Fu Shifeng

Chapter 104
"Those horses are not ours in the first place, why do you care about them?" Zhang Fan shook his head.

"You can't say that." Hu Yi stuffed the purse into his arms, not intending to share the profits with the others in the same business: "We also fought our lives to grab it, and if we earn less, wouldn't it be a big loss? "

"Hey, hey, who was working so hard back then?" Cheng Sanwu rushed to talk.

Hu Yi said: "If it wasn't for my help in the dark, would you be able to easily deal with those Deng family slaves?"

"You also know that you are hiding in the dark?" Cheng Sanwu said angrily, "Senior sister Xu somehow took action to end three lives."

"Is it annoying to talk about this all the time?" Xu 23 rolled his eyes and urged, "When will I be able to enter Lingwu City? After traveling for many days, my body is completely dirty. I want to find an inn with hot soup for bathing."

Cheng Sanwu said with a smile, "Junior Sister Xu, do you want me to rub your back?"

"Get lost!" Xu 23 cursed viciously.

Seeing the three people laughing and cursing, Zhang Fan felt a bit of a headache. The embroidered emissary, who was unpredictable in the eyes of others, was still an ordinary person after all. Constrained guy.

Relying on the customs clearance document, the group entered Lingwu City unimpeded. After finding an inn in the south of the city and settling down, Wei Ying said to Zhang Fan and others:
"Several benefactors, please allow the villain to settle Mr. Hui first, and then go to find out where the clan uncle is, and report as soon as there is news."

"Don't worry, if you have any difficulties, just come back to us." Cheng Sanwu agreed carelessly, causing Zhang Fan to feel helpless.

Wei Ying said goodbye and went out. Zhang Fan gathered the people and began to assign tasks: "Hu Yi, go to the place where the merchants gather in the city and inquire about Yanchi. Daoist Majesty Envoy, it is said that the monster in Yanchi should be dealt with first, so you pretend to be a pilgrim and go to investigate the situation."

The two nodded, and Cheng Sanwu pointed to himself and asked, "What about me?"

"You come with me." Zhang Fan said: "There are also spies and resident stations arranged by the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Lingwu City. Let's go and show up to find out the situation. It will be convenient for us to transfer later."

After leaving the inn, Cheng Sanwu and Zhang Fan went to the west of the city, came to a big family's courtyard, and knocked on the door.

However, Zhang Fan knocked for a long time, but still no one opened the door. He and Cheng Sanwu looked at each other, and the other party tightened his wrist armor and asked, "Shall I knock the door open?"

"No need." Zhang Fan stopped his reckless move, went around to the quiet alley beside the courtyard, looked left and right to make sure there were no pedestrians, then kicked on the wall and jumped on his back.

Cheng Sanwu followed suit and easily climbed over the courtyard wall. The two of them landed cautiously and looked around.

"It's weird." Zhang Fan frowned immediately.

"It's too quiet, there's not even a sound of footsteps." Cheng Sanwu also sensed something was wrong, and slowly pulled out his knife.

The two heightened their vigilance, and when they came to the courtyard, they saw that the ground was covered with snow, which was completely unswept, and there were no redundant footprints.Not to mention the residence of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, even if it is an ordinary large family, the servants will be ordered to clean up the snow in winter, which is rarely the case now.

Sure enough, the two soon saw several corpses lying on the ground in the wing room. Because of the severe winter, the corpses were frozen hard.

Zhang Fan's face was ugly. He hurried to the backyard, opened the half-closed door, and saw a woman in black sitting down against the wall. There were cobweb-like cracks in the wall behind her. She was supposed to be hit hard on the wall.And there are two maidservants in the house, both of them died at this moment, one had her neck broken, and the other bent down like a shrimp.

"Is she the secret agent of the Ministry of Internal Affairs?" Cheng Sanwu asked.

"Yes." Zhang Fan bent down and inspected the corpse with a gloomy expression.

Cheng Sanwu looked around the room, and saw that the utensils were displayed as usual, without the slightest mess or signs of fighting, and said: "It seems that the people who do it are very capable, and they kill with one move, and there is no room for resistance at all."

"Most of the personnel sent by the Ministry of Internal Affairs are to listen to news and monitor officials, and not all of them are experts." Zhang Fan laid the body of the woman in black, uncovered her clothes, and tried to find out the cause of death.

"It looks like an ordinary big family here, no different." Cheng Sanwu said.

"Ms. Liu in Lingwu City is the successor of a certain governor of Lingzhou in the past, and now she lives here as a widow." Zhang Fan said, his hands kept moving, gently stroking Mrs. Liu's charming face The corpse, without any obscene intentions, cursed in a low voice: "The ribs are almost completely broken, and the internal organs are probably not very good."

"It's not easy." Cheng Sanwu touched the stubble on his chin and wiped his fingers: "If it were me, I might not be able to do it so neatly."

"How to say?" After the previous battles, Zhang Fan already knew Cheng Sanwu's advanced martial arts, and he secretly calculated that even if he joined hands with Hu Yi and Xu 23 to besiege Cheng Sanwu, it would be difficult to have a [-]% chance of winning.

Cheng Sanwu reminded: "There are no scars, not even a little bit of blood."

Zhang Fan's face changed slightly when he heard the words, and he looked at Mrs. Liu's body again. Due to the freezing weather, the body decomposed slowly, and there was a faint blue color under the cold skin, giving birth to a strange beauty, but there was no punch. Congestion marks, not to mention sharp weapon wounds.

In order to confirm Cheng Sanwu's conjecture, Zhang Fan untied the clothes of the other two maidservants in the house, and the situation was roughly similar.

"The murderer was very skilled in martial arts, Madam Liu didn't have time to deal with it, she was shot to death as soon as they met each other." Zhang Fan felt his scalp tingle, "The two maidservants were hit with heavy tactics as soon as they made a move, and they couldn't even escape."

"It's not just that." Cheng Sanwu added: "The other people in this house didn't seem to notice, they were all killed quietly."

Knowing the seriousness of the situation, Zhang Fan immediately rushed out of the backyard to search for other corpses, and found that the cause of death was surprisingly consistent, either he had been hit hard, his bones and flesh were shattered, or his neck and limbs were twisted.

"Could it be...there is only one murderer?" Zhang Fan found it inconceivable that even brothers who were trained in the same martial art style could not have such similar injuries when they actually killed someone.

"One person, kill the whole family quietly." Cheng Sanwu sneered, "I admit, I can't do it either."

"It's not just about ability!" Zhang Fan's face turned pale: "There is no trace of fighting in the courtyard, and the utensils in the house are intact. The murderer obviously didn't steal property, or came here to kill Madam Liu's family!"

Cheng Sanwu asked: "Why did the murderer do this? Because Mrs. Liu is a secret agent of the Ministry of Internal Affairs?"

Zhang Fan looked pensive and didn't answer. After a while, he came back to the dormitory in the backyard and started rummaging through boxes and cabinets.

"What are you looking for?" Cheng Sanwu asked.

"The spies stationed in the local area must have a notebook, and they may be able to find out the reason why Mrs. Liu was killed." Zhang Fan felt deeply restless.

Cheng Sanwu looked left and right, took off the scabbard, and tapped the ground.Seeing him like this, Zhang Fan immediately understood, and began to lean over to investigate.

The two searched for a while, not limited to Mrs. Liu's bedroom, and finally found something strange in the side room of the study.

Mrs. Liu is a Han Chinese, and the utensils and furnishings in the house are also in the Han style, but the side room of the study is like that of a barbarian, with colorful felt carpets on the floor, which is unique in style.

"Here!" Cheng Sanwu called out to Zhang Fan, and tapped the felt blanket with the scabbard, making a hollow echo.

Zhang Fan immediately lifted the felt blanket to reveal a door panel. After opening, he saw the entrance of a dark passage.

Without hesitation, Zhang Fan immediately got into the passage, and then took out the fire folder as a light.

Cheng Sanwu also entered, and after a short walk, the two of them came to a secret room similar to a cellar, about six feet square, supported by wooden beams on the roof, and cabinets lined up against the wall. A batch of weapons and medicines were stuffed, comparable to a private arsenal. At a glance, it was enough to equip five or sixty people.

"As expected of the resident of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, if you really want to take action, you probably don't need to ask the government to transfer servants." Cheng Sanwu took out a bundle of arrows.

Zhang Fan lit the candles on the desk. Judging from the wax tears on the edge of the candlesticks, the owner of this place should often turn on the lamp at the desk and be quite diligent.

With the help of candle light, Zhang Fan began to quickly look up the documents. Fortunately, Mrs. Liu had the delicate thoughts of a woman. The documents were not only classified according to priority, but also marked with dates in small letters for easy reference.

"Found it!" Zhang Fan quickly found the relevant documents, and read them in detail on the flat case.

"How? What's mentioned in it?" Cheng Sanwu raised his head to watch.

Zhang Fan frowned: "It turns out that the Yanchi monster happened a long time ago..."

At the beginning of the founding of Daxia, a thousand wastes were waiting for prosperity. Taizu decreed that the ban on fish and salt in the mountains and rivers should be banned, and the people would benefit together, and the government seldom paid taxes.

However, as the imperial court used troops in many places and the cost increased day by day, it had to pay attention to the profit of salt.In the eastern part of Lingzhou, there are large and small salt ponds, which have gradually become an important source of income for the Shuofang states.

According to the documents, as early as decades ago, there were various strange rumors about Lingzhou Salt Pond. At the beginning, it was a ground gushing brine spring more than ten feet high, and gradually evolved into patterns made of salt grains on the surface of the salt pool, which seemed to be hidden. Mystery, difficult for mortals to understand.

Until this time, it was still only a legend among the Yan households, not enough to attract the attention of the government, and the vision itself did not affect the salt production in Yanchi.

And about three years ago, when Shuofang Jiedushi was officially established, the rumors of Yanchi monsters gradually increased.

Local salt households claim that they can see a large area of ​​fog covering the salt pond, and if anyone ventures inside, they will be unconscious within a few moments.After that, the brine was exposed to the sun, but the salt grains could not be formed.

Although this kind of situation is not common in all Yanchi saltworks, it is enough to attract the attention of local officials, and they immediately sent people to investigate, but the result was naturally nothing.

Yanchi in Lingzhou has a lot to do with it, so the news was reported layer by layer, and it was naturally handed over to the case of Yang Taichu, the current Shuofang Jiedu envoy.

As far as Fangjie Town is concerned, since there are monsters infesting them, a large army should be sent to wipe them out. Yang Jieshuai directly mobilized troops to inspect Yanchi.

I don't know if the monster has heard the wind. When the army passed by, it was calm and nothing happened.Seeing this situation, Yang Jieshuai reprimanded the local county magistrates, thinking that they made unwarranted remarks about evil beings and causing unnecessary waste.

But this move was useless, and the rumors of evil spirits spread frequently, and even the sudden death of salt workers occurred.

Mrs. Liu saw this situation, so she sent several subordinates to investigate secretly around Yanchi, and indeed found that Yanchi was an ominous phenomenon, and a woman's faint singing could be faintly heard at night, which was very strange.

However, Mrs. Liu's subordinates are all ordinary people with superficial martial arts skills, so they dare not face monsters and goblins directly, so they can only report the specific situation when they come back.

Since a monster was causing trouble, Madam Liu wanted to ask Pang Guanzhu of Xuanwu Temple to solve it.

The writing of the document came to an abrupt end here, without mentioning the follow-up. According to the date of the last paragraph, it was exactly five days ago.

"It's gone?" Cheng Sanwu scolded, "It just happened to write something wonderful, so it's gone? Mrs. Liu is so outrageous!"

"Don't you understand?" Zhang Fan raised his head and glanced at him, "Mrs. Liu was killed later, so it's too late to keep a record."

"Ms. Liu has been dead for several days?" Cheng Sanwu showed surprise, "Is the other people outside not aware of it?"

"It's freezing cold, and the corpse is like an ice cave, so naturally there is no peculiar smell." Zhang Fan thought and said, "And Mrs. Liu has been widowed for many years. She usually lives in seclusion. No one comes in or out of the mansion for a few days. That's pretty bizarre."

"Then now..." Before Cheng Sanwu finished speaking, there was a knock on the door.

This secret room is located underground, and if there is any big movement on the ground, it will be transmitted to this room more or less, and it can also prevent people from emergencies.

"Another person is here?" Zhang Fan's face changed: "Not good! Get out of here quickly!"

Regardless of who knocked on the door, if no one opened the door for a long time, I'm afraid they will climb over the wall to peep like Cheng Sanwu and the others. Once they find that Mrs. Liu's family is dead, they will immediately attract the help of the government.

Zhang Fan took some recent files with him, and he and Cheng Sanwu got out of the tunnel one after another, covered the door and spread the carpet, and when he was about to leave Liu's house, a figure jumped over the courtyard wall.

"Cover your face!" Zhang Fan reacted promptly, whispered a warning, and at the same time raised his arms to cover his face.

Cheng Sanwu followed suit, and the figure seemed to see the two of them, and immediately shouted: "Stop!"

The visitor was dressed in a gray and white coat and a felt hat. He looked like an ordinary servant, but when he leaped forward, he exposed a pair of black and shiny black leather boots. This kind of shoes and boots are mostly worn by officers and soldiers. Great contrast.

This person has thick eyebrows, big eyes, and a heroic face. Wearing a military armor, he must be a leading general in the charge.

This man in a robe stepped on the roof, and the tiles were broken, but with two vertical leaps, he had already narrowed the distance. He turned around and twisted his waist in the air, and his ankles swept down, like an ax falling from the sky, his power was astonishing.

Cheng Sanwu felt a sudden wind blowing from the back of his head, rolled over, avoiding a fierce kick, the bluestone floor tiles where he was originally standing were smashed by the man in a coat.

"Master!"

Cheng Sanwu said inwardly, and after the man in the coat fell to the ground, he chased after him, and with a fist and palm as fast as lightning, he attacked him.During the movement, the arms moved the sleeves to make a crackling sound, and the strong wind pressed against the face, making it difficult to open the eyes.

(End of this chapter)