Allure of a Country Maiden
Chapter 337 - 335: Dog Biting Dog Bone

Chapter 337: Chapter 335: Dog Biting Dog Bone

"Even if someone was strangled to death, you can’t pin it on me without proof! Murder involves evidence! What evidence do you have?" Xing Tian clenched his throat, trying to sound firm and indignant.

"Huh? How did you get injured on the back of your hand?" Xiao’er retorted instead of answering.

Xing Tian glanced at the back of his right hand. There were three scratch marks, which that he remembered from strangling the old woman he was accused of killing. "I got scratched feeding a cat!" Xing Tian lied instinctively.

Xiao’er nodded: "So, you killed that cat!"

"That’s preposterous!" Xing Tian became infuriated with shame.

"Milord, the scratches on his hand are from when his wife scratched him while he was strangling her!"

"Nonsense! Milord, if you want to put a crime on me, you can always find a reason! I was scratched by a cat while feeding it! It was absolutely not by my wife!" With an excuse at hand, Xing Tian sounded even more righteous.

"Milord, look!" Xiao’er pointed to the dead woman’s fingers, "There’s some flesh under her fingernails that she obviously left when she scratched her husband. If you don’t believe me, you can compare her nails to the scratches on his hand."

Fu Yin bent down and looked closely at the woman’s fingernails, indeed there were strips of flesh.

The coroner Qian Wuzuo, after hearing Xiao’er’s words, hurriedly crouched down beside the dead body. It turned out to be true! He hadn’t taken notice previously because her nails were painted with Koudan flower juice. He was surprised that such a young girl knew about autopsy.

"Someone bring the dead woman’s nails and..." Fu Yin, trying to recall the man’s name from the papers, it was Xing Tian. "Put her nails against Xing Tian’s hand to see if the scratches match."

Fu Yin couldn’t have expected that the lady of Rui’an County would be so meticulous!

"Even if the scratches on my hand were made by my wife, that doesn’t prove that I killed her. Milord, you’re accusing me falsely! How could I kill my wife?" Xing Tian unconsciously kept his hand behind his back.

"So you’re admitting that your wife scratched your hand? Then why did you lie earlier?" Xiao’er asked sharply.

"I..."

"Because you’re guilty! That scratch is your wife’s act of resistance when you strangled her with a rope! You didn’t dare tell the truth, so you lied that a cat scratched you!"

Fu Yin, who had served in the government for many years, had developed discerning eyes. Looking at Xing Tian’s guilty behavior, he understood everything.

"Milord, this is a false accusation! I..." Xing Tian wanted to find an excuse to explain when Xiao’er interrupted him.

"Regardless of what you say, your wife was strangled by you. Her hand bears evidence of you strangling her, and your body carries her evidence of resistance against you." As Xiao’er spoke, she walked over to the woman’s foot and took off one of her shoes.

Xiao’er held up the shoe so that everyone could see the sole. She continued, "Milord, the white footprint on his clothing came when his wife instinctively resisted while being strangled. There’s lime on the sole of her shoe. If you compare it with the footprint on him, and if it matches, then Xing Tian is the murderer. He’s making the first move to call someone else a wrong-doer to escape punishment!" The last two sentences of Xiao’er’s were firm and resonant.

Upon hearing this, Xing Tian quickly looked down at his clothing. As expected, there was a white footprint on his black attire. He had become accustomed to wearing the same outfit for days and hadn’t noticed the footprint.

He had strangled the woman when she had her back turned. She had struggled and resisted, the injuries on his hands were from her scratches. He vaguely remembered that she had stomped on him a few times. He couldn’t remember if she had kicked him.

Xing Tian wanted to reach out and dust off the footprint on his clothing in an attempt to destroy the evidence.

Yang Liu swiftly stepped forward and halted him.

Xiao’er handed the shoe to Yang Liu.

Yang Liu put the shoe next to the footprint on his clothing: it was a perfect match!

"Xing Tian! What do you have to say now!" Fu Yin glared at Xing Tian furiously.

Not only was there a footprint on his clothes, but there were also signs of being stepped on his shoes, although they were not as distinct as the one on his clothes. It was a case of not believing in one’s guilt until seeing it entirely!

"Milord, such a person deserves to be beheaded! He murdered his wife and dares to shift the blame onto the county ruler. He deserves to die a thousand deaths!" A person from Qinghe County who happened to be in the Imperial Capital to shop, happened to witness this incident and couldn’t help denouncing in righteous indignation.

This father and son duo not only committed murder but also tried to shift the blame onto others. They were terribly sinful and unforgivable. They deserved severe punishment. Their continued existence in this world would be a disaster!

Who is the lady of Rui’an County? She’s the saviour of all the people in Qinghe County! How could such a kind person commit murder!

"Milord, it’s a false accusation! The footprint was accidentally made by my wife while she was eating across the table from me!" He recalled how his wife would often unintentionally kick him under the table during meals, giving him a good excuse.

"Oh, so your wife liked to sit with her back to the table when she ate and enjoyed kicking backwards!"

The crowd chuckled at Xiao’er’s words.

"You can tell from the footprint on him that it’s left by a backward kick, not a forward one!"

Those who saw the footprint nodded in agreement. With repeated lies, even the most gullible would know that he was the murderer!

Qian Wuzuo felt he had wasted many years as a coroner. The murderer and the victim were both right in front of him, with evidence as clear as day, yet he had only managed to determine that the victim had committed suicide by hanging.

Fu Yin glanced at the footprint and nodded in agreement. "Take Xing Tian and Xing Tao and lock them up in jail. Xing Tian committed murder and intended to frame the county ruler. Sentence him to death at a later date! Xing Tao is an accomplice! Give him fifty strokes and jail him for life!"

Frightened by these words, Xing Tao fell to his knees, banging his head on the floor while crying, "Milord, it’s a false accusation! I didn’t know my mother was killed by my father! It was my father who deceived me. I couldn’t bear to see my mother die in such a horrific manner, which is why I came to accuse!"

Listening to his son shift all blames onto him, Xing Tian became enraged. "You unfilial son! It was you who said that a nobleman told you: as long as you blamed the murder of your mother on the lady of Rui’an County, you would have a prosperous future and I could get as many beautiful concubines as I wanted. Now you deny it all!"

"Father, I only found out that my mother had hanged herself after I returned home. It was you who told me that the lady of Rui’an County’s maid caused her death! Now you want to throw me under the bus just to avoid consequences?!" His last sentence became more assertive, reminding his father that implicating him would mean an end to his lineage.

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