The Secret Chamber of the Card Game

The crisp sound from outside the window made the teammates silent in unison. In the summer noon, the sudden sound of rattles sent a chill down Xiao Lou's spine for no reason.

He took a deep breath, walked to the window, opened the window and looked out——

The sound came from the alley behind the inn.

The alleys were shaded and dimly lit.At this time, there were no extra pedestrians in the alley, only a young man, wearing a navy blue gown and a hat of the same color, dressed like a scholar.

The man held a rattle drum in his hand and kept shaking it. The bullets on both sides of the rattle drum hit the drum surface, making a rhythmic clang sound, and there was a pattern clearly printed on the drum surface——it was one of the Chinese zodiac signs. sheep.

The painted lamb is lifelike, and the man walks forward while playing with the rattle, smiling and brisk on his feet.Xiao Lou looked back at Yu Hanjiang, and asked his opinion with his eyes, the latter said in a low voice, "It's not like a murderer."

Xiao Lou also felt that this person did not look like a murderer, could it be just a coincidence?

Just as she was thinking, a girl dressed as a maid suddenly ran into the alley from the other end, walked quickly to the man, and asked out of breath, "Master, where have you been? Young Madam has been looking for you everywhere!"

The man smiled slightly, and said softly, "Don't worry, I'll go buy something fun for the child." He shook the rattle in his hand as he spoke, "I heard that if the child keeps crying at night, Use this to tease me and stop crying."

The servant girl said helplessly: "Buy some toys for the young master, and let the servants go. Why do you need to go all the way yourself..."

The man waved his hand: "Okay, okay, I'll go back now."

The two walked out of the alley one after the other.

In the next room, Ye Qi opened the window and saw this scene, heaved a sigh of relief, put down the window, pressed the earphones and said, "I was really shocked just now, when I heard the sound of rattles, I thought the murderer came to the door."

Qu Wanyue said with a smile: "It should be just a coincidence. The young father was out to buy toys for the children, and passed by the alley behind the inn. We just happened to talk about the rattle, and everyone was so nervous that they were shocked."

Xiao Loudao: "Have you noticed the pattern on his rattle?"

Ye Qi said: "I saw it, is it a lamb?"

Shao Qingge said firmly: "I went to the old man's booth today, and I saw all the patterns of the twelve zodiac signs. The one in his hand is indeed a sheep, and his child should belong to the sheep."

Xiao Lou looked at the rattle drum he got from Zhao’s house—since the rattle drum is a toy for children, the maker would do some beautification when drawing the pattern. The little tiger on the drum surface was very cute, and he was wearing red Clothes, anthropomorphic painting is obviously more popular with children.

Yu Hanjiang followed Xiao Lou's gaze to look at the drum face, and said, "The young father just mentioned that the child kept crying in the middle of the night, and it is very likely that his child is not yet one year old... Is this the Year of the Goat?"

Shao Qingge said: "It should be the Year of the Goat. At the booth of the old man who sells toys, a rattle with a drawing of a goat is hung in the front, and there are also some colorful dough figures, who also made cute lamb shapes."

Xiao Lou calculated carefully, and said: "According to the order of the twelve zodiac signs, this year is the year of the sheep, and the famine 20 years ago... should be the year of the pig. The tiger is 9 years older than the pig. The rattle found at home belongs to the murderer, whose zodiac sign is tiger, so when the famine happened 20 years ago, the murderer was probably just a 9-year-old child?"

Yu Hanjiang added: "It may also be an adult aged 21, 33, or 45."

属虎的，一轮12年，当年的凶手有可能是9岁、21岁、33岁、45岁。

Xiao Loudao: "In other words, the current murderer may be 29, 41, 53, or 65 years old?"

Yu Hanjiang said: "The possibility of being 53 and 65 years old is relatively low. The average life expectancy of the ancients was not long. Old people over 50 years old will suffer from various diseases. It is difficult to kill dozens of people in a row without compromising. So, the biggest possibility is that the murderer was a 9-year-old child or a 21-year-old young man when the famine happened, and now he is 29 or 41 when he comes back to take revenge."

After locking the age, the scope of the investigation will be much narrowed.

All Tigers in the town, young and middle-aged people aged 29 and 41, are likely to commit crimes.

Xiao Loudao: "I don't know if there is any government-like institution in this town? If you can find the roster and files of the town's residents, it will be easier to investigate."

Shao Qingge said: "Since it's a small town, there should be a mayor, right? We can take advantage of lunch time to find out."

One morning passed, and it happened to be lunch time, and everyone went downstairs to eat in batches.

The inn obviously became lively, and many passing travelers came here to stay and eat.

Shao Qingge repeated his old tricks and asked the waiter to order a few plates of the most expensive dishes. When the other party was serving the food, he slipped a silver coin to the waiter and asked in a low voice: "Xiaoer, please ask, your mayor Where do you live? I'm a businessman from out of town and I want to pay a visit."

The waiter happily accepted the money, and whispered to Shao Qingge: "Guest officer, are you looking for our mayor? His name is Qin Feng, and he lives in the courtyard at the east end of Xiushui Lane. Our mayor is a nice person." He often helps the old people in the town to carry water and chop firewood, and he will visit them in person when they give birth to a child. Although he is very young, the villagers respect him very much.”

Ye Qi asked curiously, "How old is he, is he married?"

The shop clerk scratched his head and said, "Under thirty, I haven't married a wife yet. However, the matchmaker who told him about marriage was about to break through the threshold of his house, and he rejected them all. He said that he already had a relationship, and had already had a wife." Marriage, he has been waiting for the woman who has a marriage contract with him, alas, what an infatuated."

When Shao and Ye were inquiring about the news, Ye Qi kept pressing the bump on the earphone, so other teammates could hear the information that the waiter said in a low voice.

Xiao Lou looked at Yu Hanjiang and asked softly, "Is this mayor suspected?"

Yu Hanjiang nodded: "We can't enter the town at night, so we will find a way to investigate him in the afternoon."

Lu Jiuchuan stayed behind at the Taohuayuan outside the town.

The Taohuayuan can only exist for 3 hours, and it will disappear automatically when the time is up.At this time, Taohuayuan had disappeared, so he and Tang Ci simply found a shady place in the woods to hide.The two of them had been listening in on the teammate's discussion. Hearing this, Lu Jiuchuan couldn't help interjecting, "Are Xiao Tang and I still staying outside the town? Why don't we both go investigate."

Tang Ci also wanted to find something to do. He pressed the headset and said softly: "The town looks normal during the day, with many residents coming in and out. Brother Jiu and I still have the invisibility cloak skills, so we can find opportunities to sneak in." The mayor's house."

Xiao Lou thought for a while and said, "Okay, then I will trouble Brother Nine and Mr. Tang to check on this Qin Feng."

The town during the day is not like the maze of ghost towns at night, so there is no need for Jiu Ge and Tang Ci to stay outside the town to open a peach blossom garden.What's more, the skills of the two Tao Yuanming cards have cooled down at this time, it is useless for them to stay outside the town, they might as well come in to help.

Xiao Lou and others who visited the town at night last night, their invisibility cloaks have cooled down, and the card skills of Lu Jiuchuan and Tang Ci are still there, so they can just use the 30 minutes of invisibility to do some investigations.

Yu Hanjiang whispered: "If the murderer is the mayor, the residents of the town trust him very much. It should be easy for him to find a way to control everyone's consciousness. Brother, the focus of your investigation is the mayor's Age, origin, life background, and second, try to find the roster of town residents from him, and take pictures with a drone after you find it. The invisibility cloak is only 30 minutes, go back quickly.”

Lu Jiuchuan simply said: "Understood! Let's act now."

The two didn't go into the small town to eat, they just opened the resource supply Cary's milk, chocolate and instant noodles to make do with a meal, then found a place where no one was around, put on the invisibility cloak, and sneaked into the town quickly.

According to the instructions of the shop assistant, Jiu Tang and the two soon came to Xiushui Lane - this is a very secluded alley, and there are several families living in it. The mayor's residence is at the end of the road. Simple and elegant.

In order to make sure that there was no one in the house, Lu Jiuchuan threw the bug on the wall and listened intently for a while, but did not hear any sound, and then the two climbed over the wall and entered the small courtyard.

There are many medicinal herbs drying in the yard, and you can smell the fragrance of herbs as soon as you enter the door.

The mayor was not at home, so he might have gone out on business, which happened to be convenient for the two of them to investigate.

Lu Jiuchuan and Tang Ci opened the door and went in - the interior of the room was also very simple and cleaned very clean and tidy.

All bamboo furniture looks like handmade.There are two rows of bamboo chairs in the large living room, which can accommodate dozens of people for meetings at the same time.There is a study and a bedroom next to it, and the two of them check the bedroom first.

There is an old solid wood cabinet in the bedroom. There is an iron lock on the door, and important materials should be stored in it.

Lu Jiuchuan used the master key to open the iron lock, and he saw a thick stack of books inside. He quickly took out the book and opened it, and asked Tang Ci to take pictures of the contents with a drone.

These books recorded in detail the family members and birthdays of all residents in the town.

Lu Jiuchuan noticed sharply that the missing persons of Zhao Zeping and Chen Yu were all recorded in one of the blue registers, and their names were marked with bright red crosses with red pens.

Those red crosses are shocking.

In a roster, more than [-]% of them are red crosses. I don't know that Zhao and Chen, and many people have also been marked with red crosses!

Tang Ci took a deep breath—this roster is like a "dead man's roster". Could it be that the murderer is killing people according to the roster?

He quickly took these pictures with the drone, and then asked Lu Jiuchuan to restore the roster in the previous order, put it back in the cabinet, and relock the iron lock.

The two walked out of the bedroom and came to the study.

The study room is filled with all kinds of books, including books related to medicine, herbal medicine, and acupuncture. There is also a row of shelves full of medicine bottles of various colors. The names of the medicines are marked on those bottles. It seems that the mayor is still Know some medicine.

Lu Jiuchuan looked around and said in a low voice, "Look around, see if there are secret doors, secret rooms, etc."

Tang Ci carefully inspected the bookcase. All the books were placed neatly. Most of the books had a small amount of dust on them. It is normal for the open bookcase to have dust on the books.

However, there is a row of books, which is obviously much cleaner than the books next to it.

Tang Ci stepped forward and took out the thick "Compendium of Materia Medica" on the top, but at the next moment, there was a rumbling sound in his ear - the bookcase in front of him was actually split into two, revealing the middle one Secret door!

There are long steps leading to the ground behind the secret door. The light in the room is extremely dim, and the end of the steps cannot be seen at all.

There must be a secret in this hidden door!

Just as the two were about to go down, the courtyard door was suddenly pushed open.

There was a sound of footsteps walking towards the study.

The owner of the yard is back.

It's too late to go down and investigate now, so I can only take pictures of the secret room as quickly as possible.

The flying speed of the drone is much faster than the two of them climbing the stairs, Lu Jiuchuan lowered his voice and said: "Use the drone!"

Tang Ci quickly released the drone to take pictures of the secret room.

Almost the moment he retracted the drone, the door of the living room was slowly pushed open by the man.

Walking through the living room is the study where the two are.

Tang Ci hurriedly put the book back and closed the door of the darkroom. Lu Jiuchuan quickly came to the window, found Tang Ci's position by feeling, gently grabbed Tang Ci's wrist, pushed open the window and said, "Go!"