After many inquiries by Haijiao, he collected fragmentary information about this half-grown boy.
Some people say that this boy is only eleven or twelve years old, while others say that he is fourteen or fifteen years old. He should be a tall and thin man with a childish face. He speaks and behaves like a child who has not grown up. Short and tight. According to him, a new cotton-padded jacket has been prepared for him at home and he will be able to wear it in the New Year. Such a description makes it easy for outsiders to conclude that he is a young child who has just begun to develop. But no one actually knows how old he is. The younger he appears, the less likely others will suspect him.
He looks neither black nor white, neither ugly nor handsome, and his clothes are ordinary. His cheeks were like those of the children seen in nearby villages, red from the cold, but they always gave people a dirty look, as if they were stained with a lot of black ash, which made him feel a little embarrassed. He was wearing a half-worn sheepskin hat, with his sleeves rolled up and his neck hunched all day long. From time to time he would raise his hand to wipe his nose with his sleeves, which was so disgusting that people didn't want to look at him more. But ask everyone what he looks like? But no one could tell clearly.
He spoke with a local accent, but not quite one.
He didn't know what games were popular among the children of local farmers, but he quickly picked up the game.
He did not know the rules that had prevailed for many years in Zhuangzi, nor did he recognize the famous figures in Zhuangzi, claiming that his relatives had never told him.
To the children of the old soldier Zhuangzi of the Zhou family, he claimed that he lived in a nearby village and was here to visit relatives.
Regarding the children of the Zhou family's third-bedroom villa, he claimed that he was a relative of the veteran Zhou family's Zhuangzi Shang, and that he came to play with his friends.
But every child in the village is sure that he is not an old neighbor in his village.
There are a total of seven to eight hundred households in the three nearby villages of different sizes. Although there are frequent exchanges with each other, it is impossible for anyone to keep track of the members of all the households and the members of their relatives. This young man seemed to have taken advantage of a loophole, and was very good at adapting to circumstances, and easily deceived people.
He was interested in the people who came to Zhoujiazhuang's three-bedroom villa, and was interested in the murder that happened the night before. He even encouraged others to go to the nearby charity village to see the corpses and relics of the victims. They scolded and left.
In the Zhou family's three-bedroom villa, he was interested in the Hai family who had just left recently, and the young Jin family who had been rescued by the Hai family. He also wanted to see Jin Jiashu with his own eyes. But Jin Jiashu lived in a large house where the three owners of the Zhou family lived. It had high walls and deep courtyards, so no one could enter at will. Of course, he failed to do so.
However, he once tried to climb the wall to peek into the house, but was discovered and scolded by the servants.
Maybe it was because he looked so much like a naughty boy and he was so familiar with the children from the two villages that people from other villages didn't suspect him at all. If Hai Jiao had not come to inquire about his situation afterward, even the old military advisor would not have thought that this child might be the killer spy they had been investigating for a long time, and that he had committed so many suspicious behaviors under their noses.
Will he be the eighth killer who has not been caught yet?
When Zhuang Tongpan met the killers head-on that day, he only knew that the seven killers responsible for intercepting and killing the Jin family had met up with the eighth accomplice not far from him, but he had never seen the appearance of the eighth accomplice. It would be reasonable if, because the eighth man was a young man, the others did not take him to kill people, but only asked him to stay nearby and guard the horses.
After the old military advisor got the letter, he immediately sent people around to inquire. The children who had played with the half-grown boy that day told the direction the half-grown boy took when he left. Haijiao followed that path and kept following it.
At the end of the path are several families living on the edge of Zhuangzi, next to a forest. They are also a branch of a large family in the village. There have been many children from relatives and neighbors who have come to visit recently, and they are not sure which children have left here. Even if someone leaves the village from here, they will just think that the other person is playing in the woods.
Haijiao walked around the forest twice and found a series of footprints. Judging from the size of the footprints, its owner seemed to be a thin young man. His steps were light but he walked very fast. He was a highly trained spy who was not very good at making light bodies.
This reminded Hai Jiao of what he was like when he first entered the industry in his previous life. At that time, when he walked in winter, he would leave similar footprints on the snow.
He followed the footprints and walked for a while in the forest, diagonally across the entire forest, and saw the snow-covered yellow land again.
It hadn't snowed in the past two days, and the surrounding fields still bore traces of the heavy snowfall the day before yesterday. Thanks to the cold weather and few people passing by, Haijiao found some footprints. Except for some of them, which seemed to be left by nearby farmers who went into the forest to cut firewood, the rest seemed to be left by the young man. They were very similar to the footprints found earlier. , the same size and characteristics.
Haijiao followed the footprints and walked for several miles. During this period, he passed almost all sparsely populated fields and ravines. Occasionally there were a few small farmhouses. From a distance, the people living there were all dressed as local farmers. At the same time, more and more footprints were left on the road. It takes a lot of effort for Haijiao to find the footprints left by the target person and continue to track them.
But when he came to a relatively flat and spacious dirt road, the clue stopped. There were many footprints, horse hoof prints and ruts left on the dirt road. Obviously many pedestrians passed by here, and it was impossible to tell which footprints were left by his target.
Haijiao discovered that one end of this dirt road leads to Chang'an City, and the other end leads to the Qinling Mountains. There is a fork in the road that leads to Zhuangzi, where Zhuang Tongpan's friends are. From near Zhuangzi, there is another fork in the road leading to the Zhou family. Veteran Zhuangzi's.
Did the eight killers pass through here that day and go to the place where the Jin family was killed to commit murder?
Speaking of which, when Zhuang Tongpan was in danger, this was probably the direction he saw the killer escaping, right?
Hai Jiao glanced around and decided to ask around to see if the nearby residents noticed any suspicious characters passing by on the night the Jin family was killed and the night before Jin Jiashu's second danger.
Eight young men wearing the same clothes and holding weapons were passing by here together. No matter how you looked at it, it would be an eye-catching scene, right?
Hai Jiao originally thought that this matter would not be difficult to handle, but after he walked around the area, he realized that it was not as easy as he thought.
There are almost no scattered households nearby, but there are two relatively large Zhuangzi. The families living in this area are basically tenants of these two Zhuangzi.
One of the owners of these two Zhuangzis was named Tu, and he was a relative of Zhou Jinpu, the eldest son of the third wife of the Zhou family, from his late biological mother's family; the owner of the other Zhuangzi was surnamed Du, and he was Du Boqin, the current commander of the Chang'an avant-garde. The latter is not a big shot that Hai Jiao can easily offend, and the former is related to the current situation of the Zhou family's third house. Coming to inquire about Hai Jiao's identity will easily cause trouble for his aunt Zhou Ma. After all, Zhou Ma has always been recognized by Zhou Jinpu as a traitor. A bad stepmother with ulterior motives.
Hai Jiao returned to Zhou's old soldier Zhuangzi angrily, and told the old military advisor the results of his tracking, hoping that he could send someone to take over the follow-up tracking work.
The old military advisor was a little surprised and glanced at his younger son, who immediately went out.
The old military advisor smiled and praised Hai Jiao: "Brother Hai is really a talented young man. There are so many self-proclaimed brothers in our village, but they are not as bright-eyed as you, and they easily discovered the traces of the killer."
"It's not yet certain that the boy is an accomplice of the killer." Hai Jiao said frankly, "It's just that his behavior is suspicious. It's better to find his whereabouts as soon as possible to determine the truth. I don't know how many people there are in this group of killers, even their companions They say that if you silence them, silence them. They are extremely vicious people. I hope they can be caught as soon as possible to prevent them from attacking Jinjiashu again."
The old military advisor smiled slightly: "Don't worry, they won't have another chance."
(End of chapter)
