Volume 1 Huangquan December, Chapter 51: Finding the Needle in the Bottom of the Water
When Shan Hai was washing his face in the morning, he felt that there was a commotion downstairs.
Shi Wuqi opened the window and looked downstairs. People were running to the same side one after another, thinking that something must have happened.
They packed up in a hurry, and as soon as they went out, they bumped into Mu Wan and Dai Luan, who were also leading Miss Qi. Several people ran over together, and that direction was where Jiangyuan Bridge was. Seeing more and more people, they
He also quickened his pace.
Many people crowded together by the river and pointed in the water. Aluan was the first to squeeze in and saw something floating in the water. It was round and wrapped with a lot of algae. There was also a man lying beside a tree.
I was trembling and couldn't stand up.
After asking around, I found out that he was the waiter at the hotel next door. When he got up early in the morning, he went to the river to wash his face, and saw something floating in the distance. He didn't pay attention at first, thinking it was the clothes of a washerwoman floating down the river.
It wasn't until a magpie stood up and was frightened away by a school of fish that it stepped on the thing. Only then did he see that it actually had a nose and eyes.
It's a human head.
The screams attracted people nearby. Now, everyone is gathered here, pointing at the head. I heard that someone has reported it to the police and is on his way here.
"Is it really a human head?"
Shan Hai asked, still staring at it. Shi Wuqi looked at it carefully and nodded slightly.
Shanhai asked again if he could call his body.
"Then first we have to know where it is. We need to fish out the head before I can ask."
At this time, people from the government came. A fisherman used a fishing net to carry it, pulled the pole over, and when he weighed it, it turned out to be a male head. After seeing what it was, the people who were curious were frightened.
They dispersed. Only a few of them were still standing there.
A man with a sword just picked up the still trembling waiter and asked the witness to go with them. Then he turned his head:
"Hey, what do you guys do?"
Shan Hai and Wu Qi looked at each other, and the latter spoke first.
"We are travelers from a foreign country and happened to pass through this place. I happen to be a coroner. What about this matter?"
"Go, go, don't cause trouble, we have autopsy personnel. Be careful and arrest you as suspects."
As the man spoke, he swung the net bag forward and immediately threw a water stain on the ground. He took a step back and almost had water splashing on him. He thought for a while and then said:
"Wait a minute. This one is a Taoist from Linxiaoguan. He can talk to the dead."
The government officials who had walked a few steps turned back and stared at the mountains and sea.
"Don't talk nonsense."
"Shh, I have my own way."
Several people looked at him suspiciously. The old Taoist robe he was wearing looked different. The leader thought for a while, then waved his hand and asked them to follow him. As they walked on the road, Shan Hai still had a sad face. He didn't know his surname was Shi.
What did he want to do? He just said it and didn't care. He just chanted a few curses that they didn't understand to the person's head and made two gestures.
Mu Wan frowned all the way, wondering what he was up to.
In the blink of an eye, they arrived at the backyard of the Yamen. They put the head on a shelf and trimmed the hair. The head was slightly swollen, at least it had been soaked in water for most of the night. The waiter was timid, so he calmed down, took a look, and immediately removed his head.
Don't open it and say you don't know him. But you don't know how long it will take for someone to come and report to the official who is missing from your home.
There is no other way, we have to ask the Taoist priest to do it himself.
Smokey and mysterious, a set of procedures that seemed very professional, almost bluffed the people around him. But Taoist Master Lin was still confused. He didn't know whether Shi Wuqi's calculation was professional enough.
. He expected that he would not be tempted to do anything like this, so he reluctantly agreed.
Finally, he pointed forward the old fly whisk that the yamen had lent him, and the head started to tremble in full view of everyone.
Everyone stared at him carefully. He suddenly opened his eyes, his soft lips opened and closed, grinning horribly, as if he was saying something without rhythm. But he couldn't make a sound, he just gestured with his mouth open like this.
.Finally, the whole head rolled off the table, and everyone was so frightened that no one dared to take a step forward.
Shi Wuqi walked up, picked it up, and put it in its place.
"Everyone must have heard it." He put his hands behind his back, full of confidence.
Telling lies with your eyes open.
"What did you hear?" the waiter asked dryly.
"He said his body was hidden under Jiangyuan Bridge."
A group of people looked at each other in confusion.
"What are you doing standing around, go get it!"
A group of people went to copy the guy.
The common people gathered in a big circle, and several government officials blocked the crowd. The whole government found a brave and good-tempered man, who shouted in the crowd for a long time, and promised a bounty before two big men stood up.
come out.
"Wu Qi can't swim?"
"Yes, but the clothes will get dirty."
"oh."
Dai Luan and Mu Wan rolled their eyes at the same time. Only Taoist Master Lin approached him and asked him in a low voice, is there anything else besides this?
"The body parts are limited, so we know the place is good. We have to wait until they fish the body out before we can find it."
Only then did Mu Wan realize that he might have touched the wound section when picking up the head.
"By the way, is there anything fishy about the incision?" she asked.
"Oh, you can actually think of this."
"I'm asking you something."
"The flesh is a little blistered, but overall it's fairly smooth. But the cuts on the spine are very smooth, and it doesn't look like it was chopped off by someone."
Aluan turned his head and asked: "You mean, maybe it was a monster that did it?"
"No" he pointed to the bridge, "over there, I saw the Bridge Princess last night."
"Did you see it too?"
Shanhai immediately looked at Aluan: "I've never seen you."
"There is indeed someone there. I saw her standing there motionless, not bothering anyone. The crowd came and went but she didn't move, and there were people walking past her. I guess she is not human."
Aluan gestured beside her: "Is it true that he is wearing a long purple dress with gold-rimmed flowers embroidered on it?"
"indeed so."
Shan Hai and Mu Wan looked at each other, not knowing what to say. But they had some doubts in their hearts that the deceased was indeed inextricably linked to the Bridge Princess.
The sun was shining brightly in the sky, but it could not soften the stubborn hearts of passers-by. I was afraid that if I fished it out later, it would run faster than before.
After fishing for a long time, a man finally popped up, holding something in his hand. It was flesh-colored and turned white when soaked. Shanhai was shocked, thinking it might be another human head. But when he swam to the shore,
They put it on the ground and looked at it, only to find that it was a piece of meat smaller than a human head.
Meat?
It was cylindrical, with neat cuts on the front and back. Shi Wuqi took a look and said:
"This is a section of thigh, near the knee."
Everyone was in an uproar, and even Zhizhi stopped shouting.
Dismemberment case. Now the trouble is even greater.
"How much hatred does this Qiao Ji have to have against him?" Shi Wuqi muttered. When the people heard the word Qiao Ji, they immediately started discussing. Everyone felt that the deceased must be a heartless man.
The government officials were in a daze and had not yet recovered. Shan Hai walked up to them and asked them about their cases in previous years. The prefect quickly told them that they could go back and transfer previous cases. Just as he was talking, another government official came up and held a hand in his hand.
Half of the bones were found, and I don’t know where they came from. Many people came and went to help, and after fishing for a full hour, I still found nothing. Maybe some of them had flowed down the river, and the head was stuck on the bridge pier.
Only the side can be seen.
Another way is to block the dam upstream and wait for the bodies to fall out of the water. But this is troublesome to do, and the prefect said that the river embankment was built from above. If you want to close the dam, you have to send someone to the county government. You can wait.
If the county approves it, I'm afraid it will be enough for the fish to eat.
A dead horse should be treated as a living horse doctor. Shi Wuqi rolled up his sleeves, ignored the previous ritual of relying on mountains and seas, and directly touched the two corpses. After a long silence, he slowly spoke.
"This is not the same person."
The people were surprised and immediately started whispering to each other. The prefect looked a little sad and lowered his voice and told Shan Hai that there were indeed missing people in the past two years, but no one thought about the legend of Jiangyuan Bridge. Every year, people come and go here.
, as long as no one reports to the official, who knows who is missing.
As for these bones, everyone feels strange. How come the body parts that have only been soaked for a day are completely eaten by fish and shrimps?
"Master Shi, what else do you know?"
"Hmm. This broken bone was a craftsman when he was alive. I think the corpse should be the head. It was not a local before it was alive. It was a businessman. Apart from being similar in age, there is currently no direct relationship between the two people.
Maybe the body is not complete enough. In addition, I saw the faces of a few people, but I’m not sure what the connection is.”
Just as she was talking, the last one came to help people climb ashore. She was a fisherman. Although she was not very beautiful, she was very strong. She climbed ashore, and Mu Wan, who was close, pulled her up. As a result, after she stretched out her hand,
Some dirty stones were put into her hand. She looked closely and found that they were not stones, but several white vertebrae.
"I got one"
She closed her mouth in time and swallowed back the curse words that were about to come out. Shi Wuqi grabbed it and held it in his hand for a few times, rubbing off a lot of mud.
The fisher girl squeezed the water from her clothes and said to him: "It was dug out of the mud at the bottom of the river."
"Thanks. I'm a little curious."
Several people came up to ask questions.
"What eyebrows?"
"They know the same woman. But I don't know what their relationship is."
"What kind of woman?" the prefect asked.
"A woman with short hair, pulled back into a pigtail. She has pretty features, but there is a small sore on the left side of her face, which is not a big deal. When she smiles, the sore will be hidden in the dimple, so the dimple on the left side looks smaller.
The right side is deeper.”
The fisherman girl had just put on her shoes and answered: "Isn't this the scissor woman from Zhennan? Her man seems to be a businessman?"
Shan Hai immediately explained it.
"Shi Bu and I, Mu Wan and I will go there now. Mr. Shi and Aluan, go back to the Yamen to investigate those old cases."
