Chapter 10 Chapter 10
Just as Ling Suye was about to go further and examine the several knife wounds on the deceased's body, footsteps were heard in the yard again.
This time, there were more and more of them, and there was even a bit of panic as if fleeing.
The young man leaned over the window and took a look, feeling a little uncertain: "Why do I feel like they don't look like government officials?"
"Indeed, they are not," Ling Suye said without raising his head. A dagger slipped from his sleeve, and his tone was flat. "They are Mr. Shi who participated in the competition together."
The boy was stunned for a moment: "They are still here."
Although it was the tone of a teenager, there was a hint of abnormality in the tone.
The young man quickly shut up and turned to look at Ling Suye. He saw that he was still staring at the corpse on the ground. He guessed that he didn't think about what he said.
Ling Suye said, "There are two types of demon realms. One is the demon realm that is so extreme that it directly starts a massacre. Once this demon realm is opened, it must be broken open by force and subdued. The other demon realm is the one we are in now. It is formed because of obsession that is too deep and too heavy.
This demonic realm wasn't initially mortally dangerous. Look, the person who was first drawn into it is still alive, huddled in a corner over there."
As long as he is here, then the others are still alive, so there is naturally no problem.
The young man looked in the direction Ling Suye pointed, and as expected, he saw a man in a gray robe who was huddled like a quail and shivering.
He opened his mouth and asked, "Sir, what you mean is that there is no fatal danger in this demon domain now, but that doesn't mean there won't be any danger in the future?"
Ling Suye raised his head at this moment, looked into the boy's eyes, and said, "Yes, look, isn't the Demon Realm changing now?"
As he finished speaking, the body of the man who had just been bleeding all over the ground was suddenly blown away by the wind and scattered like a ball of loose sand, leaving nothing behind.
The young man also looked into Ling Suye's eyes, but tears soon overflowed from his eyes: "Sir, I, I'm a little scared."
Ling Suye stood up and walked towards the boy, who burst into tears.
Ling Suye didn't look at him, but looked at the other Mr. Shi in the yard. Those people were originally going to rush towards this side hall, but for some reason, they pushed and shoved each other, kept circling in the yard, and couldn't get out.
"It's like a ghost wall." Ling Suye said.
The young man stopped crying and looked at Ling Suye silently: "Sir, do you want to save them?"
Ling Suye raised an eyebrow in surprise, then said, "I can't save them. They can see in the demon realm now, and they also have the keen hearing of a blind person. Their chances of survival are much higher than those of ordinary people."
"Sir, you..."
Ling Suye heard some movement in the hall, raised his index finger, put it close to his lips, and made a "hush" gesture.
The boy immediately fell silent.
Ling Suye turned his head to look inside the hall, and saw blood gushing out from the places where the dead bodies had been.
Obviously, as he just said, everything is developing in an even weirder direction.
His face was solemn, and he thought to himself that although he had grasped an important idea now, there was still a decisive piece of evidence that had not been found to solve the case.
If this evidence cannot be found, the final conclusion cannot be determined.
As he was thinking, he saw two men in yamen runners' clothes also walking towards this side. They seemed to be unaware of the huge crowd in the yard and walked straight towards the hall.
Ling Suye asked the young man to hide behind the altar, while he took a long copper candlestick from the altar, held it in his palm, tapped the ground lightly, and hid behind the door.
"The lord has asked us to find someone to draw the three people who weren't recognized in the end. We'll post their portraits on the bulletin board so the people can identify them," a yamen runner said. "But the lord has only allocated us less than one or two taels of silver. That's not even enough for a drink, so how can we hire a painter?"
"Well, what can we do? Let's just hire a cheaper master. Our master has just been sent from outside the capital. He is a Beijing official. We should first perform well under his command and strive to make meritorious service." His companion responded.
"If you ask me, how come your brain is not active at all? I remember your grandfather can draw portraits, right?" the person in front said again.
"But my old man passed away last year," said the companion, "he can't come."
"Look, you're still stupid. Your grandfather can draw, so you can too. So, you draw it." The person who spoke first continued.
"I...I didn't study hard when I was little. Drawing is a very difficult skill, and I really can't do it."
"The son follows in his father's footsteps. If we brothers say you can do it, then you can do it. The prefect is new here and can't even recognize all of our faces. How would he know all these tricks? Come on, you draw!" As he said this, the man pushed open the door of the hall.
Ling Suye held a dagger in his left hand and a candlestick in his right hand. After the two men came in, he took advantage of their unpreparedness and knocked one of them unconscious with the candlestick, while holding the dagger against the other's neck.
"Shut up! If you make a sound, I'll kill you." His voice was cold and emotionless.
"I... Sir, please spare my life, Sir, please spare my life... I have money in my pocket, money..."
He obviously thought Ling Suye was one of the robbers who came to rob and kill people.
"Then take it out." Ling Suye said.
The man lowered his head in panic to look for his purse. Ling Suye found the right moment and smashed him with another candlestick.
After the man fell to the ground, Ling Suye gently closed the palace door and called the young man out: "Come, change into their clothes."
Although the young man didn't know what Ling Suye was going to do, he was very obedient. He followed Ling Suye's instructions and took off the clothes of the taller yamen runner and gave them to Ling Suye, while he put on the clothes of the shorter yamen runner.
Ling Suye also found paper in the lapel of a yamen runner, so he took a half-burned incense stick from the incense burner in the hall, dipped some incense ash in it, and began to draw.
He was not trained as a painter, but as a practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine, he had to face countless herbal sketchbooks every day when he was learning the basics.
Over time, I was able to draw a little bit myself.
It doesn't reach the level of a painter, but at least I can capture the charm of a material and make whatever I paint look like it.
At this moment, Ling Suye was drawing a portrait of the scarred man whom he had just suspected.
He first drew the appearance of the man that he could see directly - a picture of a wound from the head to the jaw.
Next, Ling Suye quickly took out another piece of paper, erased the last knife mark that was obviously filled in, and instead described in detail the original scar on his face.
While Ling Suye was drawing, the pools of blood gurgling in the hall were gradually expanding.
The atmosphere became increasingly eerie, but Ling Suye's hand holding the incense stick was very steady, and it didn't even shake at all.
Just like he did back then, he still has profound internal strength to protect himself in danger.
But now, he is really no different from a weak scholar.
But this aura of fearlessness in the face of danger was the same as usual, which made the very frightened boy involuntarily calm his breathing.
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After a while, Ling Suye finished drawing the picture, and two faces that were obviously too young appeared outside the hall.
Ling Suye led the young man towards the main hall of the outer courtyard. As they passed the Mr. Shi who were trapped in the maze, Ling Suye spotted a few faces that looked visibly annoyed.
These people have one thing in common, that is, their arms are bulging.
Ling Suye guessed almost immediately that these people must be the minions of the mastermind behind the scenes.
The bulge in their arms was naturally filled with the evil-suppressing stone!
It seems that the Mr. Shi they saw first has distributed all the twelve evil-suppressing stones he got to his companions, asking them to use them to make blood jade!
But now, almost all of them were trapped in the ghost wall, and they couldn't break it down one by one in batches or groups of four, which made the minions very annoyed.
Therefore, even though these people are trapped in a ghost wall and cannot get out, from another perspective, it is also a protection for them.
Ling Suye lowered his eyes and glanced at the young man beside him, then continued walking forward.
The young man's heart was pounding, worried that Ling Suye had discovered something. Seeing that he didn't say anything, he comforted himself - the gentleman was now concentrating on the case, so naturally he didn't discover anything.
The two men walked forward and came to the City God Temple in the front. The prefect was waiting there, waiting for the doctor to revive the man who had fainted due to excessive blood loss.
Ling Suye bowed his head and clasped his fists: "Sir."
Ling Suye looked calm, but the boy beside him widened his eyes. He knew that these adults and others were not real, but an illusion.
You never know when he might get angry, just like a monster suddenly appearing and swallowing them up!
The boy was surprised. Weren't they hiding from these people just now? How could they come over and talk to them directly now?
But since he was already there, he could only follow Ling Suye's example and lower his head, not daring to breathe, hoping that no one would discover that they were fakes.
The governor didn't even turn his head: "What's wrong?"
"When I was drawing the faces of those three people, I made some unexpected discoveries." Ling Suye said calmly.
The governor was originally squatting on the ground helping the doctor pour the medicine. Upon hearing this, he called someone over to help and stood up and turned around: "What did you say?"
Ling Suye still had his head lowered, the yamen runner's black scarf and hat covering half of his forehead, making the young man look even more extraordinary and graceful.
Ling Suye handed over the portrait in his hand.
"Sir, my father was a painter, and I learned a few techniques from him. Now it's too far to go back to the city to find a painter, so I'll draw a picture for you to review."
He continued, "The first picture I drew was based on the scene of this person's death. However, while drawing, I discovered a scar running from his forehead to his eyebrows. This second picture is his original appearance."
The prefect was stunned and immediately took the two portraits and looked at them carefully.
The doctor next to him was curious and took a look. He was stunned for a moment: "Isn't this man Zhang Ergou, the gangster from Baihua Village who committed crimes and was arrested?"
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