C20

It was very quiet outside, with only the occasional barking coming from a dog. Who would be crying so miserably in the middle of the night?

Xu Chu did not believe in ghosts. She suddenly became clear-headed and subconsciously kicked her shoes towards the door. Just as she was about to rush out of the wooden door to see what exactly it was, she saw a tall figure approaching her and her right hand was grabbed.

"Don't move, Wei Guang has already gone over to check." Xiao Qinglang's voice was cold and gloomy, it was like a wine that had been stored for dozens of years, it was mellow and tempting, causing Xu Chu to be unable to move in an instant.

Xiao Qinglang lowered his head, the moonlight shone straight into Xu Chu's eyes, and after a long while, he said hoarsely: "There are still secrets in the village, you must be careful when handling matters."

After the time it took to make a cup of tea, Wei Guang had returned. Seeing his master holding hands with Lady Xu and their being so close, he first stopped in his tracks, then staggered a little. That is to say, the prince came all the way from the capital, might it be for the official of Law Department?

No matter how much he thought in his heart, it had all disappeared under Xiao Qinglang's cold "How so?"

"Reporting to your highness, this subordinate pursued him with lightness techniques but did not see anyone. Moreover, there is no one's aura in the ruins on the south shore. Because the sky was too dark and this subordinate was worried about the safety of the Duke and Lady Xu, we did not inspect any further. "

Xiao Qinglang nodded his head, but did not comment on the result.

Instead, it was Wei Guang himself who said with a frown, "Your subordinate's lightness skills are already top of the list, and even the Emperor has once praised you …"

The meaning behind his words, could it be that the person who was putting on a show, had a higher level of cultivation than Wei Guang?

"In terms of Qing Gong alone, that might not necessarily be the case." Xu Chu looked at Xiao Qinglang, "Perhaps there is a place to hide?"

"Impossible, I used my inner force to check for a long time, but did not find any signs of life." Even if that person knew the art of Turtle Rest, he would not be completely devoid of Qi. "

"But what if the hiding place is underground?" Xu Chu wasn't clear about this point, she had never solved the case where the murderer had extremely high inner force, and her previous life's inner force had long since lost its legacy, so she really didn't have any common sense towards this.

Wei Guang choked, then replied after some thought: "If it was underground, perhaps I too would not be able to discover it."

When he went back to his room to rest, it was already dawn. By this time, the terrifying wails had long since disappeared. What replaced it were the occasional chirping of chickens in the village.

On top of the broken ruins, there was nothing but barren land and weeds everywhere. The wood and mud pieces that couldn't be seen clearly seemed to have collapsed for a long time. Xu Chu stood on top of the wall and frowned, looking at a piece of cloth that was a little rotten.

"What's wrong?"

"There are burn marks on this piece of cloth. The key point is that this piece of cloth can still be picked up. Clearly, this is not something that happened twenty years ago." As he said that, Xu Chu rubbed the remaining white frost on his body, only to see that it was actually a little hot. "So that's how it is …"

Xiao Qinglang looked at Xu Chu's ink-black dress that was stained with mud as he squatted down to check the scene, but he didn't seem to be bothered by it at all.

She searched the ground for nearly an hour before the doubts in her heart was completely dispelled. She suddenly raised her head to look at Xiao Qinglang who was standing silently behind her and said, "May I ask Big Brother Wei to make a trip to the yamen, and then ask for some people to help?"

The sun slowly rose in the sky, the warm golden light enveloping Xu Chu's body, causing her face to be filled with joy. He only felt that that person's expression was really bright and beautiful. Even though she was standing in the middle of a pile of rubble and had no idea how many deaths she had committed, and even more so in an unspeakably cruel and terrifying situation, it couldn't stop her from having the intention to investigate the case.

He slowly walked forward and extended his hand to pull Xu Chu up. Sure enough, when she stood up, her legs and feet were numb and her face was red. After he finished speaking, Xiao Qinglang turned around and instructed Wei Guang, "Go to the county magistrate's office and summon some people. Afterwards, we will directly go to the nearby local barracks to gather people to assist you."

Just as they were investigating the south coast, they saw a young man stumbling and rushing out from the back of the mountain with a flustered look on his face. His eyes were extremely wide, and his speech was in disorder, as if he had received a great shock. But from his intermittent words, Xu Chu still heard the word "dead".

She and Xiao Qinglang looked at each other but did not stop, and followed the crowd towards the back of the mountain. At this time, there were already a lot of people gathering at the back of the mountain along the pond. By the time Xiao Qinglang and Xu Chu arrived, the road was already blocked.

It was all thanks to them encountering Auntie Liu that they were able to squeeze their way to the front.

He saw a body that had been soaking in the pond for who knows how long, lying face down on the bottom of the water, under a boulder near the ditch. His hair and clothes had long since spread out, swaying in the water like water grasses while baring his fangs and brandishing his claws. Around the corpse, quite a few fish were swimming back and forth. From the looks of it, it was gratifying and terrifying …

When the village chief called for the village's robust youths to bring the people back, he heard the sound of gasps. It was because the body was soaked in such a horrifying way that it was abnormally swollen. It was so pale that it looked as if the layer of skin that had just opened up was going to fall off.

Ahh, isn't this Liu Da Gui? Yesterday, I heard him happily say that Liu Da Fu went to the Yunzhou City and was about to become rich.

"Shh, don't say anymore, I'm afraid he didn't drown. Didn't you hear the ghost in the village last night? I think it's either that he got killed by a ghost, or that he died in injustice and refused to be reborn in our village. "

"Aiyo, don't scare me."

"Why should I scare you, the water ghost has to find a scapegoat."

When everyone was retreating all of a sudden, Xu Chu took the initiative to go forward and squat down while inspecting the corpse.

"The deceased, male, was six feet seven inches tall." Xu Chu's gaze swept across the dead person's body and then untied the dead person's clothes, after looking at it again and again, she continued, "There are no obvious corpse spots, no fatal wounds, no obvious scars."

"There are bloodstains on the eyelids, purple on the lips, cyanosis on the nails, flake of blood on the pectoral muscles, swelling on the abdomen …"

When the villagers saw that Xu Chu, a delicate and pretty girl, actually unabashedly took off the man's clothes, and calmly pressed her body down, while muttering some incantations, they couldn't help but discuss amongst themselves. Some of them even raised their voices and cursed at Xu Chu, but in the end, all of them kept quiet in front of Xiao Qinglang's cold eyes.

The autumn wind blew, permeating the air with a deathly aura, causing those who came to join the liveliness to tremble uncontrollably. Some of them were timid. They had long since retreated, so they didn't dare to continue watching.

"There is sand and water in my fingernails …" After a simple inspection, Xu Chu's gaze returned to the man's nose and mouth, only to see that the corner of his wet nose was oozing with foam and mucus, and upon seeing that, she turned to Xiao Qinglang and concluded with a serious expression, "A mushroom like foam, really drowned in the water."

It was strange, a man of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth, other than Li Jin, had actually died in the water. Furthermore, before he died, there was even an appearance of a villain causing trouble in the village.

All the clues pointed to the south coast of Liulin Village. Just how many secrets were hidden on the south coast that were worthy of the murderer's repeated murders? She originally thought that it was for those several hundred thousand taels of silver, but now her thoughts wavered. Was it really just for the money?

When the murderer killed, he used the expression of offering sacrifices to the evil spirits. The word 'wicked' was really just a pretense? Or could it be that the 'ghosts' that had been killed for something they had done were all vile things that required them to pay with their lives!

The only thing that these people had done together was to surround and kill the bandit leader twenty years ago and send the bandits to the yamen.

Somehow, Xu Chu suddenly remembered the dream she had after looking through the dossier the night before. In a house somewhere, blood was flowing like a river. However, a child who was staggering about was crying for his mother. It was indeed a bloody steel blade that was charging straight at him …

There were already four dead, there was still one more … If Wu Rong was still alive, then who was the culprit and who should be the culprit's next target?

Xu Chu didn't know if the culprit had guessed their identities, nor did she know how the culprit had sneaked into the village and committed the crime without anyone noticing. But now, the conclusion in her heart was more and more clear, and she was only waiting for Wei Guang to bring the people over.

A secret that had been hidden for twenty years, a bloody and miserable story, and a family that was kind but had been forced to do evil …

She lowered her eyes as her eyelashes trembled. She didn't know whether to be happy or sad. Thus, she subconsciously shifted her gaze towards the silent Xiao Qinglang.

"Don't worry, This King will take care of everything." Xiao Qinglang took a step forward, and pulled up the cape on her body as he kept her quiet and steady.

Xu Chu shook her head, bit her lips and said: "If I'm not wrong, then the murderer's next target should be the Chang Ping County's County Magistrate from twenty years ago … Now, he had risen to become Lord Sun of the Cloud Prefecture Prefecture … In the Central Region, other than the yamen, how can it be considered the center of all Yunzhou City? "