The Famous Detective of the Red Mansion

After staring at the bloodstain on the sleeve for a while, Sun Shaozong stood up and immediately ordered, "Someone, go tie up that Luo Jing for me and put him under temporary custody.”

“Yes sir!”

Yang Licai, who had been waiting at the door, immediately pressed his waist knife and left the warehouse.

“Inspector Sun.”

Upon hearing that he was about to take Luo Jing, Lv Yuan immediately became excited and said happily, "Are you suspicious that Luo Jing did this? This guy is such a daredevil…”

Zhu Shan felt that there was something strange about the matter. Although Luo Jing was a bit domineering regularly, Zhu Shan didn't believe that he had the courage to do it.

In addition, he had heard before that between the Northern and Southern town Governors, there was often a tendency for the same party to engage in dissent.

“Inspector Sun.”

He couldn't help but cautiously inquire, "Is it really Luo Jing who did this?”

“Of course not.”

Sun Shaozong first gave a negative answer and then said, "However, he carries supervisory responsibilities and allows spies in important positions to lurk in the Gunpowder Bureau for many years without being investigated. This crime of dereliction of duty is always unavoidable.”Nᴇw chapters are publɪshed on No(ᴠ)ᴇlFire.nᴇt

Zhu Shan was taken aback and then turned his skeptical gaze to Lv Yuan. Currently, in this Gunpowder Bureau, it could be said that Lv Yuan held important positions, except for him and Luo Jing.

Unexpectedly, with this glance, he found that Lv Yuan was also scanning towards him with a skeptical gaze; his emotions were also doubting him.

“You two don't have to doubt each other…”

At this moment, Sun Shaozong pointed at Du Ning's body and said, "The spy I'm talking about is not someone else, but this guy on the ground.”

“What?!”

“It can’t be?!”

Zhu Shan and Lv Yuan were both stunned and couldn't help but question, “Inspector Sun, if Du Ning is really a spy, who killed him?”

Sun Shaozong, on the other hand, put on his lips and said, "Of course, it was this guy on the ground who did it.”

After all, Zhu Shan was smarter and immediately said, "Are you saying that Du Ning died of suicide?”

“That's right.”

Sun Shaozong nodded and said, "There are currently two flaws that can prove my inference.”

“Firstly, the lantern he used that day. After repeatedly testing it to make the external copper mesh look like that, at least a considerable amount of force must be exerted. That is to say, this lantern was voluntarily thrown to the ground by Du Ning, rather than simply dropping it.”

“This…”

Zhu Shan couldn't help but question, "Perhaps he discovered the murderer and threw the lantern over.”

Sun Shaozong shook his head and said, "If it was thrown out, how could it happen to fall right on his left side? Moreover, if it was applied horizontally, there should be more rolling marks left, rather than like this.”

As he spoke, he pointed to the ground and circled the marks with a cinnabar, continuing, "Instead of just bouncing on the ground, rolling two and a half times, and obediently stopping like this.”

“So it's certain that he took the initiative to throw the lantern on the ground.”

“And no matter how you look at it, it doesn't seem like a normal person would react to an attack in the dark.”

“As for the other flaw, there were the marks on his hands and sleeves,” Sun Shaozong said. He forcefully flipped the wrist of the corpse, pointing to the abnormally curved finger, and said, "This stiff twist—I call it corpse spasms. Generally, in a corpse in this situation, the joint muscles will stiffen instantly after death, fixed at the moment of death.”

“And from his appearance, it's obvious that he wanted to catch something before he died, but unfortunately, he didn't get it in time.”

“But did he not catch anything?”

Sun Shaozong forcefully pressed his hands together again. At this point, the body was completely stiff, and only such a strange force person like him could use brute force to force the body to do whatever he liked, which was extremely difficult for ordinary people to do.

When the two hands were folded together, the blood stains on both sleeves overlapped, and from some shape details, it was distinguishable that the blood stains on them were splashed at the same time.

“It was obvious that these two hands were once together when the wound was bleeding profusely.”

“And the degree of tightness is probably too tight for a third hand to get involved.”

“It's this bayonet.”

Sun Shaozong picked up the bayonet on the ground and forcefully inserted the clasp at the handle into the middle of his hands. Although it was not perfectly fitted, it was still placed just right.

"If he was in this position when you discovered the body, it can be concluded that the murderer released the weapon right away following the attack and then took it."

“But his hands were clearly gathered together. However, when he was discovered, they happened to hang down on both sides of his body.”

“There are two possibilities.”

Sun Shaozong extended two fingers and spoke eloquently, "The first possibility is that the murderer forcefully broke open his hands after he grabbed the bayonet.”

“The second possibility is that before his death, he didn't want people to know he had tightly grasped the bayonet, so he forced himself to endure the intense pain and let go of the bayonet—but he couldn't change the spasmodic grip that his hands naturally showed under the intense pain and tension.”

“Considering that the murder weapon was left at the scene, I don't see the need for the killer to break his finger, so...”

Sun Shaozong spread his hands and said, "I can only infer that he directed and performed this great play himself.”

This reasoning couldn’t be said to be unreasonable.

It was just that…

“Inspector Sun.”

Lv Yuan scratched his head and said, "If he really committed suicide, where did those two guns go? Did they grow legs on their own and fly away?”

“As for this...”

As Sun Shaozong was about to explain, Jia Shanyao cautiously approached and chatted up, "Your Excellency, I am incompetent and have not found anything strange.”

He didn't find anything strange?

Sun Shaozong was slightly stunned and then muttered to himself, "That's right. Since this is a military factory, it shouldn't be difficult to get some easily disassembled tools.”

As he spoke, he waved his hand at Jia Shanyao and said, "Forget it; I just didn't think carefully. Let the brothers go out first.”

Jia Shanyao was somewhat inexplicable, but he still took orders and coaxed out all the Dragon Guards who had been transferred in.

After the warehouse quieted down, Sun Shaozong led the crowd to the middle of the southern gun rack and pointed to several of them, saying, "Take down the muskets and bayonets on top. Take a closer look at these racks and see what's different from the others.”

Jia Shanyao and Lv Yuan immediately stepped forward and quickly took the muskets and bayonets off the shelf.

Jia Shanyao didn't realize anything was wrong, but Lv Yuan only picked up a musket and without realizing it, he frowned. "Why is it so loose?”

“What’s loose?”

Jia Shanyao was holding a musket in his arms in confusion, flipping over and over several times, but he couldn't find anything loose there.

“I'm talking about shelves.”

As Lv Yuan spoke, he reached out to grab the empty gun rack and shook it vigorously, only to see that the rack swayed slightly.

Eh…

Zhu Shan moved forward to adjust another shelf as soon as he realized something was off. He then declared with assurance, "Someone should have reloaded and unloaded these shelves, and they were done by a novice."

“That's right.”

Lv Yuan nodded and said, "This gun rack has just been made, and it can never be so loose. Our Gunpowder Bureau is a military camp and has the strictest requirements for craftsmanship.”

But he immediately became confused again and asked, "Who is this person who did this? Why did the person dismantle this thing?”

“Of course, it's to create a cover-up.”

Sun Shaozong said as he pointed to a less obvious mark on the table and said, "If you take a closer look, there are as many as seven or eight slight scratches on the table, which is the same as the number of loose shelves.”

The three of them quickly gathered together to search and they indeed discovered many scratches.

“It's glue! It should have been something like fish bladder glue used to glue the loose frame directly onto the table.”

Zhu Shan spent several years in prison and quickly determined the origin of these traces.

“That's right.”

Sun Shaozong continued, "However, one of the shelves was not glued to it, but was hidden by Du Ning. It wasn't until last night that it was wedged back onto the table along with the other shelves.”

As he spoke, he extended his hand to the opposite gun rack and said, "On the other side, there are similar marks. Therefore, those two guns didn’t disappear out of thin air last night but had already been stolen before last night.”