Cypress Boat Floating

Boom, boom, boom!

The sound of the bell on the city gate spread throughout the streets and alleys of the capital. In response to the sound of the bell, the guards guarding the city slowly opened the heavy city gate.

People who had been rushing to the city since early in the morning lined up outside the city gate waiting to enter the city. Some carried shoulder poles with a bunch of freshly dug vegetables; some came from all over the place to the capital to visit relatives and friends; some had just finished working outside and could finally go home to have a good rest.

People of all kinds gathered here. Everyone was busy with their own affairs and had no energy to care about others. They just wanted to quickly finish their own business.

Among these people, there was a little boy wearing coarse and tattered clothes. He was dirty and smelled bad. People around him covered their noses and tried to stay away from him.

But he turned a blind eye to it, approached the guard with his fly-like hair, showed him a row of big white teeth, and handed the pass in his hand to him before the guard could react.

"Brother, brother, I want to go into the city to visit my relatives. This is my pass. Please take a look at it." The boy's voice was a little hoarse. The guard frowned and held his breath as he looked at his pass.

There was nothing wrong with the pass, so the guard quickly returned it to him, pointed him to a road and let him go forward to register.

As soon as he left, everyone around him breathed a sigh of relief at the same time. The smell on this child was really strong.

After registering, the little boy staggered into the city. However, such refugees were rare in the capital. Most of them were dressed in gorgeous clothes, and there was not one on the street as shabby as the little boy. This made the little boy very noticeable. Perhaps he noticed that others were looking at him, so he hid his pass, took out a broken bowl from the drawstring bag he carried with him, and walked forward slowly. When people saw him, they realized that he was just a beggar and did not pay too much attention to him.

The little boy found an empty street corner and fell asleep, not caring what others thought. However, passers-by saw that he looked young and threw a few coins at him out of pity.

......

The Cult of the Gods has no other information recently except the clue that Lu Zhixing brought back. They have not found the location of the so-called God's House. They have only heard about it, and few people have seen it with their own eyes, which makes Lu Ci Qiu depressed to death.

Ye Jianqing went to Du Rou to explain and persuade her, asking her to wait for news at home and bring it to them if she had any clues, and not to act impulsively on her own. Du Rou agreed, but Ye Jianqing didn't know whether she would do so.

Fortunately, Lu Zhixing also mentioned this to Du Guangyao. After Du Guangyao knew that Du Rou was going to investigate the matter of the shrine, he became extremely worried. In a fit of rage, he locked his daughter in the house and sent several people to watch her every day, not allowing her to go out or investigate the matter. This made Du Rou extremely resentful.

Although the shrine cannot be found, there are always cases related to it. For example, today, the wife of Liu, the famous butcher in the West District, came to the Dali Temple and sued Zhang, the manager of the herbal medicine shop, for killing her husband.

Lu Ci Qiu and others also knew something about the sudden death of Liu the Butcher, but because no one reported it, they did not take it seriously. However, they never expected that this matter, which had been settled long ago, would be brought up again a few days later.

Liu the butcher was a big man, and he got up early and worked late every day to kill pigs and sell pork. He made quite a bit of money from this, and I heard that he treated his wife well, and they had two sons. Although they were not rich, they were not poor either, and could still afford a bag of noodles every month.

Butcher Liu's job was hard, and it was thought that it was just a sudden death caused by overwork. According to Liu's wife, he kept saying that he felt uncomfortable in his chest in the last few days before his death. His wife asked him to see a doctor, but he always felt that he was fine and would be fine after a good night's sleep.

As a result, who would have thought that I would not be able to wake up after falling asleep.

Butcher Liu's wife was heartbroken. She thought that her husband's condition was caused by his poor health. She had already cleaned up the mourning hall and hired people to help. She was just waiting to bury him after the seventh day.

But only three or four days later, when Liu the Butcher's wife went to see him again, she found that Liu the Butcher's body was covered with blue spots, even his lips were black and blue. It was obvious that something was wrong.

At this point, Lu Ci Qiu still didn't understand, what on earth did the death of Liu the butcher have to do with the owner of a herbal medicine shop? The owner of the herbal medicine shop, Zhang, didn't appear in this from beginning to end?

Butcher Liu's wife wiped away her tears, pointed at Shopkeeper Zhang and cried, "Sir, you don't know, Shopkeeper Zhang thinks it's unlucky for my husband to sell pork across from him, so he has been trying to make us move, but this... this is all stipulated, and we bought this stall, how can we just change it?

This old man must have secretly poisoned my man, causing him to die without knowing it, otherwise why would his body suddenly turn blue after a few days? That's what poisoning looks like."

The wife of Liu the butcher was of slim figure, but had a loud voice and great strength. She was usually carefree, and people who did business outside were inevitably good at speaking. Now that she was in court, she put all her strength into it, pointing at the white-haired shopkeeper Zhang and telling him everything that had happened between the two families.

"Manager Zhang, what do you say?" Lu Ci Qiu had a headache because of the sharp voice of Liu the Butcher's wife. He couldn't help rubbing his aching nose bridge. He turned around and saw Manager Zhang gesticulating and stammering, so he called him and asked him.

"Your Excellency is innocent!" When the shopkeeper Zhang heard Lu Ci Qiu mention him, he knelt down on the spot and kowtowed to Lu Ci Qiu frantically, with snot and tears all over his face. He looked really scared.

"Kneel down and tell me what happened." Lu Ci Qiu frowned and picked up the wake-up stick and hit it a few times.

"Yes, yes, yes." Shopkeeper Zhang was frightened by the wake-up stick. Even though he was scared, he dared not disobey Lu Ci Qiu and knelt down quickly.

"Sir... Miss Liu is talking nonsense. I did have a quarrel with them before, but we didn't say anything after that." Shopkeeper Zhang's voice was shaking. "How can you blame me for the death of Butcher Liu? I haven't been near them recently."

Madam Liu glanced at him with disdain: "Everyone knows that you have been to the so-called God's House recently. Who knows if you have reached any deal with the God's House?"

"Shrine!" When they heard the word "Shrine", Lu Ci Qiu and Ye Jianqing, who was protecting him behind him, both had their eyes widened.

As long as it is related to the God's House, it is not a good thing. Lu Ci Qiu knows this very well, so his tone to Zhang the shopkeeper is not as gentle as before: "What's going on? Explain it quickly!"

When Shopkeeper Zhang saw Lu Ci Qiu like this, he was also afraid. He lowered his head timidly, shrank his body, and stammered, not daring to say anything.

Lu Ci Qiu gavel, startled him and made him jump, and he quickly knelt down: "My lord, please forgive me, I...I didn't do that. This lady Liu is talking nonsense."

Lu Ci Qiu could still tell who was lying. The shopkeeper was quite old, but he had a sly look on his face. He ran a herbal medicine shop but did not want to save people. Instead, he used witchcraft, which really disgraced the name of Xinglin.

Seeing that Zhang was still quibbling, Madam Liu pointed at him and cursed, "You are talking nonsense. You dare to deceive the master when you come to the government office. Someone saw you mysteriously go to the shrine and bring something back from there. As a result, my husband said he had chest discomfort the next day. Who else could it be if not you!"

Shopkeeper Zhang was not as eloquent as Madam Liu, and now he was being scolded by Madam Liu and could not say a word back.

"Silence!" Lu Ci Qiu couldn't bear to watch it anymore and slapped the wake-up stick.

Now Madam Liu was finally quiet.

Lu Ci Qiu frowned and pointed at Shopkeeper Zhang and said, "Tell the truth when you come to the Dali Temple. Don't try to hide anything. The Dali Temple can find out anything you hide."

Shopkeeper Zhang lay on the ground and secretly looked up at Lu Ci Qiu. Seeing Lu Ci Qiu's serious face, he became even more scared.

He heard that this was a prince, and that it was he who caught the mayor of South City for doing evil. Thinking of this, he couldn't help feeling guilty and panicked.

"Sir... Sir..." He couldn't utter a single word incoherently.

When he first got this thing, he didn't think it would be useful, he just wanted to give it a try. And who knows why he was discovered?

Who exposed him? But now he didn't dare to really confess. If he really told the truth, wouldn't he be arrested? He couldn't tell this kind of thing no matter what. He had old people and children to take care of, and he had to work hard to make money to support his family. How could he...

"Be honest!"

Shopkeeper Zhang lay on the ground, trembling all over, tears of fear falling all over the floor.

"My Lord...My Lord...I really don't know."

Lu Ci Qiu looked at him. He refused to admit it, but he couldn't force him to confess. He could only wait and see what evidence Madam Liu had.

"Madam Liu, you keep saying that it was Shopkeeper Zhang who killed your man, but you can't just say that without any evidence. You have to have evidence."

Seeing Lu Ci Qiu speaking for him, Shopkeeper Zhang perked up a little. He stood up and pointed at Madam Liu and said, "That's right, sir, she has no evidence, she is just wrongly accusing me!"

But who knew that Madam Liu was not a good person either. She looked at Shopkeeper Zhang coldly, which frightened him.

"Sir, I naturally have evidence." Madam Liu wiped the tears from her face, straightened her back, and her indomitable look gave Lu Ci Qiu a good impression.

"I specially asked a coroner to perform an autopsy on my husband's body. The coroner said that there was a poisonous needle inserted very deep in his chest. If you don't look carefully, you can't find it at all." Madam Liu said as she took out the silver needle wrapped in a handkerchief from her sleeve.

"Then I heard someone say that the shopkeeper had been to the shrine to curse my husband, so I followed him secretly and found that he ran to the river in the middle of the night to throw this away." As she spoke, Madam Liu took out another thing wrapped in a handkerchief from a small bag she carried with her. It looked larger, but I didn't know what it was.

Seeing that everyone's eyes were on her, Madam Liu began to uncover the handkerchief layer by layer.

When the handkerchief was opened, a little man with his chest full of the same silver needles appeared before his eyes.

Lu Ci Qiu looked at this thing and frowned even more tightly.

But this was not the end. Madam Liu held the doll, with its back exposed and a birth date written on it. She turned to face Shopkeeper Zhang, placed the doll in front of him, and asked, "Shopkeeper Zhang, are you familiar with this thing?"