Episode 26 recap: The case of Xiao Chunyu's disappearance is full of twists and turns.
Di Renjie went to the home of Long Tuhu to investigate and found two knives and two human hearts on the chopping board. Ma Rong speculated that Long Tuhu had killed the newlywed couple because the physical evidence was right in front of them. However, Di Renjie was very certain that it was not Long Tuhu who committed the murder, but rather someone who forced Long Tuhu to self-castrate.
Hong Liang carefully examined Long Tuhu's corpse, but Di Renjie told him not to bother, as he was very certain that the paper figure was not pierced by Long Tuhu. Otherwise, it would have been stained with oil. Di Renjie didn't know if this was the work of the Black Flame, but he was disappointed in the people of Lanfang who he had enforced the law for several years. The appearance of just a paper figure made the people afraid to report what they knew, and even the Bai Shi shop refused to open for two consecutive days, fearing involvement in the matter.
Di Renjie asked Hong Liang to thoroughly investigate Long Tuhu's life before and after his death, while he himself posted notices and invited artisans from the entire county to assist in solving the case, offering a reward. When the notice was posted, many artisans came rushing for the reward. Di Renjie noticed an old man who seemed different and decided to question him separately. He learned from the old man that the paper figure resembled Chunyu, the daughter of the Xiao family's dyeing workshop, who had been missing for many years.
Ma Rong carried the earrings that the murderer forcibly put on Chen's corpse and asked around everywhere, in every corner of Lanfang, but no one had seen them. Just as she was returning disappointed, she passed by the Xiao family's dyeing workshop and noticed that the paper figure inside looked very similar to the one pulled by the carriage that day. She went in and asked, and the shopkeeper Xiao became immediately excited and couldn't control himself when he saw the earrings. He trembled as he took them and said that they belonged to his daughter, Xiao Chunyu.
It turned out that Xiao Chunyu was a clever and artistic person since childhood. When she learned that her father was planning to open a branch, she made many paper figures and dressed them in new clothes for display. Unexpectedly, before the branch business even started, Xiao Chunyu was kidnapped and disappeared. Cao An found Long Tuhu's file and discovered that Xiao Chunyu was kidnapped years ago, and it was Long Tuhu's testimony that led to the capture of Chu Lei. Di Renjie immediately rushed to the Xiao family's dyeing workshop and witnessed the shopkeeper Xiao's emotional reaction when he recognized the earrings. From the shopkeeper Xiao, he learned that Chu Lei was originally a scholar who wanted to marry Xiao Chunyu. However, the shopkeeper Xiao disapproved of Chu Lei's poor family background and refused to agree. Chu Lei then abandoned his scholarly pursuits and vowed to become successful in order to marry Xiao Chunyu. But the shopkeeper Xiao never intended to marry Xiao Chunyu to Chu Lei and arranged for her to marry someone else.
Di Renjie discovered many loopholes in the shopkeeper Xiao's story. For example, it was late at night, so even if Long Tuhu saw someone kidnapping Xiao Chunyu, he shouldn't have been able to recognize them clearly. Furthermore, the shopkeeper Xiao lived right next door, so he shouldn't have been unaware of the commotion caused in Xiao Chunyu's room.
Cao An went to the street to repair a qin (a traditional Chinese musical instrument). The neighboring stonemason asked Cao An to inquire with Di Renjie if he could return the cured sausages he had ordered from Long Tuhu. After all, he had no other hobbies and enjoyed eating cured sausages with wine.
Di Renjie had already found out that Lin Fan, the one who collected Chu Lei's body back then, was the one who buried him in the mass grave ten years ago. He decided to go there himself to investigate, thinking that even if he found the grave, it could potentially be someone else's remains buried nearby. He planned to take a different approach and question Lin Fan, the body collector. Unexpectedly, Cao An brought back this information, so Di Renjie went to the butcher shop himself and found the cured sausages belonging to Lin Fan. He asked Qiao Tai to wrap them up in something, and to his surprise, Qiao Tai picked up a handkerchief from the chopping board, which was embroidered with the name "Xiao Chunyu."
Di Renjie personally delivered the cured sausages to Lin Fan's house, making him nervous. Lin Fan pretended to be timid and fearful, but Di Renjie saw through his act and exposed his past as a soldier on the border, telling him to stop pretending. Lin Fan then began talking about how he met Chu Lei, revealing that they both started as scholar soldiers but were bullied by other soldiers due to their physical weakness. Both Chu Lei and Lin Fan had contemplated suicide but lacked the courage. They gradually developed a desire to escape but were caught and punished. Normally, neither of them would have survived more than seven days, but on the fifth day, a heavy rain saved their lives. From that point on, Chu Lei underwent a drastic change in temperament, becoming ruthless and treating human life as insignificant, which chilled people's hearts.
Lin Fan realized that Chu Lei was the masked man in black, but he dared not speak up. Di Renjie also sensed that Lin Fan was hiding something and assured him that he would come back to find him before leaving. Ma Rong and Qiao Tai distributed the cured sausages and cured meat with names hanging in Long Tuhu's shop. They discovered that a man from a household disliked things made by dead people and took it out on his wife, which they found very distasteful.
The qin player repaired Cao An's qin and sent it to him. When Cao An went out to pick it up, he happened to see Lin Fan and quietly followed him.
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