Chapter 95 How dare you! "You're trying to protect the murderer!"...

Bai Yuan left the city at dawn, passing by the old and young who were busy making a living, carrying rice and grain on their shoulders or leading mules and donkeys laden with heavy loads to the market.

Not far from the city gate is the Pujin Ferry. After enduring the harsh winter and the melting of the ice, boats have begun to sail, with boatmen and porters coming and going, loading and unloading cargo.

Bai Yuan walked towards the ferry, passing by a group of busy figures, and came to the boatman who was sitting on the gangplank eating a steamed bun. He asked the boatman if he had seen anyone who looked like Chen Ying or was wearing an iron mask come to the ferry to board a boat.

The ferry crossing is bustling with people, and boats come and go day and night in an endless stream. The ferry boats are moored on the shore, and several small boats bob up and down on the yellowish-brown water.

The boatman was hunched over, but despite his age, he was lean and strong, with piercing, eagle-like eyes. He had been soliciting work at the ferry crossing for the past two days and hadn't seen the two people Bai Yuan had been asking about. She also inquired with the vendors at the ferry crossing, but they all said they hadn't seen them either.

In other words, after the Gu Master seized the Yin Sui, he did not leave by water. He may have chosen to travel by land, or he may still be hiding in some remote corner of Puzhou.

Tingfengzhi's hearing is sharp enough to detect sounds from miles away, so this Gu master could not possibly stay put in Puzhou and be discovered. She would definitely run away, but it's unknown where she would run to.

Bai Yuan glanced at the boats being battered by the turbid waves, then turned and headed into the loess gullies. He traveled unhurriedly through the desolate and overgrown land of Jin. However, when he passed Fengkou Village, he could hear wailing coming from the village from afar, with people crying and cursing the dead in sharp tones.

So Bai Yuan turned back to Fengkou Village and saw that the village was crowded with people, some standing, some lying down, and some sprawled out. Including the yamen runners and a few teenagers from Taihang Road, there were at least dozens of people.

As Bai Yuan approached, he discovered that the people lying haphazardly on the ground were all those who had gone missing from Fengkou Village. They had died inside the half-open gate due to the custom of ghost marriage, and were actually carried out by this group of young cultivators who had gone to Jingguan to collect bones.

Some of the family members, embracing the deceased and wailing, cursed Liang Youyi in a fit of rage, accusing the officials that their men had definitely been murdered by Liang Youyi.

Liang Youyi searched for his daughter all the way to Puzhou, but ran out of money and found a job as a jailer in the Puzhou government office. Everyone in the office knew about his daughter's plight, and they were all worried about Old Liang. However, Old Liang used torture to extract a confession, and in the prison, he killed the suspect, Wang Sanhu. A murder was a serious matter. Old Liang went into hiding, and his colleagues searched the entire city without success. Then, led by a Taoist priest from the Taihang Mountains, they dug his body out of a pile of bones and rammed earth, along with the "missing persons" from Fengkou Village.

The head constable explained countless times: "These Taoist priests from Taihang Road all said that the mass grave had brought misfortune, so they were forced into a ghost marriage. It has nothing to do with Lao Liang, no, with Liang Youyi."

"Nonsense!" the woman cried. "You're trying to protect the murderer!"

"You must give us justice today!"

Justice? Who will give Lao Liang and his daughter justice? The head constable wanted to curse these bastards who were doing evil and aiding and abetting the wicked, but he held back. One or two troublemakers are easy to deal with, but he couldn't afford to mess with an entire village of troublemakers.

“Old Liang is already dead, what’s the point of us protecting him?” The constable had almost worn his lips out. He pointed to a bundle of straw figures wrapped in red on the ground. “These are the ones you used to bury those children who died young in the mass grave to prepare their remains, and you even made these things. Now that something’s happened, who can you blame? They’re Taoist priests from the Taihang Mountains. If they hadn’t come to Fengkou Village to exorcise evil spirits, the whole village would probably have been wiped out.”

Another old woman sitting on the ground suddenly stood up, pointing her finger at the yamen runner's nose: "I ask you, wasn't it the county magistrate's brother-in-law's son who needed a bone graft and then found our village's schemer, Zha Mao Niang, to help him? Now that something has happened, isn't it because of the county magistrate's brother-in-law!"

The constable: "..." This is quite a commotion.

It was because the brother-in-law's family needed a bone lining that the body of Liang Youyi's daughter was unearthed. The body was placed in the yamen, but its abdomen was cut open and its uterus was removed. What father wouldn't go crazy? Then the situation got out of control, and the officials in charge of the case were all in a panic.

To his colleagues in the government office, Lao Liang was a pitiful man, but to the villagers of Fengkou Village, he was a vicious and ruthless man who had come to cause trouble.

When the yamen runners assisted the Taihang Taoist priests in collecting bones at the mass grave, they unearthed the bodies of Liang Youyi and other villagers. Naturally, they told the Taoist priests the whole story of Liang Taohua's case.

The incident also involved a middle-aged man surnamed Zhang from the original village. His son, Xiao Tiezhu, had been killed by a bandit wearing an iron mask. After the couple reported the incident to the authorities, they secretly arranged for Xiao Tiezhu to have a bone lining made.

Unexpectedly, another major incident occurred during the journey to obtain the bone lining. The Zhang and Huang families had a big fight at the mass grave, and two women accidentally fell off a cliff and lost their lives.

This isn't over yet.

The constables took Zhang and Huang back for questioning. They managed to pry out the bizarre case from Zhang, who claimed that someone's skull had been smashed and their hand cut off. He insisted that it was a ghost that had been smashed and that they were being haunted by a ghost.

Okay, let's just assume it's a ghost for now.

However, soon, an old man and a young man arrived at the county government office to report the case. The old man, surnamed Ding, was a doctor who had been tied up by Liang Youyi in a cliff cave while making a house call in the middle of the night. Several villagers from Fengkou Village were also tied up in the cave.

What kind of situation is this?

The county government immediately dispatched people to the cave to rescue the people. One of them, Cao Dali, was seriously injured and unconscious, barely breathing. He was immediately sent to the clinic for treatment. After further questioning, they learned that Liang Youyi had secretly tortured and killed another person named Sister Fang.

The more the yamen runners listened, the more suspicious they became. The more they listened, the bigger the problem seemed. How could the torture characteristics of the woman surnamed Fang, who was killed by Liang Youyi, be so similar to the "ghost" that the man surnamed Zhang had killed?!

One after another, the constables handling the case were completely overwhelmed and their foreheads were practically steaming.

"It's her!" someone suddenly shouted. The horse with sharp beak, who had just been rescued from the cliff cave, pointed at the approaching Bai Yuan and said, "It's her. She came here last night."

Everyone turned around.

When they saw that the newcomer was Bai Yuan, the group of young men from Taihang Road were somewhat surprised. Lin Mu spoke up, "How come you..."

Ma Jianzui said, "She didn't save us back then, and she even colluded with Liang Youyi. They're probably in cahoots. Officer, arrest her and interrogate her. She must know about Liang Youyi's revenge killing."

They pleaded desperately, but the woman kept asking them all sorts of questions, and it turned out she had no intention of saving them at all.

Instead of getting angry, Bai Yuan retorted, "Just because I didn't save you, does that mean I'm in cahoots with Liang Youyi?"

"certainly."

Bai Yuan said calmly, "Who do you think you are? Why should I save you?"

"you--"

Bai Yuan: "You and Liang Youyi often sang in unison in the cliff cave. Could you be accomplices?"

"What nonsense are you talking about? When did I ever have anything to do with Liang Youyi..."

Bai Yuan's tone was completely calm: "You told Liang Youyi everything about who in Fengkou Village did to his daughter, and then let him take revenge on those people."

Ma Jianzui was shocked. How could this person turn the tables and accuse him? "I was tortured by him. If I didn't talk..."

Bai Yuan casually remarked, "No need for sophistry."

"So it was you!" The woman knelt beside her dead husband, pointing at Ma Jianzui in a fit of rage and cursing, "So it was you who talked nonsense with that debt collector Liang Youyi, causing him to harm my husband!"

Ma Jianzui panicked immediately: "No...you...I...she..."

"You heartless, sharp-tongued horse! Why don't you just die? You're trying to harm my man like this! I'll fight you to the death!" The woman was agitated and rushed towards the sharp-tongued horse as she stood up.

Ma Jianzui had just escaped from Liang Youyi's clutches last night and hid behind the yamen runners in a panic: "Sir! I didn't! I was forced to do it, oh dear."

The woman pounced, circling around and grabbing Ma Jianzui, tearing at it. Ma Jianzui was scratched several times and slapped hard across the face, almost hitting the nearby trees. Ma Jianzui frantically grabbed onto the trees that were trying to back away, screaming, "Little Taoist priest, save me..."

Lin Mu slapped away his filthy hand: "Serves you right! Who told you to spout such nonsense!"

You even dared to spew your anger at a great evil spirit! This is a great evil spirit that even they have to respect. How could you, a mere clown with a pointed mouth and monkey cheeks, bully it? What a joke!

Entrusted by Tingfengzhi, Lin Mu and several fellow disciples protected Liang Youyi in the Jingguan fierce formation. After they came out, they heard several yamen runners sighing and talking about the tragic experience of Liang Youyi and his daughter. Of course, they knew what had happened.

Lin Mu had no good feelings towards the people of Fengkou Village, especially since this person had started by making baseless accusations against Bai Yuan. He angrily said, "How dare you accuse her with nothing but empty words?"

He didn't utter two words: I wouldn't dare!

"No, Taoist priest..."

The Taoist priest was heartless, refusing to help him as the madwoman grabbed his hair and beat him. Ma Jianzui wept bitterly, his eye socket pierced by a heavy punch. He roared angrily, "Did I say something wrong? Your man defiled someone's daughter, so it's no wonder she came looking for him! You filthy woman!"

The woman punched and kicked him, sending him sprawling to the ground, teeth chattering: "Pah! She's a slut who sleeps with anyone! A whore who's been ridden by ten thousand men! She spreads her legs at the sight of any man, and you dare say you, you son of a bitch, haven't been with her before..."

The foul language was truly unbearable to hear. Halfway through the woman's tirade, a cold, pale hand suddenly reached into the chaos and, with a snap, precisely dislocated her jaw.

Caught off guard, the woman was frozen in place as if by magic, still clutching the horse's hair, her fist stopping abruptly before it could land.

Even the horse with the pointed beak dared not move.

Bai Yuan pinched her gaping jawline, looked down at her, and said in a low voice, "Watch your mouth."

That cold glance was like a warning, sending chills down the woman's spine. She stared in terror at the icy woman before her, trembling uncontrollably.

Bai Yuan released his grip, and the woman immediately covered her dislocated chin in fear, trembling and unable to utter a sound of sobbing.

Ma Jianzui bared his teeth and struggled to break free from the shrew's grasp, nearly having a chunk of his scalp ripped off, before scrambling away from her.

With so many deaths occurring in Fengkou Village, the situation cannot be calmed down in a short time. The families of the victims will not be able to accept it and will inevitably cause a scene at the government offices, which will lead to many more troubles.

Li Liuyun stood beside Bai Yuan: "What are you doing here?"

Bai Yuan lowered his hand and gently rubbed the woman's chin with the tip of his finger: "The Gu Master used Liang Youyi's daughter to make the Gu medicine, which is why he went to the yamen to remove Liang Taohua's womb."

Li Liuyun was suddenly taken aback: "What?"

"The placenta in the womb contains a gu-inducing agent."

Having previously heard Feng Zhi mention the placenta-infused medicine buried in the filthy soil of the river mound, Li Liuyun reacted with remarkable speed: "Liang Youyi's daughter was harmed by a Gu master?"

“The Gu Master must have stayed in Puzhou for a while before, with an iron-masked man by his side. Even if they tried to hide it, some people would inevitably have seen them,” Bai Yuan said. “She wouldn’t choose a crowded place to make these evil things, like a ghostly government office, where ordinary people wouldn’t dare to set foot. It would be perfect for her to raise blood leeches there and then implant the blood leeches into Shen Yuanwen’s body.”

Li Liuyun immediately understood the other party's intention: "I will immediately order the government to send more people to search."

"The Jinxi region has many earthen kilns and cellars, making it easy to hide. However, the Gu Master who took the Yin Sui should be escaping. He hasn't taken the waterway yet, so let's check the carriages and horses as well... Hmm, let's also find a painter with exceptional skill to create a lifelike portrait and post a notice."

Li Liuyun nodded: "Okay."

Lin Mu interjected, "So you're here to give us orders."

Bai Yuan asked with a smile, "Not happy?"

Lin Mu muttered, "She didn't say she was unwilling. The Gu Master is harming people everywhere, so we were going to arrest her anyway."

Just then, two constables dragged past a hunched old woman and a woman. Bai Yuan looked at the old woman's cloudy, triangular eyes and remembered seeing this mother and daughter before. At that time, because the old woman was hard of hearing, she answered questions about cows and horses, which frightened Xiao Dinggua into thinking that the villagers had buried his grandfather.

The woman pleaded in a low voice, "Sir, it really wasn't us! We're just trying to make a living, how could we possibly know any evil magic..."

The officials did not easily listen to their sophistry.

After the group of people walked past, Bai Yuan asked, "What happened?"

Li Liuyun said, "They are the matchmakers who help arrange ghost marriages in the surrounding villages. These straw spirits were made by that old man. Now that something has happened, the government will naturally take them back for questioning."

Bai Yuan recalled how the old man had panicked and knelt down repeatedly after knocking over a basket of thatch and rope. She had long suspected that the old man was performing rituals to ward off evil spirits.

Those who work in this line of work will inevitably have a certain degree of reverence.

Of course, the few who came out of the Jingguan all knew that those evil spirits and calamities were not something that this mother and daughter could stir up.