Records of the Cattle and Horses of Chang'an

"Shangguan, Shangguan, can you let us go home? Shangguan!"

The mother and son of the Lai family screamed and refused to go back to the cell. The eldest Lai had no energy to struggle, and the old lady Lai thrashed around like a toad, making a lot of noise and making people feel annoyed. Wang Leisheng pointed at them and cursed angrily: "Still screaming? You picked up human flesh, did you know that? Your whole family ate human flesh, did you know that? It would be fine if you ate it yourselves, but you also shared it with the neighbors. Don't you think that if this matter gets back, will your neighbors let you go?"

These words shocked the mother and son as if they were struck by lightning. Lai Da, who was originally as dead as a dog, was shocked and raised his head suddenly, his eyes almost popping out. His body, which had finally stabilized, began to tremble uncontrollably again. He moved his mouth to say something, but couldn't utter a word.

Lai Lao Niang was obviously much stronger than her son. Although her face was also pale, she was still standing firm: "Shangguan, don't talk nonsense to coax me. How can this piece of meat be human flesh?"

Wang Leisheng snorted coldly, shattering her fantasy. "If it's not human flesh, it's just a few pieces of meat that fell on the road. Even if you stole it from someone else's house, what does it have to do with the Dali Temple? Do you really think that the Dali Temple has nothing better to do than investigate a few pieces of meat?"

This made perfect sense, and Lai Lao Niang's face immediately fell. The jailers took the opportunity to drag the two away. Wang Leisheng withdrew his gaze and looked at Cui Bianxu and asked, "Shaoqing, could it be that the thief lives in Yanfu and Chongxian wards? I will take people to search them right away."

Cui Bianxu didn't agree immediately. He put down his pen, took the case file beside him, and spread it on the table. He carefully examined the map of the body parts they had circled. After a moment's contemplation, he said, "Look, the body parts are distributed in almost every neighborhood with a drainage ditch, from the East and West Markets down. There are at least one or two pieces, and as many as four or five. The locations of Yanfu and Chongxian are not special, and we haven't found any body parts in these two neighborhoods. According to my guess, Old Lady Lai must have happened upon the thieves when they were dumping the body."

According to Lai Laonian's instructions, the man was wrapped tightly, carrying a large bamboo basket on his back and holding a large basket in each hand. It was dark and the road was slippery, and the man accidentally slipped and almost fell. She saw something fall and wanted to go forward to help.

Unexpectedly, the man ran even faster when he heard the noise, completely ignoring the fallen pieces of meat. Lai Laonian walked over and saw that it was meat. Seeing that the man had left, she had the idea of ​​taking advantage of him and picked up all the fallen meat.

Therefore, the yamen runners did not find any body parts in these two places. Originally, they suspected that the murderer might live in the market town where the body parts were not thrown. After all, rabbits don't eat grass near their burrows. But now it seems that the murderer actually went there, but the meat was picked up by Lai Lao Niang.

I don't know if she was lucky or unlucky, but there wasn't a single finger or toe in the flesh. If there was, wouldn't Lai Lao Niang be frightened to death on the spot? If the murderer was ruthless, he could take advantage of the lack of people on the road and throw the things away, killing one more person would be a piece of cake.

Seeing him like this, Wang Leisheng brought up Qingxuan again: "Shaoqing, since that's the case, how about we go and bring that fake Daoshang in for questioning first?"

Anyway, he still had to search the entire market, so he didn't waste any time. His hands were in great shape now, and he was sure that the fake road would be torn into pieces in two hits.

Cui Bianxu ignored him. It was already this late, and he was still thinking about that fake Taoist priest!

"Take your men and start checking Chonghuafang to see if there are any suspicious individuals. Have Lu Xingzhou take the men to the blacksmith shops in the city to ask if anyone has recently purchased sharp bone-breaking tools. Write them down."

"Yes."

"Have someone draw more of this portrait, and when conducting investigations, ask everyone if they've seen anyone similar to this one."

What Cui Bianxu had just painted was the rough silhouette of the thief's back based on Lai Laonian's description. She had never seen the man's face, and the lanterns in the city had all burned out after a night, making it too dark for her to see clearly. She could only roughly say that the man was about five feet tall but less than six feet, neither fat nor thin, with black hair and wearing a sheepskin coat. She could not say anything else.

So it is called a portrait, but in fact it is just a back view, and this back view is very inaccurate, it can only be said to be a rough estimate. However, according to what Lai Laonian said, since this person can lift so many things, he must be very strong. Even if he is not a martial artist, he must have done heavy work all year round.

If it comes to knowing kung fu, the scope can be smaller, but if it comes to doing heavy work, most of the ordinary people in Chang'an City are used to doing heavy work, and many women are also very strong.

It's a pity that Lai Lao Niang didn't see the man's face, otherwise he could draw his portrait. If there was anything wrong, he could modify it several times and always produce a version that was most similar to the thief. Now he can only hope that someone has seen a similar person during the search.

When they returned to the Dali Temple at night, they had only searched five markets and found nothing. On the contrary, Ding Yuan and his men, as the number of body parts was decreasing, their speed in piecing together the pieces became faster and they pieced together two more headless and skinless bodies.

"The remaining body parts should be the last one." Ding Yuan's words were tantamount to declaring that the owners of these body parts were none other than the four dancers from Pingkangfang.

Cui Bianxu rubbed his face dryly with his hands, exhaled, and walked between the two newly put-together corpses with his tired eyelids open. Lu Xingzhou was still huddled by the table at the door and refused to get any closer.

"Tell me about the situation."

With only one body left, Ding Yuan asked the two old coroners to take their apprentices back to rest. They were already quite old, and if they died of endurance, that would be the end of it.

"You already know the situation of the first body. I will start with the second one."

Ding Yuan walked to the second pieced-together female corpse. It was no exaggeration to say that it was pieced together. The case was still a mystery. Ding Yuan did not sew the body parts together. At this time, these body parts could only be said to be barely put together to form a human shape.

"The second body was a woman. She was headless, skinless, and completely stripped of all fat. The body parts were pieced together to measure about three feet long. Her stomach had been cleaned. She likely suffered from spleen deficiency, with an enlarged spleen and other issues. Her gallbladder was small and thick-walled, and her pancreas was thick. She had frequent intercourse, and judging by her uterus, she likely had a miscarriage. The cause of death was the intense pain and bleeding caused by skinning. Her left wrist and ankles were severed with a sharp blade, and her right wrist was directly twisted and then cut off."

"The third body was a female. She was headless, skinless, and her fat had been completely removed. The pieced-together body parts were approximately three and a half feet long. Her stomach had been cleaned. Before her death..."