The Republic of China Conspiracy Records

Chapter 122 The Sapphire Case (1)

The simple house in the distance has a small courtyard with a fence. When Ji Mingmei and I approached, we saw a stone mill under the eaves of the courtyard, and there were many water tanks and baskets in the courtyard.The owner who lives here sells tofu for a living, and these are essential household items.

Ji Mingmei knocked on the courtyard door, and the door also knew Miss Ji's strength, trembling under her hands but dared not make a sound.Ji Mingmei abused the gate of the courtyard, and shouted inside: "Hey! Hey! Is anyone home?"

The door under the eaves let out an exclamation of "Yiya", as if wondering why a guest came to the door at this time.A person came out of the door, wearing a bamboo hat on his head, which covered most of his face, and it was night, and the light was dim, so we couldn't even tell whether this person was a man or a woman. Not sure.

"Is the customer here to buy tofu?" The man stopped in front of the courtyard and asked us. The voice was a man.

"We came from other places and wanted to ask the owner about someone." I said while looking at him, I thought this person was very strange, he came out of the house wearing a bamboo hat, and his face seemed to be covered with a veil. He was dressed in black again, and if it wasn't for the white teeth showing when he spoke, he would really look like a black cow in the dark night, making it hard to see the outline.

"Oh, who does the guest want to ask?" the man said, and pressed his bamboo hat again, as if he didn't want us to see his face.

"Wu Hanxiang. Do you dare to ask if he lives here?"

"Are you looking for Wu Hanxiang?" The man was surprised, thought for a while and said, "What are you looking for?"

"A friend introduced me to inquire about something." I said.According to what the boatman said at the time, there were four other people involved in the Wenling landslide, and Wu Hanxiang was one of them.But I don't know the identity of the person in front of me yet, so I didn't directly say what I want to inquire about.

The man tilted his head and looked at us for a while, then suddenly smiled and said, "Oh, him. He used to live here, but he doesn't live here anymore."

"Then do you know where he moved to?" Ji Mingmei and I couldn't believe it, because the boatman made it clear that Wu Hanxiang's family sold tofu.The courtyard in front of him is obviously a tofu shop. If Wu Hanxiang has moved away, then the tofu shop should also move out.

Since the tofu shop is still there, maybe the person in front of him is Wu Hanxiang.The boatman was able to recognize me in Tantou Town, so Wu Hanxiang probably could too. Presumably he recognized who I was, so he cheated.

"Don't worry." The man looked at his words and said with a smile, "He is still in the town and has not moved to other places. Now, you go straight to the right from here, and you can see his body after walking for about two quarters of an hour. residence."

Since he categorically denied that he was Wu Hanxiang, we couldn't expose him directly based on guesswork, so we thanked him and walked in the direction he pointed out.Anyway, the monk can't run away from the temple if he can run away. If he lied to us, we will turn back and look for him at that time.

With this in mind, I walked straight along the road on the right with Ji Mingmei.Unexpectedly, after walking for a long time, we all began to feel that something was wrong.The man said that it took two quarters of an hour to walk forward to Wu Hanxiang's residence, but we walked for less than a quarter of an hour before we found that we had already left the town, and the path became more and more remote, and we were about to go up the mountain faintly.

"We've been fooled!" Ji Mingmei said angrily, "The man just now was Wu Hanxiang. He knew that we came to find him bad luck, so he sent us away. Maybe when we turn back at this time, he has already run away."

I also somewhat agree with her statement. Ji Mingmei was about to turn around and walk back when she said that, but at this moment, I found a light in front of me, flickering on and off, as if it was a lantern hanging by someone's door. He pulled her and motioned her to look forward.

Ji Mingmei also wondered: "Hey, there is really a family in front, how can they live so far away from the town?"

I shook my head, since there is really someone in front of me, I have to go over to see if that person just lied to us.However, Ji Mingmei and I continued to walk forward, but the more we walked, the more frightened we became.The road under our feet is not only desolate, but also goes more and more halfway up the mountain. Who would live in such a place alone?

Ji Mingmei also walked more and more panicked, she couldn't help but grab my arm tightly, and looked at me worriedly from time to time.I took a few steps forward, but still couldn't hold back the pained expression on my face.Seeing this, Ji Mingmei became even more panicked, and said to me: "What the hell is that place in front, I... shall we not go?"

I took a deep breath and forced myself to be calm: "It's okay, I'm here."

"You'd better stop pretending that you're brave. I see you've been baring your teeth, are you scared too?" Ji Mingmei comforted me considerately, "It's okay, at most we won't go, I won't laugh at you."

"Thank you for your understanding. But I'm not afraid," I said with pain. "The next time you go out, can you cut your nails first?"

"Ah?" Ji Mingmei didn't react, she looked at me blankly.

I said with a sad face, "You said you can just pull my arm, and why are you pinching me with your nails?"

"Oh." Ji Mingmei hurriedly let go of my arm, although she was a little embarrassed, she changed the subject very naturally, "Oh, look, the lantern in front is off."

She said with a light cough, and walked straight forward with her hands behind her back.I followed her with grief and indignation, thinking that you are not afraid at all now, because you have good nails, do you think you can pinch a ghost even if you encounter it?

Although Ji Mingmei was walking ahead of me, she was still a little guilty, so she slowed down and walked side by side with me after a while.Together we came to the place where the lantern was lit just now. It was a low slope, but there was no house, only a lonely old grave, let alone a lantern.

The graveyard was overgrown with weeds, and even the head of the grave was somewhat invisible. It seemed that no one had visited the grave for many years.But just now we looked at it from a distance, and there was clearly the light of a lantern here. How could it be a deserted tomb when we approached it?

There is often such a story in the notebook novels, the lonely wild fox occupies the old grave, creating the illusion of a mansion, so as to confuse the passing scholars.When I thought about it at this moment, I couldn't help feeling a little hairy, and Ji Mingmei was so frightened that she almost hung on me.

Now that I'm here, I always have to see whose grave it is, in case the owner comes out to meet guests later, it's good to say hello.I endured the pain and opened Ji Mingmei's fingers one by one, thinking that this cemetery seems to be nothing scary, because even if there are ghosts, the ability to torture people may not be better than Miss Ji.

I comforted Ji Mingmei and asked her to stand there and wait for me. Then I went to push the weeds away and carefully read the words on the tombstone under the faint moonlight. Unexpectedly, I was surprised at the first glance and turned my head to look at Ji Mingmei. Ming Mei said: "That person didn't lie to us just now."

"Huh?" Ji Mingmei was stunned, "Wu Hanxiang really lives here?"

I nodded, really confused, because the tombstone said "Tomb of Wu Hanxiang".It is engraved on the stele that the time when the stele was erected is the year of Dingsi, which is the sixth year of the Republic of China, which is 19 years ago.But according to the boatman, Wu Hanxiang went to Wenling with him every year for the past 20 years.

If both of these are true, and there are no doors in the front, back, left, and right sides of the grave, how did Wu Hanxiang, who had been dead for 19 years, crawl out of the grave, and how did he go to Wenling with the boatman and others?
"Wu Hanxiang has been dead for 19 years. Who is that person who went to Wenling with the boatman?" Ji Mingmei shuddered, but she dared not say that it was the dead Wu Hanxiang who went to Wenling.

"I'm afraid the only way to answer your question is to dig up this grave." I replied with a stern face.This grave definitely doesn't look like a fake, and it's impossible to fake it.Otherwise, if Wu Hanxiang is clearly alive, but there is his grave here, you can find out when you go to the town.It's not worth the effort to tell such a lie that can be exposed at the first poke.

"Then... what about the lantern just now?" Ji Mingmei tremblingly said, "We clearly saw the light of the lantern just now here."

"It might be a will-o'-the-wisp. There are a lot of will-o'-the-wisps in graves. It's not surprising. Sometimes I walk on the mountain road in the middle of the night, and I often encounter them." Although my heart was pounding, I could only comfort her.

Ji Mingmei shook her head and said, "You don't have to lie to me, I know the will-o'-the-wisps are green. The light just now was obviously the light of a candle, and it could only be from a lantern."

I was speechless by what she said, and for a moment I didn't know how to answer.When Ji Mingmei was blown by the mountain wind, her whole body trembled a little, she whispered to me: "I... let's go quickly."

I was about to nod, but suddenly there was a light behind her, which was the lantern light we saw before.The lantern lit up extremely suddenly, as if it appeared out of nowhere, and because the person holding the lantern could not be seen, it seemed to be floating towards us in the air.

I couldn't help shivering too, Ji Mingmei was in the state of a bowed snake shadow at this time, seeing me suddenly looking behind her with a strange expression, I naturally understood that something was wrong, and I was so scared that I bowed and almost shrank lump.

"What...how...what's wrong?" She asked me tremblingly.

"You...you...can you still run?" I answered her tremblingly.

Ji Mingmei couldn't help but let out a scream, which didn't scare the ghost, but scared me so much that I almost fell to the ground.Fortunately, at this moment, I heard footsteps, and the lantern was getting closer and closer to us.As soon as I heard footsteps, I let out a sigh of relief.

Since it can make the sound of footsteps, it is naturally a human being.It turned out that someone was lighting a lantern here just now, and then extinguished the lantern and left.It must be that the person didn't go far, so after hearing someone talking here, he turned back.I hurried over and patted Ji Mingmei on the shoulder, telling her not to be afraid, it was a human being.

Ji Mingmei was skeptical when she heard it, but the footsteps soon came behind her.Someone let out a "huh" and said, "Why is there more than one person, there are also men and women, male and female thieves?"

Just as this person was speaking, I also realized that not one person came, but three.The first one is holding a lantern, about fifty years old, looks festive, with two round eyes staring at the round face, just like a Sixi ball who opens his eyes to see the world.Behind him were two men in their 30s.

For some reason, he actually called us male and female thieves, but Ji Mingmei was very happy to hear this.She was terribly frightened just now, and now she saw someone coming as if she was seeing a relative, she nodded hurriedly and said: "Yes, yes, we are male and female thieves. Oh, I was scared to death. Hey, who are you? What did you do just now?" What is here with a lantern?"

The leader gave her a weird look, then turned to the two men behind him and said, "There are still some who don't tell themselves." Then he said to Ji Mingmei, "Since you have admitted it, let's go."

"Let's go? Where are you going?" I didn't hear the right voice, so I hurriedly said, "She was just talking nonsense just now, we are not some male and female thieves."

"It's really strange." The man shook his head and said, "Young couple, what's wrong with doing such a grave-digging business."

I was shocked. Digging graves is a very taboo thing. If the crime is proven, even if you are beaten to death here, no one will intervene.Ji Mingmei was still a little ignorant, and was about to speak, I hurriedly pulled her back, and said solemnly: "You guys misunderstood, I am a patrol horse, not here to dig graves."

"City patrol horse?" The man was taken aback, looked at me for a while, and then asked, "Are you here to deliver a letter to Wu Hanxiang? Is he at home? You should call him out to receive the letter."

I was blocked by him for a moment and had nothing to say, so I could only say: "Someone directed us to come here to find him."

"Then this person is quite enthusiastic." The person said cheerfully, "Stop talking, follow me back to the town hall."

Back to the town hall?I was stunned for a while, and suddenly asked, "Are you the mayor here?"

The man nodded, "Earlier I heard that Wu Hanxiang's grave was robbed. I still didn't believe it. I just came over and took a look. I really caught two grave robbers."

"Wu Hanxiang's grave was stolen?" I wondered, "He is not a high-ranking official, what valuable things can there be in the grave?"

"That's right." The mayor asked back, "He's not a rich man, why are you stealing his grave?"

He insisted that we were here to dig the grave, but we couldn't argue, so we had to follow him back to the town hall.I explained to him that we were indeed looking for Wu Hanxiang, but was directed to the grave.The mayor rubbed his chin and smiled and said, "Don't you know that Wu Hanxiang has been dead for more than ten years?"

(End of this chapter)