Li Zhiyun divided the troops into two groups, and Dianjun of the Marriage Affairs Office took some of them to an inn, while he led others to another inn. Along the way, he was thinking about what he had just heard. The rumors in the wine shop were not reliable at all.

But those few

People say they have noses and eyes, and this is probably true. When he arrived at the door of the inn, he saw Liu Hong getting off the carriage, so he turned over and dismounted, walked over and stopped Liu Hong, and said: "Master Liu, who is the parent official of Pizhou City?"

who?"

"Pizhou City is on the boundary of Xinping County. Of course my parents are the magistrates of Xinping County. What, you want to go to the county government office?"

Li Zhiyun nodded and said, "I want to verify it."

"Then I'll go with you."

"No, you are old and tired from the journey, so you should go to the inn and rest."

Li Zhiyun left the inn with Zhang Zheng, Cai Hu and two other guards. After making inquiries along the way, he found the county government office. After the government servant on duty at the door went in to report, not long after, an official walked out quickly. He

He was about thirty years old, of medium build, and looked gentle and elegant. He walked up to Li Zhiyun, cupped his hands and said: "Xinping County Magistrate Wang Guo, I didn't know that the King of Chu was coming, so I missed him from afar. I hope you will forgive me!"

"It turns out to be Magistrate Wang, disrespectful, disrespectful."

Wang Bo welcomed Li Zhiyun and others into the lobby. After the guests and hosts were seated, the servants served tea. Wang Bo looked at Li Zhiyun and said, "I wonder what business the prince has to do in Pizhou?" Li Zhiyun smiled and said, "I am the king.

This visit is not for official business, but just to handle some personal matters. However, I just heard in the wine shop that a murder case occurred outside the city, and a whole family was killed. Is it true?"

"What you heard is true," County Magistrate Wang said. "The people who were killed were members of the Loujiazhuang family. Yesterday morning, I led a team of county government officials to the scene to investigate. The murder occurred between midnight and midnight the night before yesterday.

During this period, all nine members of the Lou family were killed. The prince may have heard that the Lou family is quite wealthy, and the murderer was obviously after yellow and white things."

Li Zhiyun asked: "Have you found any witnesses?" County Magistrate Wang shook his head and said: "None of them were found." Li Zhiyun frowned and asked in confusion: "The murderer killed people and made a lot of money. There was a lot of movement. Why were they not caught?

Did the neighbors find out?" Magistrate Wang quickly explained: "The prince does not know something. In addition to the building members and the family, there are still dozens of households living in Loujiazhuang.

Villagers, but their houses are far away from Lou's house, the nearest one is about a mile. In addition, the murder happened at midnight, and the villagers were all asleep, so no one witnessed it. Only a neighbor got up early to pick up excrement.

When I passed by Lou's house, I found the door open and the courtyard was in a mess. I felt something strange, so I went in to check, and only after finding the body did I report it to the authorities."

Li Zhiyun pondered for a moment and said, "I wonder if County Magistrate Wang can accompany me to the scene to inspect?" Although he is not Wang Guang's immediate boss, he is the prince after all, and he holds the position of Shangshu Ling, which ranks among the top three officials.

As a senior official in the court, he has the right to intervene in such a major case. Wang Chuang naturally did not dare to neglect, and quickly summoned a group of staff and government servants to personally accompany Li Zhiyun and others out of the city to Loujiazhuang.

.

The journey to Loujiazhuang is only five miles, and it takes less than half an hour to reach Loujiazhuang. Everyone entered the village and came to the door of the building member's wife's house. Li Zhiyun took a look and saw that the mansion covers a large area, about 1,000 square meters.

It is a house with three entrances and dozens of rooms covering an area of ​​ten or twenty acres. There is a pond in front of the house, a poplar forest to the east, and a large vegetable field to the west to see the houses of other villagers.

Although it has been two days since the tragedy occurred, there are still villagers in groups of three or three outside the gate. They are pointing and talking in low voices. On both sides of the gate, there are two slaves holding water and fire sticks. They are responsible for guarding the scene and not letting anyone in.

Idle people trespass.

Accompanied by Magistrate Wang, Li Zhiyun walked into the house. They walked through the courtyard and entered the hall. There were five corpses parked on the ground in the hall, all covered with white cloth. Magistrate Wang said: "There are still four more bodies parked on the ground."

In the west wing." Li Zhiyun looked at the corpses and said, "Have you done an autopsy in the afternoon?"

"They have all been tested. They were all killed by swords. There is nothing strange about them."

Li Zhiyun walked to a corpse and squatted down, lifting up the white sheet. The deceased was an old man, probably the head of the household. The face was bloody and almost unrecognizable. His eyes were bulging, two

His eyes almost popped out of their sockets, with a dead look on his face.

His face and neck were chopped several times, and the skin and flesh were rolled out from the knife edges. The condition was very miserable. Li Zhiyun had experienced many battles in the past two years and had seen many bloody scenes. After seeing this horrible face, he couldn't help but feel sad.

Shocking, if he had just traveled through time and seen such a tragic situation, he would have screamed in fright.

Li Zhiyun stood up after covering the sheets again, and saw a look of admiration on Magistrate Wang's face. Magistrate Wang probably thought that although he was young, he was quite courageous. He smiled, turned around and saw a case next to him.

On the table, there were two steel knives and a flag, so he walked over. The two steel knives had very sharp edges, and there was still purple-black blood stains on them. The flag was a small triangular flag with a

The word "Liang".

"What's this?"

"This is what I found in the house when I was inspecting the scene yesterday. It was probably lost by the murderer."

Li Zhiyun picked up the pennant, looked at it, and said, "County Magistrate Wang, in your opinion, what does the word "Liang" represent?"

"My official guesses, does the word "Liang" refer to Liang Shidu? Liang Shidu now occupies Diaoyin. Could it be that this group of strong men came from Diaoyin?"

Li Zhiyun pondered for a moment, then nodded and said: "It's possible. These robbers may have heard about the reputation of the building staff, and have evil thoughts, and come to kill people and steal property. However, if the robbers come from afar and rob property, they will be killed in broad daylight.

It is very inconvenient to walk on the official road, so they will probably look for a place to hide temporarily."

"Xiaoguan has also thought of this level," County Magistrate Wang said. "Yesterday, we notified the Pizhou garrison and asked them to set up checkpoints everywhere to check passing business travelers. Xiaguan also sent out government officials to go to restaurants along the way.

, searched the village shop and carriage shop, but nothing has been found so far.”

Li Zhiyun nodded and went to the west wing to take a look. After coming out of the west wing, Magistrate Wang said: "The body has been parked for two days. The official is building a coffin and preparing to carry out the funeral early tomorrow morning and let the deceased be buried.

An." Li Zhiyun thought for a while and said: "County Magistrate Wang, are there nine people in the Lou family?

? Are there any people who escaped by chance because they went out for some reason?" Magistrate Wang was stunned for a moment and said: "This official has never thought about it. I will immediately ask someone to check." After saying that, he turned and walked away, and met the person who had been following behind.

The staff discussed, while Li Zhiyun led the people through the hall and atrium and into a room in the back hall.

This was a large inner room, probably the bedroom of the couple outside the building. It was in a mess, and there were blood stains on the floor. Probably the owner was awakened from his sleep and screamed, and the gangsters rushed in and killed the couple.

Li Zhiyun said to his followers: "You all go search everywhere to see if you can find any clues." Upon hearing this, everyone dispersed, and Li Zhiyun also lowered his head and started searching in the house. After a while, Cai Hu came over.

, handed him a silver bracelet.

"Where did you find it?"

"Under the bed in the maid's room next door."

"This should be a pair, where is the other one?"

"Only one found."

Li Zhiyun lowered his head and looked at it. It was a silver double-buttoned bracelet with silk thread. The color was dull and dull. It was obviously old and probably an ancestral item. The two characters "Wei Ji" were chiselled on the inner wall of the bracelet.

It is roughly the name of the silver shop that made the bracelet.

Li Zhiyun put the silver bracelet into his sleeve. At this time, Magistrate Wang came in and said: "Your Majesty, I asked the chief clerk to find Li Zheng. He should know how many people there are in the Lou family." Seeing Li Zhiyun nod,

Magistrate Wang said again: "My lord, have you ever seen the secret room?"

"Secret room?"

"Yes, that's where the Lou family hides their gold and silver treasures."

"Where?"

"It's in the study." Magistrate Wang said, leading Li Zhiyun and others out of the bedroom and into a room at the west end.

This room is also very spacious. Like other rooms, it has been messed up inside. There are two rows of bookcases on the north wall, and a doorway is exposed in the middle for one person to enter and exit. Magistrate Wang asked a government servant to go in first.

The oil lamp was lit, and then he led everyone into the secret room. The secret room was underground, and the elevation of the ceiling was

It is about ten feet above the ground. The secret room covers an area of ​​about ten square meters and is about two feet and five inches high. The surrounding walls and floors are very dry. There were no waterproof membranes and waterproof glue in ancient times, but the ancients used their ingenuity to still

The waterproofing of basements can be done very well, as evidenced by the tomb chambers of emperors’ tombs of various dynasties.

Although there was nothing in the secret room at the moment, Li Zhiyun couldn't help but marvel at how many gold and silver treasures could be hidden in such a big secret room! What he was most concerned about now was the whereabouts of those gold and silver treasures.

Everyone came up from the secret room and returned to the study. Li Zhiyun began to look for the mechanism that opened the secret passage. There were two copper hooks nailed to the east wall, probably for hanging clothes. He walked over and twisted them with his hands, but they couldn't be twisted at all.

. He searched carefully and found nothing. Finally he noticed a Buddhist altar in the corner and walked over.

There were several ever-burning lamps enshrined in front of the Buddha statue. He picked up the lamps that had dried up and found that they had no roots. Finally, his eyes fell on the Buddha statue, and he stretched out his hands to rotate the Buddha statue to the left, but it could not turn at all.

, turned right again, and the Buddha statue actually became loose. With a "squeak", the two rows of bookcases closed automatically, and the entrance to the secret room disappeared.

Everyone was amazed. They had never seen such a mechanism, and Li Zhiyun had never seen it, except in movies. Zhang Zheng and Cai Hu scratched their heads - how could this King of Chu know everything? He could also do such weird things.

Understand. The floor member is really rich. I don’t know where he hired the skilled workers.

The craftsman created such an exquisite mechanism. This Buddha statue is the switch that opens the secret passage. Only when Li Zhiyun saw the secret room was he able to find the switch that opened the secret passage. People who don't know the truth will never know the underground construction of this study.
Chapter completed!