Chapter 9 Chapter nine

At the beginning of Muyun's reunion, Ma Rong went to the General's Temple for a walk.Back then, the General Temple was also a place where beggar households lived and gathered.Half a year ago, the yamen captured a group of horse thieves here, Captain Fang specially stepped up his inspections, so the incense gradually fell into the cold.All the beggar households went into hiding one after another, and those who were truly homeless all went to Ziguang Temple. The gate of the General's Temple is closed, and there are only a few people selling incense and candles in the temple grounds.Miao Zhu also turned off the lights early and went to bed.Ma Rong wandered around the front and back of the hall for a long while, knowing that it was boring, he left angrily.

He was swinging out of the arched stone archway, but he saw a small hotel on the opposite street still brightly lit.The row of doors is half closed, leaving only two doors for entry and exit. The shopkeeper is lying on the counter and playing with the abacus beads, as if waiting for the final transaction. Ma Rong was overjoyed, and hurriedly squeezed into the shop door, leaned against the greasy and slippery counter, grabbed a handful of change from his waist pocket, and sprinkled it on the counter. The shopkeeper was thin and shriveled, like a preserved corpse, he quickly piled up a smile and greeted him: "The guest officer wants to have a drink, let me go to the kitchen to get some dishes." He stretched out his fingertips to The pile of change was picked into the drawer.

Ma Rong stretched out his palm to cover the copper coins, and said with a smile: "You are so impatient, you still have something to say. No matter how much wine you scoop up, I will ask you a letter. If you can answer, you will be rewarded with money." The shopkeeper leaned up and looked at Ma Rong: "A guest officer asked, anyone who knows the little one can say it. ——I just don't know what the guest officer asked for." Ma Rong leaned his face and asked in a low voice, "Does the shopkeeper know that thief Shen San?" "Shen San? - Recognized, recognized, what did the guest officer ask this Shen San?"

"This thief Genzi was slaughtered last night, and he still owes me a debt. He often comes to you to eat and drink on credit." The shopkeeper nodded and said: "In his spare time, he always sits in that corner and eats wine, one and a half cups, not eating too much, and not paying on credit. A few days ago, he even ate three cups in a row, and spit out after drinking, Marshal Zhao Gong took care of him, his stagnation had already opened, and he was about to get rich, and he was extremely proud. It sounds like he took advantage of someone and extorted money." "The shopkeeper can hear who he is blackmailing?"

The shopkeeper shook his head and said: "Shen San is frivolous and treacherous, I'm afraid it's just bragging, but it may not be true." "Could it be that he found out some secret letter, digging out treasures, so proud. Where does this rascal usually live?" "There's no guarantee, the east hides and the west nests, the Three Caves, the Ziguang Temple outside the east gate is the most frequented... come, come, you just keep asking questions and don't eat wine." As he spoke, he handed over the wine cup and paid respects to the horse. Rong lips.

Ma Rong raised his neck and gulped it down, wiped his mouth and asked, "Who is the head of the beggar household in this city?" The thin shopkeeper frowned and said: "Tuantou? I heard that he is half-body wind paralyzed. He has already been too busy to take care of himself, and no one is filial. Those poor beggars, after taking care of themselves, scattered in a few or five ways. Now the front door is deserted, destitute, and huddled together Waiting to die in a dilapidated house." Ma Rong asked anxiously, "What's the name of the group leader, and which shabby house does he live in?"

"The beggars in the audience call him a 'monk', but he has never been married. I don't know where he lives. The guest officer can find out by himself." Ma Rong could understand, laughed and snatched the handful of loose money into the drawer, sucked up the last sip of stale wine, threw away the wine cup, and walked away with a noisy voice. As soon as he turned the corner of the street, he saw Li Ke rushing towards him, looking panicked, looking around.Then he stepped forward to block it, cupped his hands and said, "Mr. Li is here to greet you. Mr. Li is hurrying in such a hurry at dusk, why are you going?"

Seeing that it was Ma Rong, Li Ke replied, "It turned out to be Chief Ma. Oh, yes, my servant Yang Maode hasn't shown up yet, so there may be accidents. I'm very worried, and I'm looking everywhere. I don't know if he's messing around." Where did you wander off to? Where is Officer Ma going at this moment?" "I'm going to the Ziguang Temple outside the city. If Mr. Li still can't find Yang Maode tonight, he will go to the county government to report his dishonesty, and the government will try to find you with you." Li Ke nodded again and again, then bowed to Ma Rong to say goodbye.

Ma Rong strolled towards the east gate. When he arrived at the east gate, the sky was dark and the stars were shining brightly.He took a lantern from the guards and went straight to Ziguang Temple. Ziguang Temple's mountain road is like a sheep's intestines, and the steep rocks are like canine teeth. All the way up, you can only hear the mighty pines and the melancholy of foxes.Ma Rong couldn't help tightening up, and quickened his pace.When he climbed outside the mountain gate of Ziguang Temple, he was out of breath and his muscles and bones were weak. Ma Rong stood on his heels, turned around and looked down, the mountainside was covered by clouds and mist, and it was confused.Before and after the cliff, mountain birds return to their nests, with thousands of wings flying, and their singing is like thunder.Ma Rong looked at it for a while, and when he looked up, he saw the ancient plaque on the mountain gate of Ziguang Temple.The gate of the mountain is open, and there is no one there.

Ma Rong was just about to step into the threshold, when there was a sound of "whoosh", a black shadow sprang out from behind the ancient cypresses on both sides, and two shining silver spear heads were facing Ma Rong's heart. Ma Rong was shocked, and when he was about to fight, he heard a familiar accent: "Oh, it's Uncle Ma Rong." Two dark shadow graveyards knelt down.Only then did Ma Rong realize that they were two servants waiting for him.One of them, Fang Jingxing, is the son of Captain Fang; he is smart, alert, hardworking, and Ma Rong appreciates him very much.

"Uncle Ma Rong was startled. We were ordered to watch at the gate of the temple, and we have never seen any idlers come up the mountain." Fang Jingxing knelt down and said. Ma Rong hurriedly said: "You two get up. I'm going to go into the monastery to investigate now. You two are waiting outside the mountain gate. Don't recognize one place. Look around the temple walls. If you see suspicious people, you can't tell them apart. Just go." Captured. If there is a situation inside me, I will send a whistle to you, and you will come to the temple to respond immediately, and there must be no mistakes." When Ma Rong entered the monastery, he was a little apprehensive.Under the bleak moonlight, the palaces and pavilions are quiet and quiet; the flowers and trees are gloomy and desolate. ——In this atmosphere, he had to put himself in his shoes and think about how the murderer should deal with the dead body and severed head. He pushed open the wooden door of the Daxiong Hall, and the hall was pitch black, so he lit up the lanterns and carefully looked at the surrounding walls.I didn't see anything unusual, only a strange musty smell. ——The corners of the hall and the back of the door are full of bat and fox feces.Ma Rong passed through the back door of the main hall, and turned around the flower bed and bushes towards the west wall. ——The western wall is dilapidated, and several gaps have been collapsed. Inside and outside the wall, there is lush greenery and dense trees. Ma Rong approached the west wall on tiptoe, pushing away the leaves and vines that wrapped around his feet and knees.Suddenly he was stunned: behind the wall flashed a woman in a white dress, with an erratic figure and a hazy figure. The night moon was shining, and the white light was shining. Ma Rong blinked his eyes and rubbed his eyelids vigorously, thinking that he was right. The scene in front of him was definitely not a hallucination.He hurriedly jumped out of a wall and chased after him, not caring about the noisy cracking of the branches, and several skin cuts on his shins. Outside the wall, there is a dense forest of wild rose bushes, red and white, really beautiful.The woman's skirt flashed behind a big tree, and then disappeared.It was dark all around, and the moon was slanting behind the corner of the towering temple. Ma Rong was hesitating when he suddenly saw a path among the wild rose bushes. Although it was covered with weeds, it was completely distinct from the roses on both sides.He was overjoyed, but it turned out that there was a way here, so he slowed down and searched carefully along the path. ——He found that this path went around the garden and led to the monastery's west verandah meditation room. After walking all the rose bushes, the front suddenly opened up, and the two stone pagodas in the temple can be seen faintly.Several snow-white crabapple trees are especially bright and clean in the dark night, and the petals of the crabapple are floating all over the ground, and the stars are dotted with faint fragrance. Ma Rong suddenly saw an ancient well under a tall crabapple tree, with broken bricks and stones beside the well platform, and luxuriant grass.He approached the well platform, held up a lantern, and looked into the well. It turned out to be a dry well, not deep.The well circle is covered with weeds and green moss, and the bottom of the well is dark, like a pile of rocks. Isn't this dry well just a place to hide corpses!Ma Rong tied the lantern to the lower end of a half-broken well rope on the well platform, and suddenly saw a few bloodstains around the well circle.After a closer look, there were bloodstains on the top and bottom of the well platform, and some of the petals of the crabapple stuck in the mud were stained red.Ma Rong thought, the body and severed head must be hidden at the bottom of this well. He jumped onto the well platform, grabbed the outer edge of the well platform with both hands, and fell into the well with the lower half of his body.After groping around the wall of the well for half a day with two legs, he finally stepped on a hard rock, let go of his hands, and jumped into the bottom of the well. Ma Rong suddenly felt that his right foot was falling on something soft, so he couldn't help reaching out to touch his foot.Ouch!It turned out to be a human leg, and when I leaned over to take a closer look, there was a headless corpse under the rocks.The body is strong and strong, with the back facing upwards, tattooed with indigo patterns.The right shoulder was swollen and bloody, and there was a deep purple-black knife mark. "This body should belong to Shen San, and that head is supposed to be in this well." Ma Rong bent down and fumbled around, but his body blocked the light of the lantern, so he couldn't take a closer look. Suddenly he found a depression at the lower end of the well wall, kicked out a few broken bricks, and then got into the depression, so that the light from the wind lantern could shine directly on the bottom of the well. Sure enough, under the light, the head was not seen, but a blue cloth bag was found lying on the side of the boulder.He reached out to pick up the blue cloth bag and was about to untie it. With a "bounce", a piece of brick hit the well circle, bounced on his left shoulder, and fell to the bottom of the well. Ma Rong was taken aback. He looked up and saw another brick thrown from the mouth of the well, and he dodged it hastily. "Not good! Someone secretly killed me." Ma Rong quickly felt a stone from the ground and threw it on it, extinguishing the lantern hanging at the mouth of the well, and suddenly the well was completely dark.He took advantage of the momentum to shove his whole body into the concave wall. Bricks and stones flew down from the mouth of the well one by one, and one of them almost hit Ma Rong's toe.Suddenly another boulder fell from the mouth of the well and hit Shen San's corpse with a dull bang, and the corpse was almost turned into meat paste. Ma Rong was quick to wit, and hurriedly screamed, then groaned in pain, and finally stopped abruptly, holding his breath. Sure enough, no more bricks and stones were thrown.There was silence for a while.Ma Rongnai quietly got out of the four walls, and rubbed Ma Su's stiff legs for a long time before he came back to life.He threw a stone from the bottom of the well to test it, but there was still no sound, so he bravely climbed up and drilled out of the wellhead.