Episode 5 recap: Di Ren Jie encountered a male corpse on his way to assuming office.
In Penglai, as soon as Di Ren Jie reached the boundaries of Penglai, he discovered a male corpse. He decided to bring the body with him and arrived just before the city gates were about to close. The soldiers guarding the gates believed it was time to close and refused to let him enter the city. Qiao Tai intervened and argued with them, but this only attracted more attention. Di Ren Jie immediately revealed his identity, and he was allowed to enter the city smoothly.
While Ma Rong was buying pastries on the street, Di Ren Jie noticed that the prices here were much lower than in Chang'an, and the order was well-maintained. Despite the previous county magistrate being imprisoned for smuggling for three months, the public order in the county was still well-maintained, which greatly surprised him. At that moment, Ma Rong noticed a woman applying makeup on her face and couldn't help but be curious. He quickly inquired with the shopkeeper and unexpectedly learned that it was done for beauty purposes, which he kept in mind.
Teng Kan's poetry was hailed as the best in this era, and it was unexpected to see him in Penglai. Di Ren Jie was excited to meet an old acquaintance in a foreign land. He was invited to attend Teng Kan's banquet and found Cao An to be familiar. Later, he heard Cao An singing a folk song from the Bingzhou region, which raised his suspicions. He left the banquet midway, intending to inquire about the Four Lacquered Screens mentioned at the banquet, but Teng Kan refused to discuss it further, citing family matters.
Di Ren Jie noticed that Teng Kan was about to vomit, so he approached to pat his back, but Teng Kan refused to be touched. Teng Kan's wife, Yin Lian, also panicked and retreated inside upon seeing a suspicious and ugly man, which further aroused Di Ren Jie's suspicions. Hong Liang took the male corpse back for examination, and upon Di Ren Jie's return, based on the injuries sustained by the deceased, he accurately deduced that the person had been stabbed seven times and died. Furthermore, the deceased was a former leprosy patient who had been cured.
Ma Rong brought in an artist to draw a portrait of the deceased. The artist refused to do it upon realizing it was a dead person, but Hong Liang didn't give him a chance to refuse. He directly had someone grind ink and closely watched as the artist began working. Soon, the portrait of the deceased was displayed, but due to the disfigurement caused by leprosy, no one recognized him immediately. Cao An sat in the room, looking at herself in the mirror, listening to the thunder and heavy rain outside, and recalling how she was almost humiliated when she was young but was saved by Lord Heiyan, a member of the Ponghai Gang.
Di Ren Jie had a feeling of familiarity with Cao An, so he asked Hong Liang if Di Zhixun had any previous dealings with officials surnamed Cao. He learned about the incident where Cao He'an was killed for privately minting coins.
Hong Liang knew that Di Ren Jie never did anything without a reason, so he pressed Di Ren Jie for the reason behind his inquiry. However, Di Ren Jie remained tight-lipped.
While walking on the street, Ma Rong saw someone mocking Di Ren Jie's attempt to identify the deceased through portraits. She felt annoyed and deliberately stepped on the person's cloak, causing them to fall. Seeing that the girl standing nearby was about to be affected, Ma Rong intervened and saved her. At the same time, she stole the person's money pouch, intending to teach them a lesson.
Ma Rong returned home with her newly purchased boots, disappointed to find that Di Ren Jie was not there. Unexpectedly, Di Ren Jie was sitting in the pavilion. He overheard Ma Rong's speculation about the rain falling after an hour and corrected her, saying it would fall after half an hour. He even made a bet with Ma Rong. If he won, he would arrest her on charges of theft. He also warned Ma Rong, who had powder on her face, that the people on the street who applied makeup were leprosy survivors. This frightened Ma Rong, who quickly wiped her face clean and secretly returned the money pouch to the man. However, as soon as she climbed down from the wall, someone attacked her with a stick and tried to put a sack over her head.
Ma Rong immediately fought back, and the people who came to apprehend her were intimidated by her resistance. However, they insisted that everyone must abide by the rules of the Ponghai Gang. Realizing that Penglai County had no pending cases, Ma Rong cooperated and allowed them to tie her up. The leader of the Ponghai Gang, seeing that Ma Rong was just a young girl, ordered her release when he learned that she was associated with Di Ren Jie. He asked Ma Rong to leave, but it's not easy to send away someone who came as a guest. Ma Rong wanted to retrieve the magistrate's authority for Di Ren Jie, which the leader of the Ponghai Gang scoffed at, stating that they would follow the rules of the martial arts world. They challenged Ma Rong to a drinking contest, but unexpectedly, Ma Rong ended up drinking all of them under the table.
Inside the Teng residence, Yin Lian was focused on writing when she noticed someone peeping through the window with sharp fingernails. Suddenly, an assailant attacked Yin Lian, who fell in a pool of blood. Teng Kan, dressed in white, became covered in blood as he collapsed to the ground. The housekeeper heard the screams and sensed that something was wrong. He quickly called for help and found that Teng Kan was still alive. He ordered someone to save Teng Kan first and instructed the maidservant to guard the study and not let anyone in.
After regaining consciousness, Teng Kan recalled the tragic incident and believed he had killed Yin Lian. He immediately turned himself in. Di Ren Jie rushed to the scene to investigate. Based on the evidence and the scene of the crime, he deduced that Yin Lian was also stabbed seven times and found traces left by a screen. He questioned the housekeeper about the whereabouts of the screen. When he saw the screen in the storeroom, which should have depicted a couple embracing but had been altered to depict the murder of a wife, combined with Teng Kan's sudden madness and the footprints at the crime scene, Di Ren Jie concluded that there was someone else responsible for killing Yin Lian.
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