strayed into fairy mountain

Chapter 39 [It's a mouse again, the smell of people]

Since he came to investigate the case, naturally he couldn't just be at the door.

But because Zhang Jingxu was looking at the plaque all the time, the yamen guards didn't dare to raise a voice to remind them. Instead, they dispersed and surveyed around the courtyard wall of this house.

After a long while, they gathered again, and Li San approached Zhang Jingxu, and whispered, "The front and rear courtyard walls are all normal, and no signs of climbing have been found. The roots and surfaces of her walls are covered with moss. If someone climbs Climbing must leave some footprints..."

He paused for a while, and continued to report: "No matter how nimble a snitch is, he can't leave no trace."

Zhang Jingxu nodded, and said with deep meaning: "So you mean to say that foreign thieves can be excluded for the time being, right?"

Li San hesitated for a moment, then said in a low voice, "I'm not sure yet, I need to go into her house to have a look..."

Zhang Jingxu nodded again, looked at the woman, and said: "Can you open the gate of the courtyard, we have to go in and check."

The woman nodded quickly, and said eagerly: "Yes, yes, you must go and have a look. The woman is calling the door, the woman is calling the door..."

Zhang Jingxu was taken aback by these words, and asked in amazement: "You want to call the door? Isn't this your house? Why are you calling the door? Could it be that you can't open it yourself?"

He asked four times in a row, the woman's eyes turned red immediately, as if she was wronged, she started to sob, and said: "My father-in-law has a very weird temper, he usually locks the door at all times, even if the woman is his daughter-in-law, when he goes out You have to shout when you enter the door..."

Zhang Jingxu's heart moved, but his face pretended to be curious, he deliberately raised his eyes to look at the plaque, and asked meaningfully: "I saw the signboard of the coffin shop hanging in front of your house, so I can roughly infer that your family is running this business. Since it is a business, you should open the door to welcome guests, if the door is locked from the inside every day, your family's business may not be prosperous, right?"

The woman was obviously touched by these words, she wiped her tears and became more aggrieved, and said: "You are right, but my father-in-law...he..."

Zhang Jingxu answered: "He doesn't listen to your persuasion at all, does he?"

Women's faces are full of sorrow.

Zhang Jingxu sighed, and said: "Perhaps it is because the old man has experienced something tragic, so he has such a weird personality. It is also a coincidence. I just happened to see such a situation. The cell boss also has a weird personality..."

Li San stood on the side observing his words, and at this moment he had vaguely figured out Zhang Jingxu's intentions, and quickly cooperated: "It's a coincidence, what a coincidence, then Sun Dashan is an old soldier who retired from the army, and your father-in-law is also an old soldier who retired from the army. The tempers of the old pawns are very strange, could it be that the tragedy of the great war frightened them?"

The woman was still wiping her eyes and tears, but with a dazed expression on her face, she murmured: "Maybe, it should be, having such a father-in-law on the table should be a life-long suffering for a commoner girl."

Hearing her mournful tone, Zhang Jingxu couldn't help sighing again.

But he continued to stare at the plaque, and said intentionally: "No matter how weird your personality is, even if you are really scared by the battlefield, but your baby is lost at home, isn't your father-in-law worried at all? A grandfather in this world, Ordinarily, they should be relatives from generation to generation."

He paused slightly while talking, and then said with deep meaning: "For example, if I am old, I will definitely love my grandchildren. If I talk about such a big event as being lost, I will feel distressed even if I bump into it. ..."

"However, your father-in-law is strange. He actually hides at home and locks the door. This makes the head catcher inevitably think that he doesn't care about the child at all."

This time the woman didn't complain any more, instead she explained subconsciously, "No, no, my father-in-law loves the child very much, and the one he loves the most is Niu Niu."

Zhang Jingxu deliberately pretended to sneer, and said: "Since you love the child so much, why are you indifferent? Shouldn't you get angry and run around looking for the child? Hiding at home and locking the door, I don't think he cares at all..."

"No, no, no!"

The woman shook her head again and again, and explained again: "My father-in-law really loves the child, and Niu Niu is very worried about losing him. But he was injured just now, and his legs and feet are very bad, so when he wanted to find the child this morning, it was a woman, okay?" It was easy to persuade him..."

Zhang Jingxu's heart moved, but she pretended to be curious and asked, "He was injured just now?"

The woman's face was miserable, and she sobbed sadly: "Yes, my father-in-law was injured. I don't know if he was bitten by something, and there were several holes in his thigh and calf. Mr. Catcher, tell me, can he go to bed in this situation? Are you looking for a child?"

Zhang Jingxu's heart moved again, and she keenly captured a few words.

Bitten by something!
There are several bloody holes in the thigh and calf...

This doesn't sound like a normal injury situation.

Besides, the old man who does carpentry work at home and makes coffins is not a hunter who needs to face wild animals while hunting in the mountains. Why was he injured by something biting his thigh and calf bloody?

Zhang Jingxu kept speculating in her mind, but her face showed no abnormality at all. Instead, she nodded slowly and said deliberately: "After hearing your explanation, he really shouldn't be allowed to go."

As he spoke, he glanced at the woman, and said again: "Your doll is lost, it's already a disaster, but your father-in-law is injured, his legs and feet must not be flexible, if he goes out to look for the doll, he might fall down. People are old and their bones are fragile, and a fall can easily lead to serious accidents."

"So you can be praised as filial piety for persuading him to stop him."

Wiping her eyes and tears, the woman sobbed and said, "Although I stopped my father-in-law, I couldn't find Niuniu..."

Zhang Jingxu looked solemn, and solemnly comforted him: "But you can think of reporting the case, and the yamen will have to investigate after accepting the case. Now that we have come here, we will help you find the doll no matter what."

After a pause, he said again in a warm voice: "Don't cry, call to open the door. The servants have just checked around the yard, and now they need to go to Niuniu's lost house."

……

All mothers are the same.

Children are their heaven.

When a mother loses her child, the panic and anxiety in her heart cannot be expressed in words.

The woman banged on the door and kept yelling for her father-in-law to open the door quickly, but after half a ring, there was no movement in the yard.

Weird!
Should not!
It is said that the knock on the door was so loud that the door should have been opened long ago under normal circumstances.

This made the woman even more panicked, thinking that something had happened to her father-in-law who was staying at home, she immediately turned pale and knocked on the door harder.

However, another half-tone passed, and there was still no response inside...

It's so weird, I can't wait any longer, Zhang Jingxu turned his eyes slightly, and gave Li San a look.

Li San immediately understood, climbed up the courtyard wall twice, jumped into the courtyard with a swish, and opened the door directly from the inside.

The woman was stunned for a while, but the yamen servants had rushed in, some rushed to the main room, some rushed to the side house, and in the blink of an eye, they searched every corner.

Only Zhang Jingxu walked slowly into the gate, and began to look at the small courtyard of this house.

As far as the eye can see, it is all wood, some of which have been sawed and made into semi-finished boards, and some are neatly stacked, obviously they are wood reserves.

In addition to wood and planks, there are also a few coffins parked in the small courtyard, but they are all unfinished semi-finished products, so it is temporarily unclear what level they are.

But when Zhang Jingxu looked over the small courtyard and looked at the main house and firewood room of the house, he found that there were coffins placed in each room, and these coffins were all finished products.

With a slight movement in his heart, he turned around and looked at the woman who was about to run into the house, pretending to be curious: "There are so many coffins in your house, they should all be made to order, right?"

"Since there are so many people making orders, it is reasonable to say that your business should be very good. Why is the yard so dilapidated and the house so short?"

"Is it because your father-in-law is not willing to spend money to repair it, or you and your husband-in-law are not willing to repair it..."

The woman was stunned for a moment, and then her face was full of bitterness, she said: "Captain, you are an official, so you don't know how difficult it is to be humble. This business is not profitable at all, and it is not even as good as a civilian woman washing clothes for people." Earn a lot."

After talking for a while, he said sadly: "But my father-in-law has no other way to make money except this craft, so even if he earns less from making coffins, he can only continue to do it."

Zhang Jingxu sighed and said, "So that's how it is."

But a thought faintly came up in my heart, and this thought was a little strange: I insisted on doing it all the time, maybe it wasn't hard on it, but I was willing to do it, or had to do it for some reason.

But this conjecture is so bizarre that Zhang Jingxu herself finds it inexplicable.

……

At this moment, the yamen servants had already searched all over the place, and gathered one after another to report the situation.

The main room is in the main room, but there is no one.

There is no abnormality in the woodshed of the side house.

Even the bed where the women lived was lifted and shaken by the yamen servants, but nothing was found, everything was normal.

The only abnormal thing is that the father-in-law of this family is not at home.

but……

The gate is clearly locked from the inside.

The door is tied, but no one is seen. Could it be that this old man is a master, who has practiced his skills in the army, so he can fly over the wall and jump out of the wall without going through the door?
The yamen servants all felt strange.

Do you really need to be poor to have this ability?

……

Li San quietly approached Zhang Jingxu.

The kid first made a look, implying Zhang Jingxu to go to a secluded place to talk, and after Zhang Jingxu followed him to the corner, the kid actually made a strange movement.

He twitched his nose as if smelling something.

And his face was serious, his eyes faintly bewildered, I saw him twitching his nose, and at the same time he seemed to be establishing his confidence.

Finally, the kid lowered his voice, but his tone was inexplicably puzzled, and said: "Uncle Zhang, that's so strange, you may not believe it, I smell something..."

"Everywhere in this house, there is a rat smell."

"It's very strong, very strong, and I'm familiar with it. It's a very familiar mouse smell."

"I remember, I remember."

"Not long ago, my nephew just smelled it, but that place is the prison of our county government."

Li San scratched his forehead while reporting. Although he was sure that his nose was fine, he became unconfident after he was sure.

On the contrary, Zhang Jingxu was not unusual, but let out a slight breath.

He seemed to be teasing Li San, but also seemed to be pointing at something, and said with deep eyes: "There are many rats in the world, they move around in the dark, go back and forth to drill everywhere, so even if you feel familiar , it's not a strange thing..."

"On the contrary, uncle wants to ask you, is your nose really that good? If you can even distinguish the smell of mice, can you smell the smell of humans?"

Li San was obviously taken aback, and said in astonishment, "Human taste?"

Suddenly the kid's eyes lit up, and he said anxiously: "Uncle Zhang, you are right, I can really smell people!"

Immediately afterwards, as if to prove himself, he began to twitch his nose again.

But the next moment, the boy's expression changed.

I saw him staring straight at the main room, with a hint of fear in his confused eyes, first took a deep breath, and then hid beside Zhang Jingxu.

Only then did he dare to 'gudu' swallow his saliva, and said in a slightly trembling tone: "Uncle Zhang, Uncle Zhang, my nephew is a little nervous. I asked about the smell of the coffin in the main room..."

"However, that seems strangely human."

As the boy said, he subconsciously hid from Zhang Jingxu, and suddenly he looked at another room, his face changed again, and he said blankly: "The coffin in that room is actually human... "

"However, it's also very strangely human."

(End of this chapter)