Next to the Jiumen, the lights in Fu Mingrui's study were already on.
Duanmu Qingchen followed Fu Mingrui and did not return to the palace.
Zhao Cheng and Wang Quan hurriedly brought the Eight Gates' simple meals, and they felt a little embarrassed, but more worried, because it was a bit inappropriate to let His Royal Highness the Crown Prince eat their simple meals. Fearing that the Crown Prince would blame them, ordinary people did not dare to neglect the royal family.
They put down their lunch boxes and left quickly when they saw Duanmu Qingchen didn't say anything.
Fu Mingrui sat at the desk and had already started looking through the transcripts of Zhao Cheng and Wang Quan.
Duanmu Qingchen was so hungry that he could no longer bear it. He hurriedly opened the lunch box and was shocked to see two bowls of white rice and three small dishes inside. There was not even any soup. One meat dish and two vegetables, no other dishes. If he knew that the simple meals at the Eight Gates were so simple, he would have eaten outside.
"Don't you eight gates have any money? Is this all the food you want?" Duanmu Qingchen brought out a plate of sweet and sour pork, a plate of scrambled eggs with green onions, and a plate of mushrooms and green vegetables.
"You can go back to the palace to eat." Fu Mingrui said lightly, holding the notes of the villagers of Baijia Village about Yu Pingting.
Duanmu Qingchen pouted, he felt a little aggrieved as the prince. Not only did he have to get his own food, but he was also despised by Fu Mingrui. Although Fu Mingrui despised him, he felt sorry for Fu Mingrui, who also hadn't eaten for a day.
He brought the food to Fu Mingrui: "Here, Master, don't work too hard, your health is important~~~" He moved a chair to Fu Mingrui's side and sat down to eat together. He picked up a few transcripts and looked at them, a little confused. "Why does it say here that Yu Pingting is a vicious woman, but there it says that she has a miserable life? How can they be completely different? What kind of woman is Yu Pingting?" Duanmu Qingchen was a little confused by the two statements in front of him.
"Don't mess it up." Fu Mingrui took the transcript back and looked at Duanmu Qingchen seriously, "Your Highness, these two folk sayings are very common when we are handling cases. We must read both versions, and read them with an attitude of both belief and doubt. In the end, we can find out the truth." After Fu Mingrui finished speaking, he turned his head to eat while continuing to read the transcript.
Duanmu Qingchen looked at Fu Mingrui's focused expression for a moment, nodded, and began to read the transcripts carefully.
The notes in Fu Mingrui's hand seemed to have transformed into the gossips of Baijia Village standing beside him, and began to talk about Yu Pingting...
"Alas, we are a poor family and we cannot marry the eldest daughter. The eldest daughter is so precious~~ She can't do any housework and needs Jinhua to serve her. I don't know how many times Jinhua has said this~~~"
"Later, she finally learned how to do housework, but she always looked at Jinhua's eyes~~ The eldest daughter is hard to serve, and she is not nice to her mother-in-law at all."
"This young lady is so delicate that she can't do any work after giving birth. Jinhua still has to cook for her. Jinhua is so angry. Which woman in our village doesn't go to work in the fields after giving birth? Look, she is just doing it on purpose~~~"
"Jinhua is a good-tempered mother-in-law, because she is the eldest daughter. Otherwise, we would have beaten her long ago. It is really unlucky for Jinhua to meet such a lazy and pretentious daughter-in-law."
"This woman's pregnancy is not good enough. The first child she gave birth to was a money-loser. What's the point of having a daughter? Boys can be like their fathers, studying and becoming officials. Daughters can't do anything. This made Jinhua very angry. Fortunately, she was able to have two sons later."
"The girl in their family is just like her mother, crying all day long and making so much noise~~"
"Oh, yes, that woman is always frivolous. The girls in their town are open-minded. Jinhua's son Zhankui wanted to study, so he ignored his wife. And you know what happened to her. She seduced her father-in-law! It was really terrible! Fortunately, she was discovered by Jinhua."
"That woman is too much..."
"That woman seduced my father-in-law..."
"That woman is not nice to her mother-in-law..."
"That woman's belly is not good..."
"That woman thinks she's great just because she studied for a few years..."
"Bitch..."
"Poisonous woman..."
"Fox spirit..."
Fu Mingrui discovered that most of these transcribers were about the same age as Chen Jinhua, and they were with Chen Jinhua on a daily basis, so they heard these words from Chen Jinhua.
From these descriptions, we can see that Chen Jinhua usually describes Yu Pingting as lazy, pretentious, and unmotivated. Her daughter is also pretentious and noisy like Yu Pingting, and the last one... seduced her husband: Bai Youcai.
By the end, Fu Mingrui was already fed up. As an investigator, he should not have any emotional bias towards anyone involved in the case, and he must be fair and strict.
But just from Chen Jinhua's claim that Yu Pingting was a vixen who seduced her husband Bai Youcai, we can already see what kind of person Chen Jinhua is. As the saying goes, family disgrace should not be made public. If Yu Pingting really seduced Bai Youcai, which wife would go around telling everyone about it
"This is too much!" Duanmu Qingchen pointed directly at the record that said Yu Pingting seduced Bai Youcai, "A young lady from a scholarly family in town would seduce a country old man like Bai Youcai?! The other way around is possible!" Although Duanmu Qingchen only lived in the palace, he read a lot of books from all walks of life. In many books, there are stories about country fathers-in-law who like to touch their wives, and some even rape their wives excessively, which is called "stealing ashes" in the folk.
What is even more ironic is that if the father-in-law rapes his daughter-in-law, the whole family will keep silent about it, and the one who suffers is the daughter-in-law. At that time, she feels that it is a family disgrace that should not be made public.
Therefore, Chen Jinhua's accusation that Yu Pingting seduced her husband may not be true, but just her conjecture, or Bai Youcai may have had this thought and she discovered it. But a woman like Chen Jinhua would never say that her husband is a pervert, but she put the blame on Yu Pingting, saying that she is a vixen who deliberately seduced her husband.
Some facts have gradually emerged from these transcripts, bit by bit, and cannot yet form a complete story, but they have already made people foresee Yu Pingting's final suicide.
Fu Mingrui frowned and put down the transcript that spoke about Yu Pingting from Chen Jinhua's perspective. Chen Jinhua spread Yu Pingting's bad words everywhere. Even if she was not a vicious woman, she was still a gossipy woman who loved to stir up trouble.
"Ah~~beauties are so unlucky~~~" Duanmu Qingchen shook his head while looking at the transcripts. "Hey, in the books I've read, whenever a man flirts with a woman, they say the woman is a vixen. It's obviously the man who is lustful and blames the woman for being pretty. Do you think this makes sense?" Duanmu Qingchen looked at the beautiful woman with pity on his face. (To be continued)