Chapter 31
Thinking of this, Luo Jingyao moved a few meters to the side until she could see the specific situation in the square clearly.
The policemen from the laboratory were concentrating on extracting footprints from the loess ground near the platform. Pang Guang and Pan Chang were discussing the situation with several villagers. Lin Jiafan and Guo Zhen put on foot covers and gloves, lifted another cordon and walked onto the wooden platform.
After seeing their actions clearly, the villagers kneeling outside the square kowtowed even faster.
Luo Jingyao listened carefully to what the villagers were mumbling. Most of them were words like "forgive me", "don't blame me", "bless me", etc. Some of them were particularly devout and even shouted at the top of their lungs.
"That's where the Fire Stove God's golden statue is placed. Ordinary people aren't allowed up there. Why don't you get down here quickly?! If you make the Fire Stove God unhappy, our entire village will be in trouble!"
Such words instantly resonated with others, and voices calling for them to be driven down from the platform rose one after another. Some villagers even stood up anxiously and tried to rush into the cordon to stop them, but they were stopped by the police on the scene.
It did cause quite a commotion, but Lin Jiafan on the high platform didn't care about it. He just bent down slightly and stared intently at the solid wooden altar in front of the golden statue of the Fire Stove God.
In the center is a ripe pig's head, and around it are eight gold-rimmed round plates containing tribute fruits, cakes and some local specialties.
Directly in front of the pig's head was an incense burner whose original color could no longer be seen. There were three incense sticks in the burner, and the rising green smoke made everything in front of the scene become a little blurry.
Guo Zhen carefully walked around to the other side of the altar and picked up one of the gold-rimmed round plates. It was obvious at a glance that the object inside was a brain.
"Is it this brother's?" While observing the surrounding environment, Lin Jiafan also glanced at the pig-headed brother in the middle.
"The size and the shape of the grooves on the surface? It's not from a pig." As Guo Zhen spoke, he borrowed a small scale from a colleague from the laboratory below the platform and carefully placed the brain on it to weigh it.
"It's fried. Taking into account water loss and other losses, this guy isn't a pig, but he's definitely a brother. The weight is consistent with an adult male's brain."
"And this plate of battered fried spareribs. This one is definitely pork bone, but this one... judging by the cross-section of the bone, it's probably not a pork chop."
"Let me guess what this dish of stir-fried pork with green peppers is..."
"Who called the police?" Lin Jiafan turned around and asked loudly, interrupting the other party's increasingly excited speech.
"It's me! It's me!" Not far away, a middle-aged man who was being questioned by Pang Guang and Pan Chang responded quickly, then raised his right hand and hurried to the bottom of the platform.
Lin Jiafan squatted down slowly, trying to reduce the condescending feeling around him. "What's your name?"
"My name is Zhou Bin, and I'm the village leader of Group 4 in Bo'an Village!" the man introduced himself, puffing out his chest proudly.
"Why did you call the police? How did you find something wrong?"
"Isn't it the Double Ninth Festival? The village ancestral hall is arranging to worship the Fire God today, praying for good luck in the days ahead. My great uncle is the only one of the older generation in our village who is qualified to go up to the high platform to burn incense for the Fire God, and he's not very agile, so I have to carry him up."
"While he was washing his hands and burning incense, I thought I'd take a look at the dishes on the altar, and see what everyone would eat later. I didn't expect to see it in that plate of stir-fried baby rooster... I saw it..."
At this point, Zhou Bin seemed to recall something terrible. Not only did his face turn pale, but his speech also became incoherent.
As he spoke, Lin Jiafan and Guo Zhen's eyes fell on the plate of 'Stir-fried Little Rooster'. The meat pieces were chopped into small pieces, and at first glance, there was nothing special about it.
Until Guo Zhen reached out and pulled out a piece of something from under the red pepper next to him.
"If I'm not mistaken, those are the knuckles of a human hand?" Lin Jiafan narrowed his eyes, his emotions mixed for a moment.
After repeated confirmation, Guo Zhen nodded: "Judging from the bone characteristics, it does conform to the structure of human finger bones. The most important thing is that the part next to it still has a nail on it..."
Zhou Bin below nodded vigorously in agreement: "That's right, I can still tell the difference between chicken feet and human claws."
"You just said that these dishes on the altar are also everyone's meals?" Lin Jiafan suddenly felt something was wrong.
The middle-aged man was stunned for a moment, then nodded bewilderedly. "Yes, because on the day of worship, we have to get up before dawn and go out. The various rituals and activities take up most of the day, so the kitchen at the village ancestral hall also cooks a large pot of food. After deducting the food for the Fire God, the rest will be eaten after we finish worshiping the gods."
"After calling the police, did you inform the ancestral hall about this matter?" Lin Jiafan asked again.
Zhou Bin finally reacted and slapped his thigh: "Oh no! Oh no! I have to go back to the ancestral hall and take a look!"
As soon as he finished speaking, he turned around in a hurry and ran away.
Seeing this, Guo Zhen on the high platform quickly jumped down from it, casually called two colleagues, and ran after the back in front of him: "Wait for me!!!"
As luck would have it, when Zhou Bin, Guo Zhen and their group were leaving the square, they happened to pass by Luo Jingyao.
She watched the figures until they disappeared at the end of the village road.
After thinking for a while with her eyes lowered, Luo Jingyao simply softened her knees and kept her movements highly consistent with those of the kneeling ladies in front of her. She also moved closer to the crowd without leaving any trace, and the integration was so perfect.
At that time, the ladies were chattering about the current situation, expressing their opinions, spit flying everywhere, and they were almost holding a handful of melon seeds in their hands.
"Call the police, call the police. I didn't agree when Zhou Bin from the Zhou family first suggested calling 110. What can the police do even if they come? Isn't it just a waste of time? They will definitely not find out anything." The lady who was speaking had a square cloth on her head, her teeth were slightly protruding, and she had a small nose and small eyes.
"Yes, this is the spirit of the Fire God! Without his consent, how could those things be placed on the altar so easily?"
"Exactly. If you ask me, this guy must be no good either. Otherwise, wouldn't the Fire Stove God chop him into pieces, eat his flesh, and drink his blood?"
The other ladies also followed suit.
Hearing this, Luo Jingyao pursed her dry lips in confusion. So these people all thought the deceased was murdered by the Fire Stove God?!
She really didn't have much faith on a daily basis, so it was really hard for her to understand the ladies' point of view at this moment.
But even though she didn't understand, Luo Jingyao finally cleared her throat and interrupted them between words to ask, "Oh my God, weren't they saying there's a worship service here today? I came all the way here, why are there so many police officers?"
These words were extremely pretentious, and as soon as they were spoken, they successfully attracted the attention of the ladies in front.
"The little girl looks strange. Where are you from? What are you doing here?" The old lady wearing a cloth on her head spoke first and started checking her household registration.
"As for me, I'm a native of Jinshi. I always heard my grandmother say that the Fire God in Bo'an Village is very effective. It just so happens that there is a worship ceremony today, so I rushed here from the city specially." When Luo Jingyao said this, she revealed an expression of regret at the right time.
"What a pity, you are too late. We just found a dead body here!" Aunt Bujin shook her head and sighed.
"Huh?" She raised her hand to cover her mouth, a bit exaggeratedly, looking very surprised. "No wonder so many police officers showed up. Who was the dead person? Why did they kill him?"
Aunt Bujin waved her hand and said, "They've all been cooked. No one knows who died. But the Fire Stove God loves to punish the wicked and promote the good, and to enforce justice. This person must not be a good person."
This won't work. If I want to get something useful out of it, I have to change my thinking.
"Is the Fire God really as powerful as the ladies say?" Luo Jingyao secretly complimented him, then asked with a worried look, "Are there any taboos when worshipping the Fire God? For example, gender, age, zodiac sign, and tattoos should be okay, right?"
"It's not that complicated. The Kitchen God is very kind! I remember that the kid from someone's family has a tattoo, right? He still comes here to worship the god every year." Sure enough, this immediately opened up Aunt Bujin's mouth.
"Who's the older one and who's the younger one?" Unfortunately, the aunt next to her didn't have enough tacit understanding with her and couldn't grasp the essence of it at the first time.
Aunt Bujin clapped her hands anxiously. "It's the family next to Haixia Supermarket. Have you forgotten? Their son gets covered in bright red all over his back and arms whenever he goes out in the summer."
"Oh! You mean the youngest son of the Cui family?" The old lady who answered curled her lips inexplicably. "He's just a jerk. He's already grown up and doesn't even have a proper job. All he does all day is hang around, eating, drinking and having fun."
"I mean, he's old enough to get married, right? Who would want a girl from a good family to be with him?"
"That's not necessarily true. The Cui family is rich!"
"No matter how rich you are, your son can't stop you from squandering money. I heard he's often away from home for days at a time, gambling in the city. Look, I haven't seen him in a few days again, right?"
Hearing this, Luo Jingyao's eyelids twitched and she involuntarily leaned forward to avoid missing any important information.
Lin Jiafan, who had just finished deploying his work and came out of the square, looked up and saw this scene.
The woman was kneeling in the crowd in a well-behaved posture. From a distance, she looked like a small group of people, and her eyes were unusually bright with curiosity.
Like a groundhog.
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