Wen Xiangming was so angry that he beat his opponent to death, saying that he owed his cricket life.
He got scared once he killed his opponent. Knowing he was a goner, he ran home and cowered behind his family, not daring to come out into public. He knew what the virtues of the Zhaoyin Residence were as the Jing Zhaoyin wouldn’t dare to mess with and bother with the issues caused by the Ruan family.
The person who was killed by him was just the son of a low-ranked civil servant and the other party reported it to the official. Although the Zhaoyin Residence accepted the case, it also pretended to approach Wen Xiangming’s house to apprehend the murderer. In the end, not only was the murderer allowed to roam free but with the officials delaying the matter, the body of the deceased rotted and stunk to the point where there was no choice for him but to be buried.
At the burial, Wen Xiangming changed his way of speaking, saying that he did not kill the person. He claimed that the two of them merely got into a fistfight and that level of battle was unable to kill anybody. He insisted that the opponent had some chronic health issues and it relapsed, causing his death.
The onlookers at that time didn’t dare to oppose the Ruan family, so they could only agree.
At this point, things would have ended. Unexpectedly, the little civil servant found a way to bring up the case in front of Emperor Lin. The letter was written in blood and the words were drenched with both crimson and tears of the father, indicating that even if the buried body had to be dug up again, he still wanted to seek justice for his dead son.
When the paper was handed over, the Crown Prince happened to be by the Emperor’s side to greet him.
When Emperor Lin saw the blood letter, he became furious on the spot. However, when he looked up, he saw Lin Qing’s sad expression and he couldn’t help but ask, “What’s up with you?”
Lin Qing choked on his words and said, “Upon seeing this blood letter, this Prince gives my utmost respect and feels sorry for the father in my heart. Parents and their children are connected by blood; if something happens to this Prince, the Emperor would probably be willing to do everything to seek justice for me as well, right?”
Emperor Lin scolded, “What sort of unfortunate nonsense are you speaking about?!”
Although he scolded the Crown Prince, his heart was greatly touched by the incident as well. Looking at the blood letter again, it was a sad and helpless appeal from a white-haired father sending off a black-haired son all too soon.
No matter how rampant and domineering the Ruan family was, he always turned a blind eye to their behavior. However, now that someone was killed and they even dared to defy the laws like this, Emperor Lin was so furious that he immediately stripped the position of Wen Xiangming’s father as an Assistant Minister of the Criminal Justice Department. Then, the Emperor sent someone from the same department to investigate the case of this street murder.
As soon as the Imperial Decree came, the Ruan family couldn’t sit still. Knowing that this matter might not be a good thing for them, they immediately asked for Noble Consort Ruan to show herself.
Noble Consort Ruan couldn’t care less about the life and death of her ignorant cousin, but it was the abnormality between this matter that made her feel like something was amiss. For example, how did a little civil servant manage to pass the letter to Emperor Lin? When it was handed over, why was the Crown Prince just coincidentally beside him as well?
There were also oddities on Wen Xiangming’s side of the story— although he did his fair share of evil and disruptions, he would not kill for a cricket. The Ruan family was not idly waiting for an unfortunate outcome either, so they began to send some people to investigate.