When Xu Yinyin slept until midnight, she felt restless.
She had a dream, in which she dreamed of a girl floating in the water, staring straight at her with a pair of foamy eyes, waving her hands, and saying in a humane voice: "Why don't you save me, why don't you save me.
"
Just these "Why don't you save me" screams were pitiful and permeating, disturbing Xu Yinyin's sleep, but she couldn't seem to wake up, so she could only be forced to listen to the voice and face-to-face with the face.
The bloody and frightening face.
It wasn't until dawn that Xu Yinyin suddenly woke up, with a pair of dark circles under her eyes, and yawned heavily.
This sleepiness has no effect at all, and is worse than staying up late.
The dark circles under her eyes were so heavy that she used a lot of concealer to cover them up.
After putting on makeup and changing clothes, Linglong brought breakfast.
The Xu family's meal times are not fixed, and breakfast is eaten as soon as you wake up, and usually they don't happen together.
Xu Dajun has started school again, and when he has to go to school, he usually wakes up in a hurry, grabs breakfast and eats it while walking.
And Zhang Xiulan has to go to the shop every day and doesn't even eat breakfast at home.
The only one left is Xu Chunshan, who has been staying at Zhujiazhuang a lot lately. He came back for the Hungry Ghost Festival yesterday and is going there again today. He just left the house.
Everyone is busy with their own affairs, so there is no shortage of time to have breakfast together.
She was too tired from her sleep last night, and Xu Yinyin felt that she needed to take a good rest to comfort her little mind.
I showed off two steamed dumplings in one go, drank two large bowls of millet porridge with pickles, and finished it off with a bowl of minced meat custard.
Just after eating, the housekeeper Tong Zhongliang hurriedly came in and reported, "Girl, someone from the government office is here!"
It's early in the morning. Someone from the government office?
To be precise, it's not quite early in the morning. It's just dawn. It should be called early in the morning. She got up a little early today.
So early in the morning, what are the people from the government office doing?
They are all good people, but no one commits any crime.
Naturally, one would not dare to turn a blind eye to someone coming from the government office. Zhang Xiulan and others had left, and Xu Yinyin was the only master left in the house. The housekeeper could only announce the arrival.
Xu Yinyin thought for a while and hurriedly went to the outer courtyard.
She originally thought that the person coming was from two government offices or something. Maybe the government office had some new announcements that they would routinely go door-to-door to publicize.
But unexpectedly, it was his second cousin Fang Yuming and Xing Baotou who came.
These are all acquaintances. Xu Yinyin calmed down and walked in. She first greeted her second cousin and then saluted Mr. Xing.
After the two sides greeted each other, Xing Baotou looked at his subordinate Yu Ming.
Fang Yuming then said to Xu Yinyin: "Yinyin, my cousin is here with Mr. Xing today on the order of the prefect. He wants to ask Yinyin to go to the Yamen to do a favor."
"Can you please help me?" Xu Yinyin wondered, "Second cousin, how can I help the Yamen?"
At that moment, Fang Yuming told the story about a dozen girls missing in the city last night.
"The prefect heard that you are very good at painting portraits, so I would like to ask you to help paint the woman's portrait. Maybe if you find this woman, you can solve this case."
When Xu Yinyin heard that a dozen girls were lost last night, she subconsciously thought of the human skin lantern and Hu Xuan.
But it shouldn't be possible. Hu Xuang just sentenced Qiu Houwenzhan and is still in jail.
It turned out that the people from the yamen came to ask her to help with the painting and help solve the case, so naturally she did her duty immediately.
Speaking of it, it seems that Ye Xuran asked Fang Congyun about her portrait at first, and Fang Congyun told Xu Dajun. Xu Dajun felt that there was nothing unspeakable about it, so he told her about it.
As a law-abiding citizen, it was her duty to help the government office. However, after such a long time, the government office had not contacted her, and she had not even thought about it.
Now that they were found, Xu Yinyin got into her mule cart without saying a word and followed her to the government office.
When they arrived at the government office, Magistrate Ye met her in person and said that he had troubled her to help her.
Later, Xu Yinyin was led to a room. Pens, inks, paper and inkstones were ready, and the maid was already waiting.
Xu Yinyin didn't need pen and ink. She only needed the paper, took out the charcoal she brought, and let the maid start describing.
He has a square face, round eyes, a somewhat flat nose, deep lines on his forehead, slightly thick lips, and a mole on the left side of his chin...
As the maid spoke, Xu Yinyin took action. Following each feature, a portrait of a woman appeared on the paper.
The maid looked curiously and her eyes lit up, "Yes! Yes, yes! That's what it looks like! The girl's painting looks so similar! I thought it was a real person standing in front of me!"
Xu Yinyin smiled and continued to write, perfecting a portrait before giving it to her for another look.
The maid said excitedly: "Yes, that's right! It's her!"
That's right.
Immediately, Xu Yinyin handed the portrait to Xing Captou. Xing Captou first showed it to Magistrate Ye. After seeing it, Magistrate Ye admired the painting skills and then ordered the painter to paint a few more pictures.
The leader personally led a team to search for this woman throughout the city.
With a portrait, and the portrait is so vivid, it will be much easier to find people.
But after noon, one of the groups had something to gain. In the south of the city, someone saw the portrait and immediately shouted that they knew this woman.
This woman's surname is An, and everyone she knows calls her Mrs. An. She lives in Sanlifang in the south of the city. She works as a matchmaker, so many people in this area know her.
At that moment, the government officials rushed to Sanlifang and blocked Mrs. An at home. Without saying a word, they first took her back to the government office.
Magistrate Ye interrogated her in person. At first Mrs. An pretended to be stunned, saying that she just saw the girl's beauty and that the matchmaker was used to prostitutes, so she couldn't help but stepped forward to talk to her and asked more questions.
But when she heard that she was going to be tortured, she looked panicked.
Magistrate Ye asked countless questions and met all kinds of people. When he saw her reaction, he knew that there was something wrong. He did not hesitate and immediately asked people to torture her.
After only two boards went down, Mrs. An started crying and begging for mercy, and she did all the tricks.
Half a month ago, a distant cousin of hers came to visit her relatives. Seeing that he was generous, she happily let him stay.
During this period, the cousin said that he had joined the Red Lotus Sect, and told her many good things about joining the Red Lotus Sect. She was so excited after hearing this that she immediately joined the sect.
After joining the religion, she received twenty taels of silver!
The first thing she had to do when she joined the church was to help her cousin kidnap a beautiful young girl while there were many people in the downtown area on the Ghost Festival.
People would say that she was a matchmaker and had a thick skin. For the sake of the twenty taels of silver and the money that would come later, she nodded in agreement.
Last night, she and her cousin cooperated with each other. She was responsible for finding suitable girls. If she could be deceived, she would deceive them. If she couldn't be deceived, her cousin would take action and use a handkerchief soaked in sweat medicine to knock them out and take them away.
During one night's work, a total of four girls were kidnapped, and these four girls were all taken away by her cousin. She did not know where they were hidden.
After all that needed to be said, Mrs. An kept kowtowing and said that she was just helping to deceive people, that the kidnapping was all done by her cousin, and that it had nothing to do with her, so she asked the prefect to spare her.
When Magistrate Ye heard about the Red Lotus Sect, his eyelids jumped.
It’s the Red Lotus Sect again, it’s another kidnapping, a beautiful young girl...
Immediately, Magistrate Ye was busy asking people to interrogate Hu Xuan.
Xing Baotou went there in person, but not long after, he came back in a hurry and said: "Sir, Hu Xuan is missing!"