Chapter 18 Chapter Two Sword Three

In the afternoon, the sun was blazing. Xi Yan narrowed his eyes slightly, scanning the ruins.The entire wooden house was reduced to ashes, only half of the girder was spared, leaning obliquely on the gable wall made of earth bricks.The hot burning smell is mixed with a nauseating burnt smell.Near the corner of the gable wall, several white-scarved disobedient officers surrounded the burnt black corpse.A court lieutenant with a low rank approached tremblingly holding a tray, not daring to speak, but stood aside with his head bowed.He didn't quite understand how such an ordinary case of fire alarmed the commander-in-chief of the Forbidden Army, and a group of people gathered in the distance to inspect the neck, and they also came to see the demeanor of the first Tang general.

Xi Yuan took the tray and handed it to his uncle, Xi Yan picked up the black iron plate on the tray, weighed it in his hand, and handed it to Xi Yuan again.Xiyuan took a careful look at it. The texture of the brand was like cast iron, and the sound was low and deep when knocked, and there were traces of ice patterns on the surface.On the front of the sign is a tiger face with protruding fangs, and on the back is a cloud pattern, engraved with a line of small characters: "Those who follow this order will be plundered by tigers; Chongjiu, Sanyiwei, Qiqiwu. " "It's Fenghu's military household iron certificate. Only Chunguo's calcined fish-scale iron has this texture. Chunguo Fenghu's proud Fenghu steel armor is also made of this kind of iron." Xi Yan shook his head, "A majestic cavalry Wei, it’s really not the place to die.”

"Captain Qi?" Xi Yuan's heart moved. According to the military system of the empire, the status of a cavalry captain is still higher than that of ordinary captains, his rank is not low, and there are at least hundreds of troops under his command.Riding above the captain, you can be honored as a general.The unexplained death of such an officer of the Chun State in Xia Tang was a difficult matter for both the Xia Tang State and the Chun State. "You see the words on the back of the iron certificate, 'Chongjiu, Sanyiwei, Qiqiwu', Chongjiu is his military rank, that is, riding captain, Chunguo Fenghu is divided into 30 guards, each of which is a guard. Thousand Warriors. This person belongs to the 31st Guard, and his number in the army is 775. However, Fenghu should not have a 31st Guard. In fact, the 31st Guard is the Fenghu Cavalry. The army's secret scout guard. The men and horses are all selected from the most elite cavalry. With this person's military rank, his status among scouts is quite high."

Xi Yan waved to Wei Ting: "You go down first." Tingwei retreated, Xiyuan leaned into his uncle's ear: "These people are the Fenghu we lost?" "yes." "Do you want to report to the king?" "It's impossible not to report it," Xi Yan shook his head. Wei Ting didn't know that one of the duties of the commander of the Forbidden Army Martial Palace was to be the scout of the three armies, to collect information from various princes, and to be alert to the spies sent by other princes.When Xi Yan was away, these cases were handled by Xi Yuan.Two months ago, Xiyuan had received a secret report that three groups of unidentified people had entered Nanhuai City with their identities concealed.After ascertaining that the other party was from the northern Chun State and was a scout from the Wind Tiger Cavalry, the scouts from Xia Tang followed these people quietly.But just the day before yesterday, Xia Tang suddenly lost the other party's whereabouts.And just a day later, these people died inexplicably in a fire in a restaurant outside the city.

"Fenghu's scouts sneaked into the city," Xiyuan pondered, "Could it be that Chunguo has some ulterior motives for us?" Xi Yan shook his head: "Ao Taiquan died in battle in March, and the current Li Guogong Ao Zhirun is only ten years old. It is absolutely impossible for Chunguo to use troops against Xia Tang. And no matter what, everyone's biggest enemy is Li Guogong." "Everyone says that the Marquis of Xuanchang County is a heroic generation." "That's right, but Liang Qiusong is not Chun Guogong after all, and he can't mobilize the Fenghu cavalry army. The ugly tiger Huaye will not easily hand over Fenghu's military power. It will not be a threat to Xiatang within ten years," Xi Yan Thoughtful, "However, this is what I'm really worried about. Liang Qiusong took the risk of sending scouts here. Why? He didn't hesitate to risk offending Xia Tang, unless it was a great benefit. With Liang Qiu's Prudence will not do it."

"General..." Xi Yan turned around and saw Ting Wei standing aside again. "There is a strange thing," Ting Wei stammered, "I'm just afraid that the general will be disgusted by it, and the subordinates dare not bring it up." "Don't be afraid, take it out," Xi Yan casually shook the cigarette stick. "Yes," Wei Ting lifted up a tray hidden underneath. The tray was covered with a thick piece of sackcloth, which concealed what lay beneath.But a pungent stench rushed straight to his head, Xi Yuan hurriedly covered his nose, knowing in his heart what Wei Ting had brought up.Xi Yan remained expressionless, and took a step forward to uncover the sackcloth.On the tray were half stumps, the surface was burnt black, only the color of flesh and blood appeared in the cracked gaps.

"this is?" "It's a hand," Ting Wei saw that the general didn't feel too much disgust, he breathed a sigh of relief, and pointed to the stump, "Look, general, this place used to be fingers, but now all four fingers have been burned, and the remaining one It's the thumb." Xi Yan nodded: "So, it does look like a hand." "What are you doing with the dead man's hand?" Xiyuan couldn't stand the scorched smell. "Don't worry," Xi Yan stopped his nephew, "Listen to him. The lieutenants may not be your opponents in battle, but when it comes to catching thieves and solving crimes, you may not be able to compare with these old foxes in your whole life."

Ting Wei bowed his waist and saluted: "The major general thought, although this hand was burned in the fire, only four of the five fingers were lost. So how could this hand be burned off? Arms are much thicker than fingers." He turned the tray around and pointed to the other side of the stump: "This is the fracture. Although it has been burned, the fracture still looks too neat. The subordinates ventured to guess that these scouts were not burned to death, but Killed before the fire broke out." "This is nonsense," Xi Yan laughed. "A whole team of scouts were burnt to death outside Nanhuai City for no apparent reason. The blind man knew there was something wrong with it. But who killed them and set them on fire again?" , do you have any clues?"

"The general is right! You are right!" Ting Wei nodded and bowed, turned around and shouted at the post-mortem workers. The leader, Disobedient, tidied up his clothes, and came up to meet him in small steps. This time, the tray he brought over was several times larger than the one held by Tingwei just now. The stronger stench came over his face, and Xiyuan almost vomited. come out.Wu Zuo lifted the curtain that covered his face, and he put on a perfect smile. "Why aren't you afraid of smells?" Xiyuan said with a bitter face. "In the room of Zhilan, you can sit for a long time without smelling its fragrance; in the place of abalone, you can't smell its smell if you live in it for a long time." Wu Zuo is full of pride, "The small family has nine generations. It stinks."

"It looks like the whole thing was chopped up?" Xi Yan pondered. Wu Zuo put away his smile and nodded: "Returning to the general, that's exactly the case. We put together a total of ten wreckages and thirty-two pieces of broken limbs. Before they were burned, they must have been burned with a handle. The extremely sharp knife cut off the hands and feet, and one of them was torn apart, and the human figure was almost unrecognizable. The person who did it was so strong in sword skills and cruel in heart, it is really outrageous." "A...extremely sharp knife? Why do you say that?"

"There was a drizzle in the early morning, which put out the fire, the stumps were not burned, and we could still see a few fresh fractures. But with my experience of more than 20 years of work, I really can't see anything Such a knife can cut a human body like this, the cut is extremely smooth, it cuts off the tendons and bones at the same time, without even turning the flesh, just like a hot knife cutting wax." "Cut wax with a hot knife?" Xi Yan froze for a moment. "Yes, General. A person's body has strong tendons and strong bones. Not to mention beheading people, butchers cut meat, tendons and skin with a horn knife, and bones with a broad-backed knife. Cutting off a person's limbs is definitely not an ordinary person's technique. The fracture is still smooth. It must be the strength of the knife, and the knife is extremely fast. Moreover, the knife used by the murderer is a very thin and good knife. Ordinary knives, the back of the knife is slightly If it is thicker, the power of chopping will not be able to condense like this..." Shut up embarrassingly.When he was speaking, Xi Yan had already quietly walked away, strolling among the ruins, his eyes sweeping over the broken beams and rubble.Finally, he stopped by an unfinished rafter, knelt down and blew away the ashes, exposing a small black iron ring that was difficult to distinguish with the naked eye.It was firmly nailed to the rafters, and Yi Xiyan took some effort to pull it out.Xi Yan narrowed his eyes, looked at the iron ring against the light, expressionless. "What is this?" Xi Yuan leaned forward. "It's a part of that kind of weapon. It's true what Zuo Zuo said, but with a knife, it's hard to keep the wound from killing people. But there is really a weapon in the world that only has a blade but not a blade." "No blade?" Xi Yan waved his hand at him, turned to look directly at Tingwei and Wuzuo: "Don't write these in the file, send someone to clean up the surrounding carefully, and if you see such iron rings, collect them and send them to me. The corpses should be sent to me as soon as possible." Burn it, leave nothing behind." His voice was not high, but Ting Wei couldn't help shivering.There was a hidden power that forced him with Xi Yan's gaze, quietly like the pressure of a mountain. "Yes!" He lowered his head to avoid the general's gaze. "Xiyuan, let's go," Xi Yan led Mo Xue, his dark horse. Xiyuan took a sneak peek, but the court officials didn't follow, so he leaned closer to his uncle's ear: "Uncle, what happened just now?" Xi Yan took a deep breath: "Don't ask too much, you pass my order, immediately send more people, follow the remaining two teams of Fenghu scouts, and report back to me as soon as there is any movement!" "Yes!" Xiyuan turned his horse and was about to leave. "Wait a minute!" Xi Yan stopped his nephew again in a low voice, "We need to transfer people from the ghost bat camp. We need more people, the most agile and the best with sword skills. You must watch to death if you are not afraid of being discovered by Fenghu. ,protect them." "Protect them?" Xiyuan was taken aback. "I know who did it. The spider's web has been opened. If she wants to kill all the prey, even if we use all the ghost bats, it may not be effective."