Late-night story: killing people in ancient towns

This story is pure fiction. Don't believe it.

In 2001, he was transferred to the First Branch of Zhejiang Higher People's Court as the secretary of the Procuratorate, and led four clerks in the clerk's office to assist Mr. Liu, the chief procurator, in clearing up the accumulated cases over the years. Mr. Liu used to be an examiner in Xiping County, Henan Province. He took office as early as I did.

I am alone, and I am accompanied by an Ewenki hound adopted in Chahar, named Awang.

On my first day in office, in addition to visiting my superiors and colleagues, my main job was to look through the files of pending criminal cases, arrange the filing time according to the public opinion of the local people and the completeness of the evidence chain, and report to Mr. Liu.

Files are piling up, especially missing persons, followed by adultery, theft and wounding nearby. Among them, the murder of my nephew in Zhengzhai Town, Pujiang County was a very serious criminal offence, which aroused my interest.

On August 15th of the 20th lunar month in the Republic of China, a murder case occurred in Zhengzhai Town, Pujiang County, which belongs to Jinhua Administrative Supervision Area. Mrs. Zheng, the original wife Wang, the eldest son's family of three, the second son's family of three and four domestic servants were killed, and the suspect surrendered himself the next day. He is the third son of the Zheng family, and his name has been hidden.

According to the suspect's confession, on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, he first sprinkled half a cup of nearly 50 ml of the poison of Lysimachia christinae on the soup and carved wine used by the owner, and then left the kitchen under the pretext of dining and poured all the remaining poison into the servant's soup bucket. Afterwards, in order to ensure that there were no survivors at the scene, the victim's head was cut off with a mountain axe, piled on the stone table in the backyard, and burned with kerosene.

After committing the crime, it was the next afternoon. The suspect took a short break and surrendered himself to the county police station with a murder weapon and a porcelain bottle filled with poison.

Hard evidence is like a mountain. The local court found that the case was clear in the first instance, and the verdict could be pronounced on a date. Unexpectedly, after it was published in the newspaper, it caused an uproar. Almost half of the people in Zhengzhai Town jointly wrote to the county government to ask for leniency. The local old people even went to visit the gentry in the surrounding counties and suddenly pulled the verdict back from the middle.

As a result, although the case has been going on for almost a year, the court has not made a final ruling and has become an unsolved case.

The Zheng family in Zhengzhai Town is famous in the local area. Mrs. Zheng has done good deeds and accumulated virtue all her life. Whoever has assessed in the county will fight for the first place. Paving roads and bridges, helping neighbors and taking in refugees are all good deeds.

Pujiang County is located in the northeast of Jinqu Basin, and Zhengzhai Town is located in the east of Pujiang County. It has a long history and is in a prosperous place, and literary talent can be seen between streets and alleys. Four memorial archways, the first in the south of the Yangtze River, the filial piety gate, the three dynasties and the next stage, have been launched one after another. Even the couplets that have gone through a hundred years of vicissitudes declare the clan rules of the Zheng family in a high-profile way.

-if order is not chaotic, chaos is safe;

-The teacher is frugal and has no desire, and if he has no desire, he is cheap.

The shops in the town are lined up along the street, extending only two miles. Because of the small space, it is more obvious that the merchants are full of voices and a vibrant Jiangnan style.

I have a canteen on the first floor and accommodation on the second floor. Just after noon, the stage in the middle of the dining hall was vacant. A person quickly put on a drum set and a plush chair, and the shopkeeper wearing a swastika towel personally helped out a storyteller from the background, trembling like a weak willow. Diners no longer eat bowls and chopsticks, and some even hand them over as gifts, shouting "Teacher Niu".

Teacher Niu came up with a story about the heroes of the Sui and Tang Dynasties, and then a story about the flying dragon based on the legend. In the third paragraph, it was Daming's turn to be in charge of the light brigade, mainly boasting that the founding sages and famous ministers of the Ming Dynasty had a meeting in this town.

Teacher Niu is an old man, but when it comes to this matter, he is more and more energetic. Even saying that "Ming Taizu broke Chen Youliang by the Yin soldiers in Poyang Lake" and "Emperor Wen Jian set himself on fire and fled for reset" did not take a breath; The diners cheered again and again, and the locals even gave birth to a sense of heroism. The haze of the Zheng family being killed a year ago seems to have dissipated.

After listening for a long time, Awang woke up from a catnap. First of all, he couldn't resist the beast and kept tearing my trouser legs and pulling them out. Seeing the sun setting, I got up to check out and went to the city hall.

Back in the street, the original crowd has dispersed by 70%, and a thin little woman is stopping pedestrians one by one not far in front of me, holding a lettering-like object in her hand and asking something. Pedestrians either waved their hands to show that they didn't know her, or sidestepped her, so she picked a shop with few customers and went straight into the hall, only to be driven out.

After a while, she came to my eyes and looked at me imploringly; The printed matter in my hand was originally a photo with high magnification. A young soldier was printed in black, white and gray with thick eyebrows and a square face. The regular script on the badge indicates his subordinate unit and rank "Staff Sergeant of the 1st Division of the Army Cavalry of the National Revolutionary Army".

According to her, after the September 18th Incident, the former Northeast Army was ordered to retreat to Shanhaiguan, and Li's troops were responsible for patrolling. After several battles, the party dispersed. The young woman loved her husband for a long time, so she set out from her hometown alone, took a letter written by Li, found the division first, and then followed the clue to find Zhengzhai Town.

She said that Li's colleagues told her that Li went south all the way, and later he left the army and entered Zhejiang by begging and doing short-term work. In winter, hungry and cold, he heard from his workmates that there was a large family in Pujiang County who was charitable and often took in young and strong refugees to help with farming, so he came to Zhengzhai Town, and later lost the news.

I think what she said is very sad. A promise will help me find the answer. Carefully put away the one-inch bareheaded photo of Li handed over by this little woman and put it in my pocket. After her gratitude, I went out of the city, and when I looked up, it was already sunset.

The town hall is in the northwest, with three-step courtyard and blue brick and red tile walls, which is quite imposing.

His name is Zheng. At first glance, he looks like a rich man. He checked the document issued by the Provincial High Court, that is, he had guessed my purpose, but obviously he didn't want to say more. After having dinner with me, I said I had to leave, because there were local priorities, so I left Li Huan, the attendant who just cooked, to take care of my daily life.

As a farmer, he has never been an official, so he looks awkward. When I met him, I always wanted to be invisible at once, but I seemed unwilling. Several times, I got up the courage to ask my county's verdict on the Third Young Master (Zheng Qianxiu). He didn't finish until he blushed, and he didn't wait for my answer. He reviewed himself and said that this was a matter for the county government and should not be told.

After repeated several times, I lost interest in talking to him, so I told Awang to keep vigil and go back to my room to rest.

……

At night, on the Rocky Mountain near Poyang Lake, it was foggy. The priests dressed in white clothes, hats and robes boarded the altar with prayer flags, on which seven black skulls were lined up. I saw him mumbling. The eighty-one candles around the altar were dim, and the strange light gathered in the spell, turning into eighty-one fuzzy faces, but they were long, pointed and slender and muddy.

After a while, Father hands in the air raised his prayer flag and shouted at the sky. Blood gushed from his nose and mouth, cracked his eyes and fell to the ground. A pool of blood gushed from the fallen place and swallowed his body in an instant.

Eighty-one faces danced in the blood fog sprayed by the priest, humming "brilliant", dancing faster and faster slowly, suddenly flying at an alarming speed, rising into the air and passing away.

Not long after, dark clouds gathered at a height of more than 30 feet above the altar, and countless shadows jumped out of the clouds. The white one wore a white hat and a white robe, dragging a slender curly tail behind him. I opened my eyes wide, but I couldn't see the faces of these white soldiers clearly. I could only see a black face under the hood.

The white-robed soldiers grunted in their throats, raised their spears and rushed down the rocky mountain, heading straight for the water camp on the east bank of Poyang Lake. There is a battalion in dozens of miles, and a banner with the word "Han" is erected outside China's military account.

……

In the evening, the fire started in the main hall and soon spread to Gaihua Hall, Fengtian Hall and the Sixth East and West Palace.

In the firelight, a group of 100 guards wearing white hats, robes and tails flashed spears to protect a young monk, who broke out of the palace. The monk is only in his early twenties, wearing an ill-fitting yellow robe and looking panicked. When the officers and men in charge of rounding up in the north met the white-robed guards, most of them had round eyes, ferocious faces and twitching corners of their mouths, and then their eyes overflowed with blood, which scared them half to death. Some of them got up the courage to pounce with knives, but even one round was unbearable, that is, they were chopped into pieces.

A group of people highlight Yingtianfu at midnight, and the leading white-robed guard seems to have a way to shrink the land. They fled eastward overnight and arrived at a memorial archway. Looking around, they found no danger. With a low shout of "he", the guard disappeared instantly. An old committee member, who had been waiting here for a long time, made three knocks and nine obeisances to the monks a few steps ago and said, "Zheng Qi, the guilty minister, welcomes your Majesty to come to the east for the inauguration ceremony."

The young monk helped his elders and helped each other to the north. Behind a group of almost invisible white pollution shadows, all the way to keep up; Along the way, a faint whisper-"Hehe".

……

The roar of "meowing" outside is getting heavier and heavier, which has drowned out the hum of "hehe". I woke up suddenly and recognized Awang as a warning to me in the yard.

Near the Mid-Autumn Festival, a full moon in the shape of a silver plate hangs high in the sky. The moonlight is bleak, and the silky white streamer clearly outlines the distant mountains and rivers, the eaves of nearby houses, Awang crouching in front of him ready to attack, and Li Huan shivering in the courtyard under the threat of Awang.

He apologized again and again, explaining that he had to go to the toilet at night and walked into my yard in the dark. I didn't find anything unusual, and I didn't expect a farmer to do anything unnatural to call Wang and let him go.

After the night's noise and nightmare, I was completely sleepy, so I went back to my room and took out books and newspapers from my parcel, sitting alone in the atrium and reading by kerosene lamp at night. That night, the moonlight inside and outside the yard was as cold as water, and the broadleaf trees planted around it overlapped with the criss-crossing wall shadows. There was a dead silence between heaven and earth, only two living creatures, a man sitting still and a dog lying lazily on the ground.

The next morning, after a simple meal, I left the town hall with Awang, and soon found the Zhengjia Mansion in the north of the town.

From the outside, the rules of the house are grand, and there must be seven courtyards. Horsehead walls are stacked on top of each other, and wind chimes hanging on the eaves jingle. The black tiles on the top of the head are arranged in rows, dense and neat like fish scales.

Nobody cares about it for a year, and the gaps between tiles have been filled with weeds. Looking closely at these nameless plants pointing straight at the sky like fishbones makes people feel a lot uncomfortable.

Many gray marks were left on the white outer wall. If you distinguish it carefully, you can find that it is the paw print that the mouse crawled out. Traces rushed up and down, and bits and pieces of dirt splashed everywhere.

In the middle of the main entrance, the plaque at the head of the door is engraved with two dark red characters "Zhengzhai" in official script; The lanterns provoked on both sides are dying because of the wind knife and frost sword, and the red lacquer paper has all peeled off, leaving only the bamboo skeleton hanging naked in the air.

The door panel is huge and strong. Eighty-one copper nails look like eighty-one blunt front teeth, which is really scary.

Wang kept screaming in circles. I even made a gesture of silence, but it ignored me I'm discouraged. I can't appease Wang, but it's still early. I don't think he can have anything to do with a wild animal in this desolate place.

After opening the seal of Zheng Zhai, I pushed the door with all my strength, and finally only opened a crack, which just let me squeeze in sideways.

There is nothing strange in it. The layout of the gardens and pavilions in the hall building is clear and the furniture and utensils are well preserved. The murder scene has already been cleaned up, but there are pieces of dried blood on the ground, which have been licked by various animals and have different colors.

Awang became more and more anxious, grinning in the back garden, showing his lost face. I couldn't get over it, and I didn't find any clues that would help me understand the truth of the case, so I temporarily quit the city hall.

Zheng didn't come today. He was very busy. He even wanted to apologize to me. I felt guilty for not telling Zheng Qianxiu the truth yesterday, so I stopped him after dinner and prepared to tell him in detail.

He listened to my words with no surprised expression on his face. It's been a crime for a year, and it's been passed on by word of mouth. I think everyone in Zhengzhai town knows the ins and outs of the murder, and knows the truth better than an official of the procuratorate of the High Court. At this point I can't help laughing at myself.

At this time, the plowman who had been like elm bumps spoke.

-Sir, the third young master is a great man, and he shouldn't die.

He lowered his head, rubbed his hands and said softly.

Sir, I think you are healthy, and evil spirits will certainly not hurt you.

He looked up and said something absently.

Sir, if you don't mind, I'd like to accompany you to visit the Zheng family mansion again. I am useless, but I will defend you to the death.

At that time, he was extremely decisive and said categorically.

On the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, there is a bright moon in the sky, and it is rare for Wan Li to be cloudless.

In Zheng Fu, Awang is more lively and cautious than during the day. He leveled a single made in Qing Dynasty, and every step seemed to be destiny takes a hand. Soon, sweat ran down his bronzed face.

Walking into the back garden again made my back cold. Just a few hours, completely different from what I saw during the day; In the flower bed on the rockery, the vegetation withered and died; The pond dried up to the bottom, and the bodies of fish and shrimp smelled disgusting; The soil hasn't hardened yet, and it is covered with the tooth marks and claw marks of a large rodent, which are exactly the same as those left by rats, but the size is amazing.

I've been working a case for many years, and I've never seen such a scene. Although there is no bleeding, I always feel strange and absurd, as if there is some supernatural power staring at me in an unknown place.

Li Huan is calmer than me. He doesn't look anywhere else. He only approached the rock round table in the center of the garden step by step, and grasped the singles with both hands. There is a row of disappearing paw prints at the junction of the table and the ground.

Awang rushed to the stone table and used his front paws to dig up the soil at the junction. We all held our breath for a long time. After about half an hour, the digging work didn't make much progress. Awang was a little discouraged and stepped aside to have a rest. I put down my flashlight and squatted on the ground to see what happened.

Fresh black soil turned to the ground and blood gurgled out.

With a scream, I fell backwards. Li Huan took the first step, and the forged stock of cast iron was smashed into the earthen pit. Mars splashed everywhere, and Li Huan almost lost his singles. The object under pressure is obviously stone or metal.

I will never forget what happened next.

In an instant, the air seemed to solidify, and the stone table slowly fell to the left, making a "quack" sound; After the edge of the desktop touches the ground, a square pit is exposed in the original position.

Li Huan held the flashlight to my side, and I forced myself to control my thoughts and check it. There is a step extending down from the cellar mouth, and the lighting effect of the flashlight is limited. I really can't see it two feet away.

Li Huan led the way into the cellar, and I followed, followed by Awang sobbing.

These steps are made of rammed earth. Although worn out, they are quite strong. Every step is covered with countless white bones, and the gums on the bones are mottled. Obviously, these dead creatures were all bitten before they died. With my limited knowledge, I can't judge which animal or race these bones belong to.

It took about a quarter of an hour to finally reach the bottom of the cellar. The air here is dull and the humidity is increasing. The flame we were holding shrank by a circle, and the visibility was even smaller. The signs of insufficient oxygen supply are already very obvious.

The whole space is actually a dome-shaped tomb, with many bones, and several hills piled up beside it, both human and non-human. We looked through several well-preserved ones, all with bite marks. Judging from the tooth marks, some belong to humans and some belong to giant rodents, similar to the traces left on the mud in the pond just now.

Most of these bones are open-mouthed. It is conceivable that they shouted loudly before they died, indicating that they were subjected to inhuman abuse. As soon as the fire swept away, all kinds of snakes, rats, insects and ants emerged from their mouths, cracked skulls and round holes in vertebrae, and they wandered around at a loss.

I caught up with the biggest mouse. It runs fast. On the verge of losing him, I tried to break his way, but I hit a hard surface, and Li Huan pushed me from behind, and everyone froze.

There is a secret room in front of me, and it is an iron gate that blocks me, and the latch locks from the inside; In the corner as far as the eye can see, there is also a skeleton, all parts of which are intact, sitting peacefully against the wall, obviously belonging to human beings.

Unlocking the door, we went in, leaving the king at the door.

In the dim light, the murals outlined with blood lines are the only readable information I can find. The secret room is not big. From left to right, the wall is covered with this abstract painting.

In the first painting, there are more than a dozen people, men, women and children, in three rows, standing behind an old man and worshiping a monk sitting in front of the hall. In the painting, the monk looks very young. Judging from his costume, he is the same as the young monk who fled the city in my sleep the night before. Under the archway, he was greeted by Zheng Qi, an old man in a dress. There is also a plaque hanging on the middle beam, which reads "loyalty and filial piety"

This is the family motto of the Zheng family in Pujiang, which has been circulating for hundreds of years since Hongwu changed to Yuan Dynasty. It is said that it was written by Song Lian.

In the second painting, the monk knelt on the ground and bowed down to a prayer flag, on which seven black skulls were arranged; Behind him, standing is a veteran.

The third painting depicts the outer tomb. A dozen men and women reached out to the upper right corner to defend themselves. In the upper right corner is a flight of steps. The monk is standing at the top of the steps. There are two robe guards beside him, pointing their spears at the bottom. The guards were all blurred, dragging their slender curly tails behind them.

In the fourth picture, people in the tomb are biting each other. Some people are eating rats and snakes, and blood is dripping from their mouths. Another person is in a narrow space, with his left hand against the door and his right hand to push the bolt on the door.

The fifth painting is an outdoor high platform. A circle is drawn on the left side of the platform. There is a circle of candles on the edge of the platform. In the middle stood a priest in robes, holding up the skull and prayer flags with both hands. Masked men with knives and guns jumped out of the car, dragging a slender tail behind them.

This painting coincides with my first dream the night before.

The contents of the five paintings are so incredible that Li Huan sits on the ground and can't breathe; I probably spelled out a panoramic view of 1000 things.

When I was in Chahar, the local area belonged to the war zone, so I, the examiner in charge of criminal law, naturally stood aside, so I had enough time to check the cases all over the country over the years, or collect some idle books and newspapers to read and kill time.

There is an unsigned Secret of the Ming Dynasty, which records the secrets of the royal family in Zhu Ming.

According to legend, Zoroastrianism, on which Zhu Yuanzhang founded his country, originated from Zoroastrianism in Persia, which itself was developed by local nomadic people from local shaman sacrifices and incorporated some teachings of Voodoo. Voodoo worships demons and advocates feeding cold-blooded animals, such as mice and snakes, with human flesh and blood through sacrificial ceremonies. When conditions are ripe, the animals they feed will gradually become anthropomorphic and be able to acquire psychic abilities endowed by evil spirits. The priests of Voodoo will hold a ceremony on the full moon night to summon the Yin soldiers with blood spirit. At this time, the Yin Qi in the world is in full bloom, that is, they will be able to change their lives.

Zhu Yuanzhang later broke with other Zoroastrianism bosses because Peng Yingyu and others reformed the doctrine of manpower education and thoroughly eliminated the residual poison of Voodoo. When Chen Youliang said that Hanwang wanted to confront Zhu Yuanzhang's Wu regime and the military was tight, he naturally refused.

Later, the new Ming Dynasty marched south and fought north. Whenever the situation is unfavorable, the priests who are embedded in the army will open the altar to recruit talents and talents, and all the way is like a bamboo, and it is inseparable from the help of voodoo. It was not until after Jing Nan that the four voodoo books disappeared with Emperor Wen Jian, and the evil spirits were completely removed from the court. Just never imagined that it would be reborn in the cellar of one of the most popular families in the south of the Yangtze River in the 21st year of the Republic of China.

Now I can understand the first painting and the fifth painting by combining what I have learned before, but the true meaning of other paintings is still shrouded in fog. Judging from the content of the painting, there were differences with the Zheng family at that time, but I couldn't figure out why by scratching my head.

Li Huan recovered. He comes from a peasant family, far less than I know. But after repeatedly checking the murals, he showed a natural expression and obviously knew a lot of inside information.

I took the initiative to whistle and pointed at Li Huan, who turned his back on me; Awang, who was outside the secret room, rushed in like an arrow and threw him to the ground. I suddenly grabbed the singles and pointed my gun at him.

After a moment of shock, Li Huan gave up resistance and sat on the ground and told many secrets of Zheng Qianxiu.

Zheng Qianxiu is the third son of the Zheng family mansion. It's good to win a little popularity. People in the town usually call him Third Young Master. The Zheng family is quite famous in the local area. His eldest brothers, Mao Xiu and Goldt Xiu, are quite proud, but he always laughs at others' remarks about Mrs. Zheng's kindness after his predecessor.

Last spring, when he was busy with farming, he was employed by the Zheng family, from which he got to know this unusual animal.

Zheng Qian is not good at writing poems, nor does he learn the Four Books and Five Classics. He often hangs out among servants and employees, listens to trivial things about his neighbors, and often tells anecdotes about mysterious stories himself.

Once, Zheng Qianxiu made a bet with the groom Wang Kuishan in front of the stable, betting that the foal that the mare was about to give birth to was male or female. In desperation, he blurted out, "If I get off the mare, I will change my surname to Zhu"; Hearing this, Father Zheng slapped him on the spot, and everyone in the stable was fired by the gentleman Mao Xiu that night.

The Zheng family has always been sympathetic to the servants, and Mrs. Zheng's move is unique.

After this incident, Zheng Qianxiu became a different person. He repeatedly scolded hypocrites and demons after drinking, and said that the cycle of heaven was not satisfactory. Everyone didn't take it to heart until the Mid-Autumn Festival.

After the speech, Li Huan was shocked; I threw the singles back to him. Now, with the story he told, I can make up for the missing part of the case by watching the mural again.

During the reign of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty, the Zheng family in Pujiang owed money to Zhu Yuanzhang, Prince Biao and Song Lian, a teacher. After Zhu Yunwen ascended the throne, he was exempted from the tax corvee in Pujiang County, and it was inevitable that Zheng Jiaxin would be orthodox to the Ming Dynasty. After the war in Jingnan, Zhengzhai was the only place in Zhu Yunwen that could and dared to go.

My second dream in the city hall and the first painting in this secret room are historical stories about escape and the surrender of the Zheng family. Zhu Yunwen believed in voodoo, so he escaped from this world under the protection of Yin soldiers.

In the second painting, Zhu Yunwen kneels before Du Fu's prayer, but the political prayer behind him is not, which shows that the Zheng family does not recognize the cult, and this is the beginning of the split between the two sides.

What the third painting wants to tell others should be that Zhu Yunwen, with the help of Yin soldiers, drove everyone in Zheng Zhai into the catacombs, and his term of office was left to fend for itself; The fourth painting is a scene where people eat people, which confirms my guess that the person hiding in this secret room must be the real Zheng family. He shut himself in the secret room, used the blood of people who flowed into the secret room to feed his hunger, and was depressed, but he had no chance of revenge, so he had to draw pictures and accuse Zhu Yunwen of cruelty.

So his bones have not been bitten, and he must have starved to death on the spot after running out of food.

As for why the Zheng family has always been surnamed Zheng, the only reasonable explanation is that Zheng was taken after the job was done.

Zhu Yunwen longed for restoration and needed future generations to inherit his ambition, so these things could not be hidden forever; The truth that he is the true son of heaven will eventually be passed down from generation to generation, hoping that future generations will not forget the wishes of their ancestors. In this generation, I came up with Zheng Qianxiu, a traitor.

He is a sunny and nutritious rich boy, and his mind is full of beautiful things. At first glance, he heard that his ancestors were cruel and shameless, and his world collapsed in an instant, finally creating this shocking self-destructive bloody case.

Coming out of the secret room, just after returning to the ground, the torch was blown out by a sudden gust of wind; When the fire broke out again, we found a tunnel on the rammed earth wall facing the steps and walked along it.

This tunnel is very wide, and it must cost a lot of manpower and material resources to build it. There are more than ten iron cages stacked on the right side of the tunnel, one high and one low. There is no one alive in the cage. Some people and animals haven't died for a long time. The flesh and blood adhered to the clothes and were bitten like bones in the outer tomb.

In one of the cages, the best preserved is a coat, which is the khaki standard military uniform of the Northeast Army. I have a bad feeling. I pulled it to my eyes and flipped through the badge. It turned out to be "Staff Sergeant Li Shigui, 1st Division of Army Cavalry of the National Revolutionary Army". After tearing off the badge, I hid it in my coat pocket with Li's photo.

The lights began to light up ahead, and our hearts beat faster, so we couldn't help slowing down and sneaking along. Even Awang felt the strange atmosphere, so he held his breath and stopped.

Two feet ahead is the end of the aisle. Out of the aisle, there is a high platform outside. Around the high platform, 81 candles with thick adult arms were lit, and a sarcophagus was placed horizontally in the middle as an altar. There are nine rat skulls the size of human heads piled on the altar.

A priest in a white coat, hat, robe and loose hair stood in front of the altar. He murmured, in a flame, hands in the air, without wind, automatically raised the prayer flags, and the heads of seven black skulls arranged vertically on the prayer flags were alive, shaking and laughing at us.

Li Huan raised his singles one and was about to hold the fire; Just then, a voice came from far behind us, from far and near. It sounded like human footsteps, noisy and harsh, and there were about a dozen people.

I patted Li Huan on the shoulder and motioned for him to hold steady first. Then he took out Li's badge and photo, wrote a line on the back of the photo with a pencil under the irradiation of torches: "Bandits are hiding in the back garden of Zheng Zhai, come and help quickly", took out an file bag containing Zheng Qianxiu's file from the parcel, wrote "Zhejiang Sixth Regiment" on the cover, and then asked Awang to smell Li's photo, put it in the bag together with the badge, and tied the file bag on it after sealing.

After that, I patted Awang's head and pointed to the grave behind him. Without saying a word, the Ewenki hound flew off the road, and then someone screamed and got into my eardrum.

Here, the high platform was covered with dark clouds, which instantly covered the full moon, and eighty-one skulls with candlelight began to dance wildly.

With a gunshot, Li Huan pulled the trigger. Before the smoke cleared, the white-robed priest instantly fell to the ground and died, with a big hole cut in his back and blood pouring out.

The spell was cut off, the dancing skeleton disappeared with the last jump, the dark clouds gathered in the sky dispersed again, and the silver moonlight poured down.

We were controlled by the crowd rushing out of the tunnel, and a white and fat rich man rushed out to the altar to help the murdered priest.

I know that face when the Mid-Autumn Festival is full moon. Just arrived in Zhengzhai Town, I heard Mr. Niu, a storyteller. At the moment, it was Mayor Zheng who received me. He held me in tears.

Zheng picked up Mr. Niu's body and laid it flat on the altar, juxtaposed with the mouse's skull. Then he slowly raised his hand, closed the eyes of the deceased and slowly smoothed his robe. When doing these things, Zheng kept chanting "a hundred years of inheritance, Huawei disappeared overnight" and "a hundred years of inheritance, Huawei disappeared overnight".

The next thing is simple. They didn't kill us. A dozen people and Zheng knelt in front of Mr. Niu's body and cried bitterly. The death of Mr. Niu seems to have exhausted their vitality, leaving only flesh and blood, unconscious and thoughtless before the arrival of the defenders. They didn't resist, and they were detained very obediently.

Back in the county seat, Mr. Liu suggested that Zheng, as a witness and a clerk, participated in the whole interrogation.

Zheng is a sideline of the Zheng family and won the trust of the old lady Zheng. Therefore, he also knows that his family is a descendant of the Zhu royal family and shoulders the heavy responsibility of restoring the country. When Zhu Yunwen fled to the east, he did bring voodoo scriptures; Year after year, seeing that there was no hope of rejuvenating the country by manpower alone, Zhu Yunwen had to pin all his hopes on voodoo, hoping to hold a demon blood sacrifice and summon millions of blood clan Yin soldiers to help him recover.

Demon blood sacrifice needs to feed mice with the flesh and blood of the living. When rats are fed to the size of adults, they can take their lives, remove their skulls and put them on the altar. Finally, the white-robed priests of voodoo can dedicate their own flesh and blood to summon the Yin soldiers.

This behavior of raising and feeding animals is too cruel for Zheng Qi. He ordered the white-robed guards to protect him from escaping, put the Zheng family into the catacombs, and created the first human beings. Since then, he has been using Zheng's name. For hundreds of years, descendants have collected vagrants, beggars and refugees from all over the world under the banner of doing good deeds and accumulating virtue, and kept them in underground tunnels for rats to eat.

Zheng Qianxiu was deeply troubled by domestic crimes, but he was afraid to report them to the government. Finally, he took the most drastic measures to atone.

The case has been reported to the High Court. On the basis of fully considering the local public opinion, Zheng was sentenced to death, and Zheng Qianxiu was sentenced to life and sent to Kangding, western Sichuan.

After what happened, I think my widow Li is affectionate and righteous. She saved my life. I kept her. In 23 years, I was transferred to the trial room of Zhejiang Provincial High Court. The second month after the transfer, we got married by the West Lake in Hangzhou.

On the Mid-Autumn Festival in the 36th year of the Republic of China, Zheng Qianxiu returned to the Jia government in Pujiang County. Hanging from the beam of the nave at night, the body was found by the inspector of the city hall two days later.

It was Li Huan who wrote to tell me about it. (Text/Luo)