Chapter 14 Chapter 12 Visiting the Ancestral Hall at Night

Tired day.The night was as thick as water, cold and dark. The third son and I carried Zhang Wenyi on our backs, and the other dragged Zhang Xueyun's body back to the hotel with difficulty. Zhang Xueyun's body was burned badly, and only charred bones remained in many places, which undoubtedly added to the already rotting corpse, making it even more unsightly. After I settled down one person and one corpse, I went back to my guest room, fell heavily on the soft bed, and almost cried out from the comfort.Suddenly I heard someone knocking hard on the door, I reluctantly got up and opened the door.

"Who is it?" There was no one outside the door.I stretched out my head and looked left and right, only to see that the dim orange lights in the corridor became even dimmer, and there was a cold mist all around, constantly lingering and churning, indescribably eerie and strange. "Who knocked down the dry ice? But is there dry ice in this hotel?" I put on my coat and wanted to walk out the door, but immediately dismissed the idea.so cold!That layer of mist seemed to be alive, emitting a large amount of cold breath continuously, and the skin exposed outside the clothes began to be numb and dry once it touched it, as if all the moisture had been greedily absorbed.

I shivered and quickly closed the door, turned off the light and lay back on the bed.Suddenly, I heard the window rattling again.The window of the guest room slowly opened a gap, and there seemed to be a bloated black figure desperately trying to break in.Are you mistaken, this is the second floor.Although it's not too high, it's nearly eight meters above the ground. Who on earth tried so hard to get into my room with a long ladder? My intuition tells me that I must not let that thing in, or I will definitely die.So I casually picked up the folding stool on the side, suppressed my fear and walked over, pulled open the window forcefully, and slammed it hard at the thing that resembled the head.

He roared in pain and fell off the window sill. "Die early, how dare you disturb my sleep!" I looked down in protest, and suddenly my whole body turned cold in surprise. My room is still on the second floor. Although it is dark outside the window, I can still tell that it is definitely not such a lovely short distance of eight meters from the ground.There is a black hole under the window, which seems to be infinitely deep. The monster that is desperately trying to climb into my room is still falling down, falling... Suddenly, someone began to knock on the door vigorously again, and an inexplicable fear crept into my heart.I stared at the door, and suddenly felt an indescribable strangeness in the door that was so close.This kind of weirdness with a strong temptation swept over me and controlled me. I stretched out my hand and slowly reached for the doorknob...

"Ahhhh—" I yelled and sat up on the bed, sweating continuously.It turned out to be a dream, and it was a real and frightening nightmare. Why do I often have this kind of dream during this time?Is it because the three meals have been out of balance recently, and there is something wrong with the stomach? Look out the window, it's so bright!It turned out to be early in the morning, hey, no, when did the window open a crack?I remember it was closed when I was sleeping! I was shocked all over, turned over and jumped out of bed and went to the window.My eyes suddenly caught something, and I started trembling in surprise.wrong!What happened last night may not have been a ridiculous nightmare.Because a pair of black footprints are clearly printed on the window sill, a pair of footprints that don't know what they belong to...

At this time, there was an impatient knock on the door.I turned my head sharply to look at the doorknob, and when I was hesitating whether to open the door with lingering fear, I heard Xiaosanzi shouting in a loud voice: "Ye Silence, Qi Shimu is dead. Someone found his body in the river just now !" Fidgeting and waiting, I finally stayed up until dark, and after eleven o'clock at night, I couldn't wait to pull Xiaosanzi out. "What are you doing? I've been following you almost every night lately. I've stayed up all night. I thought Wenyi was found, and Sister Xueyun's body was also found. This matter can come to an end. I can finally You're full of sleep, yet you're crazy and want me to come out again!" Xiao Sanzi complained, yawning.

"Idiot, don't you think the cause of Qi Shimu's death is suspicious?" I gave him a hard look. "So what if it's suspicious? His death is the benefit of Heishan Town. Everyone will be happy when their family dies!" The third son said nonchalantly, "And don't forget, he wanted to burn us to death with gasoline last night! " I ignored him, and said to myself: "That's even more strange. According to the fisherman, he went fishing by the river at 5:30 today. He didn't expect to catch a big guy when he cast a net. It was found to be Qi Shimu's body. When I asked him in the morning, the fisherman mentioned that there were corpse spots on Qi Shimu's back, and the color of those corpse spots would not fade even if he pressed his fingers hard. Obviously, it has developed from the accumulation stage to the diffusion stage, and he should have been dead for at least ten hours! That is to say, he died before five o'clock yesterday afternoon, do you remember what time we found that secret passage at night?"

"It should be early in the morning." The third son also started to feel strange. "That's right, it's impossible for a person who died more than five hours ago to set us on fire. Someone else must have set the fire!" I patted him on the shoulder. "At that time, we obviously heard the sound of strange stones and woods in the dark cave!" The little third son began to dig into the horns again. "Stupid, can't the voice be disguised?" I felt an urge to kick him. The third son thumped his left palm with his fist, and suddenly realized: "Yes, why didn't I think of it! Ye Silent, can you guess who the murderer was last night?"

"I don't know, that's why I want to go to the ancestral hall to see the bodies of those two people." I stated my purpose. The third son suddenly opened his mouth in surprise: "No! Absolutely not! It's too rebellious!" The third son waved his hands again and again, then turned around and wanted to slip away: "I don't want to die in the future!" "Don't worry, absolutely not. If it's really not possible, I will force my future wife to have a few more, and I will give you one for adoption." I grabbed him and pulled him forward.

"No, I'm still young, and I'm the only child, and our family is still counting on me to carry on the family!" The third son resisted desperately. "What about Zhang Wenyi? You like her, don't you really want to marry her?" I stared at him, and began to torture his will with a righteous tone, "Obviously, there is a huge force behind this matter, And this force is definitely inextricably linked with Zhang Wenyi, or she may be used. That force is definitely not simple, if it thinks that Zhang Wenyi is no longer useful, it may kill people!" Although these words are true There is no basis, but I am too lazy to care so much, so I will scare him first.

"So serious? It won't be too alarmist, right?" The third son began to break out in a cold sweat. I put a sincere smile on my face: "Do you have the courage to gamble with Zhang Wenyi's life? I'll give you three minutes to think about whether to find out the truth and save your dream lover, or to be swayed by old ideas in your own mind." , regret it for the rest of my life." Xiao Sanzi held his head and smiled wryly, looking like a rooster that fell into the water after losing a fight. "I'll take you there." Soon, he raised his head and said resolutely. Ancestral halls are temples for worshiping ancestors or sages. No matter where in China, ancestral halls are spread all over urban and rural areas. In a place, the largest ancestral hall is the general ancestral hall. As an important local public building, it is usually placed at both ends of the village or town, near the mountains or in places with slopes. Most of the scales are not too small. According to the terrain, the building gradually rises up, and the main building is usually placed at the back of the hall, which is quite varied.The single side is composed of two or more triple courtyards on the central axis, with archways, while the plane of the branch temple is mostly quadrangle style. Of course, the place where the corpses of local dignitaries such as Mr. Qi and Qi Shimu are placed is the main hall of the town. It is said that the cause of death of Qi Shimu is exactly the same as that of old man Qi. His neck was strangled with a rope. After his death, the murderer cut his throat with a knife to let blood out. I don’t know what the local police station eats. The big case was not investigated carefully, and his body was hastily placed in the ancestral hall. There must be a problem! The main shrine in this town is a four-entry pattern. I don't know who said that hospitals, schools, prisons, and ancestral halls are the four places where the most innocent people gather. Now I realize that that statement is not groundless. In fact, there are many places. Although people come and go during the day, no one feels or notices it. It is these ordinary and ordinary places that turn into another world at night, a dark and cold horror. In the corner, the hospital is, the school is, and the prison is also. With the exception of the ancestral hall, human beings have an innate awe of the place where the corpse is placed.Therefore, the ancestral hall, in the fearful eyes of human beings, is shrouded in a layer of mystery and a layer of weirdness no matter day or night! "Is there anyone guarding around?" I glanced around and asked. "No, cremation has been implemented in recent years, and corpses are rarely placed in the ancestral hall, so the old man who used to be the guard went back a few days ago." The third son shook his head. "Very good, so I can rest assured!" I took out the iron wire I carried with me, opened the heavy and old-fashioned brass lock in twos and threes, pushed the door hard, and there was a "creak", and the closed door slowly Slowly move to the left and right, revealing a gap that can allow two people to pass side by side.The cold air kept gushing out along the gap opened by the door, which seemed to be colder than the freezing air outside. "Step softly, and close the door smoothly." I wrapped my coat tightly and walked in first. "Qi Shimu's body is the one inside. According to tradition, it should be placed side by side in the coffin on the right side of Mr. Qi's body." Walking beside me, the third son kept shivering. I nodded and quickened my pace. . The coffins of Mr. Qi and Mr. Qi Shimu were placed in the innermost room as the third son said.I ignored Mr. Qi's body. After all, he had been dead for several days. Although the current climate is cold, the body is still decomposing. As a rookie, I will definitely not find anything on it.I still have these self-knowledges, and I went straight to pry open the cover of Qishimu, and I began to examine his body. "There is no water in his lungs and stomach. It seems that he was thrown into the water after he was killed." I pressed hard on his lower abdomen, and then stroked the knife wound on the corpse's neck with my hand , his face became serious. "Strange..." I murmured. "I know!" Xiao Sanzi was also paying attention to the knife wound, and suddenly shouted excitedly, "The murderer must be left-handed!" He pointed to the knife wound and explained to me triumphantly: "His wound was on the neck, which means The murderer attacked him from behind, and the knife wound was from right to left, and the edge of the knife on the left was a little higher than the one on the right, which fully shows that the murderer held the knife with his left hand. It seems that we should pay more attention to left-handers in the future!" "No! The murderer is not left-handed." I pointed to the strangle marks on the corpse, "The cause of Qi Shimu's death was that someone strangled his neck with a rope from behind, and finally suffocated. If you look closely at the strangle marks, will you find that the man on the right is more The left side is slightly higher? This shows that he is right-handed. Which hand is used by human beings, subconsciously think that the dominant hand is stronger than the other hand. No matter what you do that requires both hands to cooperate, the main force is often It will be the dominant hand." The third son said unconvinced: "But the knife wound on the corpse was obviously caused by the left-hander. Could there be more than one murderer?" "No. It's the same person, but that guy is quite cunning, at least he knows how to confuse people." I gestured with my hand: "Although the knife edge is from right to left, the right side is a little higher than the left side, but look at the one on the far right. The point of incision is the deepest in the whole knife wound. That is to say, the murderer did not wipe Qi Shimu's neck with his left hand at all. On the contrary, after he strangled Qi Shimu, he put the body on the ground on the corpse He held the knife behind his back with his right hand and cut his neck open. The murderer was so deliberate that his purpose might be to confuse others' sight." "So that's how it is." Xiao Sanzi suddenly realized, and suddenly asked in surprise: "Are you really about the same age as me, monster? Why do you know everything, and you are even experienced in autopsies? Honestly, have you Just trained as a spy?" I sighed: "I can't help it. I have a cousin who works in the sub-bureau. He sees and hears it every day. Many things he doesn't want to learn will naturally come to him." He took out a slender sharp knife from his backpack , I measured Kishiki's belly with my hands. "You! What are you holding in your hand?" Before there was an adoring smile on his face, the third son saw my actions, and suddenly became slurred in fright. "A very ordinary meat cleaver, which is still sharp, was found in the kitchen of the hotel." I looked at the knife in my hand. "You don't mean to dissect him, do you?" Cold sweat broke out on Xiao Sanzi's forehead. "Smart!" I nodded earnestly, "I want to check his stomach, duodenum, small intestine and large intestine, and then use scissors to cut open the stomach wall, maybe we can find something. This is a key step in the autopsy!" "You're crazy! That's against the law!" shouted the third son. I smiled lightly: "The law clearly stipulates that an autopsy is not allowed until a person has been dead for 24 hours. Now that he has been dead for 31 hours, how can there be any violation of the law?" A corpse has been on display for a hundred years, and the law will not allow an irrelevant seventeen-year-old boy to dissect the corpse casually. After a pause, I said again: "Besides, no one knows about our coming here. Even if we are buried, no one will open Qishimu's coffin to check. Even if someone really finds out, no one will suspect us. The Qi family dominates the local area, and it is normal for someone to vent their anger on his corpse." "I don't care!" The third son stood between me and the coffin, "I don't want to feel sorry for my conscience, but I brought you here at the risk of losing my children and grandchildren. If you let you dissect his body, it would be treasonous! Are you still asleep?" "You really won't move?" I glared at him. "No!" He shook his head desperately. "Okay! Anyway, dissecting his corpse is not a pleasant thing." I put the knife back into my backpack and said to him, "That's enough for tonight, let's go home!" Indeed, I have found a great deal of clues. Zhang Xueyun's suicide, her body disappeared with Zhang Wenyi on the night of the wake; after that, Mr. Qi was killed, and then Qi Shimu also died tragically yesterday. Although these events seem to have a messy connection, they are actually like a mess , It is difficult for people to straighten out in their minds, and the inextricable connections bring about a huge group of questions.I don't know how to use the information I got into the question group. Alas, in the maze of logical thinking, there is not just one answer like a mathematical equation. Against the cold wind, I walked back while thinking in distress. By the way, I seem to have overlooked one thing all the time. When I first arrived in Heishan Town, the white jade bracelet on Zhang Xueyun's corpse was obviously worn on the right wrist, but when I was watching the spirit, I found that her bracelet was worn on the left hand , who actually changed the place for it? A flash of inspiration flashed into my mind, I grabbed the third son and asked, "Old man Qi and Qi Shimu are dead, who will be the biggest beneficiary?" "Of course it is Qi Wei, the second son of the Qi family." The third son replied after thinking for a while: "The family rules of the Qi family only protect the eldest son, and the second son has no status in the family. If the eldest son asks for a separation, the second son will not." Everything will be given. Except if the head of the family and the eldest son die, everything will go to the second son." "Sure enough!" I shouted excitedly, "All the puzzles have been solved. Little Sanzi, before three o'clock tomorrow afternoon, I hope you can gather the people from the town and the Qi family to the hotel. The more the better. I have something to announce, and more! Is it possible to make calls from the hotel? I guess I'm going to call that annoying cousin!"