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

After Hong Mingxu was stopped by Cheng Su, he waited quietly in the same place without speaking. But his eyes were always fixed on Lin Lezhi, with anger and vigilance in his eyes, as if he wanted to devour Lin Lezhi.

Hong Mingxu remained silent, and Cheng Su said, "Mingxu, is what he said true? Was what happened back then really related to you?"

Cheng Su's eyes and tone revealed uncertainty.

The deputy general who had followed him for more than ten years, was loyal to him, and had been through thick and thin with him, was accused of being the culprit of a murder case eleven years ago. The expression on his face was complicated, but he still wanted to hear what Hong Mingxu said in person.

Hearing Cheng Su's question, his fierce eyes froze for a moment.

Then, he knelt down in front of Cheng Su and said angrily, "General, this guy is just talking nonsense and trying to frame me. He couldn't find the treasure and was afraid that the general would punish him, so he wanted to put the blame on me to get himself out of the blame. Long before, he couldn't find the murderer, so he wanted to put all the blame on Chang Feizhang, but he didn't expect Chang Feizhang to die, so he put the blame on Qi Xi again."

"General, you have also seen this kid's ability to confuse right and wrong. Do you really believe that Qi Xi is innocent? Maybe the two of them conspired to frame me in order to absolve themselves and Qi Xi of responsibility."

"you…!"

Hearing Hong Mingxu's words, Qi Xi's body trembled even more violently, staring at Hong Mingxu with hateful and angry eyes, as if a wild beast was about to break out of his body. "

Seeing this, a look of helplessness and heartache rose in Lin Lezhi's eyes. He moved in front of Qi Xi and used his body to block Qi Xi's sight towards Hong Mingxu.

"Words without evidence are not enough. Please make the decision for me, General." Hong Mingxu took off the sword from his waist, raised it to his chest, and said with a resolute look in his eyes, "If the general really thinks it was me who did it, I will not complain if I die at your hands."

Hong Mingxu's words made Cheng Su look a little hesitant, with a hint of complicated emotions in his eyes.

Without waiting for Cheng Su to speak, Lin Lezhi laughed out loud first, with pity and ridicule revealed in his eyes, and shook his head helplessly.

Hong Mingxu remained kneeling with the knife in hand and angrily asked, "What are you laughing at?!"

"Nothing." Lin Lezhi shook his head and said, "Captain Hong said that I was confusing right and wrong. I am not good at martial arts and can't practice martial arts. The most I can do is use my brain to fool people. Besides, I didn't confuse right and wrong. How can I compare with Captain Hong who deceives the world and kills everyone."

"What the hell are you thinking of? Are you trying to frame me in front of the general?"

"If Captain Hong behaved uprightly, how could I have framed you?"

"I naturally..."

"Captain Hong must also know something about Feng Shui."

Upon hearing this, everyone present showed surprise.

Hong Mingxu didn't take it seriously and denied it, saying, "I'm just a military commander, how can I understand Feng Shui?"

"Don't you understand?" Lin Lezhi then refuted himself: "Oh, I was wrong. It's not that I understand a little, but that I am proficient in it."

Lin Lezhi recalled, "At the Dusk Lake, I talked about the Feng Shui of the tomb, and no one present raised any objections. But Captain Hong must have immediately heard that I was talking nonsense, because you know that the tomb is definitely not of the specifications of a royal tomb, and you thought I didn't understand, so you relaxed your vigilance against me."

Hong Mingxu snorted coldly and said, "Everyone who has been to the tomb has seen the furnishings in the tomb. Even if they don't understand Feng Shui, they know that the royal tombs are where the royal nobles are buried. The coffins inside are of the same specifications, with no distinction between primary and secondary. How could it be a royal tomb?"

"That makes sense."

Lin Lezhi seemed to be convinced by Hong Mingxu. He nodded thoughtfully, but frowned again after a moment and said, "But... just now when I was saying there was a treasure behind the temple wall, Captain Hong, you... obviously hesitated."

"..."

"You think the treasure can't be behind the temple wall, but you want to give it a try. It's nothing more than that you think..." As he spoke, Lin Lezhi unfolded the treasure map in his hand and showed it to everyone. His finger fell on a vertical line that was opposite to the other mountains. "The mountain behind this earth temple is consistent with the exit of the tomb."

Hong Mingxu sneered, looked at Lin Lezhi with a fierce look in his eyes and said, "You are used to confusing right and wrong. I have done my best to help the general find the treasure. What's wrong with that? Don't talk nonsense! You say I am the culprit, where is the evidence?"

Being stared at with such fierce eyes, Lin Lezhi was not afraid at all, nor did he panic at all. He smiled and said with shock in his eyes: "You think that as long as you make it look like they were bitten to death by snakes, no one will suspect you. If you want to put the blame on the snake, you have to get the snake's consent."

"What a pity." Lin Lezhi shook his head, his eyes firmly saying, "Snakes don't want to take the blame for you, and the innocent soldiers who died don't want to see the culprit who killed them go unpunished."

"Explain clearly." Cheng Su said with a serious look.

Lin Lezhi bowed and said, "General, just bring in the bodies of the six soldiers outside the courtyard, and you will know."

"General..."

Cheng Su raised his hand to tell Hong Mingxu not to speak and to put down the knife and listen to what Lin Lezhi had to say first. Then he asked the soldiers near the door to go outside the yard and bring in the body.

The temple gate opened, and the fog outside the courtyard became much heavier. The white fog lingered in the courtyard, making it difficult to see clearly. Fortunately, the location of the body was known, and it was quickly moved in.

Because of the order given by Hong Mingxu earlier, the temple gate was closed again after the corpse was moved in.

The temple door, which had been in disrepair for a long time, made a creaking sound.

The fog outside the temple was isolated, but a few wisps of fog still drifted in. However, due to the brightness and temperature in the house, they quickly dissipated.

Because the body had been prepared, the armor had been removed, and the blood and dirt on the body had been wiped clean, the corpse spots and the two holes from the snake bites became more obvious.

Lin Lezhi opened the inner garments of the six soldiers, revealing their pale and lifeless flesh covered with shocking scars.

The soldiers standing by couldn't bear to watch any longer and turned their eyes away slightly.

"General, please look at the snake bite marks on these six soldiers. What are the differences?"

Cheng Su took a quick look and saw that two soldiers had bruises on the places where they were bitten by snakes, while the other four soldiers only had two holes on their bodies.

Looking at this, Cheng Su's eyes darkened.

Lin Lezhi immediately understood Cheng Su's thoughts and said, "I think the general has also thought of this. These two soldiers died next to the coffin in the village, and these four died in the forest."

After Lin Lezhi said this, Meng Dafeng, who had followed Cheng Su for a long time and was older, immediately thought of something. He widened his eyes, unable to hide his shock, and looked at Hong Mingxu who was kneeling on the ground.

Hong Mingxu lowered his head and said nothing, and the expression on his face could not be seen clearly.

At this moment, Zhu Yang's face turned pale, perhaps because he felt sad when he saw the wounds on his deceased brother's body.

"How did Detective Jiang know where they died?" He Yu asked puzzledly.

"here."

Lin Lezhi pointed to the bruises on the neck of a soldier who died in the courtyard and explained, "If they were really bitten to death by a snake, the snake venom would spread rapidly in the body. Even if they died within a short period of time, bruises would appear at the bite site. However, the four soldiers who died in the forest did not have bruises, which means they were bitten after they died."

Speaking of this, everyone present suddenly woke up as if from a dream, and looked at Hong Mingxu with shock in their eyes, their eyes full of disbelief, despair and sadness.

Many soldiers, like Zhu Yang, looked uncomfortable and pale.

Lin Lezhi stood up and said angrily, "Hong Mingxu, you thought that after three days, when the dead soldiers' internal organs rotted, no one would know about your evil deeds and you could hide it from the world. Little did you know that Guo Yong was bitten by a snake but there was no blood stasis on his neck, which gave him away."

"..."

"That night, you chased after the fleeing Guo Yong and asked him to wait for you in the tomb. In the past, you were always worried about the general's safety and wanted to stay with him, but that night the general ordered you to lead the way, and you agreed quickly. Afterwards, when the snake attack spread out, you told Brother He and his group to escort the people away. In fact, you were going to sneak into the tomb and kill Guo Yong, and pretend that he died in the snake's mouth."

Lin Lezhi paused for a moment, then continued, "Two of the four dead soldiers, if I remember correctly, were assigned by the general to guard the Doll Cave. The snakes left their nests, causing everyone to be too busy to take care of themselves, and they all fled, but you were afraid that someone among them would discover your whereabouts, so you killed them."

At this moment, Hong Mingxu was no longer anxious, but said calmly: "After all, these are just your guesses. You want to slander me based on these, aren't you too naive?"

"Then I would like to ask Captain Hong, why don't you dare to draw your sword?"

Hearing this, Hong Mingxu's eyes, which had been relaxed at first, tightened slightly.

"Mr. Chang said he chopped off Guo Yong's limbs, but there was only blood in the tomb and no knife was found. No knife was found next to Mr. Chang's body. Since he confessed to his crime, why didn't he reveal the location of the murder weapon?"

Lin Lezhi lowered his eyes, walked closer to Hong Mingxu and said, "Because he didn't cut off Guo Yong's limbs, but he saw the real murderer hiding the body with his own eyes. He knew that if he exposed you in the letter, it would cause fatal disasters to everyone who came to the island, so he chose to take the blame for the clone himself. He had no choice but to admit the crime in the letter and leave a note, hoping that General Cheng would continue to thoroughly investigate the Huaifeng Village case."

"..."

"I saw you in the forest. There were so many people around. You didn't have a chance to clean the knife." Lin Lezhi's eyes fell on the knife tightly grasped in Hong Mingxu's hand. His eyes were calm but also with a hint of anger. He said: "There must still be blood stains on the knife from dismemberment."

Hong Mingxu shook his head and said with a smile: "Is this the evidence against Jiang Guitan? If I pull out this knife and there is no blood on it, what will Jiang Guitan do?"

Lin Lezhi took a few steps closer to Hong Mingxu and asked with the same smile, "Then I have a question for you, Captain Hong. When the general fell into the well and his life was in danger, and he needed to get rattan to make a rope, you didn't order the soldiers to get rattan from the house, but instead went to the forest to get rattan. Were you afraid that the wooden pillars on the roof that were driven into the mountain to support the rattan would be discovered?"

After he finished speaking, Hong Mingxu's eyes suddenly narrowed and his expression darkened.

When Lin Lezhi discovered the embedded wood from the mountain on the roof, he began to doubt Hong Mingxu. If Hong Mingxu had never been to this island, why would he go so far away?

However, Hong Mingxu had not committed any crime at that time, and he just felt puzzled. It was not until Guo Yong died and he saw the letter left by Chang Feizhang that he felt that the case might not be that simple.

But before he has thought everything through, he cannot make a decision rashly to avoid mistakes.

"You want evidence? Fine, I'll give it to you." Lin Lezhi smiled, then he looked at Qi Xi and said, "Qi Xi, when Qingchuan stayed outside the cave to treat Captain Hong's burns, you were there too. When did Captain Hong wake up?"

Qi Xi tried hard to control her emotions and recalled: "When Master Qingchuan wanted to undress her."

Hearing this, Lin Lezhi's smile deepened, and he said without any surprise: "That's right."

Although Lin Lezhi had not yet produced any evidence, Cheng Su's expression became more and more solemn as he saw Hong Mingxu's increasingly gloomy expression. He asked, "What do you mean?"

"I've never seen anyone who was burned by fire move so well."

As he spoke, he squatted down in front of Hong Mingxu and looked at him. Unlike the gloom on Hong Mingxu's face, Lin Lezhi's smile deepened as he said, "If Captain Hong wants to prove himself, why not take off his armor and clothes like the dead soldiers? Then we'll know for sure."

Hong Mingxu stared at Lin Lezhi in silence.

"Why, Captain Hong doesn't dare?" Lin Lezhi pondered for a moment and said, "Before, I was wondering why you had to burn yourself instead of doing something else, such as cutting off an arm to save your life like Feng Yuan. But then I thought, Captain Hong is also a general in the army. He is second only to one general, and is above ten thousand generals. If you really cut off an arm, it would be useless, but you have to destroy it. With no other good options, you can only choose to endure the pain and burn yourself."

As he spoke, Lin Lezhi's eyes fell on Hong Mingxu's right arm, which was the most seriously burned, and he said, "Because you want to destroy the words on your right arm, right?"

After saying that, without waiting for Hong Mingxu to react, Lin Lezhi quickly reached out and grabbed Hong Mingxu's burned right arm.

Although Hong Mingxu was a beat slow, he reacted immediately. He stood up, waved away Lin Lezhi's hand, and stretched out his hand to strangle Lin Lezhi's throat.

In desperation, Lin Lezhi threw something from his sleeve and threw it straight towards Hong Mingxu's chest.

It's a snake.

Due to the fast speed, Hong Mingxu did not bother to distinguish and reached out to grab. Seeing this opportunity, Lin Lezhi pulled out Hong Mingxu's sword while Hong Mingxu was not prepared, and picked up Hong Mingxu's armor. When pulling out the blade, Lin Lezhi flipped the blade and pulled it out quickly.

The moment it was pulled out, the sharp blade cut through Hong Mingxu's inner clothes.

There were bloodstains on the cut clothes.

Not only the cuts, but also the inside of the clothes were stained with blood, soaking the white lining.

Everyone thought that Lin Lezhi did not control the strength of his hands well and injured Hong Mingxu, but if you look closely, there are no scars on Hong Mingxu's skin, only on his clothes and the exposed skin on his chest. There are no signs of burns. The bloodstains came from the blade.

Hong Mingxu's clothes were wide open, and a severed hand fell out from the torn clothes.

The severed hand was cut below the wrist, and although it was covered in blood, it could not hide the words engraved on the arm from everyone's eyes.

There was a word "thief" engraved on the arm.