Living Paper

nostalgia/article

"Coffin?" Huo Zhenye wrote this down and went back to tell Bai Zhun.

The big head said again: "Mr. Huo, can you come to the arrest room? There is a case that everyone wants to ask you to take a look at?"

"What case?" Huo Zhenye handed the money to the owner of the cigarette shop while holding the phone, and said softly, "Please buy me some more candies and chocolates."

Bai Zhun eats this stuff especially fast.

The owner of the Tobacco Hotel took the money into the counter and nodded with a smile: "Or is it the Sullivan Candy Company?" Only Mr. Huo buys this kind of thing every day. If it weren't for him, there would be very little stock in the store.

Huo Zhenye nodded, listening to the big head talking about the case.

"Two tailors are dead."

"How long was the interval between murders?"

"One day later." In the last missing child case, the big head firmly remembered how Huo Zhenye found clues, and there must be some connection to the case with similarities.

"Where is the way to die?" Huo Zhenye glanced and saw the young owner of the tobacco shop shrinking behind the counter.

He smiled and turned around, leaning his back against the counter, shook out a cigarette from the silver cigarette case, and took a couple of puffs while he was outside: "Go on."

"Strangled."

Huo Zhenye took a puff, reached out and pinched out the cigarette: "I don't have time these few nights, so I'll go to the arresting house in the afternoon." In the evening, he will help Bai Zhun make a paper kimono.

"Good class."

After Huo Zhenye finished speaking, he hung up the phone, walked through the long alley, and returned to the small building of Bai's house.

The children in the alley saw him holding a casserole in his hand and carrying a paper bag, and they all leaned over. Huo Zhenye smiled, bent down, and each child took out a handful of candy from the paper bag.

"Take less of this." Bai Zhun likes to eat candies wrapped in colored cellophane.

Several children looked at each other, smiled and threw the transparent fruit candy into the paper bag.

Bai Zhun was sleeping on the bed. In his sleep, he could still hear the glass wind chime of Axiu string outside the house. There was a crisp "ding dong", and then it turned around again, and another "ding dong".

There is a row of flowerpots at the base of the patio wall, red, yellow, white and green, some are in season, some have not yet been opened, all brought back by Huo Zhenye, among them is a pot of epiphyllum, which has grown five or six flower buds and is about to bloom up.

There is also a wire cage hanging by the wall, and it raises a white-rumped red-crowned sparrow, which is about the same shape as a paper yellow finch, with a tuft of red hair on its forehead, a light red chest, and a soft white velvet around its waist, chirping in the cage. Tweeting non-stop.

Since it entered the gate of Bai's house, the little squirrel has been flying around the cage, standing on the top of the cage with two feet, and occasionally picking up some leaves and petals from the patio and throwing them into the cage to please the bird.

But the White-rumped Vermilion Ding didn't pay attention to the little yellow finch at all. It was interested in this goldfinch at first, but no matter how it croaked, Gold Wing didn't reply to it.

It was a dumb bird, Zhu Ding turned his head and ignored it.

Bai Zhun almost laughed out loud in his dream, but the moment he smiled, he woke up.

As soon as he woke up and smelled the fragrance, the bamboo wheelchair rolled into the living room. The casserole was already set on the table. Huo Zhenye rolled up his sleeves and divided the chopsticks: "Are you awake? Go wash up, the tofu won't taste good when it's cold."

The tofu soaked up the fresh soup, and it split into two halves with a swipe of the chopsticks. Scoop up a mouthful and serve it with the freshly steamed rice. The soup soaked in. Bai Zhun dug a spoonful of rice, dipped it into the soup, and ate it. Feel like eating less than half a bowl.

Huo Zhenye put the lid on the pot and said sternly, "I can't eat any more."

After living with Bai Zhun for a few days, he knows how delicate Bai Qiye is. If he eats more, his stomach will hurt. If he eats less, his stomach will hurt. He can drink at most one bottle of ice soda a day, and even if he drinks too much, his stomach will hurt.

Bai Zhun slowly put down the spoon, satiated, and went to the courtyard to water the flowers to digest the food.

"Your senior brother has left the city with Fu's coffin."

"Understood." Bai Zhun lowered his eyelids, his brother made paper to comfort thousands of dead souls, but he couldn't send his loved one away.

Huo Zhenye honestly asked him for leave again: "I will go to the arresting house in the afternoon, and I will definitely come back to accompany you into the temple at night."

"I need you to accompany me?"

"You don't need me to accompany you, isn't it agreed, let's eat sweet wine together."

Bai Zhun picked up the pot and turned his head to water the flowers. Huo Zhenye saw that it was about the same time and was about to go out. He patted his shoulder: "Ah Chiu, come here."

Ah Jiu couldn't hear, Ah Jiu circled the cage, and Ah Jiu gave Zhu Ding the torn rose petals.

Huo Zhenye had no choice but to walk over and hold Ah Jiu in his hand: "Let's go."

While driving, he said to the dejected little squirrel, "How about changing another dark green embroidered eye for you?"

The little squirrel jumped onto the steering wheel and pecked at the back of his hand with its beak. Huo Zhenye touched it with his backhand: "Don't you really want dark green eyes? The lovesick bird is also good, with a red beak and green hair, and a red ring around its chest."

The little squirrel turned its buttocks and ignored him.

The big head was waiting for him at the door of the arresting room. As soon as Huo Zhenye stopped the car, he trotted forward, got into the car, and went straight to the scene.

When other people investigate a case, they always try the prisoner first. Mr. Huo is different, he has to see the scene first.

"That street is almost all selling fabrics to make clothes, and the distance between the two shops is only a dozen meters." Two tailors died in three days, and the rest of the shops dared not open their doors.

"Are there any suspects?"

"In the first case, the suspect was an apprentice, and everyone has been arrested. The second case happened again." It reminded the big head of the Huaguo case.

"The doors of the two cases are closed, and no outsiders have ever entered the house of the person who died." The shop doors are all closed with wooden boards, and the neighbors will definitely hear the wooden door when it is moved in the middle of the night.

Huo Zhenye parked the car on the side of the road, looked at the distance between the two shops, it was really not far away, just a few steps away, and looked at the alley behind the shop again: "Which side is the first shop?" ?”

"This way."

The big head pointed, and Huo Zhenye walked into the store in a few steps. He frowned as soon as he entered the door. There was a very faint smell of blood here, and he couldn't smell it unless he smelled it carefully.

He asked the big head: "Do you smell anything?"

Datou opened his nostrils and sniffed a few times: "No, is it the smell of mothballs?"

There are a lot of ready-made clothes in the store, and there are also fabrics sent by customers to be cut. Every tailor shop will always store some camphor borneol to prevent mildew.

"It's not that smell." Huo Zhenye went inside. Tailor Zhou had two apprentices, one was seventeen or eighteen years old, and the other was just in his early ten years. The older one was regarded as a suspect and was still locked in the arrest room.

The younger one guarded the shop, the shopkeeper died, and he would have nowhere to go in the future, so he sat in the shop with a sad face.

Opening a tailor shop, the interpersonal relationship is relatively complicated, but Tailor Zhou has never owed rent, never had a quarrel with anyone, and is very honest. He has never heard of him greedy for other people's materials. famous.

Huo Zhenye looked at the little apprentice, he was about the same age as the children in Yu Qingli, but he had already made a living by himself: "Is there anything wrong with your master those few days?"

The smell of blood in the room was too strong.

The little apprentice still had a slight accent in his speech. He thought for a long time: "The master has been making cheongsams for the past few days, and he has never been out of the house."

Then he took them to the small room dedicated to Tailor Zhou, with chalk, scissors, needlework on the table, and ready-made clothes hanging on the wall. Tailor Zhou's body was found here.

"He did it alone? Didn't ask you to help?"

"He said he was going to do it himself."

Huo Zhenye walked around the house, even visited the room where the fabrics were stored, but found nothing except the smell of blood: "Go to the second house."

The second tailor, Wang Tailor, not only makes clothes, but also sells fabrics. There is also a young apprentice and the proprietress.

As soon as she saw Huo Zhenye, her eyes lit up. She glanced up and down, and just when a smile appeared in her eyes, the corners of her eyes drooped again: "The officer is here."

"What are you doing?" Huo Zhenye asked.

The proprietress covered the corners of her mouth with a handkerchief, and pretended to cry twice: "When the guests come to get the materials and clothes, I will die as the head of the house. I can't stay in Shanghai, so I have to go back to the countryside."

While talking, she looked at Huo Zhenye out of the corner of her eye, her eyebrows curled up, and she was about to cry.

Huo Zhenye's expression remained unchanged: "Is there only three people in the shop?"

The proprietress sat upright and brushed her hair: "It turned out that there was an apprentice who was very immature and stupid. He couldn't learn it no matter what, so we drove him back to the countryside."

"How long have you been walking?"

"One month? I don't remember." As he said that, someone came to pick up the materials. He didn't even dare to enter the door of the tailor's shop, so the proprietress hurried to get busy.

Huo Zhenye walked into the shop, there was no smell of blood, not only no smell of blood, but also a smell that shouldn't be there now.

"Mr. Huo, I smell it!" Datou sucked a few times, "It smells like perfume!"

Huo Zhenye frowned: "Yes, it smells like perfume. It's not that French products don't have this kind of fragrance." The shopkeeper Wang just died the night before, and the proprietress was spraying perfume happily yesterday.

"Go and find out when that apprentice left Shanghai, and what is his relationship with the proprietress."

The big head chuckled twice: "We have already inquired about this, and the neighbors said that this proprietress and that apprentice are a little unclear."

It was the little apprentice who said that when the master does not wash the feet of the mistress, it is the elder brother who will wash the feet of the mistress, and whether he should wash his feet when he grows up.

Tailor Wang was so angry that he drove the apprentice out with a rattan cane, and threw things all over the street. The proprietress opened the window and scolded: "You are allowed to blow smoke in this plague-stricken hall, and the old lady is not allowed to wash her feet?"

But people did walk for a month. When he walked with his things, the whole street was seen.Besides, that proprietress doesn't have the strength to strangle a mature man to death.

Tailor Wang's wife really became honest, and she was considerate and gentle to Tailor Wang. Everyone said that the tiger had turned into a cat.

"Everyone is gone, what kind of perfume does she still wear?" Huo Zhenye went upstairs a few steps and opened the door. He stood at the door and swept around, pointing to the foot of the bed: "If she really left, what kind of rope is still tied at the foot of the bed?" ?”

The rope is not far from the window, and the window is not along the street, but faces the alley, so people come up from below.

Huo Zhenye didn't want to go into a woman's room because he was afraid that he would smell of perfume all over his body. Bai Zhun's nose was sharper than a dog's, so if he smelled it, it would be terrible.

The big head went in, pushed open the window and saw that there was a rope grinding hole in the middle of the window. The building here is short, and you can climb the window and go upstairs with a few steps.

That man didn't leave Shanghai at all, he just waited for Tailor Wang to go to Changsantangzi to find a woman, and crawled in to sleep with his wife.

"Don't startle the snake. You can block people here for a few nights. If you are conspiring to murder someone, you can find out as soon as you ask." Meat must go together.

"Those two cases are irrelevant." The big head was worried.

"Turn around again, looking for clues." Huo Zhenye walked to the side of the street. The little oriole had been standing on his shoulder since just now, but it was not as lively as before, with its head drooping and motionless.

When Huo Zhenye walked along the street, it suddenly turned its head, flew to an open shop, and knocked on the door with its beak.

Huo Zhenye followed: "Do you think there is a problem here?"

The little squirrel nodded, Huo Zhenye knocked on the door, but no one answered.

The cloth seller next door heard a voice: "Lao Yan hasn't opened a shop for several days."

Through the crack of the door, Huo Zhenye smelled a very strong smell of blood.

The author has something to say: Chirp: Even though I’m broken in love, I’m still a capable chirp