Illumine Lingao (English Translation)
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Chapter 2324 - Going to Wuzhou (III)

"They're key witnesses. We should extract them and detain them separately. That would be safer." Thinking of Cai Lan, who had "committed suicide" under mysterious circumstances, Chen Baibin suggested.

"No need. It's been more than half a month since the Wuzhou Incident. Those who should have died have long since died. Those who remain are naturally those who shouldn't die." Ji Xin spotted a tea set on the table. He uncovered it to find tea already brewed at just the right temperature. He poured cups for himself and Chen Baibin.

"Come, have some tea first."

"I'm not thirsty..."

"A cup of clear tea after a bath is best for relieving dryness and soothing the spirit, refreshing the internal organs. People like us who sit in offices and labor over paperwork benefit from drinking more." Ji Xin picked up his cup and took a shallow sip. This was West Lake Longjing, specially supplied to Senators by the General Office's Shop No. 82. "Even if we detained them separately, where would we put them? Who would we send to guard them? We don't have a single 'trusted aide' here. Even those four orderlies were only transferred after Xie Erren applied for them."

Chen Baibin was puzzled. "You mean..."

"If the superiors really thought the situation in Wuzhou was serious enough to require assigning a special task force to us, they would have assigned escorts. But neither Ma Jia, nor Ran Yao, nor Director Xiong arranged any accompanying personnel for us. Naturally, we don't need to worry about these things."

"Then what if there's a 'what if'?"

"If there really is a 'what if,' it means this is a 'what if' approved by the Senate."

"Alright, though I don't quite understand."

"Baibin, you asked me on the boat what the Senate's 'official line' was, and I told you there wasn't one. However, whenever a Senator's case is involved, there must be an official line—only no one will tell you. You can only sense it yourself."

Ji Xin saw Chen Baibin fall silent, apparently chewing on his words. He picked up the materials on the two prisoners scheduled for interrogation tomorrow, ready to study them carefully.

Yi Haoran's resume interested him quite a bit. Such an intellectual with an ill-fated destiny, manipulated by the tide of the times, had actually walked onto a path of opposition to the Senate, and in the end even came close to success. Such ability, if placed in the court of the Great Ming, probably wouldn't have been inferior to those famous officials of the late Ming at all. A pity—let alone a mere scholar, even those high officials at court couldn't break free from the laws of history...

He sighed for a while, then picked up the second document. This one was much thinner. As soon as the two characters "Jiang Suo" entered his eyes, Ji Xin felt a long-lost familiarity, as if he had seen this name somewhere before, but couldn't recall where. Yet this sense of familiarity couldn't be brushed away.

Looking at the confession of his background in the materials, it only stated he was from Henan, had drifted to Guangdong, joined the army, and became one of Xiong Wencan's family retainers. Later promoted to squad leader.

Ji Xin had a strange feeling that this Jiang Suo seemed to have hidden something about his background.

Early the next morning, Ji Xin and Chen Baibin came to the county yamen and interrogated the detained Yi Haoran and Jiang Suo in the rear hall.

Yi Haoran was the "principal offender" and was naturally arraigned first.

Yi Haoran was brought to the rear hall and, according to Australian rules, locked into the interrogation chair.

Ji Xin observed his dark skin and wrinkles like knife carvings. This was clearly a person who had spent years running about outdoors, not a scholar who sat in study halls discussing the Dao. Yet his demeanor was elegant, and his every gesture demonstrated calmness and composure. Obviously, a man who had experienced great occasions.

"You are Yi Haoran?" Ji Xin asked.

"It is this humble scholar."

"I've read your confession." Ji Xin said. "Is there anything that needs to be added or changed? If there are important hidden facts you can provide, when sentencing comes, the punishment can naturally be reduced by one degree."

"Crime?" Yi Haoran smiled sarcastically. "I led officers and righteous men to risk death recovering Wuzhou. Now defeated and captured—what crime is there?"

Chen Baibin wanted to scold him, but Ji Xin waved his hand. Unangered, he continued: "So you have nothing more to say?"

"What needed to be said has already been said. What benefit is there in saying more?"

Seeing him clinging tightly to his confession, Ji Xin stopped pursuing that line and turned to ask: "What is your relationship with Luo Yangming?"

"I worked as an accountant in his shop."

"You're a foreigner with no shop or guarantor locally, and no relatives to turn to. Why would Luo Yangming employ you?"

"I am a distant relative of Jiang Qiuchan's husband's family. After Wuzhou city fell, I had nowhere to go, so I went to seek refuge with her. She then recommended me to the shop through Luo Yangming's wife."

"You're a person from Liaodong. How do you have relatives in Guangdong?"

"Just vine-tendril relatives from generations back," Yi Haoran said. "Contact had long since been cut off. We merely still recognized the kinship. Had I not been out of options, I wouldn't have swallowed my pride to beg her."

Ji Xin asked again: "Since you were in such distress in Wuzhou when the city fell, why did you conceive the idea of organizing a riot?"

"Under the whole of heaven, is there any land that is not the King's territory of Great Ming? You bandit thieves have stolen the King's territory. Is it impermissible for this scholar to raise troops to recover it?"

"Mr. Yi, matters of great righteousness need not be debated. You and I each have our positions. I think you originally sought refuge with Jiang Qiuchan simply to eke out a living, without any thought of rioting. What exactly caused this thought to arise, and how did you organize it? Tell me everything, one by one!"

"Why this thought arose and how it was organized—this scholar has stated clearly in the confession, without concealment."

Chen Baibin thought: This old scholar is quite a talker, turning things over and over, refusing to say a useful sentence—everything's in the confession.

Ji Xin didn't pursue further, just nodded slightly, and asked again: "What is your relationship with Cai Lan?"

"She is the fiancée of an old friend of mine, Xing Chenghuan." Yi Haoran answered calmly. "When Wuzhou city fell, Mr. Xing died for the country. Cai Lan drifted here. I originally didn't know her—until one day on the street she saw my fan. The fan had been painted by her fiancé."

"And then?"

"She asked where I lived and what I did for a living. Since she had exposed my identity, this scholar stopped hiding and told her everything."

"You didn't ask what she did for a living at that time, or where she stayed?"

"Naturally I asked. She said that after the city fell, she was nearly abducted and violated by villains. Fortunately, bandit soldiers intervened and saved her. Pitying her for being lonely and helpless, and knowing she was literate, the bandits let her do odd jobs in the San Zong Fu."

"What job can she—a weak woman with bound feet—possibly do?"

"This, the scholar doesn't know," Yi Haoran said.

"Since Cai Lan received great kindness from my Senate, why did she become your insider?"

"Great kindness?" Yi Haoran smiled disdainfully. "If not for you, she and my old friend would be a harmonious couple like qin and se (instruments), deeply in love. Living a stable and happy life. How would she have fallen to the state of being abducted and violated by chaotic soldiers? This scholar provoked her with national hatred and family enmity, and thus made her an insider."

"Since she was an insider, what did she do?"

"Naturally reported on the movements of the bandit thieves. Every few days she would pass news to this scholar."

"She is a woman. How could she communicate with you?"

"Though she is a woman, bandit thieves have always held etiquette and law in contempt. The bandit female cadres in Wuzhou show their faces in public—it's not considered strange. What's so strange about her being able to come and go freely?"

"When you led people to rush into the county yamen and raid Senator Xie, was she the insider?"

"No. Cai Lan served in the San Zong Fu. Xie the Bandit lived and worked in the county yamen. How could she be an insider? Besides, for such a major undertaking, this scholar wouldn't dare entrust it to a woman's hands."

This Yi Haoran has cleaned Cai Lan quite thoroughly! Ji Xin thought. This set of confessions had obviously been prepared by someone. Yi Haoran admitted all the parts that couldn't be hidden, solely concealing the key point of the relationship between Cai Lan and Xie Erren.

Ji Xin asked more questions. Yi Haoran answered fluently, fitting the confession seamlessly, without flaws.

"...Take him away," Ji Xin ordered.

After the guards took Yi Haoran away, Chen Baibin asked, puzzled: "Director Ji, all of that was in the confession. Why ask again?"

"Naturally, to see if they match. Fabricated confessions are often accurate in general direction; ask more and differences will emerge in details. Also to verify if our people told the truth."

"You mean Luo Yangming?"

"Luo Yangming wrote in his report how Yi Haoran lurked in the city. Looking at it now, there's basically no problem." He paused. "There's another point—I don't know if you noticed the suspicious element."

"Cai Lan."

"Correct." Ji Xin nodded. "In Yi Haoran's confession, Cai Lan is quite unimportant. And he avoided the key thing: namely, the relationship between Xie Erren and Cai Lan."

"Pity Cai Lan is already dead," Chen Baibin said with some regret. However, he noticed Ji Xin showed no regretful expression whatsoever.

Ji Xin didn't immediately interrogate Jiang Suo, but called in the local police chief, Zheng Ergen. He asked about the circumstances of Cai Lan's interrogation and death.

"After Cai Lan was arrested, she was detained in the Earth God Temple of the county yamen. Two female wardens guarded her specially. But before we could arraign her, she committed suicide..."

"The body?"

"After encoffinment, it's temporarily stored in a nunnery outside the city."

"How did she die? Was an autopsy performed?"

"It was examined. But we don't have a forensic doctor here—it was the local county coroner who examined her. The conclusion is hanging suicide." Zheng Ergen looked at Ji Xin. "Chief, do you want to open the coffin and examine her again...?"

"No need. We didn't bring a forensic doctor this time." Ji Xin shook his head and asked: "How was she discovered to be a spy?"

"It's said someone anonymously reported to Chief Xie. Chief Xie's security secretary personally went to arrest her."

Ji Xin remembered that Xie Erren's report had stated the security secretary died in battle on the night of the riot. And his office had also been broken into by Ming troops that night. He himself had led guards to resist fiercely in the office. According to the report: "gunshots and fire burning, heavy losses."

"It's said Cai Lan served the Senate in the San Zong Fu. Is that true?" Ji Xin asked.

Zheng Ergen hesitated slightly before answering: "She did indeed serve in the San Zong Fu."

(End of Chapter)

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