Hold on, the system and I have never been angry

"It involves sect secrets, so it's inconvenient to tell you." Bai Chao smiled and changed the subject. "If you are really curious, you are welcome to come and participate in the sect's disciple recruitment in half a year."

Are you kidding? They only know that the master taught a completely different way of practice. They don't know the specific origins or anything like that. Even if they want to say something, they can't.

The city lord laughed dryly and walked away. He was old, how could he find a new sect to start as a basic disciple? If he wanted to change, he should be an elder.

Bai Chao smiled and said, "If you have children or grandchildren, you are welcome to sign up for our sect."

After reading the bamboo slips, they achieved their goal, exchanged a few words and left. Just then, Lan Huailin came back with a frustrated look on his face. He grabbed Bai Chao by the collar and yelled at him.

Bai Chao signaled them with his eyes to leave first, and then he played dumb with Lan Huailin: "What's the point of you talking here? I don't understand."

Lan Huailin angrily took the paper and pen beside him and began to write quickly: "The doctor said that I was bewitched by someone else. It must be you who did it. You must help me!"

"You are wrongly accusing a good man. This young master has no idea what you are talking about." Bai Chao spread his hands, "If there was such a good thing that can make you shut up, I would buy his shop and make you mute with medicine."

Several people on the other side walked out of the gate of the City Lord's Mansion and began to discuss their next itinerary.

The victim's home has been visited and the files in the City Lord's Mansion have also been reviewed. All that remains is to visit Cui's Mansion or get the answer directly from Qiansui and Sui Guanxian.

As soon as Lu Jinzhao thought of this, Qiansui immediately refused with a smile: "I won't tell you, figure it out yourself!"

"In my opinion, you don't know the truth at all." Sui Guanxian took out a cufflink-sized crystal from his sleeve, "Your damn illustrated book is still here with me."

"I'm not a professional data detection system. I don't have an encyclopedia. How can I know everything? Especially in a world like yours that is full of weird things!" Qiansui raised his paw in surrender. "So you want to tell me directly?"

Sui Guanxian raised a smiling face and imitated him, saying, "I won't tell you. You can figure it out on your own."

"Meow, I really want to beat you up!"

"No fighting." Lu Jinzhao felt like a parent caught between the twins, with his palms and backs all made of flesh, and a headache. "Stop arguing, let's go to Cui's house to find out what's going on."

"Okay." Sui Guanxian skillfully pulled up Lu Jinchao's sleeve and looked towards the Cui Mansion in the east of the city. "Let's go and look for any clues."

The outer sect disciples naturally followed the sect leader's third senior brother. When they were a short distance away from each other, Bai Chao finally caught up with them.

Unfortunately, he failed to get rid of Lan Huailin's little tail.

Cui Mansion.

Before they got close, they could smell the pungent smell of blood mixed with other strange odors emanating from the mansion from afar.

Many curious people gathered in front of Cui's house to try to find out what happened. Among them, there was a man who was talking in the crowd, and his description was very detailed, as if he had seen it with his own eyes.

Passerby A said: "Let me tell you, this Cui family must have done something evil, so they were punished by God! Otherwise, they wouldn't disappear for half a month and suddenly appear dead in their own home!"

Passerby B said: "Oh, that's right! I smelled something early in the morning, and I plucked up the courage to peek through the crack in the door. I saw more than a dozen people in the family hanging neatly on the eaves. I was so scared that I almost died with them!"

Passerby C said: "We just evacuated the City Lord's Mansion yesterday, and now bodies have appeared today. There must be someone behind this!"

Passerby Ding said, "Stop talking so much! Have you reported today's incident to the City Lord's Mansion? Tell them to take these bodies away! It's almost the beginning of the dog days of summer, and the weather is hot. In a few hours, the bodies will stink! By then, the whole street will be filled with the stench of corpses!"

"You're right, I'll report it right away!"

"I'm going to Old Li's house and Sister Liu's house to let them know! The missing people from the Cui Mansion have returned, and their children may come back soon! God bless them, they must come back alive!"

While the crowd was discussing enthusiastically and no one was paying attention, Lu Jinzhao and others successfully slipped in through the gate.

As you step into Cui's mansion, a strong smell of blood hits you in the face, making you feel nauseous.

The scene before my eyes was like purgatory. More than a dozen corpses were hanging straight under the eaves, swaying gently in the breeze, as if telling of their pain and despair in life. Their faces were pale, their eyes were wide open, and their mouths were slightly open, as if they had seen something extremely terrifying.

The dried blood on the ground turned black and formed mottled marks, like some kind of totem.

The flowers and plants in the courtyard had long since withered, the stone road was covered with dust, and there were some messy footprints, which seemed to hint at the panic that had once occurred.

Zuo Shishi subconsciously covered her mouth to prevent herself from retching. Instead, Lan Huailin, who had insisted on following her, leaned against the wall and vomited.

Cheng Yuanyuan immediately squatted down and covered the two children's eyes, then closed her own eyes and commanded: "Bai Chao, go check it out."

"...I really owed you this in my last life." Bai Chao covered his mouth and nose with his sleeves and walked forward, plucked a branch from the tree, opened his clothes to check the bodies of several men, and quickly retreated back to the men. "Oh my god, the people who did this were really cruel. They took out the hearts of each one directly."

Lu Jinchao couldn't see because Cheng Yuanyuan covered his eyes, so he had to secretly use his spiritual power to detect things, and he found that there were more things that could be seen than with the naked eye.

The main hall was open, and it was dark and gloomy inside. The tables and chairs in the hall were tilted all over the place, and some porcelain fragments were scattered on the ground. It was obvious that there had been a fierce fight here.

There were some strange scratches on the wall. Looking closely, they looked like they were made by fingernails, as if the deceased was struggling to escape in the last moments of his life.

Continuing along the corridor, the room next door was also in a mess, with the bed in disarray and clothes thrown everywhere.

In the corner were found some children's toys, stained with blood.

The entire Cui Mansion was filled with an aura of death, as if time had stopped here, and every place was creepy.

"What kind of live haunted house is this..." Chitose opened his eyes from between his claws and looked around, "Strange, I clearly saw children's toys, but I don't seem to see any children?"

Lu Jinchao looked away from Cheng Yuanyuan's hand and asked, "Does the file mention that there are children in the Cui family?"

Xi Moxuan thought about it seriously: "It seems not."

Ye Wuhen took out the notebook he had kept privately: "The Cui family is small, and the head of this generation has not had a child in his sixtieth year."

"The spectators just now should inform the City Lord's Mansion. We have to collect as many clues as possible before they arrive. Time is short, so everyone should act separately." Bai Chao patted the silenced Lan Huailin, "You can't talk, so act with me. Otherwise, I'm afraid that a weakling like you won't be able to call for help if you get into a fight with others."

Veins bulged on Lan Huailin's forehead and he roared even louder.

Bai Chao: "Speak human language, I don't understand your babble."

Lu Jinzhao randomly chose a direction and walked towards the yard. Sui Guanxian followed suit, put his hands in his sleeves, and followed him with a smile.

The two men and the cat came to a room that was suspected to be the owner's bedroom. There was no strange smell or abnormality inside, and the furnishings were all normal. He used his spiritual power to probe in the cracks in the brick and tile walls that were invisible to the naked eye. He did not touch the hidden compartment or secret room as he had imagined, but he sensed a booklet under the bed.

Lu Jinzhao walked over, took out the booklet that was glued to the bed board with special techniques from under the bed, opened the first page and began to read.

Qiansui took a look and read aloud: "Chen Ergou, five years old, male, captured outside Qingshan Town, sold by Zhang Mazi on the seventh day of the third month of the Jiachen year, worth one hundred gold coins."

"Wang Xiaohua, 18 years old, female, captured in Cuiyun City, sold by Liu Sandao on March 22, Jiachen year, valued at 400 silver coins."

Chitose was shocked: "This looks like a secret account for human trafficking!"

Lu Jinzhao quickly flipped to the last page and saw the account book recording the accounts of the Cui Mansion in recent years. He put it into the storage bag and said, "I think the Cui Mansion massacre is related to their human trafficking. Let's look for other clues."

Sui Guanxian had a mysterious smile on his face throughout the whole process, as if to say "my son has grown up", and he leaned against the door frame without saying a word, watching his movements.

Qiansui had a lot of complaints but nowhere to tell them. If he did, he would definitely get a beating, so he finally chose to turn a blind eye.

In the hall of Cui's house, the tables and chairs were all over the place, in a mess. The calligraphy and paintings on the walls were also crooked, as if they had been through a fierce fight. Bai Chao led Lan Huailin to search carefully in the hall, hoping to find more evidence of the Cui's family massacre.

"Look, there's a letter here." Ye Wuhen shouted.

The other two gathered around and saw that the letter contained some obscure content, but it mentioned a certain circus troupe in the south of the city many times. Lan Huailin's eyes flashed with excitement, and he pointed at the letter and kept saying "ah ah ah", as if to say that there must be something wrong there.

Xue Yiting, who was watching at the door, said from the sound transmission stone: "Someone is coming. Let's go first."

Lu Jinzhao replied, "Go separately from the back door and meet at the stone bridge five miles away."

On the stone bridge.

Several people shared the clues they had discovered.

"The Cui family actually did such a dirty thing in private, they deserve to have few offspring and their entire family be exterminated!" Xue Yiting was so angry that he wanted to go back and whip the corpse on the spot, "The case has been solved, we don't need to investigate further! We have done a good thing by destroying the human trafficking den!"

Bai Chao nodded: "I agree."

"You're right, but we haven't found Zhang Mazi and Liu Sandao yet." Cheng Yuanyuan added, "We still don't know the whereabouts of the missing children either."

Zuo Shishi: "Yeah, even if we don't catch the man behind the scenes, we have to at least find those children, right?"

Ye Wuhen took out the letter and said, "The den of thieves may be in the south of the city. Let's go and take a look now."

Xi Moxuan looked at the place name and said, "I know where it is. I'll lead the way."

After a while, they came to a sealed door.

"It should be here." Xi Moxuan said softly.

The faint smell of blood coming from the door gave them a bad feeling.

Pushing the door open, I found that the circus had been abandoned, with most of the stage collapsed and the wooden boards scattered around, some still hanging there, precariously. The once gorgeous decorations had also faded, leaving only mottled traces.

Cheng Yuanyuan was stunned: "Are you sure this is a theatre troupe?"

"It looks like it has been abandoned for a short time." Bai Chao looked around. "There is a lot of blood, which means someone died. I guess that's why it was not included in the missing persons case."

Zuo Shishi frowned and said, "There's no body, but the scene hasn't been cleaned up. The people in the City Lord's Mansion are really not careful in their work."

"Who wouldn't say that?" Xi Moxuan shrugged. "It's precisely because the atmosphere in Duli City is not very good that I want my neighbors to move to the foot of the sect mountain so that they can have some shelter."

Xue Yiting summoned his spirit beast: "Black Mastiff, smell it and see if there are any hidden passages or human children nearby."

Black Mastiff is the name he gave to the armored liger he contracted, because of the large area of ​​black on its surface and the fact that it looks like an adult mastiff at first glance.

Bai Chao nudged him with his elbow: "Boy, why didn't you think of summoning earlier?"

"The appearance of a monster in the town will cause panic." Xi Moxuan looked at the airtight walls around him and sighed, "The City Lord's Mansion is very quick in this matter. They are collecting monster inner pills and materials everywhere. If a fight really breaks out, Xue Yiting may not be able to protect the Black Mastiff."

Xue Yiting also sighed: "Yes, even among summoners, there are acts of killing the master and seizing the beast. What's more, the contract between me and Black Mastiff is different from the traditional summoner contract. There is no mark of the summoned beast, so it is easy for him to be mistaken for an ordinary monster that accidentally entered the human territory."

While they were chatting, the black mastiff smelled a secret door hidden under the stage and howled at Xue Yiting.

Several people cleaned up the wooden boxes and dust on the stage and carefully opened the secret door, revealing a dark passage inside.

There was a foul smell in the passage, which made people frown.

Lu Jinchao was the first to summon Qie Man and flew into the passage to test whether there were any mechanical restrictions.

Not long after, the sword flew back and made a humming sound, informing them that they had not detected any fluctuations in spiritual power. Only then did they feel relieved and walked into the secret passage.

Ye Wuhen took out a tinder from his bosom and lit it. The faint light slightly dispelled the darkness. They walked slowly along the passage, taking every step with extreme caution, fearing that they would trigger some trap.

"This place is really eerie and weird." Xue Yiting said in a low voice.

Bai Chao: "Don't scare yourself. Find the place where the stolen goods are sold first."

The passage was winding and seemed to have no end. Water drops occasionally slid down the wall, making a dripping sound that was particularly clear in this silent space.

After walking for an unknown amount of time, they had already walked out of the city of Duli, and finally saw a ray of light ahead. Everyone was delighted and quickened their pace as they walked towards the light.

When they walked out of the passage, they were shocked by the scene in front of them. It was a huge basement, surrounded by various sundries, and in the corner, a group of children were curled up.

The oldest of the children looked no more than ten years old, and the youngest was probably only four or five years old. They looked pale and thin, and their eyes were full of fear and helplessness.

Qiansui compared them with the data of his previous investigation, "Among these children, there are no children of Old Li and Aunt Liu. They must be the children abducted by the Cui family."

The oldest child bravely stepped forward, blocking the other children and shouting in a hoarse voice: "Who are you?! Don't mess around!"

“What pitiful children…” Zuo Shishi took out food from her storage bag and tried to pass it to them. She couldn’t help but whispered, “Don’t be afraid. We are here to save you.”

At this moment, a chill suddenly came over me, and the temperature of the entire basement seemed to drop a lot in an instant.

A vicious wind blew past, and before anyone could react, the children disappeared without a trace.

Lu Jinzhao and Sui Guanxian also disappeared.

Bai Chao and Cheng Yuanyuan shouted sharply: "Little Senior Brother!!!"