The Republic of China Conspiracy Records

Chapter 155 Poppies (4)

"What?" Guanshi Lin said, "I only saw you two walking in, nothing else."

Thanks to his great love, he didn't regard us as a thing at all.While we were wondering, Steward Lin pushed open the door of the house, and was about to step in, but for some reason, he suddenly stumbled under his feet and fell face-to-face on the ground.Seeing this, we hurriedly reached out to help him, but just as we bent down, we met a pair of wooden eyes.

Hidden under the threshold, these eyes were looking at us coldly.Ji Mingmei and I were caught off guard, we were all taken aback and let out a short cry.Hearing our screams, those eyes didn't even run away, but jumped onto Guanshi Lin's body, and then looked at us like a demonstration.

It turned out that Guanshi Lin's fall just now was tripped by a horned beast hiding under the threshold!

This horned beast not only knows how to read, but also knows how to plot against people.The hair on my back was stared at by its eyes, and I thought of Yuan Chumo's death under its claws, so I hurriedly pulled Ji Mingmei back a few steps, avoiding the range where it could jump up and hurt people.Seeing that we were wary of it, the horned beast didn't move, it just looked at us coldly, its eyes were very human-like.

We were all sweating from the sight of it, and what made us even more horrified was that after Steward Lin tripped over it, he disappeared without a sound.I thought of Lin Yubin's loss of breath after being thrown down by it, and I couldn't help but have an ominous premonition. While guarding against the horned beast, I called out to Steward Lin softly.

Manager Lin didn't respond, as if he fell and died.I was terrified in my heart, so I shielded Ji Mingmei behind me, boldly shouted at it, hoping to scare it away.Unexpectedly, the horned beast looked at me with encouraging eyes after hearing my cry.

I saw what this meant, probably wanting to hear if I could yell louder, and was immediately short of breath.The horned beast jumped off Steward Lin and headed towards us step by step.I was shocked, and pulled Ji Mingmei back step by step, and was forced to the gate of the courtyard by it.

The horned beast arrived at the courtyard gate and looked at us with great interest.I met its eyes, and I couldn't help but be surprised to find that there was no evil in its eyes, and it seemed that it had no malice towards us. All the previous actions in front of us were more like a prank.I couldn't help but feel a strange feeling in my heart—this horned beast seems to know me?
Ji Mingmei also noticed the strangeness, hesitated for a moment, and said to me: "It seems...to know you?"

I shook my head at her blankly, at this moment, the horned beast suddenly jumped up the courtyard wall, took a few steps on the wall and then jumped off the wall.Ji Mingmei and I were overwhelmed with fear and amazement, and chased out the wall to find its figure, but we didn't know where it jumped.

Steward Lin was still alive and dead at this time, we were stunned at the door for a while, and then hurried back to the courtyard to see him.Manager Lin fell on his face, so I joined hands with Ji Mingmei to turn him over.Unexpectedly, as soon as we turned him over, we all trembled in fright at the same time, and threw him to the ground as soon as we let go.

Because the person we turned over was not Steward Lin, but the mayor of the town!

Steward Lin was tripped by the horned beast, which we saw with our own eyes, but the person who threw himself on the ground at this moment was actually the mayor.The mayor is obviously out of breath, and this incident is exactly the same as what happened in Donglin Thatched Cottage.I thought of the way the horned beast looked at me before it left, and I was shocked—whether it was Yuan Chumo or the mayor, the horned beast killed them all deliberately for me to see.

But I don't know the horned beast, nor do I know Yuan Chumo and the mayor. What does the horned beast show me killing people?
"The horned beast is showing you a murder, it's just...as if it's giving you an explanation!" Ji Mingmei was also stunned.

We were going to find the mayor, but now the mayor is lying in front of us, so we don't need to look for it.But we were the only ones who saw the two killings of the Horned Beast. Even if Yuan Chumo died last time, no one would suspect us, but now we are the only ones present when the mayor dies. As long as people find out, we will never be able to tell .

I was thinking about it in a panic, who knows what to be afraid of, and when we were wondering, someone behind me suddenly said in surprise: "You... what are you doing!"

When we looked back, the second lady was standing behind me looking at us in horror.Ji Mingmei hurriedly said to her: "We didn't kill the mayor..."

"What, the town... the mayor is dead!" The second lady was even more horrified when she heard this, she took a few steps back, then quickly turned around and ran out of the yard.

Seeing this, Ji Mingmei paused and said, "Too bad, she ran away!"

"Otherwise, you still want to catch up and kill people to silence them?" I smiled wryly, feeling more and more weird in my heart.

Originally, we all thought that the horned beast killed people, as if it was killing it for me, and it felt like it was going to give me some explanation.But now that I think about it, this is not explaining to me, it is clearly blaming me.Because apart from us, no third person has seen the horned beast.

We can barely explain Yuan Chumo's death, but now we can no longer explain the mayor's death.More importantly, after the death of the mayor, there will be no one to preside over the case, and we will not even have a chance to discuss it.Therefore, if we leave right now, we will never be able to clear up this crime based on what the second lady said.

"Let's go, go to the town hall." I thought for a while, then said to Ji Mingmei.

Ji Mingmei hesitated to speak, her expression was rather hesitant, but finally she nodded.I know the worries in her heart. Although leaving here will not get rid of the crime, but going to the town hall on my own initiative will not lead to good results.If we are really found to have killed two people in a row, then we voluntarily surrender, and we may not be given a discount when sentencing.

However, if I really leave in an unclear way and become a fugitive on the list, this is absolutely unacceptable to me.Ji Mingmei understood what I was thinking, so she came over and took my hand, raised her face and said, "Whatever you want to do, I will always follow you."

I was grateful to her in my heart, and held her hand backhand, thinking that it would be good if Bu Ying was here.However, when she was in Yanzhi Town, Mrs. Qi mentioned that she had met Xiuhong in the provincial capital, so Bu Ying went to the provincial capital alone, trying to find out her current whereabouts based on Xiuhong's residence at that time, but probably not. Come and join us so soon.

So right now we can only clear our charges by ourselves, but what worries me most now is that the town hall will not give us this chance at all.No matter what, we have to go to the town hall first, otherwise it will be hard to argue whether we killed the person or not.

I was about to tell Ji Mingmei to leave, but she shook her head and said, "We don't have to go, the second lady will come here with the people from the town hall, we will just wait. If you leave this courtyard, you may be suspected of absconding in fear of crime." .”

As soon as I heard the same, I sat down next to the mayor’s corpse, thinking that I was framed by a cat after living for so many years, and I couldn’t help but fell into deep thought—although my eyes are small, you can’t just think that I am a cat. Mice, right?

The mayor was turned over by us, and he was lying carelessly at my feet at the moment, with an unpredictable expression on his face, as if he was gloating at seeing me being framed.I looked at him for a long time, thinking I could see something, but after watching him for a long time, I saw nothing but a look of bad luck.

We were frightened just now, so we threw him to the ground hastily, and now he is facing me in an awkward posture.He was lying awkwardly, and I felt awkward too, so I reached out to help him level his body.Unexpectedly, as soon as I moved, I realized that a book had slipped out of his arms.

I let out a "huh" and picked up the book from beside him.The book paper is yellow, there are many traces of damage and repair, and the overall printing quality is not good.But after I picked up the book and only turned a page, I felt that my whole body began to tremble, and I almost couldn't hold the book in my hand.

"What's the matter with you?" Ji Mingmei hurriedly said, and then quickly rushed to my side, and also glanced at the book.But she looked at it for a while but couldn't see anything, so she took the book from my hand, closed the book and looked at the cover.

When she saw the cover of the book, she couldn't help but "Huh" and exclaimed in surprise, "This book is "Ji Shen Lu"!"

I nodded, Ji Mingmei looked very puzzled, she flipped through a few more pages of the book, and then handed it back to me, "It's completely different from the one I read at the hotel, is it really "Ji Shen Lu"? Isn’t it just the words written on the book cover?”

"It's really "Ji Shen Lu," I replied, "but you don't see the problem at all—this book is a printed version of the early Song Dynasty, and it is from the same age as the author. Judging from its age, it may even be the beginning of the Song Dynasty. engraved copy."

Although Ji Mingmei still didn't quite understand what I meant, she frowned and said, "Books from the early Song Dynasty have been handed down to the present, and they must be precious. No matter who gets them, they will treasure them properly. How could they appear on the mayor so casually?"

"This is the problem." I took a deep breath and lifted the book. "Ancient books are fragile, and both the paper and the decoration are easily damaged. Whoever gets this book will be careful and properly preserved, and it will never be so easy. Stuff it in your bosom."

"So," Ji Mingmei gradually recalled, "This book should not belong to the mayor!"

"That's right. That horned beast wasn't trying to frame me, but was protecting the collection of books in Donglin Cottage—Yuan Chumo and the mayor were both stealing rare ancient books from Donglin Cottage! We didn't look at Yuan Chumo at that time If we had searched him, we should have found this book on him."

"I understand. Yuan Chumo stole books from the Donglin Thatched Cottage and was killed by a horned beast, but the books were still on him. When the mayor arrived, he took it away from Yuan Chumo while we were not prepared. book, so the Horned Beast tracked him down and killed him!"

"That's it." I nodded and said, "The question now is, why did we see Lin Yubin and Lin Guanshi in the first place, but after they died, we didn't find out that they were actually Yuan Chumo and the mayor?"

Ji Mingmei whispered: "One person can suddenly become another person, why does this sound like a painted skin?"

Indeed, although this matter is not as scary as the painted skin, the weirdness is not inferior.I flipped through the "Ji Shen Lu" in my hand, and my heart was even more heavy.This book has been handed down nearly a thousand years ago, and it has gone through many hardships, and it is still well preserved today, and its rarity is far beyond ordinary people's imagination.

Many people know that antiques are valuable in troubled times, gold and prosperous times, but the world is not good now, and books are not considered antiques in the consciousness of ordinary people, so their value is often ignored.In fact, a block-printed copy of the Song Dynasty in good condition is by no means less valuable than a piece of Song porcelain.

Generations of the Lin family have spent money and effort searching for rare ancient books, and the thatched cottage in Donglin is actually of great value.The Lin family is well aware of this, so they usually don't let others in.However, Yuan Chumo colluded with the mayor to steal books from the Donglin thatched cottage. It turned out that this was extremely difficult, because the Lin family did not allow the Yuan family to enter the thatched cottage.

But since Mrs. Lin married into the Lin family and became the mistress of the Lin family, this became possible.That being the case, did Mrs. Lin have this consideration when she married into the Lin family?If things are really as I guessed, then Lin Yubin has been under the schemes of his wife all these years, which is really pitiful.

After I flipped through the book, I carefully placed it on the mayor's body, waiting for the second lady to bring someone.Not long after, the people from the town office followed the second lady, and they were all taken aback when they saw that we were still where we were and that we had no intention of resisting.Without waiting for them to ask questions, I told what happened and our conjectures.

Because we accused the mayor of being involved in the book theft, everyone who came here didn't take it seriously.But thanks to my status as a city patrol horse, although they didn't believe my words, their words were still polite. They only said that now that the mayor was killed, they couldn't solve the case, so they had to ask us to stay at the town office and wait for the county police to come Let's talk.

I nodded obediently, and then said to the second lady who was hiding behind them: "Please take a look, the second lady, is the book on the mayor's possession a copy from Donglin Thatched Cottage?"

The second lady hesitated for a moment, walked forward, squatted down, picked up the book, opened the pages and looked at it, then turned her head and said, "There are too many books in thatched cottage, I don't know this one. But there are books in thatched cottage Chapter, it should be."

"Have the books in thatched cottage been stolen before?" I asked her.

"No." The second lady replied.As soon as she said that, my heart sank. If the Donglin Thatched Cottage had never been stolen, then the credibility of my words would naturally be greatly reduced.Just when I was a little anxious, she seemed to remember something, and suddenly said, "No, no, the thatched cottage was indeed stolen. But it wasn't recently, so I almost forgot."

I cheered up, and hurriedly said, "May I ask when was the last time the thatched cottage was stolen?"

"It's been a long time," the second lady replied, "it's been almost 20 years. At that time, the head of the Lin family was still the elder brother of my husband. It was only after the theft that my uncle left home and my husband took over. Patriarch. I guess uncle's departure from home has something to do with the thatched cottage theft."

"However, if you lose a book, no matter how precious it is, why would you abandon your home and run away?" Ji Mingmei wondered.Everyone present also went to see the second lady after hearing the news, obviously they knew nothing about the past of the Lin family.

(End of this chapter)