At the end of the Qing Dynasty, there was a magistrate named Zhao Tong in Haizhou City, eastern Liaoning Province. He was intelligent and upright and never cheated for personal gain. At the beginning of his tenure, he dealt with a lot of unsolved cases that had been backlogged for many years, so he won praise from the common people.

One day in the depths of winter, Zhao Tong was on official business when he suddenly received a report from Lin Shun, a locksmith who lived in Nanguan on the outskirts of the city, that his wife Zhang had been killed at home. Lin Shun was accompanied by his only 16-year-old daughter, Lin Cuihua. Seeing the grief of the father and daughter, Zhao Tong comforted him and quickly rushed to the scene of the crime with the servants and Yusuo.

The courtyard of Lin Shun's house was already crowded with people watching the fun. Seeing people coming from the government, people automatically gave way. Zhao Tong entered the house and couldn't help but frown. Because the deceased who fell in a pool of blood not only had his clothes broken and messy, but also his whole face was bloody and bloody, and his facial features could not be recognized at all.

After a preliminary autopsy, Lin Zuo replied to Zhao Tong that the victim's skull, upper and lower jaws, and the bridge of the nose were all broken. Apparently, the murderer's modus operandi was extremely cruel, smashing the victim's face alive with a sharp weapon to death. Zhao Tong asked Lin Shun's father and daughter if the deceased had offended anyone in their lifetime. Lin Cuihua provided information that her mother had been molested by a rascal named Liu Bao before her death, and she had scolded each other in full view. Lin Shun also nodded and echoed her daughter's suggestion, adding that he had also warned Liu Bao to send him to the government if he tried to hit his wife again.

Zhao Tong immediately sent someone to subpoena Liu Bao, but who knew that Liu Bao had escaped. The case then became clear. Liu Bao was a major suspect, and Zhao Tong posted a notice for arrest while ordering someone to temporarily transport the victim's body to the county office for safekeeping.

Two days later, Liu Bao was arrested in a neighboring county. Zhao Tong got the news and informed Lin Shun's father and daughter to come to the hall. Liu Bao knew that his guilt was inevitable, so he kowtowed in the lobby like tampering with garlic and confessed the murder.

Liu Bao confessed that he had long coveted Lin Shun's wife Zhang Shi, so he tried every means to seduce and tease her. Unexpectedly, Zhang shi was not the kind of woman with a flamboyant personality. Not only did she reject Liu Bao's unreasonable request, she also berated him in the street. Liu Bao did not give up. While Lin Shun's father and daughter were out, he quietly sneaked into Lin's house three days ago in the evening and forced Zhang shi to sleep with him. Zhang shi would rather die than obey, and while resisting fiercely, he called for help. Liu Bao was so angry that he grabbed an iron lock on the table in the house and beat Zhang shi in the face. When Zhang shi fell to the ground and fell unconscious, Liu Bao suddenly heard footsteps coming from the street, and ran out of the courtyard wall in panic and fled. Then, uneasy, he heard the news that Lin Shun's father and daughter found Zhang dead and reported to the official after returning home. He expected that something was wrong, so he fled in a hurry, but he did not expect to end up in the legal net.

Seeing Liu Bao confess and press the handprint, the sobbing Lin Shun father and daughter angrily demanded that Zhao Zhi County send the criminal to death as soon as possible to comfort the souls of their relatives in the sky. Zhao Tong nodded and ordered Liu Bao to be sent to death row. At this time, Lin Shun begged again, "My lord, since the case has been solved, Xiaomin can transport the body of his deceased wife back home for burial, right?" Zhao Tong listened to it and lowered his head for a moment. After asking the deceased Zhang's age was thirty-eight again, he told Lin Shun father and daughter to go home first and wait for the county governor to ask at any time. Lin Shun did not understand what medicine was sold in the gourd, but he did not dare to disobey the order, so he reluctantly left with his daughter.

After Zhao Tong sent Lin Shun's father and daughter away, his subordinates came to report that the girl invited by the provincial government had arrived. Zhao Tong immediately asked the girl to conduct a detailed examination of Zhang's body again, and came to the conclusion that the deceased was a young girl no more than 20 years old, and had always been a virgin. Zhao Tong was not too surprised by this result, but smiled lightly: "As expected by this official, it seems that this case must have a play."

In fact, when Zhao Tong saw the deceased for the first time, according to the appearance of his skin, figure, etc., he did not look like someone who had given birth to children, and it was even more inconsistent with his age. Since the county governor was male, it was inconvenient to conduct an internal examination of the female corpse, so Zhao Tong handed over a document to the provincial government, asking for an experienced female.

In order to find out the true identity of the deceased, Zhao Tong sent the police to Lin Shun and his daughter again, and after showing the autopsy results of the girl to her face, the father and daughter couldn't help but look at each other. When they were led to the corpse for careful identification, Lin Cuihua couldn't help but exclaim, "Oh my God, this is indeed not my mother's corpse. I remember clearly that there are two birthmarks on the back of my mother's shoulder, but this person doesn't have any at all!" Lin Shun also suddenly realized and said, "Yes, yes, the little girl is right, my wife does have many birthmarks! My lord, Xiaomin really doesn't understand, why did my wife become another person after she died? It seems that Liu Bao must have done something with bad intentions, please ask the county magistrate to avenge Xiaomin..."

belt

Zhao Tong interrogated Liu Bao for the second time. No matter how he was interrogated, Liu Bao denied that he had stolen the body. When he told him the results of the female autopsy, Liu Bao was also dumbfounded, shaking his head in fear and muttering to himself, "Strange, is it a ghost?" Zhao Tong observed his words and expressions based on years of experience, and saw that Liu Bao did not seem to be lying, so he was imprisoned again.

Zhao Tong returned to his study and thought about it repeatedly, but he couldn't solve it. It seemed that this was indeed a very difficult case, and where should the breakthrough be placed? Just as he was at a loss, a police officer rushed over to report that a female corpse was found on the ice under the Shahe stone bridge on the outskirts of the city. Zhao Tong hurriedly sent someone to transport the female corpse back to the county yamen for inspection before the female had left the county yamen. The results confirmed that the deceased was a middle-aged woman around 37 or 18 years old, with two birthmarks on her shoulder, and her face was also blurred by a sharp weapon. However, unlike the female corpse found in Lin Shun's house last time, the woman had a belt tightly wrapped around her neck. Based on the bruises on her throat, it can be inferred that she was strangled with a belt.

Zhao Tong found Lin Shun's father and daughter for identification. After a little inspection, the father and daughter threw themselves on the corpse and cried, saying that it was Zhang's real corpse. Zhao Tong checked the belt again, and although it was stained with blood, he could still clearly identify the two words engraved on it: Xu Ji. Zhao Tong asked the teacher in the county yamen, knowing that "Xu Ji" was the only leather merchant in the city, so he asked his subordinates to escort Liu Bao to investigate.

When the boss of Xu Ji Trading Firm and the other staff saw the county prince visit in person, they dared to neglect Zhao Tong and the others and let them into the store like they were greeting VIPs. Zhao Tong cut to the chase and took out the belt for them to identify. The boss and the staff agreed that it was indeed something sold by our store. When Liu Bao was brought to the front of the crowd, a sharp-eyed staff immediately recognized him and said that this person had bought the belt in the store half a month ago, and then dug out the account book for Zhao Zhixian to check.

Despite the evidence, Liu Bao refused to admit that Zhang was strangled by himself with a belt, and repeatedly insisted that he hit her in the face with a lock. Zhao Tong asked him why the belt appeared on the neck of the deceased, and Liu Bao shook his head in confusion and explained that although he had bought the belt at Xu Ji Trading Firm, he found it was gone before he could use it at home. The soldiers saw that Liu Bao was so dead and denied it, and angrily asked Zhao Zhixian to use torture for him. Zhao Tong waved his hand firmly, thinking that things would never be so simple. Even if Liu Bao really strangled Zhang, who would be the body of the young girl that Lin Shun's father and daughter found in the previous report, and how was it killed?

bracelet

Zhao Tong decided to start by finding out the identity of the young girl's body, so he sent people to post notices in the main streets of the city and neighboring villages and towns, asking the family members of the missing young women to come to the county yamen to claim the body. This trick really worked. Within three days, Shi Yuanwai, the rich man who lived in Xiangtang Town, which belonged to Haizhou, rushed to the county yamen and said that his daughter had been missing for many days. When he came to the girl's corpse, although he couldn't make out the face, after checking the relevant characteristics of other parts of the body, he immediately shouted and fainted.

Zhao Tong ordered Shi Yuanwai to wake up, and Shi Yuanwai knelt on the ground and cried, "The villain has three daughters, and the second daughter, Cai Feng, is 18 years old and has not yet married. She went to her aunt's house to visit relatives ten days ago and has not returned. The villain thought that her beloved daughter was greedy for her aunt's house, so she didn't care. After seeing the notice from the county government office, the villain was afraid that the little girl would have an accident, so he went to her aunt's house to ask in person, only to find out that Cai Feng had never been there at all, but had disappeared unknowingly, so he came to the county government office to check what happened. Who knows... my poor daughter, you died so miserably!"

Zhao Tong comforted for a long time before Shi Yuanwai could barely stop crying. Zhao Tong tried to ask, "Your daughter has not yet left the cabinet, and she belongs to everyone's lady, so she won't be able to offend anyone, right?" Shi Yuanwai replied, "What the lord said is very right, the little girl is usually gentle and humble, and even treats the maid at home like a sister, and no one will deliberately take revenge on her." Zhao Tong stared at the cunning rich businessman in front of him and continued to ask, "Maybe the problem is with you, think about it carefully, is there any enemy who wants to plot against you recently?" Shi Yuanwai blinked a few times, as if thinking of something, but became hesitant and hesitant.

Zhao Tong was a little sullen when he saw this: "It is said that children are the hearts of parents. Now that your beloved daughter has been murdered for no reason, do you have anything more important than punishing the murderer as soon as possible and avenging your daughter?" After Zhao Tong said this, Shi Yuanwai knelt on the ground and kowtowed heavily: "Please forgive me, the villain's family has hired a lot of long-term workers, and in order to save expenses, he has tried every means to deduct their wages. I said this about a month ago, a person named A Cai worked for the villain for three years. If the three-year construction period has expired as promised, he will be paid a sum of wages. But the villain was really unwilling to take out the money, so he instructed the concubine in the family to seduce him on purpose, and then the villain deducted all his wages in the name of catching rape and drove him out of the mansion. Maybe this A Cai was angry with the villain and deliberately took revenge on his beloved daughter Caifeng, please see it clearly! "Zhao Tong looked at Shi Yuanwai with disdain, thinking to himself that such a rich and heartless profiteer would have died long ago, but unfortunately the innocent Caifeng died at a young age.

According to Zhao Tong's orders, the soldiers rushed to the countryside and brought the man named Ah Cai. Although Ah Cai had a panicked look on his face, no matter how Zhao Tong interrogated him, he confessed that he did not know about Caifeng's disappearance and murder, and went to court with Shi Yuanwai, retorting that he deliberately framed himself and asked Zhao Zhixian to give a clear judgment.

Zhao Tong knew that there was no evidence to conclude that Ah Cai was related to the case at present, so he suddenly seemed to have thought of something while frowning, ordering someone to bring Shi Yuanwai to Caifeng's corpse and ask, "Since you usually regard the second daughter as the pearl in your palm, even if you are stingy, you will not be wronged by your own flesh and blood, right? See if she has lost any valuable things on her body?" This sentence was like waking up a dreamer, Shi Yuanwai suddenly pointed to the two arms of the corpse and replied, "I clearly remember that she left home wearing a pair of dragon and phoenix gold bracelets, but now they are gone!"

According to Zhao Tong's assignment, the servants quickly found a gold dragon-and-phoenix bracelet from Ah Cai's house. After being identified by Shi Yuan, it belonged to his daughter Caifeng. But he told Zhao Tong that it was a pair of dragon-and-phoenix-shaped gold bracelets, and now only the dragon-shaped one was found, and the phoenix-shaped one did not know where it fell. Zhao Tong interrogated Ah Cai, but Ah Cai repeatedly complained that he had picked up the dragon-shaped gold bracelet on the road, and had never seen any phoenix-shaped one.

In order to find out everything possible about the case and confirm whether Ah Cai had killed someone for the gold bracelet, Zhao Tong planned to check whether the bracelet was genuine or counterfeit. He personally went to the largest gold and silver jewelry store in the city, but unexpectedly got an unexpected harvest. Because after the jewelry store owner inspected it, he not only told Zhao Tong that the dragon-shaped bracelet was expensive and genuine, but also provided that a few days ago, the locksmith Lin Shun had taken another pair of phoenix-shaped gold bracelets to check the authenticity.

The case became more and more complicated, so Zhao Tong called Lin Shun for questioning, but Lin Shun was also full of certainty that his phoenix-shaped bracelet had been picked up on the road. But from his evasive eyes, Zhao Tong speculated that Lin Shun, like Ah Cai, was lying about the source of the gold bracelet. Since Shi Yuanwai determined that Ah Cai and Lin Shun had committed the crime and shared the spoils, Zhao Tong used this as an excuse to temporarily imprison the two.

Ghost

That night, Lin Shun was thinking uneasily in the prison cell when he suddenly saw a familiar face among the few jailers in front of him. Wasn't that his fellow villager Li Si? He usually didn't take this Li Si seriously, so the relationship between the two was not close, and now Lin Shun was deep in prison and had to temporarily curry favor with this fellow villager. While the other jailers were gone and only Li Si was left, Lin Shun softly called him over. After all, it was a meeting of real-world friends. Li Si's kind words comforted Lin Shun, and Lin Shun took out a large ingot of silver from his arms and handed it over, hoping that Li Si could take good care of him.

Sure enough, money can be distracted, and Li Si immediately became very happy after taking the money and buying good wine and meat for Lin Shun. Seeing that the other jailers still hadn't come back, Li Si kept pouring wine for Lin Shun, and mysteriously pasted it in his ear and said, "Brother Lin, do you know that the corpse of the woman named Caifeng is missing, and the county mayor is worried about it." Lin Shun was stunned: "Could such a thing really happen?" Li Si replied very seriously and uneasily, "You and I are both from the same hometown, would I still lie to you? It's just..."

"Just what?"  Lin Shun hurriedly asked.

"It's just that I heard that the ghost of Caifeng has been wandering inside and outside the county yamen these days, Brother Lin must be careful! In fact, you don't have to be too scared, you will never do anything harmful based on your character. Besides, the ghost of Caifeng only tracks down the real murderer, and will not embarrass you."

"Then Ah Cai..." Lin Shun felt a little lost when he just said these four words, and quickly shut his mouth.

After Li Si left, Lin Shun was the only one left inside and outside the prison cell. He was drunk for some reason, and his mind was full of the ghost of the colorful phoenix. Just as he was about to fall asleep, he suddenly heard a strange wind blowing outside, and the cry of a woman could be faintly heard in the wind, and it was so miserable and sad.

Lin Shun suddenly opened his eyes and saw clusters of blue flames flashing outside the cell. He couldn't help but think of the folk saying that the blue fire was haunted. Could it be that the ghost of Caifeng wandered here?

Before Lin Shun came back to his senses, he saw a woman with a bloody face suddenly appear in the wall in a thick white smoke. Although Lin Shun was extremely terrified, he still had a trace of luck, thinking that it might be artificial. However, he rubbed his eyes and tried to take a closer look, and almost fainted from fright.

"Who are you? Why are you here?" Lin Shun felt cold air on his spine and couldn't help but tremble.

"I'm Caifeng, I'm here to ask for my enemy's life, and anyone who touches my things will pay with blood!" The female ghost replied angrily, and her voice seemed to come from the sky.

Lin Shun finally couldn't hold it any longer, felt dizzy in front of him, and couldn't help but kneel down to defend himself, "Miss Caifeng, don't blame me, you should settle the score with Ah Cai, it was him... He killed you and took away the two gold bracelets, I just wanted money to extort one of the phoenix bracelets from him! Besides, I have already handed it over to your father Shiyuan by the magistrate of the county, girl, forgive me..."

As Lin Shun kept kowtowing and begging for mercy, he suddenly heard the door outside open with a "bang" and walked in with Zhao Tong, the county magistrate, and a group of people. Lin Shun took a closer look at the female ghost in the wall, who was slowly being pulled up along the beam with a rope, and it turned out to be a realistic portrait.

"Lin Shun, look who this is?" Zhao Tong said and ordered everyone to move aside, revealing Ah Cai who was tightly bound and had a towel in his mouth. Zhao Tong turned to Ah Cai and sneered, "You heard it clearly outside, what else do you have to say?"

Lin Shun knew that the fire could no longer be contained in the paper, so he immediately slumped on the ground in despair. After Ah Cai was untied and took out the towel from his mouth, he also looked at Lin Shun with a dead face and looked at Lin Shun sadly. Under Zhao Tong's sharp interrogation, the two had to confess all the crimes like sieves.

truth

It turned out that after being seduced by Shi Yuanwai's concubine and caught by the so-called "rape" on the spot, Changgong Ah Cai was forced to write down a written document to give up all his wages. After he left the Shi family, he was really resentful, but he couldn't afford to offend the rich Shi Yuanwai. One day, when Ah Cai was wandering in the street depressingly, he suddenly found Cai Feng, the second lady of the Shi family, visiting her aunt's house in a carriage and followed her secretly. Maybe Cai Feng thought the carriage was too bumpy and asked the car owner to slow down, which allowed Ah Cai to follow behind without landing. When it wasn't too far from her aunt's house, Cai Feng saw that the road was getting more and more difficult to walk, so she simply let the carriage go back and would rather walk alone. So Ah Cai took advantage of the opportunity of no one to coax Cai Feng with eloquent words.

After Ah Cai finally tricked Cai Feng into his home, he planned to lock her up as a hostage to extort a large sum of money from Shi Yuan with tit for tat. Unexpectedly, he was reprimanded by Cai Feng during the dispute, and Ah Cai used the iron lock in his hand to punch Cai Feng in the face in anger. Although Cai Feng's face was covered in blood, he still fought to the death with the other party. Ah Cai was like a crazy beast who snatched the pair of dragon and phoenix gold bracelets from Cai Feng and dehumanized them until he smashed Cai Feng's face. When he found out that Cai Feng had died of breathing, it coincided with the locksmith Lin Shun coming to collect the debt. Because Ah Cai once had an iron lock in Lin Shun's credit and failed to pay back the money, Lin Shun was afraid that Ah Cai would default on the payment after a long time, so he personally found Ah Cai's house and never expected to witness his entire murder process.

Lin Shun used this as a threat to force Ah Cai to get a phoenix bracelet from him, and promised to help Ah Cai deal with body of the phoenix in exchange for asking Ah Cai to go to Liu Bao's house to steal a belt engraved with the words "Xu Ji" for him. Ah Cai had no choice but to obey Lin Shun's orders.

The reason why Lin Shun asked Ah Cai to steal Liu Bao's belt was because not long ago, he noticed that Liu Bao had gone to the "Xu Ji" trading house to buy a belt. Liu Bao had always had friction with Lin Shun, and he had also molested Lin Shun's wife, but the reason why Lin Shun did not report to the official was that there was another conspiracy hidden deep in his heart. Lin Shun's wife Zhang suffered from an incurable disease. Although she did not have any worries about her life, she had to rely on the most precious ginseng and other tonic medicines every month, which cost Lin Shun a lot of money. Lin Shun initially tried his best to pay for his wife's treatment, but after a long time, he could no longer fill the bottomless pit, so he had the evil intention of getting rid of his wife. In order to achieve his goal, he racked his brains to come up with an idea that would kill two birds with one stone, not only taking his wife's life, but also taking the opportunity to eradicate the scoundrel Liu Bao that he hated.

Lin Shun took his daughter to his grandmother's house that night, and pretended to go on a business trip to other places. The lustful lustful Liu Bao was really fooled, so he sneaked into the Lin family and tried to do something wrong to Zhang. Did you know that Lin Shun and Ah Cai hid outside the gate with the corpse of the colorful phoenix wrapped in a sack. After hearing Zhang's screams in the room, Lin Shun decided that the time was ripe, so he scared Liu Bao away with footsteps, and then entered the house and strangled Zhang's unconscious with the stolen Liu Bao belt. Then Lin Shun and Ah Cai successfully stole the body.

Lin Shun thought that all of this was done seamlessly. If the government failed to find out that the body had been stolen, then Liu Bao would surely die, and he could naturally use Caifeng's body to be cremated in the name of his wife's funeral to cover up the murder evidence for Ah Cai. Lin Shun also imagined that if the government found out that the body had been stolen, then according to Liu Bao's "Xu Ji" belt, he could also be completely killed.

What Lin Shun and Ah Cai never expected was that their cleverness was mistaken for cleverness, and in the end, the tricks were finally exposed. In fact, prefect Zhao Tong thought that the body might have been stolen, and the autopsy done by the woman proved that his guess was correct. He saw that Lin Shun repeatedly insist that his wife was killed by Liu Bao, and demanded that the criminal be sentenced to death as soon as possible. Even though he learned that his wife's body had been stolen, it was also determined that Liu Bao did it. This aroused Zhao Zhixian's suspicion. Because according to the practice of ordinary people, only by thoroughly understanding the real murderer of his wife can he console his relatives who have died unjustly.

Since the pair of dragon and phoenix gold bracelets committed the crime, Zhao Tong found that Ah Cai and Lin Shun looked extremely flustered, expecting that they must have an unspeakable secret in their hearts. So he opened a gap in the alcoholic Lin Shun and sent his fellow jailer Liu Si to pretend to approach Lin Shun, drunk Lin Shun with wine and spread rumors about the ghost of the colorful phoenix. Then Zhao Tong hired someone from the acrobatic class to pull the "ghost" portrait of the colorful phoenix on the slope with a string, and then set up the background of relevant props to make Lin Shun submit.

After the truth of the sensational double corpse case came to light, people couldn't help but feel full of emotion. Not only did they admire the wise and resourceful Zhao Zhixian, but they also hated the cruel crimes of Liu Bao, Ah Cai, and Lin Shun. What awaits them is the severe punishment of the Great Qing Law!