Lao Du smoked several cigarettes in a row without saying a word, and then he slowly said: "I have checked all the people Wanqiao often contacts. There are only three people of the opposite sex, and the one she contacts the most is a calligraphy and painting teacher."
"Wanqiao likes painting very much, and her level of meticulous painting is very high. The only person in the whole Sanxi City who can be her teacher is He Yang, a professor at Sanxi University. That person is very decent, even a little old-fashioned. I think it shouldn't be him."
Lao Du ruled out He Yang's suspicion, but I retorted: "The way people in the art of martial arts do things is not the same as yours. The person you think is not the murderer may be the murderer. No matter what, let's find the teacher first."
"Okay!" Lao Du said, "The last time I visited Teacher He was eight years ago. I don't know his exact address now, so I have to check it first. Wait for me for a moment."
When Lao Du went to contact his colleagues, Shi Heshang said that he did not bring any suitable weapons with him and was afraid of being at a disadvantage if he got into a fight with others, so he left the clinic.
About an hour later, they both came back. Monk Shi was carrying a rectangular box wrapped in yellow cloth, which looked like it might contain some long weapon.
Lao Du's face was not looking good the whole time. He hadn't said a word since he left the clinic. He only spoke when he was about to reach He Yang's studio: "If I can't control myself in a while, just pull me out. I'm a policeman, and I don't want to break the law."
I couldn't help but ask back: "What's going on?"
"That's a gangster!" Lao Du's face turned pale. I knew I couldn't ask any more questions, so I turned to Xie Wanhua and told her to wait in the car, then I opened the door and walked into the gallery on the corner.
As soon as we entered the room, a waitress came up to us and asked, "Are you here to buy paintings, or..."
I interrupted him: "Let's go see He Yang."
The waitress said: "Teacher He Yang is painting and doesn't want to be disturbed. If you have anything important to say..."
I interrupted again: "Then I'll wait here until he finishes painting."
The waiter wanted to say something else, but Shi Heshang said in a deep voice: "Sister, we are very polite by not kicking the door in. You don't have to say anything more, okay?"
I have to say, if Shi Heshang had a straight face and a bald head, he would be really scary. The girl was so scared that her face turned pale: "Then... Then I'll pour you some water."
"Thank you!" I simply pulled a chair and sat down.
After a while, the waiter came out with three cups of water: "Sir, please have some water."
"Thank you..." When I was about to take the cup of water, the waiter's hand suddenly moved back. I subconsciously straightened my body and moved my hands forward a few inches along with the cup.
No! A sense of impending crisis suddenly struck me. The waitress was obviously frightened by Monk Shi. In less than half a minute, she had the guts to play a trick on me
I am now half-sitting on the chair, and the other person is looking down at the top of my head. If I want to raise my head and look at him, I must be a step slower. This step may only take less than a second, but a slight difference is enough to make the difference between life and death.
I didn't know what the other party wanted to do, so I could only maintain my current posture and stalemate with her.
Just two or three seconds later, Monk Shi shouted, "Wu Zhao, what are you doing?"
From Monk Shi’s perspective, I must have lowered my head slightly, raised my hands and remained motionless. It would have been strange if he didn’t react.
Before Shi Heshang finished speaking, I heard a sound like snake scales scratching across a piece of cloth coming from his direction. I grew up near the mountains and was extremely sensitive to snakes, especially the sound of a snake crossing the grass. I could hear it from a long distance away.
Is the other party's target Monk Shi
As soon as this thought flashed through my mind, I saw a brown snake head emerge from the waiter's sleeve and open its mouth to bite my finger.
The moment the fangs of the venomous snake suddenly got close to my fingers, I suddenly flipped my palm, and my right hand, which was held in the air, changed from being raised sideways to being stretched out horizontally, with my palm facing up, and my index and middle fingers raised, and pinched the venomous snake seven inches away.
I was already quite quick in my attack, but the venomous snake was one step faster than me. The cold snake head rushed into my palm and then moved half an inch closer. My fingers only caught the snake's tail.
The most taboo thing when hitting a snake is to hit its tail. Unless you can pick it up from the ground in one go, if you are a step slower, the snake will easily turn around and bite you. I just violated this taboo.
The poisonous snake suddenly wrapped around my wrist in severe pain, and the snake head went straight to my forearm and bit me. It was too late for me to use my left hand to catch the snake.
At the critical moment, Lao Du's gunshot suddenly burst out from my side, and a bullet flew through the air and hit the snake's head exactly. I watched a puff of blood explode above my arm, and at the same time, another snake flew out from the other sleeve of the waitress.
Just a second ago, I instinctively wanted to catch the poisonous snake, so I had already raised my left hand and pointed it towards my right arm. When the second poisonous snake appeared, I just happened to cross my hand in the air, which was equivalent to sending my wrist to the other party's mouth.
At the same time, the waiter who was blocking in front of me also turned around and moved to the right side of my body, just blocking in front of Lao Du. If Lao Du wanted to shoot again, he could only kill the other person first.
When the crisis came again, I shook my wrist violently, and the green fly dart wrapped around my wrist was shaken back. Before the green fly dart stopped sliding, the fangs of the venomous snake bit my hand firmly. When the sound of the fangs rubbing against the bronze suddenly rang out, I had already freed my hand to grab the snake's tail and pulled the venomous snake off. When I threw the venomous snake away, two broken fangs were still on my sleeve.
From the appearance of the venomous snake to my escape from danger, there were only a dozen seconds. But just a dozen seconds later, the waiter who was turning around quickly just now seemed to have lost his support and fell to the ground instantly.
My first reaction was not to save the person, but to look at Monk Shi, who had already pulled a poisonous snake that had sprung out of nowhere into two pieces, and casually threw the still twisting snake body to the ground and crushed it.
When I turned the fallen waiter over, black blood was already flowing out of his seven orifices...
"The person is beyond saving, hurry up and find He Yang..." As soon as I stood up, I heard a scream from outside: "Help—"
Xie Wanhua! I rushed out of the door in shock, but I saw a venomous snake crawling up and down on the car's windshield. Xie Wanhua, who was hiding in the car, was so scared that she held her head and screamed.
"Go back!" I threw a green fly dart toward the car window, but without even looking at the result, I turned and rushed into the gallery. After kicking open several studios one after another, I saw a middle-aged man lying on the ground in one room. He was still holding a paintbrush in one hand, and it seemed that he had just been painting there.
When I got in front of the man, I couldn't help but feel disappointed. There was a headless venomous snake beside him, and the snake was still twisting on the ground with blood oozing out of it. The corner of the man's mouth was bleeding.
I pulled out the dagger and pried open the man's tightly clenched teeth, then took out a bitten-off venomous snake head from his mouth. It seemed that the man was so frightened when he suddenly saw the venomous snake that he screamed, but before his voice could be heard, the venomous snake that jumped into the air bit his tongue. Although the man bit off the snake's body in severe pain, he was also poisoned to death in a moment.
I pointed at the body on the ground and asked, "Is this He Yang?"
"He is He Yang." Old Du's face finally looked better. This He Yang couldn't be the person Xie Wanqiao cheated with. A murderer who had been hiding for eight years would not kill himself.
I stood up and said, "Let's see if there are any more poisonous snakes in the house."
"Don't look for it, it must be gone." Monk Shi said, "Do you still remember how many bugs were on the painting we received?"
"Five." I answered subconsciously, then exclaimed, "You mean to say that the venomous snakes that attacked us this time were drawn according to the painting?"
Monk Shi said, "If my guess is correct, that painting should be part of the spell. We have met our match this time. Not only can he cast spells, but he can also control poison."
I turned to Lao Du and said, "Lao Du, please check whether Xie Wanqiao had close contacts with people from the south, especially those from Miaojiang and Yunnan."
The climate in the Northeast is cold, which is not suitable for the growth of poisonous insects. There are no poisonous insects with strong toxicity. Take Sanxi for example. The most poisonous snake is the iron bark snake with the scientific name of Yangtze River short-tailed agkistrodon. Other kinds of poisonous snakes will not appear here unless they are deliberately domesticated. As for poisonous insects such as centipedes and spiders, they are even more incomparable to those in Yunnan and Xiangxi. Therefore, there are few masters of poison in the Northeast.
Most of the masters of poison come from the south, and they will not pass on their skills in using poison to outsiders.
Although the snakes just now were iron bark snakes from the Northeast, they were obviously domesticated by humans, otherwise, their attack methods would not be so tricky and the timing could not be so accurate.
After listening to me, Lao Du couldn't help but shake his head and said, "When I checked the people Wan Qiao had contact with before, I never found that she had close contact with any southerners. Could you be mistaken?"
"Impossible. Check again." I shook my head, but Lao Du said, "I really can't find it out, and it's been eight years... Hey, Xiao Wu, can't you calculate? Can you calculate it for me?"
"The hexagrams are not omnipotent," I said helplessly, "I'm not yet at the level of being able to make inferences out of thin air. If every fortune teller had the ability to tell the future with their fingers, there would be no need for the police."
Monk Shi suddenly said: "You are stupid, can't you find another way to calculate?" (To be continued)