Fang Yun issued a governor's order, and the Ministry of Justice and the provincial government immediately took action.
Originally, only officials who were Juren could be mobilized to deal with this kind of murder case, but this time, a Legalist Jinshi, three Military Jinshi, and more than ten Xiucai and Tongsheng were dispatched. This team was comparable to an army of thousands of people.
Early the next morning, the results of the investigation into the case of Constable Sun's family massacre in Zhengde County were put into an official document and placed on Fang Yun's desk.
After Fang Yun arrived at the study, he picked up the document and read it quickly, and understood the whole story.
This was a case of revenge by a spirit animal dealer.
The richest group of human beings are scholars. As long as you are a scholar, you will never starve to death and you can find a way to make a living with your eyes closed.
As long as one is a scholar, he will have the opportunity to accumulate considerable wealth and become a wealthy man in the village.
If a person is a successful candidate, he can manage his studies well and become a well-known person in the county. Before his death, he can seal his talent into a literary treasure, and his wealth will be enough for his descendants to enjoy for generations.
As for becoming a Jinshi or a higher literary position, even if you don't run the family business, you will have more money than you can spend.
Few of the scholars who do not hold official positions commit crimes purely for money, while among the scholars who hold official positions, committing crimes for money is not considered committing crimes.
However, it is different for ordinary people without literary qualifications. Many of them take risks for money.
There are many highly profitable industries among the human race, and capturing spirit beasts is one of them. A spirit beast can be worth at least a thousand taels of silver, which is equivalent to the income of an ordinary family for decades.
The highest price record for a spiritual beast was set by a spiritual tiger, which was sold at a high price of 150,000 taels, almost comparable to a Jinshi literary treasure.
Spirit beasts are animals between wild beasts and monsters, and have high intelligence. Fang Yun's Nunu and Li Fanming's big rabbit are both spirit beasts.
Spiritual beasts are extremely rare, so rare that more than 90% of people will never see one in their lifetime.
Hundreds of years ago, the semi-saint Zhang Zhongjing discovered through research that spirit beasts can purify the aura of the demon world that is harmful to the human race and convert it into the vital energy of heaven and earth. Moreover, spirit beasts can absorb the vital energy of heaven and earth, thereby increasing the concentration of the vital energy of heaven and earth near the spirit beasts' nests.
The Five Demon Mountains are connected to the demon world, and the aura of the demon world constantly seeps in. Scholars of Jinshi or higher rank are not affected, but people of lower rank or ordinary people will go crazy if they stay in the aura of the demon world for a long time.
Every few years, the saints will inevitably dissolve the aura of the demon world near the Five Demon Mountains, but at other times, the aura of the demon world will still dissipate around the Five Demon Mountains. The human race is unable to deal with these small amounts of aura from the demon world and can only rely on spirit beasts.
The Holy Academy had issued a decree a long time ago, prohibiting the capture of wild spiritual beasts, but it did not prohibit the spiritual trade, mainly because most of the holy families raised spiritual beasts.
Even if the Holy Court issued a decree, it could not stop those who wanted to absorb more of the vitality of heaven and earth, so spirit beast dealers appeared, specializing in capturing spirit beasts and selling them.
Later, humans discovered that the meat of spirit beasts was not only delicious, but eating it could also prolong life and strengthen the body. In addition, the fur of spirit beasts was very beautiful, so more and more people began to hunt spirit beasts.
Spiritual beasts are already rare, and after hundreds of years of capture, they are on the verge of extinction in many places.
The Five Demon Mountains are blessed with unique environment and a large number of spiritual beasts, which have not yet been on the verge of extinction. Therefore, the five demon mountain ranges in the Shengyuan Continent have become a place for spiritual beast dealers to hunt spiritual beasts.
Just over eighty years ago, after research, the Medical Palace issued a warning to all countries near the Five Demon Mountains. Due to the continuous decrease in the number of spiritual beasts and the increase in the aura emitted from the demon world, the human race near the Five Demon Mountains would be affected, and even their future generations would be in danger.
As a last resort, human countries increased the penalties for hunting spiritual beasts, with the maximum penalty being the death penalty.
However, since the spirit beast dealers have long been influenced by the aura of the demon world, and the price of spirit beasts is too high, as long as they catch a dozen or so, they can be rich for life. Therefore, many spirit beast dealers ignore the ban and still hunt spirit beasts. Even if they have earned enough money for a lifetime, they often find it difficult to stop.
In order to capture those spirit beast dealers, every government office near the Five Demons Mountain has a special constable in charge.
Zhengde County is within the scope of Moyao Mountain, and there are far more spirit beast dealers there than in other places.
The Constable Sun who was silenced was a member of the team that captured the spirit beast dealers.
In order to catch the spirit beast dealers, Constable Sun pretended to be a spirit beast merchant and infiltrated the spirit beast dealers, sending back information continuously. The day before yesterday, Constable Sun met a distant relative in a remote town. The distant relative greeted him, but he did not reply, saying that the other party had recognized the wrong person and hurried away, but was seen by other spirit beast dealers and his identity was exposed.
That night, Constable Sun was dismembered by the spirit animal dealer, and the fourteen members of the Sun family were also brutally murdered.
The Legalist scholar who went to investigate was very talented. He connected all the details and came to the correct conclusion.
Unfortunately, those spirit beast dealers fled into the mountains overnight, and must have fled Zhengde County, and may even have fled Jingguo and entered Qiguo or Qingguo. Even a Legalist scholar could not track them down, at least a Legalist scholar could find the whereabouts of those people, but they might not be able to catch them, after all, spirit beast dealers are very experienced in escaping.
Soon, Dong Wencong entered the Governor's Mansion and came to Fang Yun's study.
The two did not exchange pleasantries. Dong Wencong got straight to the point and said, "Governor, have you finished reading the official document from the Criminal Department?"
Fang Yun nodded slightly.
Dong Wencong said tentatively: "You need to prepare for the Shihan Ancient Land, and leave this matter to me. This matter involves a lot of things, and it may take a long time to resolve."
Fang Yun smiled calmly and said, "Wen Cong, your nose is sharper than a dog's. You know better than anyone what I care about and what I don't care about. I want to resolve this matter as soon as possible."
Dong Wencong smiled and said, "You are eager to help others and do good deeds. If you encounter such a thing, you will definitely find out the truth by all means and comfort the souls of the fifteen members of the Sun family in heaven."
"So what are you doing here?" Fang Yun asked.
Dong Wencong paused for a few breaths, as if thinking about his words, and then said: "Spirit beast trafficking is already a huge business among the human race. The annual transaction is roughly estimated to be no less than 10 million taels of silver. Many famous and even wealthy families are involved in it. Of course, they will not capture the beasts themselves, but they will be responsible for selling the stolen goods. All cases involving spirit beast dealers will be passive if there is any problem unless the government has solid evidence."
"I know this." Fang Yun said.
Dong Wencong continued, "The spirit beast dealers have been corrupted by the spirit world for many years and have become crazy and inhumane, but they are not stupid, so they have various means to escape pursuit and arrest. They are familiar with Moyao Mountain, and they use money to bribe people from all over the country, and they can even get the protection of some big families. Catching a sophisticated spirit beast dealer may require mobilizing hundreds of constables to cast a wide net and take several years to complete. This means that if you want to catch all the spirit beast dealers in Moyao Mountain in Xiangzhou, not only will the constables of all Xiangzhou combined not be enough, even the combined forces of Panorama Country will not be enough."
.(To be continued)