AWB Chapter 54: Why did you eat it if it tasted so bad?
Chapter 54: Why did you eat it if it tasted so bad?
The old woman began to describe it with great emotion.
She was said to be the wife of a blacksmith, with two sons and a daughter. Her daughter was quite old but had never married.
Lin Fan listened patiently to the old woman's rambling, looking into her cloudy, lifeless eyes.
The constable next to him lost his patience and whispered something in Lin Fan's ear.
"Boss, this isn't the first time this old bastard has done this. Let's ignore her. She's been pestering us for help finding her daughter countless times this month, but we've got absolutely no clue. She's nowhere to be found, neither alive nor dead."
"I reckon her daughter must have run off with her lover. This kind of thing happens all the time, no need to bother."
“Oh,” Lin Fan countered, “Did she submit the complaint?”
"Of course it was handed over; it was handed over to Registrar Jia."
"Didn't Clerk Jia assign anyone to handle this case?" Lin Fan asked again.
"Impossible. These kinds of things happen all the time. We have three shifts and about twenty constables. How can we possibly manage them all?" the constable replied.
Lin Fan nodded. He had been suspicious when Clerk Jia said that there was no unsolved case. In reality, many cases simply didn't need to be filed and therefore didn't need to be solved.
According to this constable, cases of people disappearing without a trace, whether alive or dead, are extremely common in Daqian, and some are simply impossible to investigate.
After listening to the old woman's description, Lin Fan understood the gist of the matter. Her daughter had just gone to work for a family and then disappeared. The family said she had already left and gone home, but they couldn't find her anywhere.
Indeed, there were no obvious clues to be found, and quite a bit of time had passed.
Lin Fan was just a clay idol who couldn't even save himself from crossing the river, and he was about to offer a few words of comfort when he refused the old woman. Before he could speak, she took out a portrait from her bosom.
Lin Fan's breathing quickened upon seeing the portrait.
The painting depicts a tall woman who, despite wearing ordinary clothes, clearly possesses a curvaceous and alluring figure.
Normal parents wouldn't draw such an indecent picture of their daughter. Presumably, in order to increase the chances of finding her daughter, the old woman asked the artist to recreate her daughter's physical features as accurately as possible.
Besides her figure, another striking feature is her unattractive appearance, with wide-set eyes like a catfish and thick, wide lips.
The woman's bangs are very long, obviously used to cover her face normally, but the artist deliberately changed her hairstyle here to reveal her somewhat strange facial features.
The constable next to him looked on and exclaimed, "No wonder your daughter can't get married. She's not bad at night with the lights off, but she's really unbearable to look at during the day."
Lin Fan rolled his eyes at him, and he immediately shut up.
Lin Fan lowered his head and pondered for a moment. He had actually guessed about 70-80% of the things, but seeing the mother's expression gave him a different feeling.
This is just one person. How many people are there in the Ma family's warehouse? Behind each of them is a broken family.
"Auntie, what's your daughter's name?"
The old woman's chapped lips trembled slightly, as if the name carried a thousand pounds of weight.
……
By the time everything was finished, it was already late at night. Lin Fan and Mu Qingfeng checked the list of all the Feng family members and found that, except for Feng Qingfeng who had become a monk, everyone else had been arrested.
Chief Clerk Jia summoned Lin Fan, Mu Qingfeng, Miao Zhuzi, and Master Fakong to his hall for a meal.
The food at the yamen wasn't very good, but Lin Fan didn't care at all. He filled a large bowl with rice and ate it with lots of salty vegetables.
Normally, people would report on their work before eating at such times, so no one, including Clerk Jia, touched their chopsticks.
"Officer Chen, is the food to your liking?" Clerk Jia asked with a forced smile.
"It doesn't taste good," Lin Fan replied with his mouth full.
"It's not tasty, yet you keep eating it?" Clerk Jia's smile was starting to falter.
"If Lord Jia invites me to eat, wouldn't it be disrespectful if I didn't eat more?" Lin Fan said, shoveling another big mouthful of rice into his mouth.
"That Constable Chen understands human relationships and social dynamics. We'll wait for you to finish eating," said Registrar Jia, suppressing his anger.
Lin Fan practically devoured all the unpalatable dishes on the table by himself. Even though they were terrible, they were still decent dishes, and there were even some shredded meat. Lin Fan didn't pick and choose at all.
Seeing the livid face of the registrar Jia made him feel particularly hungry.
Lin Fan knew his time was running out. Although there were doubts about the Ma family case, the current situation was enough to satisfy Clerk Jia. He would just have to make the most of every meal he had.
"Qingfeng, tell me what you pried out of the Feng family." Lin Fan didn't even wait for Clerk Jia to speak, acting as if he were making the decision casually.
Mu Qingfeng sighed as he looked at Lin Fan, who seemed somewhat resigned to his fate, and said, "Lord Jia, Officer Chen, I'll get straight to the point."
"The corpses and remains under the Ma family warehouse number in the hundreds, spanning several decades."
"Based on the testimonies of the Feng family, the Feng family had no dealings with the Ma family on the surface, but in fact, they had been kidnapping people for the Ma family behind the scenes."
“They have many methods. They pretend to be looking for helpers, then directly abduct children who are alone, or buy them at a low price. Moreover, the Feng family members do not do these things themselves, but hire others to do them.”
"However, even those who commit crimes year after year will eventually make a mistake. Once they do, the Feng family will step in to smooth things over for the Ma family. In this way, even if a member of the Feng family is occasionally found to be implicated, the Ma family has never been affected."
While Mu Qingfeng was explaining, Lin Fan glanced at everyone one by one.
Master Fakong seemed deeply saddened, bowing his head and silently reciting scriptures. Miaozhuzi's brows furrowed slightly.
Clerk Jia remained calm, seemingly quite accustomed to such scenes.
“Feng Weishui, these people are well hidden, with layers of protection. They arrest a group, but once the heat dies down, they start all over again. No wonder they can’t be completely eradicated,” said Clerk Jia, stroking his beard.
"Although the Ma family is gone, the Feng family is still around. You've solved a major case. Don't worry, you'll be rewarded for your contributions later."
After saying that, Clerk Jia turned to Lin Fan: "But, Officer Chen, even after all this, the murderer in the Ma family massacre case still hasn't been caught."
"You're not suggesting that the Ma family is getting their just desserts because of their many evil deeds, are you?"
Clerk Jia gave a forced smile and stared coldly at Lin Fan.
Lin Fan sneered, "Isn't that right? So many innocent people are buried under their graves. I really don't know how they can sleep soundly. Clerk Jia, don't you think those curses are the manifestation of the obsessions of those they killed?"
Like Lin Fan, Clerk Jia smiled and said, "Of course I believe you, but I can't say this to the higher-ups. Constable Chen has to give me an explanation."
"This is simple." Lin Fan picked up a chopstick, pretended it was a knife, and made a slash across Jia Zhubu's neck through the air, watching the other party's eyelids twitch.
"It's true that curses kill people, but curses are not killers, but rather the tools for killing. Someone used a curse to kill someone. And the person who wielded that tool, I think, is Master Wanshou of Linglong Temple."
“Oh,” Clerk Jia’s eyes finally lit up, and he was somewhat moved. “Then what was his motive? As far as I know, he and the Ma family should have no grudges against each other.”
"It's for Ma Er's Seven Apertures Exquisite Heart," Lin Fan said. "I saw it in the underground of Linglong Temple, but it has now been taken away by Wanshou's junior brother."
Clerk Jia nodded without asking further questions, since everyone knew that these Taoist priests acted strangely.
"Then how can you be sure that these spells are his methods?" Clerk Jia asked again.
"Because the curse weakens the day after Wanshou dies, and the spell is dispelled when the caster dies, this explanation makes sense, right?" Lin Fan said.