Everyone just remembered that there was something wrong with the expression of that disciple just now. The cold sweaty face was so excited that Liang Chi thought it was some kind of catastrophe in the same family.
It stands to reason that practitioners are pure and indifferent, and they are naturally much calmer than ordinary people when they encounter troubles. Even if he didn't participate in the battle on the rivers and lakes, he was used to seeing swords and shouldn't be so concerned about a corpse. Even Liang Chi, who was in the heart of the doctor's parents, at first sight, his expression was mostly angry, but he was not as frightened as that person.
"That should be Guo Qi from Tianxiang Peak," Su Yanjun thought for a while and said, "I saw him once at the Sword Discussion Conference last year."
The gentleman Jianbo Wen Qiang remembers, whether it is the Xianmen classics or the Jianghu martial arts, they are all familiar, not to mention the disciples of this sect. There are many disciples of Moyunshan, but Su Yanjun can basically remember them as long as they have appeared in public.
"It's him, Guo Qi is now studying medicine in the pharmacy, and he is my apprentice." Liang Chi said in a hoarse voice, "Look at him, I'm afraid he knows something, go and ask him."
The young disciple of the own medicine hall ran out, and soon came back to report: "Senior Brother Guo is not in the medicine hall, and he just passed the word to the mountain gate, and they all said that he was not seen."
At this time, all the officers in the Yazhong District had already reported, and everyone in Evian Town had gone door-to-door to ask questions, and it was true that none of them had lost their children. Gu Shun also said that the population of Evian Town is not too large, and the government is also clean, and there is no major contradiction between the government and the people. If a family lost a child, they would definitely not hide it, and would definitely come to the government office for help. But in recent months, nothing like that has happened.
Mu Xiyun sighed and suggested to Su Yanjun: "Senior brother, why don't we go to the place where the body was found again, maybe there will be something new to discover."
Su Yanjun nodded. Although this junior brother was relatively young, when he saw him today, he found that there seemed to be a quiet power in him. It is not the silence that has nothing to say, nor the silence that does not ask about the world, but it is like a traveler standing on the edge of the long river of worldly love, watching the long river flow by, but the insight is not broken. This young man has a sense of precipitation beyond his age, which is a little out of tune with his youthful appearance, but when you see his calm eyes, you feel that this kind of heaviness is incompatible with his youthful appearance. The scent blends wonderfully.
Gu Shun, as if seeing a bosom friend, bowed and said, "I'll take the immortals over there."
There were still patients in Liang Chi Medical Center, and they were also thinking about Guo Qi's whereabouts, so they returned to the medical center first. Su Yanjun and Mu Xiyuan, accompanied by Gu Shun, went to the west of the city.
On the way out of the city, the three passed by a courtyard wall with gray tiles. The walls of the courtyard were not high, and a phoenix tree sprang up from the courtyard, palm-sized green leaves barely grew on the branches outside the wall, but only scorched and tangled branches remained in the half of the wall.
Mu Xiyun stopped and asked suspiciously, "Is this the Shantang?"
"Yes." Gu Shun replied. He followed Mu Xiyuan's eyes to look at the dead tree, and took the initiative to explain: "About two months ago, a fire broke out in the shantang. It is said that a child played with snow and wet his clothes, so he covered his robe on the charcoal fire. Baking on top, unexpectedly caused a fire."
"Indeed." Su Yanjun also heard about this matter: "The fire was so bad that the four children in that room were not spared."
A small life just went away with a fire, and the fragility of life makes people sigh.
Mu Xiyuan glanced at the courtyard, a tall and thin man was talking to the old man in Shantang. For some reason, his back was very familiar.
Mu Xiyun's heart skipped a beat, as if something was wiggling outward, and a desire to go in and take a closer look arose spontaneously.
Su Yanjun and Gu Shun had already walked for a while, and seeing Mu Xiyun still stopped in place, they reminded aloud, "Junior Brother Mu, what's the matter?"
"Ah, it's nothing." Mu Xiyun took two quick steps to catch up, and the three of them walked out of the city together.
After a while, a figure flashed out of the door of Shantang, staring at the backs of the three for a long time, thoughtfully.
Going out of the city and going up the mountain, there are mostly bamboo and pine trees on Cuiping Mountain, and occasionally there are a few camphor trees and ginkgo trees. There are many shrubs under the tree, and dead branches are everywhere. It is indeed a good place for people to gather firewood.
Gu Shun led the two of them in for about half a mile, then pointed to an empty space in the forest and said, "The body was found here."
The clearing in the forest was not large, the weeds on the ground were crushed, and a hatchet was thrown at the edge of the clearing. I was afraid that the old man Wang who found the body in the morning had thrown it in a panic. There was no blood on the grass or hatchet.
"After the body was found today, Zuo came to do an autopsy and carried the body back. There are only two arresters in Evian Town. My master is old. He suffered from a cold some time ago and is currently recovering from illness at home." Gu Shun explained. : "At present, I just let the officials surround this place, and don't let the townspeople approach, and it's too late to investigate. If the two immortals don't dislike it, why don't we scatter around here and have a look?"
"Alright." Su Yanjun nodded and said, "Let's look for it separately, everyone be careful. If you find anything, send a signal."
The three split up.
Mu Xiyun walked along the bushes to the depths of the woods, paying attention to her feet as she walked. In the mountain forest in March, the green grass has already covered the soil. Under the sunlight, the air after the rain is filled with the clear woody fragrance of camphor trees. If such a terrifying case had not happened, it would have been an outing for children. spring.
Thinking of Zhiyuan, images of a group of children suddenly appeared in Mu Xiyuan's heart, the children of the shantang running with Zhiyuan.
Although the child in his impression was an old man more than fifty years ago, the charred plane tree he saw just now always made him feel faintly uneasy.
Before she could regain her senses, Mu Xiyun suddenly heard Gu Shun shout, "Here! There is something!"
Mu Xiyun hurried over, and Su Yanjun also rushed from the other direction. Gu Shun was half-bent, looking at a bush. The bushes in the mountains and forests are thorny, and when people walk by, their robes are often hung. I saw a small piece of cyan fabric hooked on the thorny bush, embroidered with a half-return pattern on it. Judging from the color and texture, it was very similar to the fabric of the shirt on the child's corpse in the government office.
The three of them straightened up and looked around. This is deep in the forest. What is a child doing here alone? Could it be that he was being chased by wild beasts and panicked
Gu Shun put away the fabric, and the three looked around again, but found no other clues, so they had to go back to the government office first.
Back in the small room of the morgue, Gu Shun took out the fabric and compared it with the child's clothes, it turned out to be a piece torn from the child's left sleeve.
Gu Shun pondered: "According to the hanging height of the cloth, it should have been torn off by the child in a hurry. If we assume that he was running forward at the time, then the direction of running should be down the mountain."
"Then," Su Yanjun pondered, "he went from the mountain to the outside of the mountain."
"But, it's very strange." Mu Xiyun's eyes were a little confused.
"What's strange?"
"This child ran out of the mountain and fell into the clearing not too far. If he was chased and then killed and digging his heart in the clearing, there must be a lot of blood on the ground. But we didn't see any blood just now. blood."
"But it's impossible for him to run into the forest after being killed and digging his heart!" Gu Shun's face turned pale at the thought of such a terrifying scene.
"It's really possible." Mu Xiyun pondered: "What if the child was put into the open space after being murdered and digging his heart out?"
"But what's the purpose of this? Could it be some kind of cult ritual?" Su Yanjun shook his head, feeling that there was something strange about this matter.
It was getting late, and the case had no clue. The three agreed to go to the place where the body was dumped tomorrow morning to investigate, and Su Yanjun and Mu Xiyun returned to the hospital together.
Liang Chi had been busy in the hospital all afternoon, and the two told him about the investigation in the afternoon. Liang Chi sighed: "I saw the child describe it as terrifying in the morning, and I lost my mind for a while. But the deceased is dead, and I don't have the ability to investigate the case. I reported the situation to the head in the afternoon. The head means, Mo Yun The mountain is an immortal family stationed in town, and it is incumbent on such matters. Junior Brother Su was in charge of some of the mundane affairs in Tianliang Peak, and Junior Brother Mu also had to experience things when he went down the mountain, so the two of you worked hard and stayed for a few more days to assist the government."
"Senior brother doesn't have to be too modest," Su Yanjun said with a smile, "Since the teacher's order is like this, we should stay for two more days to contribute. Can that senior nephew Guo Qi be found?"
"Not yet, I have sent a letter back to the mountain, and any disciple of this sect who sees him will bring him to the medicine hall first."
Although helpless, but it had to be so.
After dinner, Su Yanjun and Liang Chi played a chess game, but Mu Xiyuan kept thinking about the fire in Shantang and the back of the deja vu. She sat and watched the chess game for a while, but her heart became faintly anxious.
He simply stood up, greeted the two of them, only said that he wanted to go out for a breath, and then walked out of the hospital.
In the spring evening, the wind is still cool, and once the air is stuffy in the room, a little bit of dim yellow and warm light can be seen in the windows of every household. Mu Xiyuan walked slowly towards Shantang, the wind blew up his large disciple uniform, and there was a trace of loneliness in his back.
There are only a few old people living in the shantang now, the lights are out, and the gatekeeper does not know if he is going to drink or gamble, but he has disappeared. Mu Xiyuan gently pushed the door of Shantang, and the old door shaft made a slight creaking sound. After hesitating for a moment, he jumped silently and landed firmly in the courtyard.
The shantang in Evian Town is not big, with two rows of bungalows housing about twenty elderly people and children. The one that was on fire before was at the top, and half of it had collapsed. The plane tree next to the room was half charred. The pale moonlight cast the shadows of dead branches on the blackened walls, like the outstretched arms of evil spirits. A kitten with black spots on a yellow background squatted on the wall, watching Mu Xiyuan slowly come forward with round eyes.
The door was burnt down, and Mu Xiyun walked into a piece of debris.
Thinking about it, the shantang was in a lot of trouble, and no one had cleaned up the burnt house. The burning carbon stove was crushed under the collapsed bricks and tiles, and there were faint stains of four human figures on the kang next to it.
Mu Xiyun took two steps closer and was waiting to take a closer look, when the kitten suddenly meowed and jumped down the wall, Mu Xiyun pulled out the sword, but did not hear any sound again.
He closed his eyes and calmed down, returning his sword to the sheath, but a strange feeling suddenly rose up, as if a string in his heart had been violently plucked, and his heartbeat suddenly accelerated.
Before she could tell what the feeling was, Mu Xiyuan twisted her body abruptly and took a half-step, and sure enough, a palm wind slashed the tip of her nose from top to bottom, and the slashing style immediately slashed again. Mu Xiyuan greeted them with the palms of their hands. The two of them had already fought several tricks, but they were silent and did not alert anyone in the hospital.
The visitor's face was covered with a towel, but his eyes were amazingly bright. The two of them tacitly did not move down the plate, and only used their hands to fight in the narrow space. After a few moves, the masked man suddenly approached and seemed to collide with his head. Mu Xiyuan took a step back, but was tripped by the overturned chair under his feet, and the opponent grabbed his right wrist. He was about to fight back, but the masked man suddenly "shush".
There was the sound of the door opening, and the middle-aged man who was guarding the door was humming a little song drunkenly, pushing the door and approaching the courtyard.
The two of them both quieted down, listening to the man closing the door, putting on the tether, pouring water in the courtyard to wash his face, and wandering into his hut, and soon snoring sounded.
It was only then that Mu Xiyuan realized that one of her wrists was being held, and the other hand was twisted behind her. It was a gesture of being hugged, and the other's eyes were staring at her.
He blushed and kicked out, the masked man seemed to chuckle slightly, raised his legs to block the kick, tightened his hands, and said softly in his ear: "Stop hitting, this shantang is weird. ."
The breath of hot flashes lingered in her ears, and the tips of Mu Xiyuan's ears were red, she broke free of her wrist and drew out her sword. The man retreated three steps in a flash, and he hit the sword's edge while waving his sleeves, and a large slit was cut.
The masked man was stunned for a moment, but he didn't move, letting Mu Xiyuan's sword rest on his neck.
"Who are you?" Mu Xiyun asked in a low voice.
The man raised his hand and gently pushed the sword edge away, and said softly, "I'm not your enemy. Look," he pointed to the Tukang: "Do you find these four marks strange?"
For some reason, Mu Xiyun intuitively felt that the other party was not malicious, but instead, there was a trace of... closeness. This feeling made him quite embarrassed, so he had no choice but to turn his eyes and look at the kang.
I only glanced at the room just now, and I could only tell that the four children were burned to death on the kang, so they would leave traces. Looking closely now, the four traces are actually similar in color and very uniform.
"It's really weird," Mu Xiyun pondered: "The fire was started from the charcoal stove by the wall. After the fire, there must be smoke. No matter how soundly a few children sleep, they will inevitably have coughs and choking. How can they still be neat and tidy. Could it be that the children were comatose or dead at that time? Even if they were already comatose and the fire started to burn from one side of the wall, the four traces should not be so even."
"Indeed," the masked man said, "but the incident happened two months ago, and the orphans in the shantang didn't care. It is estimated that the government just passed the scene. Now that the body has been cremated, I am afraid that it will not be possible to re-examine it. "
"But what's the point of killing a few fatherless orphans?"
"Who knows?" The masked man gave him a deep look and said, "People are unpredictable. Some things in this world, even if you see them with your own eyes, are not necessarily the truth."
"What does this mean?" Mu Xiyun blurted out and asked, "Who the hell are you?"
The masked man didn't answer and took a few steps back out of the hut. As soon as he jumped up to the wall, he turned his head and said softly: "You are busy, I will help you keep an eye on Shantang." After speaking, he disappeared.
Linjia Inn.
Zhang Jinjin was sitting at the table, examining a stack of words he bought from the town.
The door opened.
The masked man in black tore off the cloth on his face, holding his sleeves that were half torn open, and asked leisurely, "Profit merchants, are you in the business of medicinal materials?"
--------------------
The author has something to say:
small theater:
Gu Qingqiao: I'm so happy to finally meet Ayun!
Author: Who is that person
Mu Xiyun: Pretend, keep pretending!