"Your surname is Wang and your name is Degui. You fell from a tree and survived when you were seven years old. You claim to have nine lives. Everyone calls you Old Cat."
Lu Anran's voice was cold and cold in the night, "When you were nine years old, you learned art from a cloth shop master. You were punished for breaking one of the master's teapots. You had resentment and deliberately mixed the wrong dyes. You accidentally discovered that you were sensitive to colors. Later, you Escaped from Cloth Shop and followed a tattoo artist."
Old Mao's eyes flickered, "Yes, so what? Is it against the law to be a tattoo artist in Daning Dynasty?"
Lu Anran's face was still covered, making it difficult for people to see her appearance. Therefore, her exposed eyes were particularly black and white, "Tattooists don't know how to do it, but murder is a serious crime."
The old cat trembled: "Don't talk nonsense and bite people randomly."
"Yes or no, you know it in your heart." Lu Anran stood up and smoothed his clothes with his backhand, "How about I come here in the middle of the night just to make a joke with you?"
The old cat lowered his head, not knowing what he was thinking.
Lu Anran said to Wu Fang, "We'll talk about the rest after we take them back."
So, Lu Taotao, who was squatting on the wall at night and still hadn't slept, saw Lu Anran and Wu Fang sneaking out and actually brought back a man, and immediately howled: "Ouch, ouch, ouch, little sister, you are stealing someone behind your back~"
Chun Miao came out with her clothes on: "Who is this?"
"It's okay. You go and cook two bowls of food for me and Wu Fang." Lu Anran and Wu Fang didn't eat much dinner in order to stay with the old cat. Now it was late at night and their stomachs were cold and painful.
Chunmiao left in a hurry. Lu Anran walked in and looked back at Lu Taotao, who was peeping his head. "Stay in the yard and don't let anyone get close."
Lu Taotao dragged his head with his hands and shook his head from side to side, "Why should I listen to you?"
Lu Anran pointed to the half-collapsed charred wall and the bald osmanthus tree, "lose money."
"Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu——Big sister bullies me again." Lu Taotao kicked her hands and legs and spread her claws, not afraid of falling from the wall.
Lu Anran slammed the door directly.
—
After a while, Chunmiao came in with two bowls of pearl and jade glutinous rice balls, "It's too late. Cooking dumplings is the fastest. Miss has eaten to fill her stomach, and I will make something else."
The old cat smelled the food and didn't notice it at first. Seeing how sweet Lu Anran and Wu Fang were eating, he twitched his nose several times and felt that they were enjoying themselves one bite at a time.
"No need." Lu Anran put down the spoon, "Go to bed. Breakfast will be delivered later tomorrow."
Chunmiao hugged the tray and yawned. Before she went out sleepily, she thought to herself that it was really not easy for her young lady. She seemed so concerned about the case that she was almost like a wife of a prisoner.
Lu Anran looked at the old cat and said, "You killed Xianglan."
"You don't want to talk nonsense." The old cat almost jumped, "Who are you? You kidnapped me in the middle of the night. You are kidnapping!"
"The vermilion juice of the rhubarb is the same as cinnabar, but when you encounter the longli, you will become delirious in an instant." Lu Anran raised the ends of his eyes, and a sharp edge was outlined in the corners of his eyes, "At that time, as long as the poisoned person's ears Say anything and he will do it."
The old cat avoided his eyes, but Lu Anran continued without mercy: "The best thing about this poison is that it lasts too short. When Longli is burned to ashes, it is equivalent to destroying the corpse and eliminating traces. No one will notice this." Problems inside.”
The poison is not in the texture and will not appear in the body of the corpse. It can be said that the murder is invisible.
The old cat twitched the corner of his mouth stiffly: "It sounds a bit powerful, but I'm just an ordinary person, so I don't know how poisonous this concoction is."
"We can find you, and so can others." Lu Anran said.
The old cat folded his hands and remained silent.
"Did you kill Xianglan? What is your relationship with Jin Yu'e? Who are you afraid of?"
The old cat raised his eyes with his head lowered, his entire face immersed in shadow, "What if I told you, with just a little girl like you, can you guarantee that you can protect me?"
Lu Anran shook his head: "No." She had no power and no one. She couldn't even fully guarantee her own safety, let alone guarantee it to others.
The old cat sneered and continued to be silent.
Wu Fang said in an emotionless voice: "But I can kill you."
Old Mao turned his head and met Wu Fang's emotionless and cold-blooded gaze. His hands and feet instantly felt cold. He had no doubt that the other party was telling the truth.
After looking at each other for a long time, the old cat said with fear: "I caused Xianglan to die, but I didn't kill her."
"More than a month ago, business came to our door." Old Mao sat on the chair next to him and said slowly: "They also asked that the cinnabar they brought must be used as tattoo dye."
Lu Anran's eyes changed: "Ruxin juice."
"That's right." Now that he said it, Old Mao readily admitted, "They have no idea how we tattoo artists can't even tell the color. As soon as I got it in my hand, I knew it wasn't cinnabar, even though I could see it with the naked eye. It’s almost the same, but in our line of work, your eyes are very poisonous.”
The first person he asked to be tattooed was a woman. He didn't know whether she was Jin Yu'e. "This woman is dressed in gold and silver. She looks like a woman from a wealthy family. She is very elegant and speaks kindly."
Because the pattern was a strange fox, the old cat said one more thing at that time, "The red fox is evil, so it would be better to order a red bird to spread its wings."
The woman didn't say anything at that time, but the man who accompanied the woman scolded the old cat. The man clearly looked like the woman's subordinate, but he looked fierce. The woman was very tolerant of him, and the old cat didn't dare to say anything else.
"Later, for some reason, Xianglan from Qiongxian Tower came to me and said that she wanted to tattoo this pattern." Old Mao frowned, "I was surprised at that time, ordinary women who have nothing to do with tattooing their skin are still a It’s an unlucky object, but I have no reason to refuse it if it’s just money.”
Until Xianglan died, the old cat somehow remembered this incident and became a little scared.
"We are craftsmen, and we know the work at hand best. What kind of medicinal powder I use will have what effect." The old cat said with an ugly expression: "So as soon as Xianglan died, I secretly went to her room, and sure enough I found Longli. of ashes.”
Now Lao Mao was panicking. He was afraid that the government would investigate him and accuse him of seeking wealth and murder, and he was also afraid that the murderer behind the tattoo would kill him and silence him.
"I called a close friend, put on my clothes and pretended to leave the capital, and then hid in the capital secretly. I wanted to see how the government would investigate this case and whether they would find me."
Old Mao said with a sad face: "That's just the way it is. I admit that I'm unlucky, but I really didn't know it at the beginning. I was just doing two businesses, so why did people die?"
From this perspective alone, there is no one more enemy than the old cat.
only……
Lu Anran's eyes fell on his face calmly, "If that's the case, why did you have many private meetings with Pandan? You know that Ruxin concoction can dye, but it's not surprising, but Longli is a spice, and you, a tattoo artist, shouldn't be able to use it. , and how to connect the two of them. And Liu Changhe, he died in his own home immediately after he ran into you and Xianglan's secret meeting. How do you explain it? "
Every sentence, if there is substance, was pressed against the old cat, "Don't argue that you don't know Liu Changhe. He happened to die under the poison of Ru Shen and Long Li."
The old cat opened his mouth half way, wanting to say something, then closed it again.
—
Lu Anran did get up late the next day, and Chunmiao was too lazy to move when she was dressing her up.
"Miss, that man has been locked up in the woodshed all night. Do you want to give him food?"
After last night, Lao Mao refused to say anything. Lu Anran asked Wu Fang to tie him up in the woodshed and give him some time to think about it. He planned to ask again after dawn.
"Just be hungry for two more meals. If you can't bear it anymore, he will tell you everything." Lu Taotao came out of nowhere, holding a big chicken drumstick in his hand and gnawing on it.
Chunmiao skillfully tied her hair into a bun, picked up a hairpin to fix it, and said worriedly: "What should we do if something goes wrong? We are not a yamen that guards people. We will not be able to tell when the time comes."
Lu Taotao licked the soup from the corner of his mouth, "What are you afraid of in the Yamen? You can come in when you want and leave when you want, hehe."
Chunmiao was too lazy to talk to her and said to Lu Anran: "Miss, why don't we forget it and send the person to the Criminal Division. It has nothing to do with us."
Lu Anran pulled out the silver gilded emerald plum blossom hairpin chosen by Chun Miao, and inserted a simpler hollow orchid bead hairpin into it. He turned around and said, "Go and serve the food."
Chunmiao waited for a long time and immediately noticed that Lu Anran was unhappy, so she responded and went to the kitchen.
Lu Taotao bit the chicken leg bone and said, "Your maid can make a good meal, but she doesn't have much brains."
Lu Anran wiped her hands with a handkerchief. She didn't cover her face at home and exposed it in front of Lu Taotao. However, she never made a fuss again and acted as if she hadn't seen him.
Therefore, Lu Anran often thinks that Lu Taotao cannot be judged by ordinary people, and his behavior is completely unpredictable.
"Why does it have nothing to do with you? You are a family member of the Criminal Division, right, young lady." Lu Taotao seemed to find it interesting and chuckled: "Hey family members, then I can't be counted as half of them. I will go to heaven in the future. Prison means returning to my parents’ home.”
Lu Anran looked at him coldly, thinking that this person was indeed abnormal.
Facts have proved that sometimes the unscrupulous tactics are quite effective. At least in the evening, the old cat finally couldn't stand its hunger and asked to see people.
"To tell you the truth, Xianglan asked me to do it. She said that girl Jin Yu'e was very rich, so she killed her and we eloped. She also gave me the Longli spice, and Liu Changhe, he caught us having sex. Yes, of course we must silence him too.”
Wu Fang tore off a piece of pie that the old cat was holding tightly, "She herself died."
The old cat chewed the food in his mouth and swallowed it. "That's because she ordered the wrong spices and mistook the dragon plum for the wagyu."
Lu Anran looked at him steadily for a while and said calmly: "Wufang, let's go."
"What do you mean, I've already told you and you're still not satisfied?!" The old cat pounded the ground angrily.
Lu Anran turned around and said, "Since there is no sincerity, it doesn't matter if you don't say it. If you say it, it's just a waste of time."
The old cat took a deep breath, "What are your identities?"
He could see that Lu Anran was of noble status. Not to mention the aura of her robes, the female guard in red in front of him was extremely powerful in martial arts and could not be controlled by ordinary people.
Lu Anran frowned lightly. It was not difficult to tell the identity of the eldest daughter of the Lu family, but this identity had nothing to do with her questioning, so just being a widower seemed to have exceeded the rules.
Lu Taotao grabbed the door frame and stretched his neck, "We are the ones who are responsible for the punishment."
The old cat was startled by the head that suddenly poked in, and calmed down and said: "Oh, mention punishment...what? mention punishment division???"
