kingnovel Chapter 906: Shuiyue Temple
Chapter 906: Shuiyue Temple
On the first day Lu Cheng, the magistrate of Shuntian Prefecture, took office, he quickly solved a case and proved his ability.
The next morning, when Lu Cheng came to the Shuntian government office again, the bailiffs and constables in the office all bowed and greeted Lu Cheng respectfully. The clerks in the government office cleaned Lu Cheng's desk and chair in advance, and presented him with a new set of tea sets and prepared tea.
After Lu Cheng sat down, he called the clerk in charge of managing the files to present all the recent case files for him to review.
Lu Cheng had read some of the past files of Shuntian Prefecture when he was in the Hanlin Academy, but he had not read these recent cases.
The laws of the Ming Dynasty were strict, and the case handling process was relatively rigorous. There were coroners who were specifically responsible for autopsies, and inspectors and clerks who were specifically responsible for comprehensively organizing and archiving cases. There were detailed records of some serious cases and homicide cases, and some had to be sent to the Dali Temple, the Inspectorate, or the Ministry of Justice for review.
Shuntian Prefecture is an important place in the capital region. Those who can work here either have strong connections or sufficient abilities.
Judging from the files here alone, the person in charge of organizing them is indeed a talented person, and every record is detailed and rigorous.
Lu Cheng took a look and found that apart from some cases of conflicts, fights, and gang disturbances, there were not many major murders.
After all, murders don't happen every day in Kyoto. Even if some murders happen, they may not be reported to the Shuntian prefectural governor.
For example, in some wealthy families, if a maid suddenly hanged herself, jumped into a well, or a servant hit his head against a pillar and died, these would not cause any waves.
Just as he was turning over a file, a name on it suddenly caught Lu Cheng's attention.
"On the third day of September, Lai Da, the housekeeper of Rongguo Mansion, had a conflict with a servant of the left councillor of the Ministry of Public Administration outside Shuiyue Temple in the south of the city. Lai Da ordered his men to beat up the other servant. Shuntian Prefecture intervened and ordered Lai Da to pay the other servant fifty taels for medicine..."
This was originally just a small and insignificant case, and the result of its handling was also obvious, but it was recorded in the archives of Shuntian Prefecture.
Lu Cheng glanced at the place name "Chengnan Shuiyue Temple" and thought about something.
The Shuiyue Temple in the south of the city was clearly a nunnery. It was obviously a bit abnormal that a housekeeper of the Duke's Mansion and a servant of the Tongzhengsi Councillor appeared outside the nunnery at the same time.
There is a temple in the south of Kyoto called Tiekan Temple, where the Jia family's funeral was held. Opposite the Tiekan Temple is a nunnery called Shuiyue Nunnery.
This Shuiyue Temple is well-known within a radius of 100 miles. Because the steamed buns made in Shuiyue Temple are particularly delicious, even many dignitaries in Kyoto often come to Shuiyue Temple to taste vegetarian meals. Therefore, Shuiyue Temple is also called the Mantou Temple.
As the ancients said, even if there is a thousand-year-old iron threshold, you will eventually need a steamed bun.
The iron threshold symbolizes wealth and splendor, while the earthen bun symbolizes the grave. This sentence means that no matter how rich and splendor one has in life, the final destination is nothing more than an earthen bun outside the city.
But Lu Cheng realized that this "Mantou Temple" might not be that simple.
It’s just a nunnery. Even if the steamed buns are delicious, how can it attract those dignitaries?
For those dignitaries, they have tasted all kinds of delicacies from land and sea. Why would they flock to the steamed buns in a nunnery?
Perhaps, this steamed bun is not that simple.
In the original novel, after Qin Keqing died, the people of Jia Mansion came to Tiekan Temple to attend the funeral. As a woman, Wang Xifeng lived in Shuiyue Temple opposite Tiekan Temple because it was inconvenient to stay there.
However, the old nun Jingxu from Shuiyue Temple took the opportunity to approach Wang Xifeng and said that Li Yanei, the brother-in-law of the prefect of Chang'an Prefecture, had taken a fancy to the girl of the rich man Zhang and wanted to marry her. However, the girl of the Zhang family had already been engaged, and the person she was engaged to was the son of the former Chang'an garrison.
The Li family wanted to forcefully marry the Zhang family girl, and asked the Chang'an garrison to break off the engagement as soon as possible. The Chang'an garrison naturally refused, and the two sides started a quarrel.
The old nun Jingxu took the opportunity to seek help from Wang Xifeng, hoping to use the relationship with the Jia family to handle the matter.
Originally, Wang Xifeng didn't want to get involved in such a matter. But the old nun Jingxu provoked Wang Xifeng with her words, so she accepted three thousand taels of silver from the other party and asked Yun Guang, the governor of Chang'an who had a relationship with the Jia family, to mediate, and the Chang'an garrison cancelled the engagement.
Because of this incident, the girl from the Zhang family and the son of the former garrison commander both committed suicide, resulting in a tragedy.
The superior's slight willfulness in the use of power directly cost the lives of a pair of infatuated children.
However, among them, the old nun Jingxu from Shuiyue Temple was obviously not a pure Buddhist person.
It is impossible for a monk who specializes in acting as a matchmaker for high-ranking officials to say that there is no benefit in the process.
Moreover, Mrs. Wang of the Rongguo Mansion was a vegetarian and a Buddhist. The old nun Jingxu often went to the Jia Mansion to explain Buddhism to Mrs. Wang, who was a hypocrite.
Nun Jingxu's disciple Zhineng'er later had an affair with Qin Keqing's younger brother Qin Zhong, which eventually led to Qin Keqing's father Qin Ye being angered to death, and Qin Zhong also died afterwards.
Thinking back to the original novel, there was a description that when the Jia family wanted to send away the maids who had made mistakes, the nuns in Shuiyue Temple were very excited and wanted to lure those maids to their place.
If Shuiyue Temple only needs young nuns to work, there are many people outside the city who can't make a living and want to sell their children.
But Shuiyuean was very interested in the maids who were driven out of the Jia family. The reason was very simple: the maids in the Jia family were all very beautiful.
Lu Cheng closed the file and called a clerk over: "Does our government have any information about Shuiyue Temple? Bring it over for me to see?"
"Yes, my lord."
Soon, a clerk brought in a thick stack of files.
The name of Shuiyue Temple appears in these files to a greater or lesser extent.
After reading all the files, Lu Cheng was certain that the water in Shuiyue Temple was extremely deep.
It’s a pity that the files of the Shuntian Prefecture Yamen only record some information related to the case and do not contain much comprehensive information.
After reading the files for half a day and having lunch, Lu Cheng went to Mr. Li's house again, examined the newborn baby, and used the medicine he had prepared in advance to make a medicinal bath and give the baby a bath.
After finishing all this, Lu Cheng returned home.
Major cases don't happen every day in the government office. Minor disputes and conflicts can be handled by the officials and constables under the Shuntian prefect, and there is no need for Lu Cheng, the prosecutor, to take action every time.
After arriving at the government office for several days, Lu Cheng was basically familiarizing himself with the situation. He was not very busy, and was even more relaxed than when he was in the Hanlin Academy.