When the book-traveling little detective meets the two-faced prince

"how you said that?"

As the second question was asked, Lin Lezhi, who was thinking about something, realized that someone was asking him questions. Lin Lezhi did not look to the side, but smiled and said, "I didn't expect that Mr. Xiao, who is so elegant, would be so concerned about this case?"

Xiao Yihuo glanced at Lin Lezhi. How could he not hear that Lin Lezhi was insulting him?

Xiao Yihuo opened the folding fan in his hand and fanned it lightly in front of his chest, saying, "Now that a murder has occurred, it is naturally better to catch the murderer as soon as possible, but Master Lin is wrong in one thing."

"What's wrong?"

Xiao Yihuo stopped fanning himself and said with a smile, "I'm not concerned about the case, but I found it interesting to see someone shedding that layer of pearl skin, so I followed him to take a look."

"Really? Then Mr. Xiao, you better watch carefully, or you won't find the fun but end up with the opposite result, like a pearl shooting a bird."

"Then I, Xiao, would like to thank Mr. Lin for his kind reminder." Xiao Yihuo gently shook the folding fan in his hand and spoke in a calm tone, as if it had nothing to do with him.

"No need."

Although he really wanted to thank him, Lin Lezhi thought it would be better to return the twenty taels of silver to himself.

"I wanted to ask before, whether Mr. Lin and Mr. Xiao knew each other before coming to Qujiang County." Jiang Lian'an walked forward and asked with a gentle smile.

"I don't know him." The two responded in unison.

"Really?" Jiang Lian'an glanced at the similar red knot accessories on the waists of the two people, smiled awkwardly and said, "I saw the two of you holding hands and swimming in Pinghai Lake together last night, admiring the moon together, and I thought you were old friends who had known each other for a long time."

"It just happened that we both stayed by the lake for a long time and met each other a few times, so we went together." Lin Lezhi responded lightly.

"I see. I am sorry for being rude." Jiang Lian'an looked into the fire room and changed the subject: "To be honest, I heard what Master Lin said just now. Did Master Lin find anything suspicious?"

"It's not suspicious, I just think this fire room is a little strange, and I always feel like something is missing."

"Oh?"

After hearing what Lin Lezhi said, Jiang Lian'an cast his eyes towards the fire room. After scanning the room, his eyes finally fell on the earthen stove. After thinking for a moment, he murmured, "It's indeed a little unreasonable."

Coincidentally, Cheng Su and his team just came back from outside after inspecting the village, all with gloomy looks on their faces.

Seeing Jiang Lian'an and his group gathered at the door of the fire room, Hong Mingxu shouted with an unhappy look: "What are you doing there!"

Seeing Cheng Su and Hong Mingxu looking depressed, Lin Lezhi and Xiao Yihuo consciously moved away from the door.

Chang Feizhang also wanted to stand up, but before his feet were firmly fixed, he was stopped by Qingchuan, and he was so scared that cold sweat broke out on his forehead.

Cheng Su saw this and was displeased, but didn't say anything.

Jiang Lian'an stepped forward and asked, "General Cheng, have you found anything in the village?"

Hong Mingxu shook his head and said grimly, "We have checked all the houses and found no trace of anyone in the village. However, the general has just issued an order that no one is allowed to enter the fire room. What were you doing just now? If something goes wrong, none of you will be able to escape responsibility."

"Captain Hong, we did not intentionally approach the fire room, nor did we go in. The soldier guarding the door can testify for us."

Hong Mingxu cast a questioning look at the soldiers at the door, and two soldiers immediately ran over and said, "General, they did not enter the fire room just now, they just stood in front of the fire room and watched for a while."

Cheng Su raised his hand to let the soldiers retreat, looked at Jiang Lian'an with sharp eyes and asked: "Have you found any clues?"

Jiang Lian'an lowered his eyes and thought for a moment, then raised his eyes to look at Cheng Su, and said calmly: "General Cheng, the clues left by the murderer are in the fire room, and it is possible that he deliberately led us here."

"What do you mean?" Cheng Su asked with a gloomy look in his eyes.

"General Cheng, please come and take a look."

Arriving at the entrance of the fire room, Jiang Lian'an stopped, looked at the furnishings in the fire room, and said slowly: "General, do you think this fire room is strange?"

Cheng Su didn't want to waste time, so he just glanced inside the house and asked directly, "What's strange?"

"Nothing else is strange. The only strange thing is that something is missing from the earthen stove."

"What's missing?" Hong Mingxu asked with a frown.

"Fallen leaves." Jiang Lian'an stared at the exhaust window on the side of the fire room, which was covered with spider silk. "Judging from the spider silk on the exhaust window, no one has entered this room for more than ten years. The shelves and dishes in the fire room can also prove this. They are all covered with thick dust."

"If only the doorway of the fire room is open, and the earthen stove and the wooden frame are much higher than the ground, it is not surprising that only dust has accumulated but no fallen leaves, but..."

Jiang Lian'an shifted his gaze to the roof with a hole right above the earthen stove.

"Almost all the houses in Huaifeng Village are built against the mountain, and there are many trees in the mountain. Even if this hole is not big, but no one has been to the village for more than ten years, it is impossible that there are no fallen leaves falling from the hole."

"But General, look, there is not a single fallen leaf on the earthen stove facing the roof. There is no pot on the stove, but only wax is flowing out of the fire hole, no fallen leaves. This does not conform to common sense."

"Moreover..." Jiang Lian'an looked at Cheng Su and continued, "If this hole is really quite old, there shouldn't be even a trace of spider silk."

Cheng Su lowered his eyes and said, "So you're saying that the murderer made a hole in the roof before we arrived, in order to lure us over with the smoke signal."

"That's right. If the murderer just wanted to lure us into the village, there would be no need to go through so much trouble. He could just leave the cigarette somewhere in the village."

Jiang Lian'an looked at Lin Lezhi standing beside him, and said with a smile of approval, "Thank you Mr. Lin for reminding me. If not for this, I would not have been able to find the clues for a while."

Hearing this, Cheng Su and Hong Mingxu turned their eyes to Lin Lezhi who was standing beside them.

Lin Lezhi laughed awkwardly a few times and waved his hands quickly, saying, "Coincidence... Coincidence... I just discovered it by accident and just thought it was a little strange. The person who connected all this was still Jiang Guitan."

Hong Mingxu's eyes darkened, and he looked at Cheng Su beside him and said, "General, when I searched other houses just now, the house with a damaged roof was indeed full of fallen leaves."

"So do we, General."

The soldiers who went to check the village also echoed the voice.

Cheng Su pondered for a moment with a gloomy look in his eyes, then looked at Jiang Lian'an and asked, "What do you think the murderer meant by doing this, Detective Jiang?"

"I am just guessing. If my guess is wrong, I hope the general will not blame me."

"explain."

Jiang Lian'an looked at the corpses in the yard and said, "I wonder if I can use the skull I just saw."

Cheng Su glanced at Hong Mingxu, and Hong Mingxu understood and took the skull and handed it to Jiang Lian'an, but Jiang Lian'an did not reach out to take it.

"What do you mean?" Hong Mingxu was obviously unhappy as he took it but didn't reach out to take it.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to tease Captain Hong. General Cheng and Captain Hong were the first to see the skull. The rest of us saw it later and didn't step into the fire room. In order to restore the scene to the greatest extent possible, Captain Hong, please place the skull back to the position where we first saw it."

"you……!"

"Mingxu, do as he says."

"Yes, General."

After responding to Cheng Su, Hong Mingxu looked at Jiang Lian'an and said in a bad tone: "Don't be so reckless just because you have a little reputation. There are so many people here. If you can't say anything, you will be guilty of slandering the officials appointed by the court."

"I have absolutely no such intention."

Lin Lezhi secretly breathed a sigh of relief in his heart. Fortunately, he was not standing here as Jiang Lian'an.

Hong Mingxu glared at Jiang Lian'an and snorted coldly. Even though he was displeased, he still did as Jiang Lian'an said. He walked into the fire room and placed the skull back to the way it was when he first saw it.

Cheng Su looked at Jiang Lian'an, his eyes cold and he said in a deep voice: "Detective Jiang Gui, can you tell me now?"

"Thank you, General." Jiang Lian'an bowed and then looked at the skull in the room. He said calmly, "We thought the murderer placed the skull like this to shock and warn us, but what if it wasn't?"

Hong Mingxu's eyes darkened and he said sternly, "Don't beat around the bush."

Jiang Lian'an nodded slightly and said, "Everyone knows that lighting incense is to appeal for justice, so I guess the murderer arranged this fire room like this, perhaps to lead us to discover something."

"Did you discover... that the skull is the same one as the corpse found in Wu Sanshan's basement?" Liu Yunhe asked with confusion, looking at the skull in the room.

Jiang Lian'an smiled slightly and said, "The murderer must have had this intention, but sometimes we pay too much attention to what the murderer is thinking and tend to ignore the appearance of things."

"The appearance of things?"

"Yes. The murderer used the smoke to lead us here and placed the skull here, hoping that we would find it, perhaps..."

Jiang Lian'an stood sideways, his eyes calm, staring at the courtyard, his eyes gradually darkened, and he said in a deep voice: "That's where the skull's sight is."

The position where Jiang Lian'an was standing and the direction he was looking were exactly the same as the skull in the fire room.

Everyone was shocked and following Jiang Lian'an's gaze, Chang Feizhang saw that everyone's eyes were looking at him.

This time, Chang Feizhang didn't care whether his ankle was bandaged or not. He stood up from where he was sitting in fear. Because his foot was so painful, he fell to the ground with a thud, his face pale with pain.

Seeing this, Qingchuan and Zhou Yuanliang hurriedly helped Chang Feizhang up.

The place where Chang Feizhang was sitting was also completely exposed to everyone.

The skull was looking directly at a well, the mouth of which had been crushed by heavy rocks.