Qi Feng followed the previous agreement and led five guards to the Qi family's old house at dusk. There were many houses in the old house, so accommodation for a few people would not be any problem.
Yang Ning originally planned to ask Qi Feng to go to Jingzhou City, find the Jiangling Prefect directly, and directly inquire about escorting the tax bankers in the name of the Jinyi Crown Prince to see if Jingzhou City really sent soldiers to escort the tax bankers. However, it was getting late. Qi Feng was ordered to set out again early the next morning.
Although Qi Feng arrived on time, Qi Cheng did not return on time.
Gu Qinghan stayed in the accounting room until dusk. She was extremely tired. She looked through the taxes of the past three years and examined them carefully, but she could not find any flaws.
Gu Qinghan knew that such a huge account could not be completed in such detail in three or two months, otherwise it would never be flawless and without a trace of flaw. If these accounts were false, it would mean that it would take three years Starting from before, the old house began to record two accounts, one true and one false.
She originally thought that Jiangling was the backyard and foundation of the Qi family, and that the old house was the top priority, so there would never be any mistakes. Only this time did she realize that the old house was much more complicated than she had imagined.
If these accounts are true, then the tax money has really been sent to the capital a month ago, but why didn't the Hou Mansion even see a tael of money? The tax money sent to the capital would not grow wings and disappear into thin air. She wanted to find out where the tax money was sent, but Qi Cheng was nowhere to be found, and Xiao Cui, who was responsible for escorting the tax money, also followed Qi Cheng. If you can't see them in Jingzhou City, you can't trace their origins.
I've been traveling day and night, and I didn't sleep well last night. I've been busy all day today, and I'm really exhausted. After Yang Ning's persuasion, I went back to the house first. There are maids in the old house to take a bath, and they're all dressed up. Bring your luggage with you and change into your own clothes.
Yang Ning was not in a hurry to rest. He was also full of doubts about what happened in the old house. He wanted to see how Qi Cheng would explain it when he came back.
After waiting for half the night, Qi Cheng still didn't come back, and I felt vaguely that things were not simple.
The night was quiet, the autumn moon was like water, and I was strolling in the courtyard of the old house. Unknowingly, or whether I did it subconsciously, when I looked up, I came to a path not far from the ghost courtyard. I looked up and saw, Under the moonlight, the ghost courtyard was quiet and deathly silent, which was quite eerie.
Yang Ning thought that it wasn't a good place, so she turned around and walked a short distance, stopped, and looked back.
Wei Tong had previously said that the courtyard was haunted, so Yang Ning naturally didn't believe it. However, he was also surprised that two people entered the courtyard one after another and died inexplicably in the end. Could it be that they were really scared to death by ghosts
He is a very curious person. If Wei Tong and Gu Qinghan had not said that the ghost courtyard was so mysterious, he might not have cared about it. On the contrary, both of them said that the courtyard was weird and should not be approached. He was full of curiosity about the ghost courtyard.
He was a very daring person. Although he felt a little scared when he looked at the gloomy ghost courtyard, he vaguely felt that there must be quite a lot of secrets hidden in the courtyard that had been forbidden to anyone since the old marquis.
Wei Tong talked about the two dead people. It seemed that they sneaked into the courtyard after the sound of the flute was played. If the sound of the flute was really played by a lonely ghost, but there is no sound of the flute, does it mean that the lonely ghost was playing the flute? Not in the hospital
While he was thinking about it, he turned around, thought for a moment, and slowly approached the yard.
The autumn leaves were cold, the trees were dark, and the dead vines wrapped around the walls were like thousands of venomous snakes entangled together. Yang Ning walked to the door, glanced at it a few times under the moonlight, and then listened. The courtyard was deathly silent, without any trace of it. sound.
In fact, the courtyard wall is not that high. It is really easy for Yang Ning to climb over the courtyard wall. With only a slight hesitation, Yang Ning walked to the wall and looked around to make sure that no one was there. Then he grabbed the withered vine. , climbed up the wall very easily, squatted on the wall and looked down, I saw that the yard was not big, there was a lonely house in the middle, and the yard was covered with vines.
Under the cold moon, the house looked unusually eerie, standing so eerily in the yard. A gust of wind blew by, and Yang Ning felt a chill down his spine.
He hesitated for a moment, but finally gritted his teeth, pulled out the cold blade in his hand, jumped off the courtyard wall, and landed in the courtyard.
Slowly approaching, I saw that many parts of the house had collapsed, but the door was ajar. It had been in disrepair for many years, and the door was somewhat rotten.
He held the cold blade in his right hand and gently pushed open the door with his left hand. The door made a "crack-cack-crack" sound, which was breathtaking. After pushing the door open, an old moldy smell came out from inside, and it was overwhelming. The smell was very unpleasant when it entered her nostrils. Yang Ning raised her hand to fan the tip of her nose and walked lightly into the house. She saw that there were three rooms in the house, two rooms on the left and right, and a fairly spacious hall in the middle.
The furnishings in the hall are very simple. There is a table in the middle, two chairs on the side, and a screen stand in the corner. However, the screen has long since rotted, and only the screen stand is still standing. I don’t know if it is. The tables and chairs were made of very good materials and were not rotten, but they were covered with a layer of dust.
Yang Ning looked around and walked lightly to the room on the left. The door was closed but not locked. Yang Ning pushed it gently and the door was pushed open.
The moonlight shines in from the window. Although it is a dark night and the room is dim, but with the peripheral light, I can still see clearly. I see a small case on the wall opposite the door, and there seems to be something on it. , Yang Ning entered the house, took a look inside, and saw that there was a wooden couch in the corner of the room. There was naturally no bedding on it, but the entire wooden couch was well preserved and not rotten.
Yang Ning was very surprised at this moment.
According to Wei Tong, this courtyard had been closed decades ago, and no one has come in since then. If what Wei Tong said is true, then after decades, the objects in this house will never be lost. It may have been kept so intact, even if the wood of the furniture is really durable, but after entering the house, I didn't see a single spider web.
He knew very well that, not to mention decades, even if there was no one in the house for several years, a house like this would be full of spider webs, but there was not a single spider web in sight, whether in the hall or in this room. Big is abnormal.
He also thought about the table outside that he had just touched. It was indeed covered with a layer of dust. However, according to Yang Ning's experience, if no one had cleaned it for decades, there would be a thick layer of dust on the table, but he had only touched it just now. There is a layer of light dust. Judging by the time, it has only been a few months since it was cleaned.
Is there really a ghost in this house? And the ghost in the house will clean the room by himself
Or maybe Wei Tong was lying, and someone actually came over to clean the yard occasionally
The furnishings were simple. Yang Ning took a few steps forward and approached the table facing the door, only to find that it was a dressing table. He immediately thought of what Gu Qinghan had said that a woman seemed to have died in this yard before. When he saw the dressing table, Then he knew that the woman Gu Qinghan mentioned must have lived in this house before.
He couldn't help but think of the image of a female ghost with long hair covering her face, and a chill ran down his spine. He looked around, took a deep breath, and looked carefully, and found a dressing box on the dressing table, with the box covered. It was not locked. He held the cold blade tightly in his right hand, stretched out his left hand, and opened the dressing box.
I saw that the box was not empty. There was actually a rouge and gouache box inside, as well as a pair of earrings and a bracelet. Both the bracelet and the earrings were quite exquisite in style, but they looked like they were made of copper and were not expensive. Yang Ning thought that the Qi family was from a wealthy Jiangling family and could live in a separate courtyard. Of course, this woman was not an ordinary maid. She still had some status in the house. It stands to reason that even if there is no gold bracelet, at least there is a silver bracelet, which can be used as a dressing box. There was only one copper bracelet in it, which was quite inconsistent with the status of the Qi family.
The rouge and gouache have dried up and condensed into lumps, and there is nothing else.
Yang Ning gently closed the dressing box and found a drawer in the middle of the dressing table. He opened it gently and found that there were only two things in it. One was a bronze mirror that could be held in the hand, and the other was wrapped in black silk. Slender. At this time, Yang Ning was not willing to touch the bronze mirror. Looking at the mirror in this gloomy room, he might see something unclean in the mirror.
He picked up the thing wrapped in silk and looked at the wrapping very carefully. It should be a very precious thing. When he untied the silk, the thing inside was revealed.
A look of surprise immediately appeared on Yang Ning's face.
Xiao!
What was wrapped in black silk was a long flute.
For a moment, Yang Ning thought of what Wei Tong said about the sound of the flute coming out of this yard every year. Could it be that the sound of the flute was made by this long flute
This long flute is exquisitely made. Although it looks very old, it is clean and not stained with a trace of dust.
"It's a person...!" Yang Ning whispered to himself. At this moment, he seemed to understand something. In his opinion, the so-called haunting was simply because someone had died in this yard before, and since then, it had been banned from entering for a long time. , it will inevitably look cold and eerie when no one enters. Once everything becomes mysterious, it will naturally lead to a lot of speculation.
He believed that the person playing the long flute could not be a ghost. It was probably someone who would come here every year and not only play the flute here, but also clean the room.
In a yard that has been deserted all year round, the sound of flutes is heard from time to time. It is no wonder that people mistakenly think that there is a ghost.
As for the two people who broke over the wall, I believe they were killed by the man playing the long flute. After all, when the two people climbed over the wall and sneaked in, they encountered the sound of the flute. The person happened to be here, and the two people bumped into each other, and they were brutally killed.
Yang Ning frowned. If his guess was correct and the person who appeared in this house was a person and not a ghost, then a person had been coming to this yard for decades, cleaning the house, and playing the flute for several nights in a row. There were even people He broke in and had to kill him. Who was this person
What is his relationship with the Jinyihou Qi family