The so-called Merit Forest is actually not a real forest, but hundreds of merit monuments built on the mountain.
This monument of merit records the good deeds that Fayuan Temple believers have done over the years—of course, ordinary good deeds are not on the list.
It took more than three hundred and seventy years before and after, and it was hard to accumulate so much.
Because these hundreds of merit monuments look like dense forests from a distance, the monks in the temple often call them 'Gong De Lin' - mainly to show off the great achievements of Fayuan Temple when they explain to the guests.
Originally, this was a scene of Fayuan Temple, and believers often came here to pay homage to the achievements of their predecessors - but recently, affected by the continuous murder cases, relatively remote places like Gongdelin have naturally become more and more crowded.
If it weren't for the time for regular inspections, even the little monk Xuanci might not have the time to come here for a spin.
And it was also in the process of inspecting Gongdelin that Xuanci heard a wild dog barking, and he followed the sound out of curiosity, and saw the monk Jienian lying on the ground with blood on his neck, surrounded by six people. Seven wild dogs seem to be fighting each other for this 'fat meat'.
Has Xuanci seen this
Immediately frightened, he ran back to the temple and was about to report to the prison. At this time, he suddenly remembered that the official of Shuntian Prefecture seemed to be investigating the case in the temple, so he inquired all the way and found the Zen room. .
Fortunately, he didn't report to the prison first, so when Sun Shaozong and the others arrived, the scene was fairly well preserved—of course, the so-called intact did not include a corpse that was bitten by a dog.
Sure enough, it's a monk!
Think back to when he set fire to the house arrest, what kind of bullshit he was
But he didn't want his corpse to be abandoned in the open space in the center of the stone tablet after only half a month, and let the wild dogs trample and bite him!
Sun Shaozong stopped when he was more than ten paces away from the corpse, and when others saw him stop, they naturally followed suit.
Only the monk who was angered, still strode forward, shouting: "Go away, go away! You damned dog demons!"
Those wild dogs are used to bullying the soft and fearing the hard. Seeing so many people crowding around, they have long since had the intention to retreat, and they didn't flee immediately, just because they were reluctant to let go of the fat on the ground.
Right now, listening to Jie Ang and yelling loudly, with another aggressive look, he was busy running away without a trace with his tail tucked.
The monk Jietan scared away those wild dogs, and was about to stride to Jiannian to check his situation, when he heard Sun Shaozong say: "Master stay, the murderer took great pains to create this good show, it is not for you to destroy it casually. ."
Jie Yan paused, turned around and frowned, "What do you mean by that, my lord?"
"You bald donkey are you blind?!"
Without waiting for Sun Shaozong to reply, Qiu Yunfei jumped out, stretched out his arms and drew a circle around the corpse, and said with his hands on his hips, "Look carefully at the footprints on the ground to see if there is anything wrong!"
Jiehang was scolded by him as a bald donkey, his already ugly face turned a little darker, his throat surging, as if he was retorting, but despite the fact that he only uttered the Buddha's name, he followed Qiu Yunfei's instructions and probed to look at the body. the surrounding situation.
And at this sight, Jie Yan's face showed a bit of pride, and he turned back and sneered again: "The poor monk said that it was the work of the celestial dog, isn't this fulfilled now?!"
But it turned out that the mess on the ground was all the marks of dogs' claws, but there were only one row of footprints belonging to people!
And the footprints extended to Jienian's corpse, but there was no trace of coming out!
It's no wonder that the monk Jihan thinks it is the work of the dog demon.
However, what Sun Shaozong thought of first was the old routine used in many mystery novels, stepping back on the same path.
Because the stone slabs were laid in the merit forest, and only a layer of floating soil was on the surface, the weight of the owner of the footprints could not be judged from the depth of the footprints.
So Sun Shaozong instructed everyone to stay where they were. He was alone and cautiously, preparing to walk along the footprints, and then try to walk back on his own.
But halfway through, he stopped, and at the same time completely denied the possibility of stepping back on the same path.
Because Sun Shaozong found some slippery footprints, and on both sides of these footprints, there were two less clear slap prints, and traces of struggling to get up.
Apparently someone had almost slipped here, but they held it up with their hands in time, and then got up.
Normally, if the murderer was carrying Jie Nian forward at that time, and his hands were on the ground, Jie Nian would have fallen off long ago.
To take a step back, suppose the murderer's strength exceeds that of ordinary people, and he tightly binds the vigilance to his body to ensure that the vigilance does not fall off, I am afraid that he will still encounter an insurmountable obstacle.
Because in the process of climbing forward, there is about a meter in the middle, which is a trace of sliding back slightly with the toes of the toes.
It is impossible to imitate such traces in the process of walking backwards, and it is impossible to accurately cross the distance of more than one meter while walking backwards. Shoe print.
Therefore, the traces of slipping here have completely rejected the possibility of stepping on the footprints and coming back!
There is no doubt that this footprint belongs to Jie Xian himself!
How on earth did the murderer kill Ji Nian without leaving footprints? !
Could it be that they used ropes to set up air passages
Sun Shaozong looked up at the north and south sides, the nearest stone steles about fifteen meters apart, and said in a loud voice: "Search carefully around the scene to see if there are any other traces on the scene! Especially on these merit steles, every inch of Don't miss me!"
Following this order, Wei Ruolan, Master Qi, Qiu Yunfei, and Zhao Wuwei divided into two groups, each leading a few yamen, and started a carpet-like search.
However…
Half an hour passed, and the search range was expanded to 50 meters, but no abnormal traces were found!
how can that be? !
Stepping on footprints has been rejected, and the possibility of using tools such as ropes tends to zero.
And the possibility of attacking with long-range weapons...
When everyone was conducting a carpet search, Sun Shaozong had also carefully confirmed that the fatal injury to Ji Nian was that the throat was cut by a sharp blade, and then repeatedly cut, creating the illusion of being bitten to death—of course, There were indeed wild dogs in the back who had bitten the corpse.
And repeatedly cutting to create an illusion is definitely difficult for long-range weapons to do.
How did the murderer do it? After killing Ji Nian at close range, he left without a trace? !
Third more.