Ch. 510 - The Missing Midwife

On August 28th, it rained moderately.

Awakened from his sleep by the pattering sound of rain, Sun Shaozong carefully took his hand away from Xiangling's chest, lifted the bedding, and sat up. He was about to pull off his clothes from the bedside and put them on, but suddenly felt his hands sticky and greasy.

He lowered his head and took a sniff, but it was a slightly fishy and sweet scent.

He had the intention to ask the maid to fetch water and wash his hands before putting on his clothes, but he was afraid of waking Xiangling up. So he simply walked to the window in boots, pushed open the window sash, and reached out his hand, rubbing it a few times in the rain.

Turning around, he was about to go get a towel when he saw Xiangling sitting up with the blanket in her arms. She looked around in confusion and suddenly exclaimed, "Why don't you put on clothes?"

Speaking, she took Sun Shaozong's clothes and waited to serve him.

"Lie down, you lie down!"

Sun Shaozong quickly stepped forward and pressed her back, grabbing his own clothes and saying, "It's already postpartum, and you should be careful on this rainy and cloudy day. Besides, I even opened the window."

With that, he put on his clothes neatly, took a look at his pocket watch, and saw that it was 6:15 am. He said, "I'm going to the Yamen today to do the morning call, so I won't have breakfast at home. Don't hurry to get up, and have a good sleep. It was just about half a year ago since your birth. The sisters won't pick on you."

Xiangling's face suddenly turned red, and she hesitated in embarrassment, unsure of what to say.

Upon seeing this, Sun Shaozong couldn't help but tease and said, "Don't you like writing poetry? You can write about yesterday's incident vividly. If you write it well, I will reward you greatly!"

With a smile on his face, he went outside and glanced at his daughter. He saw that she was sleeping soundly alone and didn't dare to tease her as he did with his son. He only placed one finger on his daughter's palm and gently rubbed it a few times.

Quietly coming out of her daughter's house, he was about to call out Shiliu or Furong and take out his commonly used raincoat. However, he saw Qingwen standing alone in the corridor, sighing and groaning at the rain in the sky.

***Tch!***

Sun Shaozong pursed his lips and shouted, "Are you waiting for something? Go and bring me my raincoat and hat!"

Qingwen was startled and quickly wiped away the tears from the corners of her eyes. She lowered her head and entered the main room. Soon, she came out with a full set of rain gear and braved the rain to deliver it to the west wing.

Sun Shaozong took the raincoat and bamboo hat but was too lazy to pay attention to her affectionate thoughts. He directly ordered, "A wet nurse is keeping an eye on the Young Master. You can go to Xiangling’s room and wait."

Qingwen's delicate body trembled, and she understood in her heart that he had completely treated her as a maid in the mansion, rather than a hasty traveler destined to leave.

She couldn't help but look up at Sun Shaozong, hesitating for a moment before finally nodding obediently. While nodding, her tears couldn't stop flowing down her face.

Sun Shaozong was already dressed neatly at this moment, and without saying a word, he strode into the rain curtain.

Upon arriving at the front yard, Sun Shaozong hesitated for a moment and did not rush out. Instead, he turned to the guest room in the west courtyard.

At the entrance of one of the guest rooms, Sun Shaozong was about to step forward and push the door in when he saw Caixia coming out with a basin of water. She quickly bowed and saluted Sun Shaozong, saying, "Greetings to the Second Master."

"How's the boy doing?"

As Sun Shaozong inquired, he secretly thought that he didn't know which arrangement it was, and even assigned this pedophile to serve.

Caixia hurriedly said, "Young Master Li just vomited once and is now asleep again."

It turned out that no outsiders were living inside. It was during the case resolution a few days ago that he met the intelligent young man Li Xian.

Yesterday, the young man came to his door to offer his congratulations. Sun Shaozong originally wanted to wait for the banquet to end before chatting with him alone. However, Li Xian was forced by Xue Pan to drink a glass of high liquor, and he was immediately drunk, causing everyone to lose track.

He heard that Li Xian had not yet woken up, so Sun Shaozong had no choice but to entrust Caixia to take good care of him and left the mansion in frustration.

As the rain gradually poured down, by the time he arrived at the government office, it had already passed the hour of the morning call.

However, the gatekeeper naturally didn’t dare to create trouble for the *'Third Lord'* for such a small matter, so before Sun Shaozong could speak, he quickly dug out the reserved space and asked him to write his name on it.

Stepping on the accumulated water to the Criminal Investigation Department, the main hall was empty.

Sun Shaozong was stunned for a moment before remembering that Sun Chengye and Yu Qian had to pack their luggage and prepare to move out to live these past two days, so they took a temporary leave of absence.

But in this way, there was no one to help sort out the accumulated litigation cases in the government in recent days.

After a moment of hesitation, he turned around and went to the East Cross Courtyard to grab Lin Delu's strong men.

"My Lord!"

Lin Delu followed Sun Shaozong step by step and returned to the Criminal Department. He didn't mind the mud and water near the threshold; he knelt with a thud and trembled, saying, "My father-in-law and Zhao Liben were originally from the same hometown, so I got closer to him before. But since you took charge of the Criminal Department, I have never been..."

"Enough."

Sun Shaozong impatiently waved his hand and said, "Given Zhao Liben's awkward situation at the moment, let's not say that you haven't done anything wrong behind my back. Even if you get on his pirate ship, what can you do?"

As he spoke, he patted Sun Chengye's desk, which he used to work on, and said, "Quickly sort these files and send the ones that need urgent processing to the inside."

Watching Sun Shaozong enter the room on his own, Lin Delu's explanations were all muffled in his throat. He knelt on the ground and was stunned for a while before getting up with a worried expression to examine the files placed on the table.

Although he was anxious and unable to concentrate, he was still the Chief Steward of the Criminal Investigation Department, and most of the files inside were organized and submitted by him.

Therefore, not long after, Lin Delu carried two stacks of case files and entered the room with a low eyebrow and pleasing eyes.

"My Lord, as per your instructions, I have arranged these cases and lawsuits in order of priority."

As he spoke, he placed the files on Sun Shaozong's police station and roughly introduced the priority order.

Seeing that Sun Shaozong did not react, he hesitated to explain a few more words, but he heard Sun Shaozong saying without lifting his head, "You may go out."

Lin Delu's courage, which had just been mustered up, suddenly dissipated, and he walked out with a drooping head.

Just as he stepped outside the door, Sun Shaozong suddenly uttered four words, "Don’t do it again."

Lin Delu was immediately overjoyed and quickly turned around, kowtowing like pounding garlic, promising that he would never hide from Sun Shaozong and secretly collude with others.

Sun Shaozong ignored it and just looked down at the files.

This was not a major case of human life, but an event that goes against human ethics and causes public outrage.

Sun Shaozong briefly scanned it and wrote his initial judgment in the blank appendix. He also circled some doubts in red dots for further investigation when he looked at it again.

So, he reviewed seven cases in a row, and by the eighth case, it was a case of human disappearance.

The missing person was a middle-aged woman who was 36 years old. About seven days ago in the evening, she went out with a basket to buy groceries and then disappeared without a trace.

This woman had never had any mental problems before, and her relationship with her husband and children was relatively peaceful. The family has not experienced any recent changes, and she only brought a dozen or so groceries with her at that time. Therefore, it was unlikely that she took the initiative to run away from home.

However, those trafficked by human traffickers were usually young women, middle-aged women…

Were her features also excellent, just like Aunt Xue's?

Sun Shaozong flipped over to the column of the portrait sketch and immediately rejected this idea. Although the facial features in the portrait might not be very accurate, it wasn’t right with this bucket-like figure.

So, the probability of trafficking was also not high.

As for revenge…

Sun Shaozong flipped back and lightly tapped on the woman's livelihood profession.

Midwife, this profession could be considered as being kind to others, and it was not as easy to encounter medical disputes as a doctor. In theory, the possibility of causing resentment was unlikely.

Seeking wealth?

A midwife was indeed a well-paid profession. According to the information in the file, she was also a craftsman passed down from her ancestors, and she was somewhat famous in the Capital. She should have accumulated a lot of wealth.

However, the information also stated that this woman was a real estate maniac who had bought several houses and two shops. She probably didn’t have much spare money left.

So why did she go missing?

What unspeakable activity did she engage in that she was silenced?

Or was it accidentally involved in something?

Perhaps someone should be sent to investigate whether she has recently helped to give birth to an ordinary family for a wealthy family. Even if there was any leakage of filth, it might not lead to murder.

"Eh?!"

Sun Shaozong frowned and marked all these doubts. He was about to continue reviewing other files, but suddenly, a detail that had just been overlooked appeared.

This woman's home seemed to be not far from the Central Judicial Office, and it was located at the rear of the side of the building.

Was it her?

A person flashed through Sun Shaozong's mind, and he quickly opened the file again. He found the column of the portrait and compared the short and chubby woman in the portrait with the image in his memory, and it was indeed six or seven points similar.

Seeing this, Sun Shaozong immediately shouted and called Lin Delu in, throwing the lost case file to him. He ordered, "Bring the husband and children of this woman, and then bring Zhou Da and the female prisoner from the house arrest."

Lin Delu quickly responded, flipped through the case file, took note of the missing woman's home address, and respectfully sent it back to Sun Shaozong's table. Only then did he hurriedly arrive at East Courtyard and assign the task to the Yamen runners below.

Since the house arrest center has been burned down to a wasteland and was under reconstruction, several female prisoner guards of the house arrest center have also been temporarily transferred to the Office prison to work as attendants in front of Zhou Da.

Therefore, shortly after, Zhou Da rushed over with several female prisoner guards in the rain, without even having time to put on a raincoat, feeling like a drenched chicken.

Worried about dirtying the official documents inside, Lin Delu didn’t dare to let them in and hurriedly invited Sun Shaozong out.

Sun Shaozong went outside and first threw a towel at Zhou Da. He was grateful to him and wiped away the rain on his hands and face. He then threw the file over and asked, "Is this the woman who got lost? Is she the one who helped to give birth to the Yanni in the house arrest facility when the solar eclipse happened?"

Zhou Da flipped over and looked at it a few times, but couldn't be 100% sure. He quickly held it up and let a few female prisoners pass it over.

After considering the opinions of several subordinates, he finally concluded, "It’s indeed her. She helped to give birth to that demon in the beginning!"

Sure enough, it was her!

Did she see something at that time, wanting to take advantage of it to seek benefits, so she was killed and silenced?

With Miaoyu's personality, it shouldn't be like this, but there was also Wei Ruolan mixed in here, and Wei Ruolan's brother Wei Rusong was not an easy man!

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