The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty (ENGLISH TRANSLATION)

CH 9

Tang Fan felt a chill in his heart. His counterpart was merely a trueseventh-rank Gonfalon, but the way he spoke was so grand, there had to be some backing behind him. He quit joking and spoke frankly. “Many thanks for your kind thoughts, Gonfalon Sui, but Sir Pan has shown me the grace of knowing my worth. I can never show ingratitude to that.”

“Suit yourself.”

Facing his detached demeanor, Tang Fan was unconcerned, cupping his hands. “If you have free time some other day, I’ll invite you for a drink. I’ll be going first, then.”

Sui Zhou stood up. “Take care, Sir Tang. Forgive me for not seeing you off farther down the road.”

Yet, at that moment, a Brocade Guard came rushing in. “Brother!”

Tang Fan recognized him as one of the ones that had been following Sui Zhou that day in the apothecary. His name was Xue Ling, and he had a tanned complexion with intrepid features.

“What is it?” Sui Zhou asked.

Xue Ling shot a look at Tang Fan.

Right as Tang Fan was thinking to keep away, Sui Zhou instead said, “If it’s related to the homicide case of the Marquis Estate, there’s no harm in saying it.”

“Someone came from the Eastern Depot and took Zheng Cheng’s body away!” Xue Ling exclaimed.

Tang Fan gave a look of surprise.

Sui Zhou’s expression darkened. “What happened?”

Xue Ling smiled bitterly. “Just now, a Depot person came, saying that he had orders from his Director, and that in order to crack the case as soon as possible, they had to borrow Zheng Cheng’s body for the investigation.”

The Eastern Depot’s Director was its boss. The one now occupying that seat was Shang Ming, who had never gotten along with the Western Depot’s Wang Zhi.

Once a eunuch had power, three-chi-tall waves would arise even without wind blowing, to say nothing of having the homicide case to now possibly use as a pretext. Since Wang Zhi had meddled in this, Shang Ming naturally refused to be outdone; for the sake of fighting for the Emperor’s favor, they were both going all-out.

Sui Zhou laughed frostily after hearing this. “He’s just holding a chicken feather like it’s a token of command!”

It wasn’t clear whether he was cursing the one that had come from the Eastern Depot, or cursing his Director, Shang Ming.

Tang Fan gently sighed. As Zheng Cheng’s body wasn’t there, there was no need for him to go visit Sui Zhou tomorrow. The case would likely need a breakthrough via the person that bought the thorowax.

“Gonfalon Sui, I’m stepping out. I’ll later have Shuntian Prefecture send folks to go research the buyer. If you find him on your end first, do pardon my request to inform me.”

Sui Zhou gave a faint nod. “Take care.”

Tang Fan returned home, then realized that he had been on the go for most the day today. Apart from that half-bowl of white congee in the morning, practically not even a drop of water had gone into him since. Now that he wasn’t busy, his stomach immediately grumbled, though he didn’t feel like cooking. After foraging in the kitchen for a long time to find nothing edible, he had to wash a pear from the basket Ah-Xia had delivered that morning out of a lack of choice, then held it up to nibble on.

Cool and sweet pear juice entered his formerly parched and aching throat, promptly making it a lot more comfortable. After he was done eating, he took out the bottle of ointment Sui Zhou had given him and delicately smeared it on the bruises on his neck.