Daqing Criminal Division

On the first night when they came to Jiangning Mansion, they stayed in the Meixiang Inn where only one person died, which was a bit too bold.

But after nightfall, everything in this small Jinling local inn is quite peaceful.

Because it is on the side of the road, there are several other guests living in the upstairs and downstairs rooms, so it is actually very safe at night.

In the middle of the night, the entire city defense of Jiangning Mansion stretching over the canals and moats was also quiet, even the boats on the Jinling River, which was always brightly lit in the distance, were much quieter.

In the past, he often couldn't sleep in the middle of the night, so just now Duan Xiao got up by himself and opened the window again.

He was originally a person who would wake up from time to time in the middle of the night because of a little movement.

So Duan Yuanbao is currently sleeping on the bed next to his hand, covered with a soft quilt, while Duan Xiao, who is sitting alone under the lamp, is wearing a dress and thinking about something.

During the day today, they were still in the office of Sima Zhun, the Jinling policeman.

Due to the relative rush of time between the three of them, he was not able to go to Yizhuang to meet the head of Zhang Santong with his own eyes.

But before he left, he also volunteered to ask for an autopsy, and because of this, he got a letter from Jiang Ning Mansion's foreman who had already done a preliminary autopsy on the head.

Since the body of the deceased had not been found nearly four or five days before the case, the file about the deceased Zhang Santong only mentioned part of the fatal illness of the head.

Among them, the Jiangning Prefecture Yamen recorded and specifically mentioned three characteristics of the watermelon with a human head:

One, the head of the deceased Zhang Santong was completely frozen with ice cubes together with those watermelons, so when the melon picker first picked up the reveal on the side of the road, he tapped his fingers on the hard surface and felt it Probably a watermelon too.

Although afterwards, because the weather in Jiangning Mansion was very hot in the past two days, when I returned to the local Han Road where I picked up the watermelon, the head in the sack had almost melted.

The human flesh on the face of the deceased melted quickly after being frozen, so when the yamen sent someone to identify the corpse the next day.

The human flesh on Zhang Santong's head had actually started to soften and rotten, showing the shape of muddy and red flesh. If it weren't for the eyes, nose and lips hanging from the lips, even the step of identifying the corpse would be difficult.

However, the officials of the Jiangning government also thought about it carefully after thinking about it, and they only felt that the fact that the frozen head was placed in this Jinling sounds very incredible at first glance.

Because according to the general situation, the way to completely freeze good watermelons and human heads, except for freezing them outdoors overnight in the cold winter months, is the ice cellar only available to ordinary wealthy families.

However, the weather in Jinling is hot now, so it has been ruled out that it is caused by the weather. If it is transported from other places, it is impossible to throw it in the city. The watermelons and human heads are still frozen. Besides, the distance from other places is too far, so it is impossible to do it at all. arrive.

But if it was moved in the ice cellar, to cause the surface to freeze like this, it has to be the kind that has been dug seven or eight meters deep, and has to store large blocks of ice that have been chiseled off in winter all year round.

Such a rare ice cellar specially enjoyed by high-ranking officials and nobles, not to mention Jiangning Mansion, which is already very prosperous compared to other places, is even an official house in the capital city that is even more prosperous than here, and even the imperial palace.

It was precisely because of this that Sima Zhun and the Yamen of Jiangning Mansion couldn't figure out how the head and watermelon were frozen at first.

And the second is the rupture of the artery in Zhang Santong's neck. It is rare that it is not a knife wound, but it seems to be broken by some heavy object from the back of the head and the cartilage of the back of the neck first. The neck bone was severely contused, accompanied by a large amount of ice condensed on the blood vessels.

Combine his head with a pile of frozen watermelons discarded by the side of the road.

The reason why his head was separated from his body was probably because someone smashed his head off alive with a watermelon that was initially frozen like a rock.

These points all prove that the cause of his death is extremely strange. If they hadn't decided to come to Jiangning this time to find Liu Cen who was missing and asked for help, Duan Xiao would have never been exposed to such a terrifying case with extremely vicious tactics before.

In particular, it is suspected that the cause of Zhang Santong's death is likely to be the deduction of smashing his head with a watermelon.

It is impossible to do it in normal life. After all, no matter how hard a watermelon is frozen, it may be difficult to compare it with the hardness of a real human head. Therefore, Jiang Ning wrote the dossier himself and left the word "doubtful" .

Doubtful.

It's just that even the assistants in the Jiangning mansion can't judge how Zhang Santong died.

watermelon.

Human head.

In the end how to complete the freezing of the human body.

All these clues interweave an unusual case in the seemingly ordinary.

The same is true, Duan Xiao, who was staring at the line written on the paper, saw this, but didn't want to understand it for a while, just closed his eyes and thought for a while.

Under the candlelight, his thin, bloodless fingers rested on the table.

But because of the mental illness he was born with, his mind, which was always accompanied by innate criminal intuition, seemed to feel the sound of spiders spinning webs rustling in the dark again.

['——''——']

This time, the sound of the spider spinning its web in the dark was louder than ever.

Something weird is continuing to spy on everything in the dark.

……

Just when Duan Xiao was alone in the middle of the night thinking about this head watermelon case.

In another room on the same wall as Duan Xiao himself, in the middle of the night, Fucha Erji, who was sitting by the window, was thinking about something.

Four or five hours had passed since the day's events, but it was clear that there were still a lot of abnormal things in the Meixiang Inn in his opinion.

Half of Zhang Santong's body was found by himself in the middle of the night.

This kind of speech is terrifying and terrifying. Anyone who hears it at first glance will probably think that the old shopkeeper is talking nonsense.

The 'Human Head Watermelon' had already been chopped off and its body was thrown out to be picked up by others, so even if his remaining body is still missing now, it is impossible for him to just walk back like this.

There are no ghosts and gods in this world.

People who do evil in the world are often living people.

So at the moment, although Duan Xiao, who was sitting downstairs pretending to be a tea drinker in the evening, understood this unusual conversation, he just suppressed the matter secretly and remained silent.

Afterwards, when they went upstairs together with their luggage, he told the other two about it.

In this regard, Fucharzi, who has always been big-hearted, didn't feel much when he stopped.

Because he knew at a glance that he would never believe these things, so instead he wondered why the old shopkeeper would say such words with certainty.

And it just so happened that the four of them checked into the inn and came up together.

Because Duan Yuan was young, Fucha Erji walked slowly at the end alone, and asked the kid to follow Duan Xiao and Zakshan to the front, so as not to fall down on the stairs.

"Yo, slow down, Brother Bao."

That's what came out of his mouth at that time, and Fucharzi, who was about to go up and swayed with his arms folded, spoke half a step slower.

But at this moment, from the corner of his eye, he accidentally noticed that the internal structure of this Jinling Meixiang Inn seemed to be different from those inns he had seen in the past.

At that time, only Fucharzi was left at the end of the corridor on the second floor.

He was tall and thin, with his shoulders swaying freely and looking forward to walking up.

Originally, one leg that was facing upwards was taken half a step up the stairs, but he barely stopped his feet, folded his hands and stopped, and leaned back his whole body to look at the place where his eyes were facing.

In his gray eye, there was a strange scene reflected.

Because at the end of the inn corridor on the second floor where all sides are empty except for the guest rooms, there is actually a long rope directly leading from the ground floor to the top.

At a glance, the strange long rope was hanging there alone in such a big night.

In the middle is a square empty slot on the floor for the rope to pass through separately downstairs.

I don't know what is connected between the top and the bottom, and why there is a rope hanging there alone in this weird inn.

But Fucharzi, who couldn't help staring at that place for a while, turned his head and went up to the floor where they lived, and after walking around the place, he realized that the rope was what use.

It turns out that this is actually a fire rope installed here alone because it is afraid of water leaking inside the inn.

There is a simple pulley made of wood at the top alone connection place and the bottom connection place respectively.

The top should be connected to a whole bucket of water from the water tank, because this kind of inn has about four floors, and the top floor is sealed by the left and right walls.

There are rules for folks who run inns and do business. At the top, they can't accommodate guests or shopkeepers, because they are afraid that if a fire breaks out, people who cannot escape will die.

As for the fire rope, it is for the water tank on the top floor to be filled with water every time it rains. Once the water runs out on any floor of the inn, the rope can be pulled down on this floor to bring the bucket to the specific floor.

It's just that the old wooden building has water.

If it is not caused by human beings, it is unlikely that an ordinary inn with no business will happen in a few years, because old wood, especially the old wood used to build inns, is the most difficult to catch fire, and extraordinary fires will not spread into large-scale fires .

In particular, this is Jiangning Mansion, an ancient capital that has remained unchanged for several generations of dynasties.

Most of the wood that can be preserved here, not to mention a small inn, even any house on the road, I am afraid it is difficult to catch fire.

So usually, the biggest function of this matchlock hanging here is probably to pull the water in the water tank on the top to the bottom for the people in the inn to use.

Therefore, the use of this wooden barrel is mostly for water supply to the Yexiang Pit and the small kitchen that comes with the inn.

Coincidentally, when we were downstairs just now, the cook who came back from shopping also mentioned it by the way.

Because the old shopkeeper and the cook didn't have time to clean up the Yexiang pit next to the small kitchen, the pit in this inn has been sealed for more than half a month, and no outsiders are allowed to come in to use the toilet.

Only after this month has passed, will the water tank be put to use again.

So thinking about it this way, such a dilapidated inn looks small, but it has all internal organs.

It was also at this moment that Fuchaerzi, who was still sitting aside and silent when he heard Duan Xiao talking about this, suddenly thought of something, just casually mentioned this sentence.

"Maybe, both he and the cook have seen the headless 'body' at the inn? That's why we're so sure?"

But when Zakshan heard this, he was taken aback by this guy.

Afterwards, the three of them were clearly sitting in the dilapidated hotel room, but the nervous-looking policeman Zakshan couldn't help but looked around and shivered,

"Hey, Fucha, it's almost night, don't talk nonsense, who can see the body of a dead person running back by himself, Duan, Duan Xiao, the old manager really said that Zhang Santong's body was recovered Pass?"

"Well, he also told the cook that the pork will be placed on the second floor after the pork is cooked. Maybe we can take advantage of this opportunity to live in today, and then ask the cook and the pockmarked boy about the situation. thing."

Duan Xiao replied, knowing that this matter must not be simple, but the three of them who still need to investigate carefully first divided the work simply.

Sima Zhuna was not yet sure how Zhang Santong died, and who cut off his head.

But since the head watermelon case is an unsolved murder case, and it has somehow been related to Liu Cen's disappearance and the disappearance of the "Qing Yuan Ben Qing Ming Shang He Tu", they also have to find out. after all.

It is also because the old shopkeeper also said downstairs before, that the cook can cook extra dishes for them later.

In addition, the most reliable of the three of them is Zach Shan.

So Duan Xiao said, let him go down and ask the cook, A Kuan, if he can sell them the two taels of pork in the vegetable basket just now, and the two of them will go to the pockmarked Xiao Er and Lao Lao. dispensers.

"Okay, then I'll deal with that kid, and I'll deal with the old man exclusively, then it's settled."

Hearing this, there was no embarrassment, and Fucharzi, who tapped his finger on the table and stood up, went down first by himself.

The three of them agreed, and Zha Keshan went to the small kitchen to look for the cook who was lighting a fire and cooking pork. As for Duan Xiao, he went to look for the pockmarked little boy who had just run to the second floor to tidy up the guest room.

However, although they all asked about the half of the body and the deceased Zhang Santong, the methods they used were different.

Zakshan is simple and rude to build relationships with people, chatting and making friends.

Fucha Erji caught Xiao Mazi on the second floor and approached him cheekily. As for Duan Xiao, he talked with the simplest money, only touched the money quickly, and said that he heard about it at the city gate. I heard about the head watermelon, and I want to hear about it again.

Such a three-pronged approach made the three of them really ask something separately.

It's strange to say that the three of them obviously came to ask the same thing.

The shopkeeper, the cook, and the pockmarked errand heard three different versions and details of a "ghost story" with the same ending.

Because it was the night three days ago.

That is to say, Zhang Santong had been confirmed dead at the time, and when his head was thrown together with a watermelon outside the city, far away from Qin Huai, the three people in the inn actually saw a "running up and down" at the same moment. head corpse.

——A half-length 'Zhang Santong' floating up and down the Meixiang Inn.

The author has something to say: I am going to try on bridesmaid dresses tomorrow, so I rushed to type this chapter in the middle of the night.

But regarding this case, everyone who is interested may wish to guess what the case involved in the end, although I think it is not difficult to guess hahaha, after all, my brain is just so-so

Thanks to the little angels who voted for me or irrigated the nutrient solution~

Thank you to the little angels who voted for [Landmine]: one with poor breasts and Tongxi (Yin Xiaojiang);

Thanks to the little angel who irrigated [nutrient solution]:

5 bottles of Qianqiu Sui;

Thank you very much for your support, I will continue to work hard!