Li Changan took a walk around the house.
When returning to the courtyard.
Yu Mei has dug out all the corpses from the soil.
There are fourteen people in total, men, women, old and young, rich and poor, and the whole family is lined up neatly under the eaves.
She looked over the body carefully and asked without looking back:
"How? What does your nose say?"
It was as if he had noticed the strangeness of the Taoist priest's nose.
However, Li Changan didn't deliberately conceal it, so he didn't care and just told his findings frankly.
"My nose told me that there was a trail of muddy water mixed with evil spirits, leading from the yard to the back door, and finally submerged into the waterway behind the house."
"I speculate that the monster sneaked into the house through the water channel and broke into the house through the back door."
He pointed to a corpse whose clothes were still intact.
"For some unknown reason, this family gathered in the main hall most of the night, and they were all killed by the monster."
Yu Mei nodded and called Li Changan over.
Then, right in front of the Taoist priest, he examined one of the female corpses.
Li Changan had some impression that this corpse was the owner of the hand that was first discovered.
She was probably sixteen or seventeen years old. Even though she was trapped in the mud, she could not hide her fair complexion and beautiful appearance. She was probably a lady who was raised in a pampered manner.
However, at this moment... She pressed her eyebrows on the face of the female corpse, and the once plump and supple cheeks immediately dented into a hollow, turning a bluish-white-gray color; she opened the female corpse's eyelids again, and saw the sparkling eyes of the past. Already dull and turbid, her eyes were like black hairy moons that spread out, making the whites of her eyes dirty; she roughly grabbed her cloud-like hair on her temples, and the hairs immediately curled up, like withered and tangled weeds in winter.
"What can you see?"
Yu Mei suddenly spoke.
"The eyes are scattered, the complexion is pale and white, and the hair is withered. He must have been eaten to death."
Li Changan frowned in response, then leaned over and used a bamboo stick to poke into the ear hole of the woman's corpse, scraping out some rotten mud.
"What now?"
The Taoist priest rolled his eyes silently. If you have noticed something, just say it bluntly. It's like a top-notch detective drama. He wanders around and asks a hammer. Which of your eyes can tell that I, Taoist Li, have the ability to investigate cases? ? !
He finally figured it out. Although Yumei asked him for help in the open, he was quite provocative and demonstrative in secret.
I don't know if he was angry after chasing her through several streets the night before. Still, the miasma was exposed today, and I deliberately demonstrated to save some ground.
However, the Taoist priest didn't bother to guess. Quan pretended that he didn't notice and took over the conversation.
"Eating blood essence is usually a method used by ghosts, but there are also many demons, so it is not enough. But this demon can drive the soil..."
He held up the bamboo stick and smelled it, and an unmistakable rancid smell surged into his nostrils.
"And the rotten mud left on the body of the deceased must be the kind of monster whose birth or habitat is related to mud. As far as I know, swamp monsters, mud monsters and even earthworms that have become monsters are all compatible."
Li Changan rubbed the stubble on his chin and recalled the clues he had found before and after.
"This monster can suck essence and blood, has the ability to drive away earth, is surrounded by rotting mud, and buries the dead in the mud. I just checked and found that there were traces of mud wherever it passed. And when it launched an attack in the courtyard , there is a "church" sound..."
Li Changan's words suddenly stopped.
Grinning at Yumei.
"I see!"
He took out a "dragon jade talisman" and offered it to the nose god.
He lay on the ground and sniffed carefully, and finally came to a corpse under the eaves.
The belly of this corpse was as big as a basket. It was a pregnant woman, or it looked like a pregnant woman.
The Taoist priest drew his sword in his hand, said "apologise", and then went straight forward to cut open the belly.
Normally, the bloody scene did not happen.
There was no blood, no dead babies, and even no internal organs.
In the empty abdomen, there was only a giant strange fish covered in red spots.
He had already been shocked to death by Yu Mei's Yin Thunder in the belly of the corpse.
The Taoist picked it out with the tip of his sword.
"Zu ghost."
…
Zugui.
Although the name contains "ghost", it is not actually a ghost, but a kind of monster that turns into a fish.
"Lu Yi Zhi" contains:
In Yuzhang County, there is a special fish that looks like a mullet and has red spots on it. It lives in sludge ponds all year round. If left unchecked, the fish gradually grow and number in the hundreds or even thousands, and a monster called a "demon" will easily be born.
The ghosts can make the fields around the sludge pond more fertile. But if you want to farm, you must make offerings to the ghosts. Even so, the monsters will demand more and more offerings year after year until the fields produce no more than the offerings are rich enough. If you abandon the land, or even start tilling it without warning in the first place, you will die quietly at home.
At first, when Li Changan read this, he thought that one of his ancestors had made it up to satirize a wealthy landlord in Yuzhang. But whether it's true or not, most of the demons and ghosts escape from human suffering anyway.
All in all, this monster is greedy and can walk on land at night. But wherever it passes, traces of mud will be left; wherever it goes, a "churping" sound can be heard.
…
The true face of the murderer was revealed.
Li Changan was not very happy.
All the people were dead, the monsters were also killed, and the corpses were collected by relatives and friends.
What happened here is nothing to say.
Compared to the corpse in front of him, he was more concerned about the demonic transformation mentioned by Yu Mei and the culprit behind it.
It wasn't that Li Changan completely believed the other party, but so far, only Yu Mei's explanation was the most reasonable.
So, he had a lot of questions ready to ask.
But before he could speak, a series of noises were heard outside, and then someone knocked on the door.
"The Yamen is handling the case, please open the door quickly."
It turned out that the detectives were late again.
Li Changan turned to look at Yu Mei, but unexpectedly, half of the person was missing and he had already fled away.
…………
"Crunch."
The door opens again.
Outside, a group of government servants stood at open fire and looked tense.
Somewhat unexpectedly, the leader of the team was not Capt. Xing, but a strange one. But then I thought about it, Lao Xing was still seriously injured and resting in bed, so naturally the "power" of the chief arrest of Xiaoshui County could only be handed over to others.
Li Changan opened the door calmly, but the policeman who knocked on the door was startled.
"You...Daozhang Li? Why are you here."
"Monsters harm people, and I kill them myself. Is it strange?"
"But...but where is the owner of this family?"
"died."
"How many?"
"The door is full."
With that said, the Taoist priest casually greeted the gang of government officials to come in.
"The body is in the yard. You can tell it by looking at it."
But after saying that, there was no movement outside for a long time. The Taoist priest turned his head and saw that everyone's face was full of fear, but no one dared to step into the door.
until.
"What are you afraid of?"
A voice sounded from behind the team.
Er, a young face squeezed through the crowd.
It was none other than Bo Ziyu. The young policeman had no dealings with Li Changan before, but after the Taoist priest rescued Mr. Xing, his attitude changed drastically.
No, when I entered the door, I bowed to the Taoist priest first, and then cursed at a group of servants:
"Since the Taoist priest is here, the monster must have been killed, and there is no danger inside the door. Why do you still act in such a panic, just to make people laugh!"
After saying that, he angrily went to the courtyard.
A group of government servants were left looking at each other in disbelief. Finally, under the supervision of the leader, they followed in (harmony).
A group of government officials entered the courtyard.
First, he was shocked when he saw the mud in the garden; then he was shocked when he saw a row of corpses; finally, the Taoist priest pointed out that the big fish was the monster himself, and he almost lost his mind.
The Taoist priest didn't want to see their ugly behavior any more, so he gave a few instructions, put aside the finishing touches, and left.
But before leaving the house, Bo Ziyu called him.
"Taoist Master."
"What's the matter?"
The young detective frowned.
"Something's wrong."
"where?"
"Fewer people died..."
He explained quickly.
"My uncle once took me to investigate a theft case in this house. I found out that the owner of this house is named Zhou, and he is a famous heirloom of poetry and calligraphy in the city. There is a scholar named Zhou Huai in the family, who is quite famous nearby. I just identified it. After passing those fourteen corpses, Zhou’s father, son, and several relatives were not among them.”
This is a bit strange.
The Taoist priest stopped, pulled Bo Ziyu over, and asked him carefully.
His suspicions were indeed justified.
For example, if the Zhou family and his son were going out to visit friends or attend a banquet, they would have escaped disaster. But which family visits friends where the father brings his daughter and the son also brings his concubine?
On the other hand, Zhou and his son were also at home at the time and were also attacked. The reason why they were not among the fourteen corpses...either they escaped by chance and are now hiding somewhere; or they were caught by monsters and were simply moved elsewhere.
But the chances are slim.
"Is it..." Bo Ziyu said hesitantly, "There is another monster."
The Taoist priest's thoughts changed rapidly.
Admittedly, when he walked around the house, he only smelled the smell of "demon", so he didn't think anything of it. But who said there is only one ghost?
Couldn't it be that two of them appeared together, and after the murder, one stayed in the Zhou family, while the other took away the Zhou family, his son and others, and went to enjoy it elsewhere?
Li Changan held the sword hilt and turned back to the court.
What I said before is enough.
The matter here is not over yet!
