The Mystery of Mountains and Rivers

Chapter 15 Bloody Case

Ning Mingyuan's carriage came very fast, and Zhang Xiaopei's eyes lit up when he saw Zhang Xiaopei with tears on his face. This girl is many times more beautiful than Hou Laoshi's girl. The master must be satisfied this time, and it is necessary to have another time. reward.

Ning Mingyuan smiled and said to Lao Zhang and his wife: "Don't worry, Xiaopei will definitely not have a hard time working as a maid in someone's house. You should visit him when you have time, and I will tell you where Zhuangzi is when I turn back."

There was no expression on Lao Zhang's face, only Xiao Pei's mother was in tears.

Ning Mingyuan greeted him and asked his subordinates to drive the carriage away.

Xiaopei looked back at the home that was getting further and further away. She didn't see her brother or other people in the yard coming out, so she couldn't help but choked up.

At this moment, Zhang Xiaojia was following Ning Mingyuan's carriage from a distance.

Zhang Xiaojia didn't believe Master Ning's promise at all, and had already made up his mind to follow up secretly, and snatch his sister back if things went wrong.

The carriage left the city gate and headed towards the Xiuhe River. After walking for about an hour, it was already dark, and the carriage finally stopped at the gate of a manor.

Zhang Xiaojia squinted his eyes and saw that there was no sign of the manor. Several women and servants came out from inside and helped Zhang Xiaopei in.

Zhang Xiaojia sneaked down, touching the courtyard wall of the manor.He originally wanted to climb over the wall, but the courtyard wall was much higher than the average Zhuangzi. After walking around the courtyard wall for a long time, he found a jujube tree leaning against the wall, climbed along the jujube tree to the top of the wall, and walked down. See, cry in secret.

This manor is huge, several times into the courtyard, I wasted a lot of time just to climb in, and I can't see my sister's figure.

Zhang Xiaojia thought for a moment, followed the branches and landed in the courtyard, and touched the brightly lit inner courtyard.

At the gate of the inner courtyard, two house slaves shivering with cold were standing guard.

One of them frustrates his hands and said in a hateful voice: "Damn it, it's so fucking unreasonable for us men to stand guard here while they are happy in the house in this cold weather."

The other servant hurriedly said: "Please keep your voice down, so that the men inside can hear it, and then you will cause a big disaster."

Although they are slaves on guard, they have never had the right to enter the inner courtyard. They just know that some important people have lived in the inner courtyard recently. The woman came out, and it was very strange.

The two slaves were chatting, imagining the scene where the big man played and the rest of the women could play for them, but they didn't know that a black shadow had slowly moved behind them.

The house slaves were chatting, one of them suddenly lost his voice, and the other looked over, and saw his companion's eyes wide open, and there was a gurgling sound in his throat, obviously he had been hit hard.Shocked, the servant was about to shout, when he suddenly felt a stabbing pain in his chest, a dagger was stuck in his heart, he struggled a few times, but also lost his breath.

The person who came was Zhang Xiaojia, and he was very anxious at the moment. He had listened eighty-nine times to what the slave said just now, and knew that his sister had really entered the wolf's den this time, and he had delayed too long to enter the yard. Thinking of this, he was eager to save people and killed two house slaves as soon as he came up.

The door of the inner courtyard was not bolted, Zhang Xiaojia used the dagger to push the latch away bit by bit, and rushed towards the inner courtyard.Kicking open the door of the first room, the scene inside made Zhang Xiaojia feel dizzy.

There were three men in the room, none of them looked like people from Xia, they looked like they were from the west or Tianxiong, they had red hair and black skin, and they were putting on clothes.On the bed not far away, Zhang Xiaopei's hands and feet were tied to the side of the bed, her clothes were torn and shredded, her body was covered with whip scars, her chest was slightly heaving, it was obvious that she had been tortured for a long time, and her breath was already very weak.

Zhang Xiaojia went crazy, everyone could see what heinous thing happened in this room just now, and the victim was his sister.The three foreign men were taken aback by Zhang Xiaojia's sudden intrusion, and cursed loudly in their half-baked Xia Guo dialect.

Zhang Xiaojia let out a low growl, closed the door with his foot, flipped the dagger over, and pierced a big hole in the chest of the man closest to him with one blow, and stirred the dagger with force from his wrist, the man let out a loud scream, blood donation spattered Zhang Xiaojia His face looked like a ghost coming out of hell.

The remaining two men were frightened and rushed towards the door. Although they looked ferocious, they didn't know martial arts. When encountering a killer like Zhang Xiaojia, they had no choice but to run for their lives.

Zhang Xiaojia leaped forward, rushed towards a foreign man with the help of inertia, and cut his neck open with another knife.The last remaining man was about to reach the door, and was about to open the door to escape, when Zhang Xiaojia's dagger turned into a flying knife, and with a sound of "噗嗤", the knife went from the back of his head into his left eye and pierced through his head.

Zhang Xiaojia drew back the dagger, turned around and tore off a curtain to cover his sister, and anxiously called her name.

Zhang Xiaopei woke up faintly, and when she opened her eyes, she saw the person she least wanted to see, her brother.

After experiencing the most heart-wrenching half an hour in the past 17 years, Zhang Xiaopei was not only physically devastated, but her heart was also dead.

Zhang Xiaojia untied the rope on her younger sister, wrapped the curtain and was about to carry her away, but Zhang Xiaopei twisted her body and refused.

Zhang Xiaojia was in a hurry: "Come with brother." Suddenly hearing the sound of guards running outside, Zhang Xiaojia hurriedly ran to the window to peep outside.

Zhang Xiaopei heard voices coming from outside the courtyard. It was obvious that the people in the manor had realized that something was wrong and they were searching, and they would find this room soon.The elder brother hugged himself who was seriously injured, obviously it was impossible to escape alive.

Besides, Zhang Xiaopei's heart is already dead, not only the torment of the three demons just now, but also her father and everyone in the compound she cares about sent her here and to this bed.She looked sideways, and her brother's dagger happened to be lost by the bed, and Zhang Xiaopei used all her strength to lift the dagger towards herself.

Zhang Xiaojia looked back, and saw that his sister was pointing at him with her own dagger, and hurriedly shouted: "Zhang Xiaopei, don't be stupid, brother will take you away."

Zhang Xiaopei smiled miserably, and said to his brother: "Brother, you must live well." After saying that, he resolutely stabbed the dagger into his chest.

"No," Zhang Xiaojia screamed, and rushed to the bedside, holding his sister in his arms, "Why are you so stupid?"

Zhang Xiaopei's eyes were already loose. It turns out that death can really liberate people, and even make people happy.

Zhang Xiaojia pulled out the dagger, his eyes were already blood red.

In the middle of the night, Prince Rong's Mansion.

Prince Rong's son Wei Zhangyuan was soundly asleep when he suddenly heard an anxious call: "His Royal Highness, His Royal Highness, something happened."

Although Wei Zhangyuan was impatient, he also knew that if it wasn't urgent, his subordinates would definitely not disturb his rest.

Putting on a casual robe, Wei Zhangyuan came to the outside room, and his subordinates stepped forward to report: "His Royal Highness, something happened to Zhuangzi."

Wei Zhangyuan lost all sleepiness in an instant: "What happened?"

The subordinate said: "I just received a message from outside the city that someone sneaked into Zhuangzi, killed three envoys, and killed many of our brothers."

Wei Zhangyuan was startled and said, "The envoys are all dead?"

The subordinate said tremblingly: "Yes, they are all dead, and the death looks terrible."

Wei Zhangyuan knew he was in serious trouble, and asked, "Has the assassin been caught?"

The subordinates said: "After the assassin committed the crime, he set fire in the village. Today, the north wind ignited half of the house in one blow. The brothers were in a hurry to put out the fire, but the assassin escaped."

Wei Zhangyuan felt his head was going to explode, who could it be?It was top secret news that the three envoys had come to the capital. In addition, no more than five people including him knew about it. They were usually hidden in the manor outside the city and never went out. How could they be targeted by others?
No, Wei Zhangyuan's eyes turned cold, and he asked, "Today I gave them another woman."

When the subordinates heard it, they knew where the problem was: "Lord Jae Wu urged me several times today, saying that I haven't given them a woman for three days, so I asked Lao Ning from the west of the city to send a woman to Zhuangzi. His Royal Highness ,what do you mean?"

Wei Zhangyuan snorted coldly: "Can't you let them control your lower body?"

The subordinates are also suffering, and it is obviously His Royal Highness who satisfies all their needs.

Wei Zhangyuan came back to his senses and confessed: "Take your people and find them for me. Don't let the things in the village leak out. If necessary, cut the weeds and root them out."

His subordinates took the order and left. Wei Zhangyuan poured himself a cup of tea and drank it vigorously. Tomorrow, how should he explain to his father.

It was very late at night, Zhang Xiaojia was covered in blood, and staggered on the way back to the city.

Zhang Xiaojia was already very tired, and he was stabbed at least three times when he came out of Zhuangzi. If it wasn't for the accidental accident that started the fire, I'm afraid he would have confessed to it today.

It was already midnight at this time, and the city gates of Kyoto had already been closed, so they had to wait for the city gates to open in the morning before going home.

Zhang Xiaojia's heart was bleeding, but he didn't know who to hate.

After all, more than half of the cause of this matter lies with him.If he hadn't been meddling in his business, he wouldn't have clashed with Huang San, his father wouldn't have to beg Mr. Ning, the people in the compound wouldn't have been ungrateful, and his sister wouldn't have to go into the wolf's den alone and end up dying miserably.

Thinking of this, Zhang Xiaojia slapped himself hard, with a loud voice.

It's all my fault, Zhang Xiaojia is too painful to shed tears.

In the midst of regret and pain, Zhang Xiaojia fell asleep under the cold wind.

When he woke up the next day, it was already Chen's time. Zhang Xiaojia first found a water source, cleaned up the blood on his body, picked up a broken bamboo hat and put it on his head, and mixed into the city gate with the flow of people entering the city.

After a while, Zhang Xiaojia arrived outside the gate of the compound where he lived, and suddenly felt something was wrong.

It's so quiet.

Usually at this time, the yard is very noisy, with children playing and every household busy, but today it is almost at the gate of the yard, and there is still no sound coming.

There was a bit of bloody smell in the tense air.

Zhang Xiaojia pushed the door open and entered, everything in front of him nailed him on the spot, unable to move.

The formerly overcrowded courtyard has completely turned into a Shura hell. Except for the dead, there are still dead people. The corpses are scattered in the courtyard, at the door of the room, and by the wall.

Zhang Xiaojia couldn't think anymore, and moved abruptly to the door of his house step by step. He only glanced at it, and saw the dead bodies of his parents lying on the doorstep.Kneeling in front of his parents' corpses with a plop, Zhang Xiaojia couldn't cry anymore.

In the final analysis, all he had was that everything that happened from last night to today was like a dream, a nightmare.

After holding his parents' corpses and crying for a while, Zhang Xiaojia suddenly realized that something was wrong, so he forced himself to stand up, holding a knife.

A group of people had already entered the courtyard, and the leader was Ning Mingyuan. He had never seen anyone with a knife around him, but the blood that hadn't been wiped off the blade showed that they were the creators of this Shura hell.

Ning Mingyuan pointed to Zhang Xiaojia and said respectfully to the killers, "My lords, it's him."

The killers didn't say much, and after blocking Zhang Xiaojia's left and right escape routes, they rushed towards him.

Many years later, when Zhang Xiaojia recalled this scene, he still had lingering fears and said that at that time, martial arts were very poor, but he was able to escape because of the successive killings and the tragic death of his relatives that aroused all the animal nature in his bones.

The beast is Zhang Xiaojia's definition of himself, and it is also the formal law he will follow for the next ten years, which allows him to survive in extremely severe situations time and time again.

Back to the present, Zhang Xiaojia knew that his chances of surviving today were running out, so he changed his life.Without a trace of hesitation, Zhang Xiaojia gritted his teeth and swung his knife at the leader of the killer. The killer turned to block with the knife, but Zhang Xiaojia's target was not him at all, but stabbed Ning Mingyuan beside him with his strength.

This was unexpected by everyone present. Ning Mingyuan was nearly fifty years old, and his reaction was much worse than that of young people. Zhang Xiaojia's dagger pierced Ning Mingyuan's stomach effortlessly. A huge gash was made in Ning Mingyuan's stomach.

With a successful blow, Zhang Xiaojia did not hesitate to push Ning Mingyuan's body in the direction of the killer, and jumped into a room next to him.The killers immediately chased them in. They didn't care about Ning Mingyuan's life or death, but Zhang Xiaojia had to die today.

Zhang Xiaojia fled in front, and the killer chased after him.

Zhang Xiaojia is very familiar with every room in the yard. Whose house has holes, whose windows are leaking, and whose house has wooden ladders leading directly to the roof. In such a narrow space, the killer has nothing to do with his martial arts.

After a while, Zhang Xiaojia got out from the dog hole in the yard, and without any warning, a steel knife was directly inserted into his lower back. It seems that the killer had already prepared himself and left someone behind here.

Under the severe pain, Zhang Xiaojia didn't care too much, raised his foot and kicked the killer away, and pulled the steel knife out from behind with force, the killer was also startled by the sound of the blade grinding against the bone. What kind of monster is this?

Zhang Xiaojia almost fainted from the pain, and ran forward without thinking too much.

The killers came after them.

Zhang Xiaojia's blood formed a line on the floor, and every time he took a step, he felt the piercing pain.

Running to the side of the Shunxing Canal, the killers were getting closer and closer. Zhang Xiaojia had no other choice, so he gritted his teeth and jumped deep into the canal. His body broke through the thin ice on the water surface, and he disappeared.

The killers were stunned, jumping into the Shunxing Canal in this weather?
He wanted to let someone go into the sewer to investigate, but he saw the yamen servants patrolling the street coming here from a distance, so he had no choice but to order: "Retreat."

The Shunxing Canal is the first project built by the emperor after he ascended the throne. It diverts water from the Xiuhe River into Kyoto to benefit the people in Kyoto and along the route.

(End of this chapter)