paused, with a rather complicated look on his face, "He couldn't trust these two people."