Chen Mengsheng and Xiang Xiaotian followed Shangguan Yanran's shouts and saw a coke-burnt beam lying on the ruins more than ten feet away. A small part of the beam was exposed, and most of it was buried in bricks and tiles. On top of the beam
There was a deep and dark gap about a foot long on the side, and some unknown weeds were growing out of the gap.
"Junior sister, what's wrong?" Chen Mengsheng came over and asked.
Shangguan Yanran replied with a smile: "The red mud you are looking for should be under this beam, but it is buried. Tomorrow, I will ask someone to dig out the bricks and tiles to see the five-color soil. I don't know if it is what the senior brother is looking for.
.”
Chen Mengsheng hugged the beam with both hands and lifted it hard. The dusty beam was lifted up a few inches. "Junior sister, please step back. Brother and I should be able to lift this beam together." Shangguan Yanran retreated after hearing this.
He walked more than ten feet and watched Chen Mengsheng and Xiang Xiaotian working together to hold the beam...
"Crash!" The bricks and tiles on the beams scattered like a waterfall, raising dust all over the sky. The beams were moved aside, revealing a row of iron shelves for candles. Xiang Xiaotian fiddled with the iron shelves with his hands.
The residue said: "Brother, this fire was deliberately set. You see, these iron slags are burned oil cups. If there is a fire, they will never be burned like this."
Shangguan Yanran looked at the broken pieces and said, "Brother Xiang, the iron cup holding the candle caught fire and burned to dregs. Do you think someone set the fire?"
"Haha, junior sister, what Brother Xiang said is right. In order to prevent fires caused by melted candle wax and overflowing, temples will have oil-filled lamps. If the candles are not scraped out, they will burn out, and the wax core will be filled with oil.
The oil inside the oil cup will burn out and it will self-extinguish. If the oil cup can be burned, it must have been doused with fire oil."
"But senior brother, it was midnight when the fire broke out in the Guandi Temple. The Guandi Temple is closed before dark and does not accept pilgrims to place orders. How could anyone come to set fire to it?"
Xiang Xiaotian said with a teasing smile: "Don't monks in the temple stop setting fires? You are not a monk in this temple, how would you know?"
Shangguan Yanran retorted: "There are only five monks in Guandi Temple. In addition to the abbot Huiyuan, there is also Guangyuan, the superintendent of the temple, and three Zhike monks. After the fire broke out, almost the entire Pingyang Mansion came to put out the fire.
, It’s a pity that the fire was so intense that only five charred corpses were found in the ruins. Pingyang County Magistrate Zhang also invited someone to perform a ritual ceremony, and my father was also invited."
"Uncle Yun, did you discover something fishy?"
"No, my dad just doesn't understand why there was a huge fire in the temple. Master Huiyuan taught Zen and taught Buddhism that people were good people but suffered such misfortunes. What Brother Xiang said was that the monk set the fire and burned himself to death inside.
?"
"This..., this...I don't know." Xiang Xiaotian said with a smile.
"No, there must be something fishy here. Since people who have died in vain have been punished by doing things, they should have entered the six realms of reincarnation. How can there be a resentful spirit in Xue's body? Brother, let's put this place
Let’s clean up the scorched earth and rubble until we find the five-color soil.” Chen Mengsheng and Xiang Xiaotian kept moving their hands to clean up the debris, while Shangguan Yanran helped move some small objects and pointed in the direction.
The three of them worked together for a while, and spots of red and yellow were revealed under the rubble. Shangguan Yanran found a bamboo silk broom from the rubble and cleaned out an area of more than ten feet.
On the ground, we suddenly discovered that with the loess as the center, there are other four colors distributed in the four locations of the southeast, northwest and northwest of the loess. Each piece of soil is five feet square and is surrounded by bluestones.
Chen Mengsheng held the Demon-Conquering Ruler and carefully explored the red soil. The Demon-Conquering Ruler extended several feet into the soil and plowed the ground. If there were bones in the ground, it would be impossible to escape the Demon-Conquering Ruler's detection...
Xiang Xiaotian said: "Brother, you have to plow through all the ruins of a hundred feet in this area. The soil where the dead have been excavated will be new, and the color will be different from the soil next to it."
"Brother, you only know one thing but not the other. The newly dug soil does have a different color, but after being roasted by fire, the outer layer of the soil will form lumps and the color will become the same."
Shangguan Yanran was afraid that Chen Mengsheng would actually dig up a dead body, but also wanted to see how Chen Mengsheng used the body to investigate the case. Her conflicting feelings made her in a dilemma, and she hesitated for a long time and said: "Brother, aren't you afraid?"
Chen Mengsheng raised his head and looked at Shangguan Yanran with a smile and said: "I used to be afraid of ghosts like you, but since I have been to the Netherworld and seen too many ghosts, I have become accustomed to it. As long as you have a clear conscience, why bother?
What about fear? When I was on the banks of the Qiantang River a few years ago, I had no relatives and I was accompanied by Uncle Sun, a water ghost who drowned in the river."
Shangguan Yanran suddenly said: "Can Brother Xiang and I also see it?"
"It can't be done. Neither you nor Brother Xiang have opened your heavenly eyes, nor are you yin and yang."
"Haha, brother, please help us open our eyes." Xiang Xiaotian said carelessly.
Chen Mengsheng said sternly: "With my current cultivation level, I can help you open your heavenly eyes, but once you open your heavenly eyes, you will no longer be able to live an ordinary life. You will inevitably see some evil spirits every night, I think it is not necessary, right?"
"
Xiang Xiaotian laughed and said, "It's true when you think about it. It's quite scary to suddenly find a ghost smiling at you next to you in the middle of the night. It's quite scary if you think about it."
Shangguan Yanran was so frightened by Xiang Xiaotian's words that she turned pale. She said Jiao Zha: "Senior brother, you see Brother Xiang is here to scare people again. Go back and give him the sesame cake."
Chen Mengsheng and Xiang Xiaowu laughed after hearing this. For the first time, Chen Mengsheng felt that he was no longer so alone. After an hour of exploration, no dead people were found in the five-colored soil. Chen Mengsheng asked: "Junior sister, what about
How are the dead bodies placed after their salvation?"
Shangguan Yanran thought for a while and said: "When dad is invited to do religious things, he always takes his brothers with him. He never takes me. It is said that girls are easily beaten when they see such dirty things. That day, dad and the brothers
After I saved the five charred corpses in the temple, they were burned and buried together because their facial features were already burned and it was difficult to distinguish them."
"Junior sister, do you know where those charred corpses were found?"
"I heard from my father that the five corpses were all cleaned up in the Zen room in the backyard."
"Brother, your question is really unnecessary. Of course the monk is sleeping in the monastery in the middle of the night. Where else can he go?"
Chen Mengsheng smiled and said: "If they were all burned to death in the Zen room, then there must be some articles in it. Is there a fire in which all five people fell asleep and couldn't wake up?"
"Brother, wouldn't you know if there are any resentful souls if you recite the soul-calling spell?"
"The soul cannot see the light. Once it sees the light, it will fly away. Xue's body is just a remnant soul. Only three souls and seven souls can be gathered together to investigate the case. Junior sister, can you please take me to the Zen Temple to have a look."
The three of them walked through the scorched earth and rubble and arrived at the monastery. The monastery clearly showed signs of being cleaned up. Elephant-shaped rubble and rubble were piled up on both sides and in the middle. In the center of the courtyard was a piece of scorched earth after cleaning.
Shangguan Yanran said: "Brother, the nearest Zen room to the east is where three Zhike monks live. The west Zen room is the far-reaching Zen room of the temple, and the south is the Zen room of the abbot. I came with my father to play chess with Abbot Huiyuan, so
I am very familiar with the Zen monastery here."
Chen Mengsheng looked around in the monastery, and there were fire ditches on the ground. After walking around, he found a blackened low wall behind the west monastery. "Junior sister, where does this wall lead to?"
"This is the wall of the backyard. Behind the wall is a vegetable garden cultivated in the temple."
Xiang Xiaotian asked: "What is there to see in the vegetable garden?"
Chen Mengsheng said: "The monastery has been cleared of ravines, and clues are hard to find. There may be unexpected gains in the vegetable garden, but I have no choice but to come here at night to practice spiritualism."
The vegetable garden has not been taken care of for more than a year, and the weeds have grown taller than people. The three of them pushed aside the grass and came to a high ground in the vegetable garden. It can be seen that green vegetables, leeks, etc. were originally planted in the vegetable garden...
Shangguan Yanran said: "Brother, look at the corner of that courtyard. There is no planting of vegetables or soil preparation, but why is there a hoe?"
Xiang Xiaotian said: "Maybe the monk plans to open ridges there to grow vegetables?"
"No way. The three knowledgeable monks take turns taking care of this vegetable garden. The hoes and shovels are all placed in the monastery. How could they be abandoned on the vegetable patch in the corner?"
Chen Mengsheng and Xiang Xiaotian suddenly felt suspicious and went over to pick up the iron hoe. The iron hoe was stained with rust. If it hadn't been for the broken green stones from the foundation of the West Zen Room in the corner, which was covered with grass, it would have been impossible to find the iron hoe.
.
Xiang Xiaotian stepped on a few blue stones, stamped lightly with his foot and shouted: "Brother, this stone is obviously a finger higher than the other blue stones. It must be because no one has stepped on it for a long time.
Could it be that this piece of stone has been dug?"
Xiang Xiaotian picked up the hoe, went down with the hoe and shoveled up the blue stone...
"Wow..." There were white crawling insects under the blue stone. When Shangguan Yanran saw it, she vomited out all the sesame cakes she had just eaten in the morning, and turned her head away from looking at them.
Xiang Xiaotian continued to hoe, and the centipedes and maggots in the soil scattered in dense numbers and fled. "Brother, look at a human hand..."
After a stick of incense, Xiang Xiaotian had dug a big pit. There was a charred corpse lying in the pit. Shangguan Yanran had already covered her face with her hands and secretly looked through her fingers. All she could see was the charred corpse.
The corpse was burned beyond recognition, and the skin on the body was charcoal black. The belly was full of squirming insects, burrowing in and out of the sticky green liquid...
Chen Mengsheng jumped into the pit, looked carefully for a while and said to Xiang Xiaotian: "This man's fatal injury was on his head. There was a finger-wide crack on the left forehead bone. It is expected that his brain burst and he died on the spot. His front teeth were missing.
One tooth, only half of the tooth root was broken." At this point, Chen Mengsheng took out a small porcelain bottle from his sleeve and poured out a tooth from the bottle. After comparing it, it was confirmed that it belonged to the same person. Now that the body has been found
, the next thing is simple. Chen Mengsheng made a hand and recited a mantra to cast the requiem spell on the scorched corpse, and then used the soul-inducing spell to capture the soul of the scorched corpse into a soul-capturing bottle to merge with its remaining soul.
"Brother, what did you say to that damn ghost?"
Chen Mengsheng jumped out of the pit and used Yin Thunder Fire to burn the charred corpse in the pit to ashes. "Brother, junior sister, let's fill this hole back up. It's not difficult to know the cause of death if you have a soul..."