I can strengthen infinitely

Chapter 225 [224] Antong County
Antong County is located in the upper reaches of the Wujiang River. When the huge ship arrived, it was already early in the morning the next day.

The Bailian disciples put down the plank of the boat, and Qin Yuesheng strode down. He came here to investigate the reason why the team of Qixing Prison disappeared inexplicably.

Seeing this group of people in white clothes coming, the people in Antong County couldn't help being curious, and they poked their heads out of the doors and windows of their homes to look at them.

"Go on your own. Don't follow me. You have to return to the boat before noon. If anyone dares to delay, I will take his head off." Qin Yuesheng said.

"Yes!" Everyone hurriedly dispersed on the spot, and soon Qin Yuesheng was left alone on the street.

After walking several tens of feet, Qin Yuesheng saw a pawn shop, thought about it, and strode in.

"What do you want to be?" asked a young man standing behind the counter.

Qin Yuesheng looked at him, his face was sickly, pale and frightening, and his eye circles were black and purple, as if he had been beaten.

"I want to get some news from you."

"We are a pawn shop, where did the news come from?"

Qin Yuesheng took out a silver ingot and slapped it on the counter, and immediately the whole silver ingot fell into the table, directly printing a hole on the table.

"What I want to ask is not confidential information. Not long ago, did a group of outsiders come to your town?"

When the young man saw the silver ingot Qin Yuesheng gave him, and saw Qin Yuesheng's move, his mouth immediately became honest, and he said quickly: "Guest officer, we have a foreigner coming from Antong County, and I can't explain it clearly if you ask me that. ah."

Qin Yuesheng thought to himself that the last time Zuo Zonghao and his group came to Qingyang City from Chang'an, they all wore official clothes, so the group of seven-star supervisors sent to Antong County for investigation should be no exception.

Qin Yuesheng said: "It's a group of officials from outside, all wearing official uniforms."

"Oh, guest officer, I just remembered when you said that. It is true that a group of officials came to our town not long ago." The young man nodded stiffly.

"Do you know where they went later?" Qin Yuesheng asked.

"I'm not sure. I only know that an official came to ask me about who in our county family had encountered water ghosts. It seemed that they were going to investigate."

Qin Yuesheng's eyes lit up, this is a breakthrough news.

"Someone, you tell me, forget it, let's write it down."

At Qin Yuesheng's request, the young man had no choice but to take a pen and paper and write down the information he knew.

After he stopped writing, the paper was already full of words, such as Zhang Family, Li Family, Wang Family, densely packed.

"Do you often have water ghosts here?"

"I can't say for certain, I don't know what's going on, those things often crawl out of Wujiang River at night, and every house in our house has to close the doors and windows at night, otherwise, if those things break in accidentally, the lives of the whole family will be lost." Guaranteed."

Seeing that the young man didn't even dare to mention the word water ghost, and just replaced it with those things, Qin Yuesheng didn't say anything, and left the pawn shop directly with this piece of paper.

Speaking of which, Antong County is also strange. Everyone I saw on the road was either holding an umbrella or wearing a bamboo hat, and everyone's face was listless and lifeless.

Qin Yuesheng couldn't help feeling worried about the situation of the water ghosts in this place. What a terrifying water ghost it must be to scare the people of a county so out of control.

The center of the county seat is a square completely paved with stone bricks. A thick and big tree stands in the center of the square. The dense branches and leaves grow extremely densely, like a canopy.

A few children with braids were squatting under a big tree and playing cricket fights. Qin Yuesheng was thinking that he didn't know the situation in Antong County.

So Qin Yuesheng walked towards the big tree, wanting to ask a child to be a guide to lead him the way.

"Bite it, bite it."

The two crickets faced each other in the bamboo bowl, jumping out and colliding with each other from time to time, the fight was quite fierce.

When Qin Yuesheng came over, only one child raised his head and looked at Qin Yuesheng with puzzled eyes.

"Son, are you interested in earning some money?" Qin Yuesheng took out a silver ingot: "With this money, wouldn't playing dog and cock fights be more interesting."

"Dog fighting?"

"cockfighting?"

But they had never heard of this kind of game, and several children immediately expressed their strong interest, and they all got up and asked, "What is dog fighting and cock fighting?"

Qin Yuesheng said: "Each of you raises a dog and a chicken. When they grow up, they will be locked up and fight together. It's similar to a cricket fight, but it will be more intense."

The child nodded again and again: "Okay! I want to make money, and I want to play dog ​​and cock fighting."

Qin Yuesheng handed him the silver ingot: "I just came to your Antong County, and I'm not familiar with the terrain. If you take me to these places, the money will be yours."

As he spoke, Qin Yuesheng spoke out the names of the residents recorded on the paper.

"Aunt Wang's house, I know, I'll take you there."

"I also know the homes of Grandpa Li and Widow Zhao, as well as the homes of Grandma Zhang and Uncle Zheng."

"I know……"

"I know……"

Seeing these children speak enthusiastically, Qin Yuesheng touched the head of one of them and said: "Don't worry, let's come one by one, let's go to the first family first."

When Qin Yuesheng withdrew his hand, he saw several strands of hair inexplicably growing between his fingers, and he couldn't help but wondered: "Do children nowadays start to lose their hair so early? I didn't use much force."

These children picked up the windmill that was placed on the ground next to them, and immediately happily ran out of the shadow under the big tree, towards an alley in the distance.

"It's really innocent." Qin Yuesheng secretly said, and immediately followed.

Following these children all the way through the streets, Qin Yuesheng came to a dilapidated house in a short while. He saw that the tiled roof of the house was messy and the window frames were dilapidated. room.

"Aunt Wang! Aunt Wang! A brother is looking for you." The child knocked on the door and yelled.

However, there was no response, and no one came out to answer the door.

Qin Yuesheng said: "You guys wait here first, I'll go in and have a look."

He jumped up, jumped onto the roof with ease, and jumped in from the broken hole in the roof.

There was a musty smell in the whole house. The tables, chairs, bowls, chopsticks and pans were neatly arranged, but there was a lot of dust accumulated on them. It was obvious that no one had lived here for a long time.

Qin Yuesheng went to the backyard and opened the door. The backyard was surrounded by mud walls. The vegetables in a small vegetable field were yellow and black on the ground. The dried fish and spare ribs were already smelly and rotten, and many flies were buzzing around the fish.

"Hmm..." Qin Yuesheng pondered, and then went out of the room again.

"Brother, is Aunt Wang here?" A child raised his head and asked.

"Well, not here, let's go to the next place to see." Qin Yuesheng nodded in response.

At this moment, he suddenly noticed the longevity lock on the child's neck. On the lock surface, several cracks were clearly visible, and some black solids remained in the cracks.

Before Qin Yuesheng could look any further, the group of children ran towards the next house, their faces still happy.

After checking several houses in a row, they were all in exactly the same condition. There was no one in the house, and there was dust everywhere.

According to the young man from the pawn shop, these places were the places that the seven-star prison officials would go to check. First, the seven-star prison officials disappeared first, and now it is discovered that all the residents who have encountered water ghosts have disappeared.

Immediately, Qin Yuesheng's heart was shrouded in a cloud of suspicion.

Will there be any relationship between the two?
When the last place on the paper was also found, Qin Yuesheng reluctantly stuffed the paper into his arms, and said to the children, "Thank you for making you run for so long."

"Brother, these uncles, aunts, and mothers-in-law are not at home, so you don't want to take your money back." The child asked with some reluctance holding the silver ingot.

"Don't worry, the money is still yours, do me one last favor now, take me to the county government office in your Antong County, and you can leave there." Qin Yuesheng said.

Now that the only clue in his hand is useless, Qin Yuesheng had no choice but to meet the local county magistrate first, and maybe he could learn something about the officials of the Seven Star Supervision from him.

Whenever members of the Seven Star Supervisor go to a place to do business, they first go to the local yamen to settle down and let the local officials fully cooperate. This is an iron rule. Bai Hao and Zuo Zonghao did this in the past.

The group of Seven Star Supervisor officials who came here to investigate had no reason not to visit the county magistrate here.

Under the leadership of this group of children, Qin Yuesheng soon arrived outside the county government office of Antong County.

The dilapidated grievance drum is covered with fallen leaves on the ground, and there are two listless gatekeepers. The entire Antong county government office reveals a dilapidated atmosphere.

As soon as Qin Yuesheng walked over, a yamen servant immediately stopped him with a wooden stick in his hand: "What are you doing, go beat the drums first."

"I'm not here to complain, I'm here to see your magistrate."

"Master County Magistrate, you can see him right away? What is your identity?"

"Go and report to your lord that an official from Qingyang City has arrived." Qin Yuesheng took out a tael of silver and handed it over.

For Qin Yuesheng, it would be great if things could be settled with money. There was no need to waste time with this kind of low-level people who were arrogant and had disputes.

Sure enough, people are blinded by money. When Qin Yuesheng handed over the silver taels, he immediately reached out to take it, and even his tone became polite: "It's easy to say, little brother, you wait first, I'll give you money now." Go and report to the county magistrate."

Seeing the surprise on his face, from cold and disdainful to humble and obsequious, Qin Yuesheng couldn't help but nodded with a smile. The happiness of rich people is often It's just so unpretentious and boring.

Soon, the man ran out quickly, nodded and smiled and said, "My lord, please come inside."

After learning that Qin Yuesheng was an official from Qingyang City, he even changed his verbal address. Qin Yuesheng walked directly into the yamen and was led by this person to the side hall. At this time, there was an ordinary-looking big man sitting at the desk Later, as soon as he saw Qin Yuesheng coming in, he immediately got up and asked, "Uncle Ninghou, the magistrate of Xia'antong County, who is your lord?"

Qin Yuesheng took out his copper toad official order and held it in front of him. Originally, Qin Yuesheng had two copper toad official orders, but in order to pay for the pills, he bet the one that Zuo Zonghao gave to himself with Xu Chang and returned it. There was no time to redeem it.

"This is?" Ning Houbo was taken aback, puzzled.

"You don't know this official order?"

"Forgive me for my shallow knowledge. I don't know this official order. Could you please explain it to me?"

I thought that all the officials in the Tang Dynasty knew about the Seven-Star Supervisor, but I didn’t expect that the county magistrate in front of me didn’t know about it, so Qin Yuesheng couldn’t use the Seven-Star Supervisor to reveal his identity, so he had no choice but to say: “I am Xun Sheng, the prefect of Qingyang City. Lord Xun's adjutant, Qin Yuesheng."

"It turned out to be Master Qin, I have admired him for a long time." Ning Houbo said hastily, clasping his hands.

Qin Yuesheng felt contemptuous in his heart, there is no such thing as an adjutant in Qingyang City, why have you admired him for a long time.

"I came here to look for someone under the order of Lord Xun. Uncle Ning, did a group of officials dressed in official mansions come to your Antong County before?" Qin Yuesheng asked.

"It's true, but those people said they were officials of the Seven-Star Prison, but the officials have never heard of the Seven-Star Prison in Datang, so they simply met with them."

The Seven Star Supervisor is special, and it is normal for a small county magistrate like Ning Houbo not to know, so Qin Yuesheng asked, "Where did those people go afterwards, do you know?"

"Those people said they came to investigate the water ghost's harm. After asking me some questions, they headed for the Wujiang Ferry."

Qin Yuesheng said: "Is this Wujiang Ferry the place where water ghosts often haunt?"

"That's not true. Wujiang Ferry is an abandoned port. Many people were burned to death because of a fire that fell from the sky. Those people said they were suspicious and worth investigating, so they went. After that, I will never I haven't seen them in Antong County."

Qin Yuesheng nodded, but this is extremely important news, maybe the disappearance of the Seven Star Prisoners is really related to this Wujiang Ferry.

After saying that, Qin Yuesheng planned to bid farewell to Uncle Ning and go to Wujiang Ferry to see the situation.

But at this time, he thought of another thing, and asked, "What do you mean by a mass of fire falling from the sky?"

Uncle Ning immediately showed a trace of fear on his face: "That happened half a year ago. That night, in the dead of night, suddenly a fire lighted up in the sky, almost illuminating the entire Antong County. Awakened by the noise, he got up and went out of the house to check,

I saw a mass of fire descending rapidly in the sky, and finally hit the Wujiang Ferry directly, turning the entire Wujiang Ferry into a sea of ​​flames in an instant, and the boatmen living in the ferry had no time to escape, and many people were burned to death that night people?
The next day, I took people to Wujiang Ferry to have a look. My lord, you can't imagine the scene. There are scorched corpses struggling to death everywhere, which is comparable to the scene of purgatory. "

"This kind of thing happened in Antong County." Qin Yuesheng was quite surprised, "Didn't you report this to Qingyang City for registration?"

"Yes, I wrote a letter that day and sent the post officer to send it to Qingyang City as quickly as possible." Ning Hou Bo said.

"Oh." Qin Yuesheng thought that he had only been an official for a month or two. The incident Ning Houbo said happened half a year ago, so it's normal for him not to know. Propagating it will only cause panic among the people.

Without the thinking of modern people, the common people are still very superstitious. A little abnormality between heaven and earth can easily make them panic, for fear that some god who lives in the sky is angry again.

After bidding farewell to Uncle Ning, Qin Yuesheng immediately left the county government office and hurried towards the Wujiang ferry.

Wujiang Ferry is different from ordinary residents, this place is extremely easy to find, as long as you come to the riverside and walk north for half a mile, you don't need to ask someone to lead the way.

Under the fast speed of Xiaoyaoyou Tianfa, the Wujiang Ferry, which had already been reduced to ruins, soon appeared in Qin Yuesheng's eyes.

(End of this chapter)