The village is built along the shore, and its structure gradually extends into the lake. It can be seen visually that there are more than a hundred households.
There is a forest opposite the entrance of the village. It is not large in area, but it has the feel of a green courtyard facing other people's homes.
Xi Muchiao and I walked from the lake bank to the entrance of the village. The three words "Gengpan Village" were engraved on the plaque at the door.
"When--" A group of soldiers wearing Pikai blocked the way with their guns drawn.
The leading young general shouted: "Who is here? Detective Quan is handling the case. Unrelated persons are not allowed to enter!"
"Yuanqin, Xi Muchiao." Brother Mu Xiao took out his waistband and held it high.
The soldiers took one look and immediately knelt down: "See you, young master!"
Xi Muchiao waved her hand: "No courtesy."
"Young Master, Elder Si Mohong is here to personally supervise the situation. Can I inform you first?" The young general clasped his fists.
"No need to bother, I'd better go in and look for him." Xi Muchiao jumped off the horse and bowed slightly to me, handing over his hand: "Holy boy, please."
Seeing that Xi Muchiao was so respectful to me, several soldiers came up to lead the camels and reins.
Oops~ Being "regarded as a guest of honor" for no apparent reason? It feels good!
"Brothers, you're welcome." The corners of my mouth twitched slightly.
"This way please." The young general walked in front and led us into the village.
The village is full of water, and interlaced wooden corridors connect the houses together. Every four households form a square, and the empty space in the middle has a platform made of wooden boards, with a lot of salted fish hanging on the platform.
Arriving at the depths of the village, there was a pile of clear crystals placed on a wider platform. Several men with large knives in their hands and painted patterns on their faces danced around the crystals to the sound of gongs and drums.
The villagers seemed to have gathered near the high platform, and everyone gathered around the platform in dejection.
A middle-aged man in a gorgeous costume, accompanied by officers and soldiers, was asking the villagers something.
Xi Muchiao waved to him: "Fourth Elder!"
"Hey, Young Master?" The man turned back, with a slight surprise on his face.
Xi Muchiao stepped forward: "I just came back from Huanshan."
The man stood there with a gloomy expression: "Young Master, what are you doing here?"
"I happened to be passing by and heard that there were gongs and drums to exorcise demons in the village, so I came in to take a look." Xi Muchiao saluted him.
The fourth elder's expression was very awkward and he raised his hand artificially.
His attitude towards Xi Muxiao is completely different from that of Xi Bomeng, and he doesn't know what he has against brother Mu Xiao.
"He is..." The man tilted his head and looked at me sideways.
Haha, how superior is this look?
"Ah, let me introduce you. This is Holy Child Luan Yi." Xi Muxiao stretched out one hand to me behind him, and pointed at the person with the other finger: "Xi Mohong, the fourth elder of the Quan clan, the first in command of the Quan Detective Division, Quan The investigation is under the direct control of the Detective Division."
"Oh? It turns out it's Lord Shengtong, who's missing you from afar!" The fourth elder casually cupped his hands to me.
"Elder Suehiro, it's a pleasure to meet you, right?" I pretended to return him a bow.
"The holy boy is a distinguished guest of the Quan clan. Young Master, why don't you take the holy boy back to Yuanqin to see the Lord?" He wiped his beard, turned his nostrils to the sky, and showed no respect for Xi Muchiao.
"The fourth elder is right, but since we have met, we want to know something about the situation, um, are there any clues about the arc pool?" Xi Muxiao changed the topic.
Xi Mohong's face was full of displeasure: "Could it be that Young Master doubts my ability?"
"Don't dare, don't dare. The fourth elder has outstanding abilities. I'm just concerned about the case." Xi Muxiao said humbly.
"In that case, Young Master might as well listen to the statement in person and ask for advice! Humph!" After saying this, Xi Mohong turned around and walked over to give instructions to his men.
Tch ~ rude!
This fourth elder of Shenma seems to be very arrogant, and it makes people angry just looking at him!
Forget it, after all, it’s my first time coming to Bishui, I can’t figure out the situation, and it’s hard to have an attack, so I’ll bear with it for the time being for Brother Mu Xiao!
Not long after, an elder and dozens of villagers came over with the officers and soldiers who were investigating Quan.
The elder is the village chief, and the others are the men who patrolled last night and the villagers who had an accident at home.
According to the village chief, at midnight the night before, the watchman in the village saw a white lantern rising slowly from the lake. After reporting it to the village chief, the village chief immediately organized the men to be on guard, and the women and children locked the doors and windows and stayed in the house.
At the third watch, the woods at the entrance of the village were roaring and swaying in the calm wind, and at the same time, there was a cry like a baby. The sound was distant and near, and it was erratic around the outside of the village.
There were many strange phenomena outside, and the rumored lamp demon did not appear immediately. It only made the villagers fearful and extremely nervous.
The commotion continued until the third quarter of the day and gradually subsided. Seeing that the outside of the village had calmed down and everything seemed to be fine, the village chief led people to guard the entrance of the village, leaving a dozen people to patrol the main road, while the other men went home to rest one after another.
The villagers who had been tossing for most of the night were tired and sleepy, and the villagers in the house fell asleep unconsciously.
However, when everyone relaxed their vigilance, a crisis quietly struck.
Several men on patrol continued to say that after the villagers had fallen asleep for about a cup of tea, a white lantern appeared far away in the center of the lake, and then suddenly turned into a ball of flame. In an instant, there were four flames, covering a hundred meters in the center of the lake. Lit by fire!
A tall figure crawled out of the fire. It had the head of a leopard and the body of a leopard. It walked on the water without sinking. It dragged a long fire dragon and approached the village step by step!
Upon seeing this, the patrolling people immediately gathered to the lakeside and surrounded the monster. The two sides started a fierce fight. The monster was extremely powerful. After several hard battles, the men were beaten to pieces!
The village chief sounded the gong to ask for reinforcements, but for some reason, the villagers who fell asleep could not be awakened.
Everyone retreated while fighting. The flames from the lamp demon penetrated the village. The fire spread to the village. The village was in danger!
However, with the crow of a cock, something strange happened.
The monster suddenly disappeared in full view of the public, and the lake and the village returned to normal, as if everything had never happened...
What's even more strange is that there was such a big movement outside the house, and no one in the sleeping village woke up, and no one knew what happened outside the house.
After dawn, some villagers said that their daughters who were sleeping in the house were missing. The village chief quickly asked the villagers with daughters to go back to their houses to check. After taking inventory, they discovered that all the newly grown girls in the village were missing!
The whole village mobilized urgently and searched for several miles along the surrounding roads, but found nothing, so they had to send people to the nearest city to report the crime.
After listening to the narrative, Xi Muchiao and I looked at each other.
"This is really strange." Xi Muchiao touched his chin and said to himself, then turned to the men: "How does the monster kidnap people?"
"I didn't see it." "Yes, we have been watching it." "The monster has not entered any house."
The men were all talking.
I walked towards the victimized villager and asked, "How did your daughter disappear?"
"I don't know. When I woke up, I found that my daughter was missing. No one had touched the lock on the door!"
"Me too. My daughter's room was surprisingly quiet early in the morning. When I entered, she was no longer in the room!"
"Yes, yes, our house is similar. The door to the room is locked from the inside. There is no way she can get out!"
"It's the lamp demon! It must be Arc Chi!"
Several families were agitated.
"What you saw last night wasn't a hallucination, was it?" I suspected that what the village chief and others saw was some kind of deception.
"Well, if I hadn't experienced it myself, I wouldn't believe it, but everyone did see a burning monster." The village chief sighed.
"That's right, all the brothers on patrol saw it, how can it be false?" "I didn't even blink!" "Look, everyone still has injuries from fighting monsters!"
The men were so sure that they took off their clothes and exposed half of their bodies.
It was seen that they had suffered varying degrees of trauma on their arms, backs, waists and other parts, and the wounds resembled claw marks.
Hmm...these injuries certainly don't look man-made. If they're not hallucinations, then how do they explain what they saw?
I still reserve my opinion.
Later, Xi Muchiao and I went with the village chief to conduct on-site inspections.
There are a lot of branches and leaves scattered in the woods at the entrance of the village, but they don't seem to have been blown by the strong wind.
In the village, where the men fought with the monsters, two warehouses had been smashed to pieces, but no signs of being burned by fire were found.
The doors and windows of several villages where girls were missing were intact, and the door locks showed no signs of being broken. It was certain that those girls disappeared from their homes without any reason.
As for the fire on the lake, I guess someone threw kerosene into the lake. I took a boat and rowed to the center of the lake, but I didn't see any residual oil.
After some investigation, I found that it was completely different from what I thought, and more in line with the description given by the village chief and others.
Elder Suehiro watched the whole process with a cold eye, and did not reveal any clues he had to us, or perhaps he did not find any clues at all.
Seeing him putting on a show next to him, I really want to make a joke out of him!
I didn't get much from searching here and there, but I found something that didn't make sense.
If it is really the lamp demon who did it, then the demon is either crazy or has a hole in his brain!
Since it can steal people away silently, why is it causing so much noise in front of it most of the night?
Moreover, its appearance and disappearance, on the surface, are not directly related to the missing girl. The only thing related to it is the unsolved arc pond case in Bishui.
I exchanged opinions with Xi Muxiao. He felt that this matter was strange and significantly different from previous incidents, so he suggested checking the file, which contains detailed records of all the cases of the lamp demon.
The file is stored in Yuanqin, the capital city of Bishui. We'd better rush back to the capital today.
I agreed. Instead of just staring at the unreliable fourth elder, I would go to the files and look for clues.
I patted my chest and promised the villagers that I would definitely find the girl in the village. I said goodbye to everyone, found the main force to meet up, and immediately set off for Yuanqin.
