Just as Lu Jiuchuan and Tang Ci climbed out of the window, the man's footsteps came to the door of the study. The wooden door was pushed open with a "squeak". The two squatted outside the window and held their breath, pricking up their ears and listening to what was going on in the room.
movement.
Qin Feng walked to the bookcase and took out a book from the bookshelf. The bookcase suddenly opened in front of him, revealing a secret door. He picked up a candle lamp in his right hand and walked down the steps, leaving only two people.
He has a thin, tall figure.
The bookcase door slowly closed after he entered the secret room, as if nothing had happened just now.
Lu Jiuchuan gently held Tang Ci's wrist and whispered, "Retreat first."
The two left the yard quickly.
The weather outside was sunny, but Lu Jiuchuan always felt that this alley exuded a strange gloominess. Maybe it was because the old branches and leaves beside the road were so lush that the sunlight in the entire alley was blocked by the leaves, casting a large shadow.
After a while, the two walked out of Xiushui Alley. People were coming and going on the street, and the sun was shining brightly above their heads. The bustling noise on the street and the quiet Xiushui Alley formed a sharp contrast.
Lu Jiuchuan took Tang Ci towards the inn.
After arriving at a deserted corner, Lu Jiuchuan held down his earphones and whispered to Xiao Lou, "While we were investigating, the mayor suddenly came home. He didn't have time to search carefully, so he only used a drone to take pictures of key information about his home. Bring it to the inn.
for you?"
Xiao Lou asked, "Do you still have time to use your invisibility cloak?"
Tang Ci glanced at the countdown and said, "There are 5 minutes left."
Xiao Lou said, "Five minutes should be enough. You go to the alley behind the inn. Han Jiang and I live in the second room from the left on the second floor. I will open the window then, and you can fly in directly and use the drone."
Leave it to me."
Lu Jiuchuan said "Okay" and speeded up with Tang Ci.
The invisible two people came and went freely in the town. The residents in the town only felt a breeze blowing around them. In a blink of an eye, the two people from Jiutang came to the alley designated by Xiao Lou. Lu Jiuchuan looked up and saw
The window of a guest room on the second floor was wide open. He jumped into the room with Tang Ci.
Xiao Lou and Yu Hanjiang are waiting for them.
Sensing a gust of wind blowing in, Xiao Lou hurriedly asked with concern, "Brother Ninth? Are you okay?"
Lu Jiuchuan said, "It went smoothly. Qin Feng probably didn't notice us?"
Tang Ci said, "Not necessarily. The lock on the cabinet was opened with a master key, and all the information was restored. But although we didn't enter the secret room in the study, has the mechanism been opened? Maybe he can see it?
We can't be sure if the mechanism on his bookcase has been tampered with."
Yu Hanjiang frowned and said, "If he finds that someone broke into the study and opened the secret room, will he destroy the evidence? Did Mr. Tang use a drone to film the scene inside the secret room?"
Tang Ci was helpless, "The situation was urgent and we could only do this."
He took out the drone, handed it to Xiao Lou, and opened the surveillance image.
The card-sized surveillance screen began to play back the footage just recorded.
In the picture, the vision goes down a dark staircase to a wide secret room. The surrounding walls are built with blue stone bricks. There are kerosene lamps on the walls. Although the light is dim, you can still see clearly inside the room.
furnishings.
What shocked Xiao Lou was that the walls around the secret room were actually covered with rattles!
Red rattles are originally children's toys, but they are hung densely in a cold underground secret room. Instead, people can't help but think of "torture tools in a cell"...
Xiao Lou and Yu Hanjiang looked at each other, and the latter lowered his voice and said, "This Qin Feng is very suspicious."
Lu Jiuchuan looked at the image and couldn't help complaining, "There are rattles all over the room. Does he have any obsession with rattles? He had a fight with someone because of rattles when he was a child...or is it that the rattles are very memorable to him?"
toys?"
Yu Hanjiang said, "Many killers have this habit of using specific props as their identity."
Xiao Lou enlarged the footage from the drone surveillance, and after comparing it carefully, he said, "These rattles don't just have tigers on them, they also have the patterns of the twelve zodiac animals..." He paused and looked back at the crowd.
Do you think it’s possible that the mayor is the murderer?”
Tang Ci said, "The clues are too obvious, it shouldn't be that simple, right?"
Yu Hanjiang also said, "With the personality of the gatekeeper, it is unlikely that we will find the murderer directly at the beginning. It may be another interference item. However, this mayor must have something to do with the murderer."
Tang Ci flicked his finger and called up another piece of information captured by the drone.
A stack of books appeared on the screen, and Lu Jiuchuan was turning the pages quickly. The drone clearly captured the contents of each page. On one of the books, more than 90% of the names of people were marked with red crosses.
Xiao Lou was startled, "Is this a murder record book? Or is it that he crossed out the dead people from the list?"
The order is very important. If a person's name is crossed out first and then the person dies, it means that the murderer is "planning to kill" and this list is the list of enemies he wants to take revenge on; on the contrary, if it is after someone dies,
, and then cross out his name, then this list is probably just to record the dead residents of the town.
Yu Hanjiang said, "This information is very important. We can follow this clue to investigate. In addition to the Zhao family and Chen family that were wiped out, there are many people whose names have been crossed out on this list. Are these people dead or alive?
No matter what the cause of death, we must investigate clearly." He looked at Lu Jiuchuan and said, "Time is urgent and the murderer is very cruel, so you must pay attention to safety during the investigation."
Lu Jiuchuan nodded, "Don't worry, leave it to us."
Xiao Lou said, "There are too many people who need to be investigated. You two are too busy. Let's call in two more people to help you." He held down the earphones and said, "Long Sen, Qu Wanyue, you two use Chameleon Cards to follow Ninth Brother out to investigate.
, I will use the headset channel to tell you where to go, and you need to find out the life and death of some people."
Qu Wanyue quickly replied, "Understood."
In addition to names and birth dates, this list also records the specific location of everyone's residence in the town, which is convenient for everyone to investigate. Long Qu and the two crawled on the ground with chameleon cards, while Lu Jiuchuan and Tang Ci pretended to be in the town.
During the trip, the four of them walked around the town according to Xiao Lou's assignment, checking each house.
The afternoon passed quickly. The four detectives visited the residences of all the people recorded on the list, and were surprised to find that some people were dead and some were still alive.
Lu Jiuchuan said, "The person named Lin Zhaokuan on the roster is still alive. He is an old man about 50 years old who lives alone."
Qu Wanyuehui reported, "Qi Mingwei, an old man in his 60s, lives with his son and daughter-in-law, and has a newborn grandson. I passed by their house just now. The family is quite rich, and the yard is very elegant. Yes.
Yes, his son looks very familiar to me, he should be the young man who passed by the alley behind the inn today and bought a rattle for his child."
Xiao Lou was stunned and asked, "Are you sure it's him?"
Qu Wanyue said, "I read it right. They are dressed exactly the same. He is holding the rattle with a lamb painted on it. The maid who told him to go home is amusing the child with the rattle."
Long Sen added, "People from the Yu family are also here. The two brothers Yu Liang and Yu Rui on the roster live near Xiushui Lane. I just saw their brothers going out together."
Tang Ci said, "The people I checked are all missing for unknown reasons."
It seems that this roster contains a secret. Some of the people whose names have been crossed out have disappeared - that is, they were killed by the murderer. Others are still alive and well and will definitely become the murderer's next target.
Xiao Lou asked, "People have been missing over the years. Don't the residents of the town have any suspicion?"
Lu Jiuchuan said helplessly, "They all believe that this is a 'spirited ghost seeking life.' Those who have never harmed anyone are not worried about this. They believe that as long as they sleep honestly after dark, no vicious ghost will find their heads."
Once someone disappears in the town, everyone will talk privately, saying that they must have harmed others and been retaliated by evil spirits."
Li Gui's statement has completely brainwashed the people in the town.
Lu Jiuchuan said, "It is said that someone in the town has actually seen a ghost. We just passed by a house and heard the children crying. The elders used the ghost to scare them. The story was told vividly..."
Tang Ci immediately retold the story told by the old man to everyone: "On a rainy night three years ago, the procession sending off a bride was possessed by a fierce ghost. The ghost's face was as white as paper, lips as red as blood, he was dressed in white, and his long hair was disheveled.
It came down to cover the face so that the appearance could not be seen clearly, and the hair could still fly around, suddenly stretch several feet, and wrap around the person's neck."
Xiao Lou "..."
The rumors are getting more and more bizarre.
Ye Qi couldn't help but complain, "This female ghost sounds a lot like Nie Xiaoqian from A Chinese Ghost Story?"
Shao Qingge interjected, "The legend of the evil ghost should not have appeared for no reason. The murderer is using this method to confuse the public and cover up his murderous crime. Maybe the evil ghost is him pretending to be."
Xiao Lou also agreed with Mr. Shao's guess and said, "The murderer started committing crimes three years ago. Judging from the records on the roster, a total of 53 people have disappeared in the past three years. Except for the Zhao family and the Chen family, which were wiped out, the others are
There are scattered old people living alone who died without being noticed by many people. There are currently 34 people on the list who are still alive."
Yu Hanjiang said, "The murderer has already become mentally abnormal after killing so many people. We have to find a way to stop him."
Lu Jiuchuan said, "The current problem is that the murderer is active at night, and at night, we cannot enter the normal town and will only be forced into the ghost town. The night ghost town and the night town are two different spaces.
We can't meet the murderer in the ghost town, so the murderer can continue to kill without restraint without worrying about our interference."
Tang Ci added, "If we informed the 34 people who are still alive in advance and told them to be careful, they would definitely not believe us."
Ye Qi scratched his head and said, "It's really troublesome. We are all strangers from other places. If we suddenly say, 'Someone will kill you, run away,' they will think that we are mentally ill, right? How should we give a warning?"
Liu Qiao suggested, "How about putting a rattle in every house and putting a note on it, writing in big red letters that tonight, the devil will seek his life? Can this scare them away?"
Everyone "..."
Xiao Liu's idea sounds like a prank.
Of course, people who have done bad things may be scared away by her method. But it is more likely to be self-defeating, because it will force the murderer, and maybe the murderer will be even more brutal and let the whole town be buried with him.
?
Xiao Lou lowered his head and thought for a while, and suddenly thought of a way: "The way he kills people is to control people's will and lead them to the mass graves on the top of the mountain. Although we can't enter the town at night and meet the murderer, we can meet him halfway.
Interception."
Lu Jiuchuan smiled and said, "What a good idea! Intercepting in the mountains and forests outside the town can save people first, and maybe catch the murderer on the spot. Even if he can't be caught, at least he can find some clues."
Dusk was approaching, and the setting sun on the horizon dyed the sunset into a flame-like color. Xiao Lou stood by the window and looked at the sky in the distance, with a worried look on his face, "It's getting dark soon. Let's eat enough to stay healthy."
Get ready for action tonight."
He looked at Yu Hanjiang, who understood and immediately said, "I, Xiao Lou, Long, Qu, Mo, Qiao, a team of six sneaked into the town to find out the secret of the ghost town at night. Brother Jiu, Mr. Tang, Hua Ying and Senior Gui
, go to the woods to intercept the murderer. Mr. Shao and Xiaoye hide as liaisons, open a paradise outside the town, and are ready to teleport teammates in case of danger. "
Dark night is coming, what will be the survival problems they face?
Xiao Lou always feels that things are not that simple.