It is not uncommon for executions to be temporarily suspended on the execution ground, but it is very rare, because such a thing is very risky for the prison officer, and he must have a good reason to decide to stop the execution, or else he will lose his black veil hat or be imprisoned for it, because he has disobeyed the emperor's decree on death.

And Lu Jinping made such a decision, he didn't have a good reason, he only had a feeling and a piece of evidence that didn't look very solid. He felt that this case might be an unjust case, and as for the evidence, it worried him the most, because the evidence that caused him to feel this way was not even the evidence itself, it was only a kind of reasoning, and he had been hesitating just now to take the risk of suspending the execution for something that he was not entirely sure about.

When he was hesitating, the cloud shot out the small round stone and landed in front of him, making him seem to see a big human head being cut to the ground, the stone can be picked up and used when it lands, and there is no way to pick it up when the human head falls to the ground, which makes him finally make the final decision, that is, he would rather fall off the black gauze hat because of his misjudgment, than let a human head that may be wronged fall irretrievably, after all, human life is at stake, even if this person is a nasty son of disobedience.

The scribe of the torture room who was responsible for reading Lu Jinping's instructions aloud did not react for a while, and when Lu Jinping looked at him sternly, he nodded in fear, and announced Lu Jinping's order in a long voice: "Lord Lu has an order, suspend the execution, and escort the death row prisoner back to the prison for trial!" ”

Previously, Lu Jinping's voice was relatively small, only the onlookers heard it, and the people in the distance did not hear it clearly, and after the loud scribe shouted so loudly, the people around him were in an uproar.

Shi Jingsheng, who was kneeling in front of his father's spirit table, couldn't help but shudder when he heard this, looked at Lu Jinping nervously, and muttered, "Why?" Why not cut off someone's head? Why the moratorium? ”

In ancient times, ordinary people could not openly question the behavior of the yamen, and he could only express his dissatisfaction in private. He did not even dare to shout out loud, did not dare to disobey the orders of the yamen, no matter how absurd the orders of the yamen seemed to him, and he did not have the right to make irresponsible comments. You can't openly oppose it, otherwise it will be against the imperial court.

The people around were also buzzing, and like Shi Jingsheng, they didn't dare to openly express their dissatisfaction, let alone many of them. They just can't see the excitement and can't see the heads on the ground, and they can't enjoy the pleasure of that moment, and they express a kind of disappointment, not to mention annoyance. And it is very difficult to encounter such a thing as keeping people under the knife, which means that there may be dramatic changes in this case, what kind of changes, whether it is to find out the grievances or stop the execution, the lord of the magistrate was punished for this and even dropped the black gauze hat, then there will be a look at it later, so these people are excited by the new excitement, and the main thing to discuss is what happened and what will happen later.

After Lu Jinping's new order was issued. Although the officials were puzzled by this, it was necessary to carry it out. Soon, the soldiers and servants recovered from their stunned and shocked, and immediately acted in accordance with Lu Jinping's orders, grabbed the butcher who was kneeling on the ground, re-cuffed him with shackles and chains, and put him in the prisoner's car for the prisoners on death row.

The butcher didn't know what was happening, but, having dodged the head in front of him, his heart was still full of ecstasy, although he didn't know if he would be able to rejoice until the end. He stood in a prisoner cart. Grabbing the cage fence, he looked at his mother, whose vision was blurred by snowflakes in the cold wind, and shouted in a lost voice: "Mother, if I have my life, I live." Live, definitely, be filial to your old man, may my father's spirit in heaven bless me and wash away my grievances. ”

The old woman looked up tremblingly, and the snow was all over the sky. He muttered, "My son is wronged......? My son is wronged ......! ”

――――――――――

The first thing Lu Jinping did when he returned to the Yamen was not to interrogate the butcher, but to ask the scribe of the torture room to send all the dossier materials of the case, including physical evidence, to his desk.

He first carefully reviewed the file. Ancient cases had much weaker requirements for evidence, so the case file was not thick, and although it was read very carefully, it only took an hour to read it all. But after reading it, he didn't have a further understanding of this case, because just from the dossier materials, he couldn't see any grievances, and besides, the ancient case files often used some literary words for the description of the case, ignoring the accuracy of the description, so it looked like appreciating a splendid article, but there was not much to really narrate, and after reading it, in many cases, I was still confused, and I didn't know what was going on, Lu Jinping felt this way now.

He opened the box again and looked at the murder weapon axe and pig-killing knife, the butcher used the axe to cut off the old man's head, and stabbed him in the temple with the pig-killing knife, causing him to die on the spot, the witness at that time was the deceased's son, he witnessed the whole thing, of course, the deceased's son was hidden in the shadows, the butcher did not know that his son was present, otherwise, his son would not have escaped the murder.

This axe and the pig-killing knife have gone through procedures such as showing evidence before, and many people have touched them, so it is almost impossible to find any useful evidence from above, but Lu Jinping still did not touch it with his hands, he still tried his best to reduce the further damage caused by it, even if he did not place too much hope to find any traces from it.

You can't see anything famous just by looking at the knife, so Lu Jinping decided to do further investigation to verify whether the speculation in his heart is reasonable.

When Lu Jinping came to the prison, the butcher knelt down and kowtowed gratefully: "Thank you Lord Qingtian for your life!" ”

Lu Jinping ignored it, asked the jailer to extract the mucosal swab in his mouth with a cotton swab, took it and left the cell, deaf to the sound of gratitude from the butcher behind him.

Back in the signing room, Lu Jinping conducted a DNA test on Qu Butcher's swab, and then extracted a swab with a pig-killing knife and an axe handle for testing, and detected mixed DNA typing, which contained Qu Butcher's typing results. That is to say, this pig-killing knife and axe were once touched by the butcher. Other mixed divisions should have been left by the officials and others who extracted and displayed the physical evidence.

The knife and axe were proved to be the butcher's, which made Lu Jinping not see any signs of grievances in this case. Now what needs to be proven is whether the blood stains on the blade are deceased. Because the deceased did not extract DNA samples, Lu Jinping decided to extract the swab of his son, Shi Jingsheng, for testing, as long as the DNA of the blood stains on the blade has a parent-child relationship with Shi Jingsheng, it also proves that the blood on the blade was left by Shi Jingsheng's father, then there is no doubt that the axe and the pig-killing knife are murder weapons.

Just when Lu Jinping was about to go out to Shi Jingsheng's house, the porter hurriedly came to report and said, "Sir, Miss Yunzi is waiting for you in the flower hall, have you seen him?" ”

Yunzi often came to the Yamen to find Lu Jinping during this time, and most of the people in the Yamen already knew that he was an envoy who came to Tubo to ask for relatives, and stayed in the lobby, waiting for the Tang Emperor to send Princess Jincheng to Tubo.

Lu Jinping came to the flower hall in the front yard, saw Yunzi, and said, "Why are you here?" ”

"I was very puzzled when I saw you cancel your execution just now, and I wanted to come over and ask you immediately, but I know that after you cancel your execution, there must be something very important to inquire about, and I shouldn't have appeared with you at this time, disturbing your train of thought and hindering you from investigating the case, so I deliberately waited for an hour to come back to you, presumably you should be busy. So, I just need to solve the doubts in my heart. Why did you order the execution to be cancelled? Do you know, I heard that if you Datang want to cancel the execution, if you don't get it, you will lose your official position and be dismissed, do you really have a reason to do so? ”

Lu Jinping smiled and said: "I am very grateful that you can think about it so thoroughly, indeed, if you came just now, I am afraid that I would not have time to receive you, nor would I have time to explain to you, but now, I have finished the preliminary matters that need to be investigated, and then I will investigate in depth, and I will have time to answer your questions." Let's talk about your worries just now, in fact, there is nothing to worry about, because according to the Tang law, after the prison official receives the holy decree, he must complete the execution within three days. The decree was received yesterday and the execution is scheduled for today at noon. Although I have cancelled this execution, there are still two noons to go, and as long as I verify before noon the day after tomorrow that there is indeed no unjust case, then I can resume the execution and execute the criminals. Then I don't disobey the holy decree, I just need to explain to the Supervision Yuan why I want to suspend the execution, as long as my reasons are sufficient, the Supervision Yuan will not be harsh on me, and that's fine. Of course, if the Supervisory Yuan thinks that my reasons are not valid, they may impeach me, but it is still worth it compared to a head, because a person cannot be resurrected after death, and the fall of the official hat does not have much effect. ”

Yun Zi couldn't help but admire when he heard this: "You love the people like a son, although I have heard from others that this butcher is indeed unpleasant, but you should be so cautious, as long as he has not committed a capital crime, he should not be executed." What do you think went wrong with this case? Are you going to stop the execution on the spot? ”

Lu Jinping looked outside the door, lowered his voice and said: "Actually, the reason why I feel that this case is wronged is just based on a feeling and a piece of evidence that is not very tenable. ”

Yunzi was taken aback and hurriedly said, "What kind of far-fetched evidence?" Can I tell me about it? I can help you with ideas.

Lu Jinping smiled and said, "After all, I made this decision because of you." (To be continued.) )