When Shan Hai washed 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 coming out together, leading Miss Qi. Several people trotted over together, and that direction was where Jiangyuan Bridge was. Seeing more and more people, they also quickened their pace.
Many people crowded together by the river and pointed in the water. Aluan squeezed to the front first and saw something floating in the water. Round, wrapped with a lot of algae. There was a man lying beside the tree, shivering and unable to 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 much attention at first, thinking that some washerwoman's clothes upstream had floated down. It wasn't until a magpie stood up and was frightened away by a school of fish that he 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?"
Shanhai 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. I can't ask until I fish out my head."
At this time, the government officials came. A fisherman used a fishing net to catch it, pulled it over with a pole, and when he weighed it, it turned out to be a male head. After seeing what it was, the people whose curiosity was satisfied were frightened and fled. 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 be passing through here. I happen to be a coroner. What about this..."
"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, almost getting water splashed 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, as the old Taoist robes he wore looked different. The leader thought for a while, then waved his hand and asked them to follow. Walking on the road, Shanhai still looked sad, not knowing what the man named Shi was going to do. He just said, don't worry about it, just chant a few curses that they don't understand to the person's head, and make a few gestures and that's it.
Mu Wan frowned all the way, wondering what he was up to.
In a blink of an eye, they arrived at the backyard of the Yamen. They placed the head on a shelf and trimmed their hair. This man's head was slightly swollen, at least he had been soaked in water for most of the night. The waiter was timid, so he calmed down, took one look, and immediately turned his head away, saying he didn't recognize him. But I don’t know how long it will take for someone to report to the official that someone is missing from their home.
There is no other way, we have to ask the Taoist priest to do it himself.
Smokey and mysterious, a seemingly very professional process, almost fooled the people around him. It's just that Taoist Lin still has no idea. He doesn't know if Shi Wuqi's calculation is professional enough. Thinking that he wouldn't taint himself over this kind of thing, he reluctantly agreed.
Finally, he pointed forward the old whisk lent to him by the Yamen, and the head actually started to tremble in full view of the crowd.
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. 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 copied the guy.
The people gathered in a big circle, and several government officials blocked the crowd. The whole yamen found a brave and good-tempered man, who shouted in the crowd for a long time and promised a bounty before two big men came forward.
"Wu Qi can't swim?"
"Yes, but the clothes will be dirty."
"oh."
Dai Luan and Mu Wan rolled their eyes at the same time. Only Taoist priest 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, was 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 flat. But the cuts on the spine are very smooth, and it doesn't look like they were 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: "You could be the same...but I have never seen him."
"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 him: "Is he 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 is shining brightly in the sky, but it cannot cure the stubborn hearts of passers-by. I'm afraid that if I catch it later, it will run faster than before.
After fishing for a long time, a man finally appeared, holding a ball of something in his hand. Flesh-colored, soaked and turned white. Shanhai was shocked, thinking it would be another head. As a result, when he swam to the shore and put him on the ground, they looked up and saw that it was a piece of meat smaller than a human head.
...meat?
It is cylindrical, with neat cuts on the front and back. Shi Wuqi took a look and said:
"This is...a section of thigh, the part near the knee."
Everyone was in an uproar, and even Zhizhi stopped shouting.
Dismemberment case. This time the trouble is even greater.
"This Qiao Ji... how much hatred must I have against him?" Shi Wuqi muttered. When the people heard the word "Qiao Ji", they immediately began to discuss it. Everyone felt that the deceased must be a heartless man.
The government officials were in a daze and had not yet recovered. Shanhai walked up and asked them about their cases from previous years, and the prefect quickly told them that they could go back and transfer previous cases. Just as he was talking, another government servant came up, holding half of a bone in his hand. He didn't know where it came from. I went back and forth with many people to help me, and after fishing for a full hour, I still found nothing. Perhaps some of them had flowed down the river, and the head was stuck on the side of the bridge pier and was only visible to others.
Another way is to block the dam upstream and wait for the water to fall and the body to come out. But this was troublesome to do, and the prefect said that the embankment was built from above, so if he wanted to close the gate, he would have to send someone to the county government. But when the county approves it, I'm afraid it will be enough for the fish to eat.
Let's treat a dead horse 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 among themselves. The prefect looked a little sad and lowered his voice to tell 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, and as long as no one reports for office, who knows who is missing.
As for this bone, everyone finds it strange. How could the body parts that had only been soaked for a day be eaten clean by fish and shrimp?
"Master Shi, what else do you know?"
"Hmm. This broken bone was a craftsman when he was alive, and the corpse... I think it should be the head. It was not a local, but a businessman. Apart from being similar in age, there is currently no direct connection between the two people. relationship, 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 he was talking, the last one came to help people climb ashore. She is a fisherman. Although she is not very beautiful, she is very strong. She climbed ashore, and Mu Wan, who was close, pulled her up. As a result, she reached out and put some dirty stones into her hand. She took a closer look and found that it was not a stone, but several white vertebrae.
"I got a..."
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. It's interesting."
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. Deep on the right.”
The fisherman girl had just put on her shoes and answered: "Isn't this the scissor girl from Zhennan? Her man seems to be a businessman?"
Shan Hai immediately explained.
"Shi and I... no, Mu Wan will go with me, and we will go now. Mr. Shi and Aluan, go back to the Yamen to investigate those old cases."
They each nodded and agreed.
