"Wang Tou, something happened! Something big happened!"
Jingxian County Government, a police officer rushed into the county government cafeteria with a panic expression.
The catcher Wang Wu and a group of other agents were eating lunch in the cafeteria when they were disturbed by the panicked howls of the visitor. They all stopped their chopsticks and stared at the visitor in displeasure.
Wang Wu saw that the person coming was Old Liu Tou, who had been working as a clerk at the Yamen Gate for many years, and he knew that something big must have happened, otherwise he would not have made such an old man so panicked.
He put the noodles in the bowl into his mouth with chopsticks, and then asked: "What happened?"
Old Liu patted his chest, took a breath, raised his hand and pointed to the south and said urgently: "A hunter came to the Yamen to report the case, saying that he saw many putrid corpses in the col to the west of Qinan Mountain, and some of them were already dead.
It was chewed beyond recognition by wild beasts in the mountains."
Wang Wu and the policemen's eyelids jumped when they heard this.
"Where is the hunter who reported the crime?" Wang Wu stood up and asked.
"Waiting in the front hall, waiting for Wang Tou and His Excellency to go and ask in detail." Old Liu Tou replied.
Wang Wu grabbed the sharp knife hanging on the edge of the table and walked out while urging the policeman to go to the back house of the Yamen to ask for the county magistrate.
The county magistrate Huo Pingfan has been in a panic recently, always feeling that something bad is about to happen, so he has kept a very strict eye on his trouble-making son, and has not allowed him to go out for more than half a month.
To his great relief, his son, who had always been rebellious, seemed to have suddenly grown up and become sensible.
In the past half month or so, instead of being arrogant and noisy, he stayed in the study every day and studied diligently. He also brought him tea and water from time to time and cared about whether he had any troublesome official duties.
"The ancients said: A big tree is upright. If you are honest, don't deceive me."
When Huo Pingfan saw his son rushing into the study just after lunch, he couldn't help stroking his goatee and sighed that the ancients were absolutely right.
"Master, something happened! Something big happened!" A panicked shout broke Huo Pingfan's inner peace.
As soon as he heard the shouting, his heart suddenly skipped a beat, and his intuition told him that the thing that made him panic had finally happened.
He glanced in the direction of the study, couldn't help but breathed a sigh of relief, and secretly rejoiced: "Fortunately, it was not Wu'er's fault."
"Hurry up, what happened?"
"Reporting to the eldest sir, a large number of dead bodies were discovered in the col on the west side of Qinan Mountain."
Snap!
In the study room, the book in Huo Xingwu's hand fell to the ground. His face turned pale as a sheet for an instant, his eyes were full of fear, and in just a short while, a layer of cold sweat broke out on his forehead.
In front of the county government office, Huo Pingfan and Wang Wu asked the hunter who came to report the case in detail, and then took the policeman and the gangster on their fast horses to Qinan Mountain.
"Ouch!"
"Uncle Guo, this Dengxian Pavilion is really magnificent!"
On the way, Wang Wu looked at the magnificent towers and jade buildings on the mountain tops in the distance and was amazed.
"How dare you call it Dengxian Pavilion if it's not impressive?"
"It is said that there are ninety-nine palaces in Dengxian Pavilion, starting from Fengqi Mountain in the north, and then winding deeply along the continuous ridge to the south. A palace is built every time it passes a mountain. The palaces are one higher than the other, and finally end at the highest mountain.
The peak is Thang Long Mountain.”
"The entire Dengxian Pavilion is like a huge black dragon, entrenched on the continuous ridge. The dragon's head is raised to the sky, and it is about to fly to the ninth heaven."
"I heard that Uncle Guo invested all his family property in the Dengxian Pavilion, but the money gap is still huge, so he decided to open the first sixty-six palaces first and continue to build the subsequent palaces while making money."
"I have also heard that my uncle has sent invitations to famous theater troupes, brothels, casinos, boxing gyms and other venues in the imperial capital and surrounding cities, and the first sixty-six palaces are scheduled to be opened on the first day of August."
"Haha, at that time, the brothers went together to see things, eat, drink and have fun. They were considered kings."
"Haha, okay, that's settled."
"Get lost!" Wang Wu scolded with a smile.
The detectives talked to each other and had a very lively conversation.
Only Huo Pingfan frowned when he heard this.
He felt that the Dengxian Pavilion was built too high and too magnificent, trampling on the palace where the emperor lived, which was not a good thing.
However, his worries were completely unnecessary, because Uncle Guo had thought of this problem when he first built Dengxian Pavilion and had already solved it.
He promised Su Hanlin that he would only need 20% of the profits from Dengxian Pavilion, and the remaining 80% would be handed over directly to the treasury. As for the money, materials and manpower needed to build Dengxian Pavilion, he would not ask for any money, materials and manpower from the empire, and he would figure it all out by himself.
Moreover, a castle in the sky was built on the last pavilion of Dengxian Pavilion. Only the emperors of Dasu were qualified to climb this castle in the sky.
Su Hanlin readily agreed and allowed him to build whatever he wanted as long as it did not violate the law.
It took more than an hour for Huo Pingfan, Wang Wu and others to reach the col where Orion found the carrion.
The stench in the mountain col was overwhelming, and there were so many flies and mosquitoes that it was hard to keep your eyes open.
Only rotten corpses were seen, thrown haphazardly in the grass. The gnawing of wild animals and the bites of maggots, mosquitoes and flies had long since made them no longer human.
vomit!
Although he tried his best to hold back, Wang Wu still vomited out his lunch.
Everyone else also vomited.
Wang Wu asked for two pieces of cotton balls from Wu Zuo to block his nostrils, and walked around the col.
He found that these corpses should have been buried in the same pit, but they were dug out by people or wild animals, and finally turned into the scene before him.
The pit was very large and deep, and there were mutilated bodies at the bottom that had not been dug out.
Wang Wu called to a group of detectives to get shovels and dig around the pit.
Half an hour later, after Wang Wu, Wu Zuo and a group of detectives dug and searched, all the bodies were collected together.
There were eighty-three bodies in total, including old and young, male and female, and even a pregnant woman. It was too horrible to look at.
"Sir, there is very little blood here. It should not be the place where the first crime occurred. In other words, these people were killed and then moved here for burial."
"Based on the degree of decomposition of the corpses, it can be inferred that these people should have been dead for about fifteen to twenty days. Their faces were all so decomposed that their original appearance was basically unrecognizable."
"There were only some messy footprints at the scene, but no useful clues were found."
The detectives and gangsters reported the investigation situation to Huo Pingfan one by one.
"Look more carefully and expand the scope." Huo Pingfan ordered.
Wang Wu walked towards the east side of the col, and after walking more than two hundred steps, he suddenly stopped and saw a severed hand that had been chewed by wild beasts with only bones left.
The bones of this hand were very large, so he concluded that it should be the hand of an adult man.
He picked up a dead branch from the side and fiddled with the severed hand a few times, and found that the fingers of the severed hand were still tightly held.
"I seem to have caught something in my hand." He murmured curiously, squatted down, and used the dead branch in his hand to break the clenched knuckles of his hand. After being hit, the knuckles were all loosened.
The five fingers of the severed hand were loosened, and a jade pendant covered in blood and flesh was revealed in the palm of the hand.
Wang Wu took out a piece of white cloth, wrapped it in the jade pendant, and wiped it clean, revealing its original color and surface carvings.
This is a palm-sized, amber translucent, small and exquisite jade pendant with carvings of the auspicious animal Qilin on both sides.
"Wang Tou, have you found anything?" A policeman not far away asked curiously when he saw Wang Wu squatting on the ground looking at something.
"Oh, it's nothing. I saw a severed hand that had been eaten by wild beasts." Wang Wu replied, but he quickly wrapped the jade pendant in white cloth and quietly hid it in his sleeve.
It's not that he saw the jade pendant as valuable and wanted to be greedy, but that he recognized the jade pendant and played with it for a while.
This is a jade pendant that Huo Xingwu spent more than two hundred taels of silver to buy at Zhenbao Pavilion. He once showed it off in front of him and let him play with it in his hand.
A victim's severed hand was clutching a jade pendant, and Wang Wu immediately pictured a picture in Wang Wu's mind: when the victim was being killed, he pulled a jade pendant from the assailant, but the assailant
Didn't notice it.
Why did Huo Xingwu come to this barren mountain?
Why did he kill people?
Who were these people who were killed?
A lot of questions suddenly popped up in Wang Wu's mind, and he couldn't wait to find Huo Xingwu immediately to ask for answers.
"Wang Tou, come back quickly. This big brother Orion said he knows these people." The policeman in the mountain col called Wang Wu.
"I'm not - not entirely sure." Orion's face was as pale as paper, and there was nothing but fear in his eyes. He must have never dared to come here to hunt again after this incident.
"It doesn't matter, just tell me." Huo Pingfan comforted him.
The hunter raised his hand and pointed to the northeast and said: "Go forward for about two miles and turn around the foot of the mountain over there. There is a small village with about a hundred people living there. I have only been there three times and talked with the people in the village.
I’m not very familiar with it. I only remembered that village after hearing the Master Zuo say that many of the dead people were disabled.”
"Why, are there many disabled people in that village?" Wang Wu asked.
"Yes." Orion nodded and said, "I heard from them that they are veterans who retired due to disability after participating in the Kyoto War. The reason why they live at the foot of Qinan Mountain is to protect the remains of their comrades buried in Qinan Mountain."
Huo Pingfan looked up at Qinan Mountain to the east, but his view was blocked by trees, but he could vaguely hear the sound of clanging sounds coming from Qinan Mountain.
"There is construction going on on Qinan Mountain." Huo Pingfan said thoughtfully, and then said to Orion: "Excuse me, please take us to that small village."
"Okay." Orion nodded.
The mountain road was difficult to walk, and it took a while to reach the village Orion mentioned.
The village is indeed very small, with only ten or twenty houses, but it is quiet at the moment, and the doors and windows of every house are open.
"Look around to see if there is anyone there," Huo Pingfan ordered, and then walked into a house.
The yard is a bit messy, with no livestock or farm tools. The room is also messy and dusty. There is nothing useful in sight, only some junk.
"How do you feel?" Huo Pingfan looked at Wang Wu and asked.
"It's a bit like moving away." Wang Wu replied.
The detectives who went to search returned one after another, but found no one or any trace of human life.
And the situation of each household is the same, giving people the feeling of a whole village being relocated.
Wang Wu rubbed the ground vigorously with the soles of his feet, and blood covered by dust suddenly appeared on the ground. He couldn't help but sneer and said: "The murderer covered up the crime scene and deliberately arranged an illusion of relocation of the whole village."
"Why go to all this trouble? Wouldn't it be clean if it was burned on fire?" a policeman asked in confusion.
Huo Pingfan said: "There is fire and thick smoke, and people can see it from a distance."
Rumble——
A group of people were analyzing when the ground beneath their feet suddenly shook violently, and a rumbling sound was heard.
They were all startled, and suddenly looked up at the top of Qinan Mountain, thinking that the mountain had collapsed or that a huge boulder had rolled down, but it did not happen.
"The sound came from the direction of the Imperial Capital!" Wang Wu exclaimed.
Huo Pingfan looked panicked and said, "Isn't it the earth dragon turning over?"
Rumble——
There was panic in the imperial capital, and a large number of people rushed into the empty streets in panic.
They all thought it was an earth dragon turning over because the ground was shaking, but the disaster scene they imagined did not come immediately.
Su Hanlin soared into the sky from the palace, climbed hundreds of feet into the air and looked down at the entire imperial capital city, wondering what was causing the evil.
"Archdeacon, what's going on?!"
In Wanjiang Pavilion, Xiao Zhu and the other four deacons all looked at Gu Tongtian and asked anxiously.
Because mountains are collapsing, cliffs are toppling, and huge waves are rising on the sea of fog.
Gu Tongtian seemed to have sensed something, and a look of fear suddenly appeared on his wrinkled face, and he shouted: "Go quickly, this little world is going to collapse."
"What?!" Xiao Zhu and the other two had expressions of disbelief upon hearing this.
However, they did not wait for Gu Tongtian to say it a second time, but rushed out of the attic room and rushed towards the mountain peak where they usually lived as quickly as possible.
If the small world really collapses, then everything in it will be torn apart by the turbulent flow of space, and they have a lot of things that need to be taken away.
"Stop, stop, burst, burst, burst!"
In the sword tomb, Niu Dawa screamed in fear because his whole body was bulged into a ball by the spiritual energy.
It was Zhang Xiaozu who sucked the spiritual veins and poured the spiritual energy into his body like blowing air.
He felt that his demon elixir was about to be swollen to pieces by the spiritual energy.
Next to him, Zhou Jianlai was the first to be blown into a ball by the spiritual energy. He did not dare to speak loudly for fear of floating up.
"Fourth!"
Zhang Xiaozu called Yuan Taiping.
Yuan Taiping quickly stretched out his palm to catch the palm slapped by Zhang Xiaozu.
As soon as his palm met Zhang Xiaozu's palm, he felt spiritual energy pouring into his body like a flood that broke a bank, a hundred times faster than when he absorbed the spiritual energy himself.
He directly guided his spiritual energy to the sea of qi, hoping to break through the bottleneck and advance to the ninth level.
"What a fool, hurry up!"
"I feel that my thunder disaster is coming!"
Niu Dawa howled with a mournful face.
He has been suppressing his own realm, wanting to polish it more and overcome the thunder tribulation, but after being blown away by Zhang Xiaozu's spiritual energy, he could no longer suppress it.
Zhou Jianlai was shocked when he heard this and hurriedly shouted: "Control it! This small world is about to collapse. To survive the tribulation here is to seek death."
This chapter has been completed!