mtl008 Chapter 10 1 Secret
Chapter 10 1 Secret
Lin Lezhi put the small piece of wood into his arms, stepped out of the door, squatted down in front of the children, kept his eyes level with theirs, and asked with a smile: "What do you mean by being taken away by the river god?"
The children looked at each other, hesitating whether to say it out loud.
"Didn't we agree that you would tell me as soon as I come out? You can't go back on your word."
An older boy clasped his hands together nervously and said with a frightened look on his face: "My parents don't allow us to tell anyone about this. I'm afraid..."
Lin Lezhi rolled his eyes and smiled evilly: "How about this, I'll give you one of my secrets in exchange for yours? But you have to promise that you won't tell anyone."
After the children looked at each other, a little girl next to them said, "Then you have to tell us your secret first, then we can tell you."
"no problem."
Lin Lezhi agreed readily.
Lin Lezhi waved at the children mysteriously, and several children came over knowingly. Lin Lezhi lowered his voice and whispered in a voice that only they could hear.
The children all looked shocked after hearing this.
Lin Lezhi smiled and said, "How about it, is my secret enough to exchange for your secret?"
With Lin Lezhi's secret as a guide, the children naturally let down their guard and told everything they knew.
"My parents said that this room is cursed. Whoever enters this room will be taken away by the river god."
"No, my parents said they were taken away by the river god. In fact, they died because the river god asked them for something and they refused to give it to them."
When talking about death, the children's faces are full of innocence. I guess they don't know the meaning of death.
"What does Lord River God want?"
The children shook their heads.
Lin Lezhi noticed that among all the children who were actively expressing their opinions, there was a little boy who stood there without saying a word.
His expression looked a little nervous.
Lin Lezhi was about to ask something when a voice of being driven away suddenly came from the door.
"What are you looking at? Go home quickly."
Seeing the adults coming, Lin Lezhi greeted them with a smile, but the parents of these children didn't even look at them and took their children home directly.
Lin Lezhi's smile froze on his face, and he could only put his hand down with an embarrassed look on his face.
"Two gentlemen!"
Lin Lezhi looked in the direction of the voice and saw that it was Village Chief Ji.
Village Chief Ji walked over quickly and said with a warm smile, "I see a group of children gathered here. I guess you two are here to look for clues. I have been in this village the longest. If you want to know something, you can ask me directly. I will tell you everything I know."
"I read on the stone tablet at the Hongzhu Temple that He Yuqing's parents left Yulong Village after He Yuqing disappeared because they couldn't accept it. Didn't the river god take away only the bride? Why do the children say that they were taken away by the river god?"
"He Yuqing's parents definitely left on their own. Every villager in this village can testify to this."
Village Chief Ji quickly waved his hands and explained, "What can a group of children know? It's just that their parents don't want them to get close to this house, so they just made up this story to scare them. After all, this incident was too bizarre in the village, and everyone is afraid that there is really something unclean here and their children will be infected with it."
"So that's it."
Village Chief Ji looked into the house, his eyes looking straight towards the main house, but he quickly retracted his gaze and asked nervously, "Did the two gentlemen find any useful clues here?"
Lin Lezhi shook his head. "It's just old and dusty, but I didn't find anything else."
Hearing Lin Lezhi say that he was not nervous, the expression on Village Chief Ji's face was obviously a little more relaxed, and he comforted him, "There is no rush to solve this case. It is almost noon. Our village has prepared some rural food to entertain the guests. If you don't mind, please follow me to the posthouse."
"Okay, then it's Village Chief Laoji's turn."
When they returned to the inn, the banquet had not yet been set, but Village Chief Ji took them to the guest room.
Village Chief Ji said somewhat embarrassedly: "The banquet is not ready yet. Please take a rest here for a while. I will invite you all to leave after it is ready."
After nodding, Village Chief Ji stepped out.
After making sure that there was no one outside the house, Lin Lezhi took out the small piece of wood found in the main house and handed it to Xiao Xu.
"Look at this small piece of wood. It looks like it was cut by some sharp weapon."
After examining it carefully, Xiao Xu said, "The wood has a smooth cut surface, so it must have been cut by a sharp weapon like a sword."
"Do you think this color looks familiar?"
Xiao Xu gave Lin Lezhi a look, thinking that Lin Lezhi was testing him on purpose, and his expression was extremely dissatisfied, but he still stood up and walked to the wooden rack and placed the small wooden block on it.
The colors of the wooden blocks and the wooden frames match perfectly.
Lin Lezhi clapped his hands and said, "Great, I didn't realize you're quite smart."
"Mr. Jiang, maybe I'm not as good as you at solving cases, but I'm not blind." Xiao Xu responded unhappily.
But when Sun Wan'er saw the small wooden block that matched the color of the wooden frame perfectly, she looked puzzled and said to Lin Lezhi, "Master Jiang, what's going on?"
Lin Lezhi responded truthfully: "This piece of wood was found in He Yuqing's home, and the color does not match the wooden furniture placed in He Yuqing's home."
Lin Lezhi stood up, walked to the wooden frame, picked up the block of wood again and said, "When I saw this block of wood, I was also surprised why there was a block of wood with a different color from the wooden furniture in the house. But I always felt that this color seemed to have been seen somewhere, so I brought it back. I didn't expect it to be the same color as the wooden frame in this inn."
Lin Lezhi stood up, looked at the furnishings in the room and said, "Although not many people come to Yulong Village, it is not that there are no guests staying in Yulong Village. Since we are receiving guests, in order to establish a good image of the village for the guests, the wooden furnishings in the guest rooms should generally match each other."
"An inn is different from a residence. An inn is clean and tidy for the convenience of guests, while a residence is to meet daily necessities. However, in He Yuqing's home, although it has all the daily necessities, there are few traces of life."
In a house where you live for a long time, it is impossible for the drawers to be empty.
Lin Lezhi looked at the block of wood in his hand, his eyes darkened and his expression became somewhat serious.
"Now it seems that something happened and they didn't have time to destroy it, so they had to temporarily replace the furniture in two places and spread them around the inn to hide the real situation."
Lin Lezhi paused for a moment and said the possibility he least wanted, "I think He Yuqing's family probably didn't disappear, but were killed. The only person who could have done this could be someone from Yulong Village."
Sun Wan'er showed a horrified expression, "How could this happen?"
"As long as the villagers think we can't find anything, they won't do anything to us." Lin Lezhi raised the piece of wood in his hand and continued, "What we need to do now is to find the furniture in this post station that is missing this piece of wood. I also hope that my guess is wrong."
"Then I'll go find it now!"
Lin Lezhi stopped Sun Wan'er from getting up and said, "Don't worry. If we go to look for him now, given our identities, we will definitely arouse the suspicion of the villagers. Let's wait and see what happens so as not to alert the enemy."
Afterwards, about an incense stick of time later, Village Chief Ji came to inform that the banquet was ready.
When Lin Lezhi and the others went out, the villagers were already sitting outside, with hundreds of pairs of eyes looking at them.
Many people from the village came and a banquet was held outside the post station. There were people of all ages, including the children from this morning. When they saw Lin Lezhi, they jumped and greeted him happily.
Lin Lezhi and his group also responded with a smile.
However, Lin Lezhi did not feel comfortable eating at this banquet.
Although the villagers appeared enthusiastic on the surface, they were actually secretly observing their every move, as if they were confirming something.
There is a hierarchy of seniority in the village, so children and adults eat at separate tables.
After Lin Lezhi had almost finished eating, he went to the children's table and said with a smile, "I just promised to play games with you, but I haven't played yet. Do you want to play with us after dinner?"
When they heard they were going to play games, all the children at the table put down their chopsticks and jumped for joy, saying, "Let's play, let's play."
Among the group of children, only the little boy from this morning looked worried.
The boy who looked the youngest among them grabbed Lin Lezhi's clothes and asked, "Brother, what game do you want to play with us?"
Lin Lezhi touched the kid's head and responded with a smile: "Shall we play hide and seek?"
"What is peekaboo?"
The boy stared with his round eyes, full of curiosity.
"Hide and seek means one person plays the role of a ghost and catches people, while the rest of the people hide. If they catch all of them within an incense stick of time, then the person who catches them wins. If someone hides well and is not caught, then the person who catches them loses. However, the hiding people cannot leave the scope of this post station."
"Let's play, let's play."
In full view of the public, the villagers did not raise any objections.
Seeing this scene, Xiao Xu turned away his eyes.
"Why don't we bring this big brother and sister to play together?" Lin Lezhi pointed at Xiao Xu's face and said, "Let him catch us."
As soon as he finished speaking, Lin Lezhi felt Xiao Xu's murderous gaze, but Lin Lezhi naturally ignored it.
With so many children, the scene naturally became chaotic. The few rooms in the inn were all opened. Lin Lezhi took the opportunity to look at every room. Sure enough, each room had a few pieces of furniture of different colors scattered around.
Lin Lezhi walked into the room, closed the door, and quickly glanced at all the furniture in the room.
As expected.
There was a bench in the room with a corner missing, and there were traces of a sharp weapon sliding across it.
Just when Lin Lezhi took out the small wooden block and was about to compare it carefully, the door of the room was suddenly opened, but it was soon closed again. Lin Lezhi put away the wooden block as quickly as possible, and the sound of brisk running came from behind him.
Judging from the footsteps, it should be a child.
Lin Lezhi turned around and found that it was the little boy with the unnatural expression.
Lin Lezhi bent down, grabbed the little boy's shoulders, smiled gently and said, "I got him!"
This time Lin Lezhi is a ghost.
The other children had already hidden in other rooms.
The little boy grabbed the corner of his clothes, looking a little nervous, and the joints of his hands were a little white.
Lin Lezhi squatted down and kept his eyes level with the little boy, hoping to relieve his nervousness. Lin Lezhi smiled and said, "Do you have anything to say to me?"
The little boy nodded.
After looking at Lin Lezhi, she quickly lowered her head and said in a low voice with a red face: "You told me a secret, I can't go back on my word, so I have to tell you what I know."
"Okay, you say."
The little boy raised his head, leaned close to Lin Lezhi's ear, told him the secret, then quickly moved away from Lin Lezhi and shouted at him, "What happened just now doesn't count, you didn't catch me, L--!!"
After saying that, he ran out of the room.
The speed of change was so fast that Lin Lezhi was caught off guard.
Children are naturally full of energy, and it was not until they were exhausted that the three of them could finally relax.
The three of them finally returned to the inn. Lin Lezhi was so tired that he fell directly on the table.
It's been a long time since I've been so excited.
Unlike herself who was exhausted, Sun Wan'er also looked tired but very happy.
Xiao Xu was sitting leisurely on the stool, drinking tea calmly. Seeing Lin Lezhi like this, he even said sarcastically, "I didn't expect that with such a poor health, he could still be a spy."
"That's because you didn't do anything. How can a ghost just stand in the house until a stick of incense burns out? What if the villagers get suspicious?"
"You didn't say that we can't do this."
Lin Lezhi couldn't refute what was said. Okay, he really didn't say that.
Xiao Xu put down his teacup and said, "But I am indeed curious about what secrets you told them to gain their trust."
Lin Lezhi's eyes darkened, and he said while lying on the bed: "Children are unsophisticated and straightforward. They are most willing to empathize with others and keep their promises. What they say is not important."
Then Lin Lezhi sat up straight, a sly smile appeared on the corner of his mouth, and he said in a mean way: "But if you want to know, I can tell you, but you have to promise not to get angry after listening to it."
Xiao Xu turned his head to look at Lin Lezhi, intending to listen to what Lin Lezhi had to say.
Lin Lezhi smiled and said, "I told them that the bride last night was a man, and his dream since childhood was to wear women's clothes for once."
I thought Xiao Xu would be angry after hearing this, but he was unusually calm.
"Why aren't you angry?"
Xiao Xu glanced at Lin Lezhi with a complicated expression, and said calmly: "You are not telling the truth, why should I be angry, and besides, you have exchanged for clues."
There are two interpretations of Xiao Xu's words.
First, he knew he was lying, and the secret was not this.
Second, he really doesn't mind.
But Lin Lezhi wasn't sure which one it was.
For Sun Wan'er, watching Xiao Xu and Lin Lezhi bickering was also a pleasure, so she just smiled faintly and said nothing.
"Forget it, it's not fun. Let's get down to business." Lin Lezhi looked in the direction of the door, then leaned closer, looked at Xiao Xu and Sun Wan'er, and said in a low voice: "The people in their village will go to a place in the forest to worship after the river god sacrifice, which is tonight."