Wang Hai had a gloomy expression on his face. After hearing what I said, he was suddenly shocked. He stared at me in disbelief for a long time before saying, "Are you sure?"
"Yes, this matter is actually very simple. If you were not short-handed and the incident did not happen very long ago, perhaps you would be able to discover the truth."
"But don't you plan to carefully question the suspects who were here at the time? Isn't it a bit too hasty to make such a judgment?"
"It doesn't matter. In the face of solid evidence, all other explanations are pale. You just need to call them over. As for the rest, you just need to stand aside and watch."
If I were to ask myself, I had only been here for a few dozen minutes, and it was natural for Wang Hai to not believe it when I said that the case had been solved so quickly. However, although he did not believe it, he still did as I said, nodded, turned around, and went out to call the relevant personnel over.
After Wang Hai left, Pan An turned to me and asked in confusion: "Ji Wen, what's your plan? Is the question you asked me to ask related to this case? How can you be so sure that the case has been solved? So you have found where the abbot is?"
I smiled smugly and said, "The secret cannot be revealed. Will you kill me if I just pretend to be cool for a while?"
After about ten minutes, Wang Hai came in with a few monks. I took a rough look and saw a middle-aged monk in gray clothes, two older monks in yellow robes, and a young monk also in gray clothes. There were four people in total. I guess these four people are the four suspects involved in this case.
Before I could say anything, Wang Hai turned to the four monks behind him, as if he was afraid that I would make a mistake, and said, "Each of you should tell us your experiences in detail."
The little monk was probably the one who brought food to the abbot at the end. When he heard what Wang Hai said, he immediately looked a little reluctant and muttered, "We have said it hundreds of times, and you have to say it again. Is your memory so bad?"
Wang Hai was a little unhappy when he heard this and said, "Cooperate with our police work. Just say whatever we ask you to say. This is for your own good!"
I raised my hand hastily to stop Wang Hai from continuing, and glanced at the four monks in front of me, then said, "I already know exactly what happened in this case, so you don't need to tell me, because I know that one of you must be lying, so I am too lazy to listen to this person's lies, so I will just tell you the whole story."
Before I came to the Main Hall, I had already listed out all the possibilities of the case and set a clear direction for solving the case. However, when I arrived at the Main Hall, I only made a hypothesis about one of the possibilities. I didn't expect that I got it right at the first try.
Looking at the Main Hall, although it looks magnificent and spacious, it is difficult to hide a person. At that time, I felt that either the abbot was quietly taken out of the Main Hall and hidden by the Sweeping Monk when there was no one around, or the abbot could only hide behind these Buddha statues. Otherwise, I really can't think of any other reason to explain the disappearance of the abbot this time.
I had originally planned to go behind the Buddha statues to see if there were any people hiding inside them, but this was a quiet Buddhist place after all, and who knew if I would be punished for doing so? And I guess Wang Hai and his team must have thought of the Buddha statues when they searched before, so they must have searched the Buddha statues. Therefore, I could only temporarily lock the suspicion on the sweeping monk who had the last time with the abbot.
After locking in the suspicion of the Sweeping Monk, I discovered that there was much more incense ash hidden under the Buddha altar facing the main entrance than in other places. At first, I thought that the murderer had knocked over the incense burner on the altar when he was fighting with the abbot, causing all the incense ash to fall to the ground. The murderer had no choice but to hide the incense ash under the altar to hide it from others. However, I looked carefully at the incense burner on the altar, and it was full of incense ash, with no signs of being knocked over. In addition, there was no incense ash on the clothes left by the abbot. Therefore, it can basically be ruled out that the abbot knocked over the altar when fighting with the murderer.
If that is the case, how do we explain the ashes? The fact that there is so much ashes under the altar for no apparent reason is definitely a key clue!
So I tried to stand above the altar and tried to reconstruct the crime scene, but when I stood above the altar, I discovered the real source of the incense ashes!
The first thing you see after entering the Main Hall is the majestic Buddha statue. However, because of the presence of the Buddha statue, we all overlooked another thing that is not very small in size. That is the huge incense burner in front of the main entrance for tourists to burn incense!
This tripod is very large in size and height, and it looks very insignificant in the entire main hall, so it is difficult for ordinary people to focus on it. But when I was standing on the altar and saw this tripod, I understood everything.
Because according to the size of the cauldron, if you want to hide a person inside, it is definitely more than enough! And because of the cover of incense ash, plus the fact that this cauldron is not valued, it is impossible for ordinary people to imagine hiding a person inside. And this can also explain why there are so many incense ashes under the altar behind the cauldron. That is because after the murderer hid the abbot in the cauldron and buried him, the incense ashes overflowed from the cauldron. At that time, the murderer did not know how to deal with these incense ashes, so he hid them under the altar.
The murderer originally thought that he could conceal his crime by deliberately leaving behind the abbot's clothes so that everyone would think that the abbot had ascended to heaven. Then, when no one was paying attention, he would quietly move the abbot's body and dispose of it somewhere. In this way, he could kill people without anyone noticing. However, he did not expect that it was these incense ashes, which he thought were harmless at the time, that exposed his entire murder process.
Having said that, I turned around and pointed at the abbot's Sixth Junior Brother, who was sweating all over his face, and said, "If that's the case, then there is only one possibility left of the ones I listed before, and that is that the abbot's body was actually hidden in this main hall from beginning to end and never left. So the sweeping monk did not lie, and the abbot's Second Junior Brother who came in first did not lie either. The only one who lied is this so-called Sixth Junior Brother! Because he is the only one who has the ability to do all this."
Everyone's eyes turned to the sweaty Sixth Junior Brother, who waved his hands and explained, "How is this possible? Monks don't tell lies. How could I kill the abbot and lie? Donor, do you know that if you wrongly accuse others, you will go to the eighteenth level of hell after you die?"
"Humph! If you are going to hell, I think you should go there earlier than me, right? Pan An, do you remember what I asked you to find out just now?"
Pan An seemed to have understood everything at this time. He immediately stepped forward and said with a smile, "Of course I remember. You asked me to ask how these four suspects usually wash their clothes, and to find out who changed clothes last night, and whether there are traces of incense ash on the sleeves of the changed clothes. I have already asked, and among these people, only the clothes of these two old monks were given to disciples to wash, and the only person who changed clothes last night was this Sixth Junior Brother, and I also found a lot of traces of incense ash on his cuffs. Although he seemed to have tried hard to pat it off before, it is very difficult to completely pat the incense ash off once it sticks to clothes."
That's right. According to my understanding, if the murderer, the abbot's sixth junior brother, hid the abbot's body in the cauldron, then his clothes must have been stained with a large amount of incense ash, and most of the incense ash would have gathered at the cuffs. That's why I asked Pan An to go out and find out for me. Who knew that the problem would be so simple after all the inquiries
Although I have not yet checked whether there is the abbot's body in the cauldron, all the clues are now correct. Even if I don't go to check, this is an indisputable fact.
The abbot's sixth fellow disciple still refused to admit it. He gritted his teeth and said, "The incense ash accidentally stuck to my clothes when I was meditating yesterday. How can you say that I killed the abbot?"
"Still being stubborn? Do you know that there is a method called fingerprint identification? I don't think you were wearing gloves when you killed the abbot? Do you want to find the abbot's body now and take you out for fingerprint identification? If your fingerprints appear on the abbot, then you really can't defend yourself!"
After I finished my last words, the abbot's sixth fellow apprentice collapsed, with cold sweat all over his face. He squatted down with his face covered, burst into tears, and told the truth of the matter.
It turned out that the sixth junior brother once discovered that the abbot had embezzled the public funds of Shaolin Temple to buy himself a car and a house, and also kept many concubines. The sixth junior brother felt that it was unforgivable for the abbot of Shaolin Temple to do such a rebellious thing, so the sixth junior brother reported the abbot anonymously many times, but the abbot always shirked responsibility with various reasons, and he is still living a carefree life until now, so the sixth junior brother became murderous and wanted to get rid of him as soon as possible.
Yesterday afternoon, the Sixth Junior Brother left a letter to the abbot under the anonymous name he used when he reported the abbot, asking him to wait alone in the Great Hall that afternoon to discuss the reconciliation between the two. Since the abbot was guilty, he did as he was told, but he never thought that this secret meeting would be his ticket to hell! The reason why the Sixth Junior Brother chose to kill here was because in the entire Shaolin Temple, only the Great Hall had a cauldron that was big enough to hold a person.
I don't need to say much about what happened next, everything was exactly as I had guessed. The abbot's sixth junior brother also explained the entire process of the murder, and Wang Hai was also recording it in detail. However, I always felt a palpitation in my heart, as if something horrible was about to happen!