Chapter 220 Investigation, Deadlocked

"Boss, it's here."

Shen Qing and a constable stood in front of a residential building.

"The first carpenter in the city who died at the hands of demons died in this house." The constable said respectfully.

The constable's name is Ji Youwu, the son of a small merchant in Yongzhou City.

He learned martial arts and joined gangs since he was a child. In the end, he spent some money to buy connections and entered the Weiwu Division. He became a constable and was considered to be eating official food.

Among the many constables in the four groups, his background is not good, and his cultivation is not high, but he is a bit smart.

After Shen Qing became the constable of their four groups, he did not resist much, and he continued to investigate the case step by step as usual.

After several times, Shen Qing became familiar with it, and many clues were given to him to follow.

"Go in and take a look."

Shen Qing stepped forward, put his hand gently on the door and pushed it gently.

The door was not locked, and it opened to both sides with a creaking sound, shaking off a layer of white ash.

Inside the house, there was a dead silence.

At first glance, Shen Qing saw that the room was covered with a thick layer of dust. The light from the window penetrated the dense spider webs and sprinkled on the ground in patches, reflecting a series of residual images.

It seemed that no one had lived there for a long time. The air was filled with a damp and musty smell, which made Shen Qing frown involuntarily.

He took the lead and walked in with his long sword in his hand, followed by Ji Youwu.

The clean official boots stepped on the ground, stirring up circles of floating dust, which floated in the light coming in from the window lattice to form beams of light.

"Has this carpenter been dead for more than two months?" Shen Qing asked, checking around.

Ji Youwu replied: "It should be seventy-eight days. The carpenter was first killed by having his heart and liver taken out. The demon should have cut open his stomach when he was alive, and then ate from the inside out, and finally ate only half of his body."

"In other words, this person watched himself being eaten when he was alive?"

"Almost."

Shen Qing looked around.

The house was not big, and it was clear with just a few glances.

Except for spider webs and dust, there was nothing there, and it had been abandoned for a long time.

However, a dried blood stain on the ground was very conspicuous.

Shen Qing slowly approached the blood stain and observed carefully. He found that there was only one blood stain, and it was not scattered over a large area, indicating that the carpenter was eaten while hanging or standing.

There were no other footprints on the ground, which meant that the demon either had a very high intelligence and knew how to cover up his tracks, or had the means to float in the air.

Either way, it showed that the demon who entered the city was an extremely difficult character.

"Who is the owner of this house?"

"It's from the Zhou family."

Shen Qing raised his eyebrows and immediately became alert.

"To be precise, this is the residence of a steward under the main house of the Zhou family. Later, the steward died last year, and the house has been idle." Ji Youwu said in detail.

Shen Qing asked, "Does this carpenter have any relationship with the Zhou family?"

"No." Ji Youwu said, "The carpenter is just a lowly worker living in the outer city. It is impossible for him to be related to the Zhou family, the head of the Thirteen Hongs."

"Then have you checked how the cat demon story came about?"

"We have secretly investigated several cases of demons in the city recently and found that when all the murders occurred, people around heard creepy cat cries. So everyone thinks that this demon is a cat demon."

Shen Qing remained silent, carefully observed the room and said, "Let's go and ask the carpenter's family if there is anything unusual."

"Yes."

...

Outer city.

Shen Qing rode a tall horse and looked at the outer city blocks in front of him.

Compared with the outer city of Taiping County, Yongzhou's outer city is both dilapidated and cramped, but it is obviously more orderly.

He took Ji Youwu to a slightly noisy block, and the street was full of a strong market atmosphere mixed with various cakes and rotten vegetable leaves.

People were either wrapped in heavy coats or shrinking their necks, walking through the rising smoke, looming.

Shen Qing was wearing an official robe and cloak, which seemed a bit out of place in this market.

Soon, they led the horses into a restaurant.

"Boss lady, give me two bowls of soup noodles and a plate of pig offal."

Shen Qing threw the reins to Ji Youwu and picked an empty seat to sit on.

Ji Youwu tied the horse and sat on the side of Shen Qing.

After a while, a half-grown child followed a woman. The mother and son brought the braised offal and soup noodles to Shen Qing, and smiled and said, "Two masters, enjoy slowly."

Shen Qing nodded lightly, took out his chopsticks and began to eat the hot soup noodles.

Now that he has controlled his body size and his daily energy consumption has decreased a lot, plus the refining of true qi, his demand for general grains is not that great.

On weekdays, I like to eat some food or medicinal soup containing essence to maintain or improve my cultivation.

But occasionally I would still choose some snack shops to satisfy my appetite.

Shen Qing looked up and found that the restaurant seemed a little deserted.

It’s not that there is no one in the restaurant. It’s noon now, and there are still many people coming to eat. It’s just that it’s a little strangely quiet, which is completely different from the lively scene in the inner city of Yongzhou.

The people here just eat silently, without sadness or joy, with a numb expression.

Coupled with his arrival, these people were even more afraid to say anything when they saw his identity as the Weiwu Si Yamen.

Some timid ones simply took a few bites, threw some coins on the table and left in a hurry.

After a simple meal, Shen Qing turned around and shouted to the woman: "Madam boss, come here, I want to ask you something."

The woman who was busy behind the stall looked startled, glanced at the man next to her, walked over uneasily, and said nervously: "My lord, what are we being careless about?"

"Your family cooks very good food. That's not what I'm asking about." Shen Qing turned to look at the woman and said, "I want to ask you about your previous husband. Was there anything unusual about him before he died?"

"What are you..." the woman said in surprise.

"Find out why your husband died."

On the way here, Shen Qing learned from Ji Youwu that the carpenter's wife and children had remarried and were now the wives and children of the restaurant stall owner.

The lower class of the Zhou Dynasty lived a precarious life, and they took the so-called chastity lightly, and remarriage was common.

Seeing that Shen Qing and others didn't mean to embarrass her, the woman couldn't help but secretly breathed a sigh of relief. She thought about it for a while and said, "There was nothing unusual about the day my husband died. He went to the city to look for work as usual that morning. I'll wait. I didn’t see him come back for a day, and I found out he was dead the next day.”

Thinking of this, the woman couldn't help but her eyes turned red.

"Other than that?"

"No, I haven't even seen his body until now."

"OK, thanks."

Shen Qing stood up, took out a few pieces of silver from his body and threw them on the table, and said to Ji Youwu: "There are no clues here. Let's go and check out the scene of Xi Chasi."

Ji Youwu stood up and followed.

In the next ten days, Shen Qing rushed to various crime scenes to investigate the demon in the inner city, but made no progress.

There aren't even many clues, and the demon's case has reached a deadlock.

It was already halfway through the date Zheng Yuanqiu set for him.