Mysterious Hunting Ground

Chapter 217 217. Blasphemy, enemy of God

The Bohao County Library is a three-story spacious building with a collection of more than [-] books. It was obvious that a lot of effort was spent on its construction.

But it is a bit wasteful to place it in this vast and sparsely populated place. There are not many people in the museum.

The four people quickly borrowed the target books and began to work together.

Jesse looked through decades-old Poho County voter registration lists, looking for all the families with the last name Hartman.

Trish and Daley searched through religious works such as "The Witch's Hammer", "Confessions", "Summa Theologica", the 73-volume Catholic version of the Bible, etc., looking for clues related to the number 23.

Dean flipped through a large number of books related to dead skin that Jesse had investigated over the years, including memoirs, county memorabilia, daily newspapers, and the police station's missing persons registration form, which was a lot of reading.

……

The pen scratched the paper and the pages rustled. The four of them were immersed in reading and recording in the library.

The sun outside the window gradually changed from the lazy morning light to an orange-red sunset glow on the horizon, and Dean's mind outlined a clear context.

Disappearances do not occur every year in Bohao County, and there are no regular patterns between the years when there are relevant records. Sometimes there are intervals of one year, two years, or more than ten years.

But if we take this year 1981 as the starting point and work backwards.

In 1958, 1935, 1912... every 23 years, there will be a missing person case in the daily newspaper, and the police station also has corresponding missing person records.

Dean extracted key information from various records and found that the number of missing persons in these years was at least 40, and sometimes reached a staggering more than 60 people.

In the past many years, the police department and various detectives have entered Bohao County to conduct investigations, and even caught the murderer, but unfortunately they only caught ordinary criminals.

The real villain behind the scenes has always been at large.

Dean found that the earliest year recorded in the literature that conformed to the 23-year rule was October 1682, which was the seventeenth century, earlier than the 10th century mentioned by Jesse.

299 years have passed, and the dead skin has resurrected fourteen times, killing hundreds of prey.

The identity and missing location of the prey are not fixed, not only locals, but also outsiders passing through Bohao County.

Dean's scalp was numb when he saw these lists of missing persons, but unfortunately, they had nothing in common.

However, Dean rolled his eyes and finally discovered that there was something strange about the founding time of the church where the dead body was hidden.

At this moment, the library administrator lady began to greet the patrons in the library.

Only then did Dean realize that it was already six o'clock in the evening, and it was closing time, so he called everyone to a Mexican restaurant outside the library to rest, eat, and share the clues he had collected.

"So we're fighting an old antique that's nearly three hundred years old? He's so old that he's covered in disgusting dead skin." Daly gnawed on a tortilla and rubbed his sore eyes.

"That's right." Dean asked as he chewed the barbecue, "You said the corpses seen in the cellar were relatively fresh at that time?"

"If you ignore the stitching marks on their bodies, most of them are intact, and their skin is very smooth, without any wrinkles or rot." Daley recalled, with a trace of fear in his eyes,
"Here comes the question. According to the birth time of the dead skin, the victims under its mouth can be traced back to 1682, which makes it several hundred years old. Can formalin alone be preserved intact to this day?" Dean looked at it in confusion. to everyone,

Cui Shi shook his head, "No matter how sophisticated the preservation method is, the body can only be stored for a few decades at most, not to mention the backward technology of that era. It goes against scientific common sense that it will not rot for hundreds of years."

"Perhaps the dead skin has other means of disposing of corpses, such as secreting special preservation mucus?" Jesse looked at Dean, "You said that supernatural creatures cannot be inferred by common sense."

Dean nodded. This was the only way he could interpret it at the moment. He then mentioned another clue.
"I also made another important discovery. The dilapidated church that was burned down was built in September 1682, and Dead Skin committed his first crime in October 9. The two were only one month apart. Is this a coincidence? "

"By the way, this church has spires, arches, domes, flying buttresses and other elements. It is a typical Roman Catholic church."

The church is a place where people pray to God, but dead skin is the devil who sends people to hell.

It's like holiness and evil, naturally opposite, but they happen to converge in one place.

"You mean the birth of Dead Skin has something to do with the establishment of the church?" Cui Shi murmured,

"I have a feeling," Dean emphasized, "Dead Skin may have a deep connection with the founder of this Catholic church or the first generation of priests. These two may have some knowledge of the birth of Dead Skin. !So my next goal is to find them both!”

The crowd nodded.

"I'm done, where are you? Have you found other 'Hartmans'?"

Dean looked at Jesse. The psychic lady spread out a form.
"I found several Hartmans from the registration form: Maggie Hartman, Simon Hartman, Jeffrey Hartman... Maybe there are relatives among them. I plan to go to the police station to find Hartman. Ask Sheriff Booth to find their contact number and address.”

"Well, you can follow this route next."

Dean finally turned to the Trish siblings,
Daly looked refreshed and spread out the white paper filled with writing. "We discovered a miracle. The number 23 seems ordinary, but it is actually full of legend and profound meaning."

"For example, the medieval Catholic military organization, the famous Knights Templar, had a total of 23 general masters during its existence."

"What organization is the Knights Templar?" Dean interrupted.

"You don't know this?" Cui Shi smiled, "Hunters who hunt monsters also have blind spots in knowledge?"

Dean shrugged and popped a corn chip into his mouth.

"I'm not God, so I can't know everything. Please tell me."

"Well, they were considered the real masters of the East during the Crusaders' era, the main force of the Kingdom of Jerusalem against the Arabs... They could be described as an extremely wealthy country for a while."

Trish's sweet voice echoed across the dining table,

"There are 9000 manors or territories in Christendom. These include very famous churches and castles, such as the Temple Church in London, the Temple Palace in Berlin, and even the entire island of Cyprus."

"They were the king's big creditors in France. They owned thousands of castles and huge wealth, and almost bankrupted the king. The bishop was very envious and jealous. So, he joined the king to fabricate 'heresy' charges to eradicate them, and launched arrests and arrests without warning. Cleanup operation."

"Jacques de Molay, the third commander of No. 20, was arrested and imprisoned. Unable to bear the torture, he confessed that his crime was 'denying Jesus Christ and trampling on the cross.' He was then tied to the stake and slowly roasted to death. The other 54 members were also tortured."

"The last Grand Master dies and the Knights Templar disappear."

"It can be said that Catholicism orchestrated the downfall of the Knights Templar in order to appease the bankrupt king."

……

"Wait, roasted to death?" Dean raised his eyebrows, "Isn't this the same fate as that poor witch?"

Trish nodded, "Yes, to a certain extent, witches were also regarded as heretics who practiced magic and worshiped the devil and were severely burned at the stake."

"So, both witches and Knights Templar have been persecuted by the Catholic Church?" Dean said this, and some inspiration flashed in his mind.
"This is a tactic used by the church," Cui Shi frowned, with a look of disgust on her face. "Without conclusive evidence, they fabricate baseless accusations against people or groups that they dislike or that affect their interests, and label them as heretics. Hat, punishable by death, even a figure like Joan of Arc could not escape persecution.”

"Shut up! Do you want to be shot by believers in the street?" Jesse looked around the restaurant with a solemn expression. Fortunately, the sky was getting dark and there were not many people in the restaurant, so no one noticed his companion's remarks. "Let's discuss it carefully." The meaning of the number '23', don't judge the church."

When she yelled, the two of them suddenly woke up. "I'm sorry, I don't know what happened. I was obviously investigating the dead skin, but I found out the heinous crimes committed by the church." Cui Shi looked dazed for a moment, "It's as if there is an invisible force leading me to This direction."

The four of them pondered this sentence and chewed it in their mouths.

Looking for the origin of the dead skin, but inexplicably began to resent the church.

"Besides the Knights Templar," Dean changed the subject, "What's the point of 23?"

"Brother, let me tell you!" Dai Li looked at Dean's oriental facial contours and said with a hint of ridicule, "The No. 20 trigram in the "Book of Changes" of the ancient Eastern countries talks about the prosperity of things. The principle of decline and extremes of things must be reversed.”

"Hell, aren't you studying Catholic religious works? Why did the Book of Changes pop out of your mouth?" Dean's mouth twitched. Eastern and Western philosophies were inexplicably fused. He suddenly felt a sense of confusion, returning to his homeland.
"When a Chinese missionary was studying the Knights Templar, he specifically mentioned the Book of Changes and 23 in his notes. Don't you think this is very appropriate?" Cui Shi looked at him with sharp eyes, "The experience of the Knights Templar It went through glory and decline, until the 23rd general leader appeared and was completely destroyed. Isn’t this just the peak of prosperity must inevitably decline.”

"Does this have anything to do with dead skin?" Dean interrupted.

Trish gave him a patient look,
"But after death comes rebirth. Most of the legacy of the Knights Templar was left to the Knights Hospitaller, which was able to develop and even survive to this day. After 23 days of Operation Dead Skin, it will fall into a death-like sleep. After 23 years of Dead silence, resurrecting again, this is also destruction and rebirth.”

"So 23 is the number between destruction and creation,"

A strange light flashed in Cui Shi's eyes, and the hand holding the spoon waved in mid-air.
"There are always some surprising similarities between everything in the world. Daly and I looked through the Catholic version of the Bible and found a sentence at 23:23 that has a similar meaning to the 23rd hexagram of the I Ching - 'What did God create' .”

What did God create?
Dean was shocked, and this series of clues flashed back in his mind.

In September 1682, the Catholic Church was established in Haobo County.
In October the dead skin is born and the hunt begins.

Churches are built and dead skins are born.

And standing behind the church is God.

huh... huh...

A gust of cold wind blew in from the window outside the restaurant. Dean's body had long been immune to the cold and heat, but now he felt extremely cold, as if someone was blowing air conditioning from the back of his neck.

He suddenly picked up the soup on the table and took a big mouthful of corn cream soup, looked at the two siblings,

"So you are saying that God created Dead Skin? In order to express reverence for the creator, Dead Skin transformed the church into a lair and used corpses to piece together the sacred Sistine Chapel sky dome?"

……

As soon as this conclusion comes out.

The dining table was so quiet that you could hear a pin drop.

Jesse swallowed, and a look of horror appeared on her fat face. Even if she didn't believe in Christianity or Catholicism, she wouldn't be able to say such rebellious words.

God created a man-eating monster that cannot be destroyed?Follow the 23-year law and keep hunting innocent people?
What kind of terrible dark legend is this?

Jesse shook his head at several people, "That's ridiculous! No matter on any level, God is a symbol of light, justice, and holiness, and there is absolutely no way he would do such a dark and dirty thing! This is more evil than Satan and the devil!"

"God will only spurn this kind of behavior, and God will only judge such existence as dead skin!"

Daley sensed something was wrong in the atmosphere, lowered his head, covered his face with his hands and rubbed them, "Have we misunderstood?"

Only Cui Shi still looked determined,
"This sentence in the Bible 23:23 perfectly coincides with 23 years and 23 days. This is what you are looking for."

Dean rubbed his temples when he heard this, frowned, and murmured Jesse's words,
"If the God that people believe in really exists, it will just spit on the dead skin. Yes, God has no reason to create a devil who abandons his faith."

"Think reversely! So who created the dead skin, and for what purpose did it conform to the 23 rule?"

"1682, seventeenth century...witch hunt..."

"When all the clues are combined, another completely opposite situation appears!"

"Brother, if you can't think of anything, don't force yourself. Why don't you go to the police station and have a look? The burned church should have been cleared out. There may be other clues." Dailey cautiously made a suggestion.

Dean shook his head and asked everyone a question off guard,
"If you hate someone so much that you can't hurt him directly, but suddenly you find out that he has a house that you cherish, what revenge will you take?"

"Huh?" Daley was caught off guard and stammered, unable to speak.

Jesse's swollen eye bags twitched and he fell into deep thought.

Trish, who has the most flexible mind, his eyes lit up, "I will fill the entire house with decorations of the things he hates the most, and I will let the people he hates the most live in his sanctuary."

"What kind of riddle are you talking about? I can't understand it at all," Dailey looked at his sister and Dean in confusion.
"What a fool!" Cui Shi rolled her eyes at him, resting her chin on her hands and looking out the window at the night. "The behavior pattern of Dead Skin for 23 years and 23 days points to the sentence 'What God created' in Bible 23:23."

"This coincidence is not a tribute to God, but a deliberate attempt to throw dirty water on God's head, satirizing God for creating a devil that destroys mankind and brings fear and death!"

"The creator behind the dead skin hated God so much that he built the sacred church into a den of evil and decorated the church cellar into a madman's version of the Sistine Sky."

"They are trampling on God's dignity by desecrating God's sanctuary and desecrating the sacred!"

Blasphemy!

Trample on the dignity of God!
These few words were so powerful that they instantly changed the expressions of everyone present.

Dean gave Trish an approving look, raised his voice with a serious expression,

“So the dead skin we are looking for is not God’s creation, but the devil’s creation by God’s enemies!”

Jesse stood up suddenly and rolled his bulging eyeballs under the thick dark circles, "Who is the enemy of God? The devil, Satan?"

Dean shook his head, "These are too far away from us and too unrealistic. And haven't we seen and discussed God's real enemies before?"

Daly said, "You mean heretics, the Knights Templar? Joan of Arc?"

Dean shook his head, "It's painted on the table where the dead skin is collected."

"Witches!" Jesse shuddered and screamed as if he had been burned by flames, "those women who were regarded as heretics by the Catholic lackeys and were burned at the stake!"

Dean nodded heavily and glanced at his companions, a sharp light flashing in his eyes, "Witches and many innocent women were harassed by Catholics, religious inquisitors, and secular institutions during the witch-hunting movement that lasted for hundreds of years in medieval Europe. Cruel persecution and death in an extremely painful way... They have every reason to create a devil like Sipi to slaughter and prey on God's people! Blasphemy! This is how to take revenge!"

"So the creator of Dead Skin was a witch from Europe in the [-]th century!"

"If you find her, you can completely eliminate the dead skin!"

“And she must be related to the founder of this church!
The progress jumped to 80.00%!

(End of this chapter)