Hong’s request for ‘everything’ was not a mere expression. He took his work seriously, no matter the task; and seriousness required thoroughness of the highest degree. Nothing could be left untouched, no proverbial stone unturned, no proverbial feathers unruffled.
He wanted to know its manner of killing, what and how much of the cow it ate, how many kills it had made, the frequency of kills, the timing and timescale of kills, how long it had been killing for, and whether it left any patterns or communications.
Then he wanted to know whose cattle it had killed, whether they did anything for a living besides keep cattle, the cattle owners’ hobbies, their wealth, their health, their enemies, their friends, their holdings, their hobbies, their manner of dress, whether any were cultivators, and the design of their houses.
This last query segued into a discussion of the feng shui of the sites the cattle had been slaughtered on, what colour the dead cattle were, and the creation of a triangulated map in an attempt to articulate a pattern to the attacks.
And this was merely the initial, verbal portion of Hong's questioning. Once all this was done and out of the way he went out to interview the latest victim and examine his dead cow, leaving a sweating and very tired magistrate in his wake. The latter was emotionally exhausted, but satisfied, for he was sure now that he had chosen the right man to solve the puzzle and bring peace to the city - and however much the magistrate loved money, he loved his people more.
Now, there was only one thing the poor magistrate had to do - take the triangulated map Hong and he had made, and match it to the reports of atmospheric and astrological phenomena in the same time period, looking for correlations. This data was stored at the Academy, an institution that he normally had little to do with. He sighed and shook his head as he began to trek to the town’s Academy, his smile rueful. A magistrate’s work was never done.
This was incorrect. In fact, the magistrate’s travails were near to ending; it was those of Farmer Zōngsè that were only beginning. He had opened his door early that afternoon to the strangest scholar he’d ever seen.
The man couldn’t be a scholar of the Academies, of that Farmer Zōngsè was certain. His son had been invited to attend one of the new, experimental Public Academies conceived by the famed Confucian scholar Sidney Feigenbaum, and the farmer had been privileged to visit the Academy a couple times himself for the holidays. None of the scholars there dressed like this.
Farmer Zōngsè’s decision was ultimately based on appearance, which after all was twenty percent of propriety. The man’s clothes were clean, but scruffy, his robes threadbare. The style of those robes were ancient and long out of date.
Farmer Zōngsè wouldn’t even have recognised them, were it not for some old drawings of scholars from centuries ago which his great-great-great-great-grandmother had made and passed down as an heirloom.
So sure was he that the man couldn’t be an official scholar that he nearly spit blood when the strange figure pulled out a badge identifying himself as an auxiliary agent of the Ministry for Travel.
On second thought, however, the circumstances indicated that the man wasn’t nearly as strange as he had first appeared. The Ministry for Travel administered the roadways and rest stops of the nation, ensuring that people could safely travel from one city to another free from molestation or harassment, and with wholesome places to eat and sleep along the way.
Farmer Zōngsè had never met one of their agents - the city of Xiǎo Chéngshì was too small and out of the way to merit a ministry office - but given how often they travelled and the types of threats they routinely faced (bandits, rogue cultivators, sex-obsessed arrogant Young Masters) it was no wonder they wore such raggedy clothes, as if they were labourers.
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Once Farmer Zōngsè had completed this thought process, his estimation of the strange youth rose immensely. It rose still further when the youth explained that he was here to look into the recent cattle murders, lest the paucity of delicious beef make the noodle shops less cosy. To think that the Ministry cared so much for the comfort of travellers!
He led the youth through his house - which was large and well-furnished, but old, the size and decorations the work of generations - and into his fields.
There the cow was, dead. It lay on its back, legs raised into the air, tongue lolling out of its mouth.
There was blood everywhere, and great gashes had been torn out of the poor beast. Its throat had been cut, and its stomach ripped open, the organs inside consumed outright.
The weather had not been kind to the corpse - it had rained that night, and though the weather was better now it was still cloudy, the day unusually cold. This had been slightly beneficial to the corpse, however, for it had discouraged any scavengers from savaging it.
The young scholar leaned down, staring into the bleeding cavity that was the poor cow’s chest without a second thought or even a reaction.
Farmer Zōngsè wasn’t surprised by the youth’s lack of a response to the disgusting mess before him. The scholars of the town Academy had shown no squeamishness over where their food came from, so why should one who had travelled far and seen much?
The youth simply pulled a notebook out of a robe, and began meticulously documenting the condition of the beast- how it lay on the ground, the gashes made in its chest, which organs were missing, and the state of the surrounding grass. Farmer Zōngsè thought it a little odd that he also recorded the position of the blood spatters, but he supposed he needed it for his report. A scholar is nothing if not meticulous, or so the saying went.
Once he finished with the materials of the case, he began to quiz the farmer. It was here that Farmer Zōngsè felt things took a turn for the odd.
He started by corroborating the details of the attack - the timing, the weather patterns, the position of the moon, and ended by segueing into a discussion of the farmer’s finances. None of the magistrate’s officials had asked Farmer Zōngsè about this. It seemed unnecessary to the investigation of the crime, and redundant besides.
The farmer had assumed the question was merely perfunctory - after all, the city had already recompensed him for the loss of the cow. Presumably they knew all about his finances.
But when he told the scholar this the latter gave a start, and began to probe him still further. When had the city recompensed him, and how?
Farmer Zōngsè explained in some confusion that they’d given him the value of the cow, plus an additional ten percent on top of that to make up for income lost during the time in which he had minus one cow.
No, he said, when questioned further, they hadn’t given him the money personally - it had arrived by courier, with a letter explaining what it was for (his son had read it for him, he added with some degree of pride).
No, the mailman was not a state official. Did you need a state official to transmit state documents? So the farmer asked, but the scholar continued his questions, his expression growing strangely excited.
No, it had no formal seal - at least he didn’t think so, the squiggles all looked the same to him - but who would give away money under someone else’s name?
Did he still have the letter? Sure he did. Tax season wasn’t for another few months, so he had to store it until then to give it to his accountant.
Could he produce the letter? Happily, was his response, even if the tone was more bemused than delighted. He invited the scholar to his ‘study’ - a cluttered storage room with a collection of paperwork, his son’s lesson books, and his wife’s extensive collection of embroidery supplies. He rooted around for a bit before producing the missive and handed it to the scholar.
The latter examined it avidly, writing something in his notebook, then asked permission to make a copy of both the letter and its contents.
Farmer Zōngsè wasn’t sure why the scholar needed this, when surely he could simply consult the city’s own records, but he was more than happy to oblige. The scholar then proceeded to produce a remarkably accurate summary of the letter - all the way to replicating the calligraphy.
And that was that. The scholar wrote a brief final report in his notebook - double-checking some details with the farmer one last time - then snapped his book shut. He mumbled something to himself, too quietly for the farmer to hear.
Having finished his investigation, the scholar thanked the farmer for his time and - wishing his son success in his studies - left.