Chapter 19 Intuitive Analysis
Nightfall.
The weather is changing again.
There was a layer of clouds in the sky, and fine snow particles fell down on my head again.
In the middle of Jiangtanzi Street, at the entrance of Micu Hutong, more than ten feet into the alley, there are several small stalls on the roadside. Along the wall of the alley, there is a row of small square tables with large oilcloth umbrellas above them.
The air was filled with the strong smell of fried stinky tofu, the pungent smell overwhelmed the aroma wafting from the grilled lamb skewers and roasted pig's trotters stalls nearby.
Lao He was holding a roasted pig's trotter in his left hand, with several plates and dishes in front of him. He was holding chopsticks in his right hand, and eating happily with a bowl of soy milk, a mouthful of stinky tofu and a mouthful of pig's trotter.
At the nearby square table, five burly, fierce-looking men were holding bowls and chopsticks, swallowing hot red oil wontons in big mouthfuls.
These five men are the so-called 'ghosts in the ground'.
They were all idlers in the city of Haojing, the scum of the lowest class of society.
But as the saying goes, every shrimp has its own way, these scum have their own way of survival.
Whether it is the Sikoutai, the yamen of each district, the Shougongjian, or even the General's Mansion, the Censorate, or even the Taifu and Shaofu yamen, there are all kinds of things in all aspects that need these "ghosts in the ground" to help.
Especially for an office like the Guard Palace Supervisor, whether it is gathering information, charging into battle, taking the blame, or even risking one's life, all kinds of shameful activities need the help of these "temporary workers".
These five local ghosts are Lao He’s regular subordinates.
On weekdays they just wander around the streets and alleys, and Lao He gives them a fixed salary every month.
If something happens, five underground ghosts can just give a call and pull together a team of twenty or thirty people on the street.
Now that Lu Yi seemed to have made some discoveries, Lao He gathered them together immediately.
Lu Yu and Lao He sat at the same table with two bowls of noodles in front of them. The cold wind blew, and a layer of white frost had formed on the noodle soup.
With the dim light of the oil lamp on the stall, he was flipping through a small white cover notebook.
The above records the situation from the 20th day of the twelfth lunar month before the New Year until today, when the Shougong Prison investigated the case of the attack on Anlefang Ling He Jun.
Lao He's rank is not high enough, or rather, the status of their team's leader, the three-star strongman Lu Tianxing, is not high enough. The information recorded in the small notebook in Lu Yi's hand is extremely limited.
Information that is too confidential will not appear in this little book.
All Lu Yi could see were some ordinary public messages.
Among them was detailed information about the guards who had been killed in Lu Tianxing's team in recent days.
What Lu Yi needed was exactly the information related to the casualties of the guards.
He read the records in the small notebook carefully, almost word for word, closed his eyes, and summarized all the information in his mind.
After thinking silently for a while, Lu Yi took out the complete map of Jiangtanzi Street, Youlouzi Street and Zhenglong Hutong that Lao He had found.
The two north-south streets and the large alley running east-west form a "兀" shape, which is the area that Lu Tianxing's team of palace guards are responsible for on a daily basis.
There are more than a thousand businesses and thousands of households on Jiangtanzi Street, as well as many restaurants, brothels and casinos. It is a first-class place of fireworks in Fengtiaofang.
There are hundreds of workshops of all sizes on Youlouzi Street, producing everything from furniture making to gilding and silver engraving, and all kinds of handicrafts can be found here.
Zhenglong Hutong is a special street, which has nothing to do with steamed buns or steamed bread. On both sides of the hutong, there are more than a thousand quiet courtyards, which are full of young girls and wives doing half-closed business. They are of very high quality and their average worth is more than ten times higher than that of their counterparts in brothels.
There are two main streets and a big alley, with shops, workshops, houses, and various entertainment venues. The flow of people is extremely complex, the business is extremely prosperous, and the profits are extremely lucrative.
Lu Tianxing usually brings about a hundred guards to manage these two streets and one alley. They are well-fed and well-fed, and each of them is quite wealthy.
"This Liu Wu family has a store on Jiangtanzi Street!"
Lu Yu pointed on the map and tapped hard at the intersection of Jiangtanzi Street and Youlouzi Street.
"It's a silk shop, not big, and you can't even get a queue on Jiangtanzi Street." Lao He obviously put a lot of effort into it. As soon as Lu Yi brought up the topic, he immediately followed up with the conversation: "He has his own silk reeling business, and he also hired some female workers to make some silk."
"However, the quality of his silk cocoons is excellent, but the craftsmanship of the women workers is too poor, so the finished silk products can only be considered mediocre."
"His silk shop doesn't make much money."
"It's his shop itself, it's his family's property. This shop has two courtyards in front and back. The front yard has three floors, and the backyard is very well maintained... Tsk tsk, I don't know which gentleman will get the benefit later!"
Lao He lowered his voice and murmured with great envy: "This shop is on Jiangtan Street. If you don't have a million strings of cash, you can't get it."
Lu Yi looked at Lao He and blinked his eyes.
Lao He seemed to think that Lu Yu didn't believe him, so he subconsciously raised his voice a little: "Don't disbelieve me, in Fengtiaofang, such a big shop with two entrances, it's this price."
"Don't think it's expensive. Many wealthy people from other places, with gold and silver, still can't buy a good shop on Fengtiaofang Jiangtan Street. If a shop on this street is well managed, it can be passed down from generation to generation, and future generations will benefit endlessly!"
Lu Yi nodded and tapped the map several times. "The brother who was killed the day before yesterday was killed near the intersection of Jiangtanzi Street and Huangjiang Hutong."
"Look, it's not far from this silk shop."
"Of course, this silk shop has nothing to do with the brothers' murder. This shop is too conspicuous and the target is too big. Unless Liu Wu is a fool, he would not be so stupid as to run near this shop and show his face at such a critical moment."
"Also, among the eighteen brothers who were killed, three of them, along with the nineteen underground ghosts who helped them, were killed with a single sword strike. The sword strike was extremely fierce and ruthless, and extremely accurate and efficient. The sword cut off their throats with just one strike, and there was no other excessive damage."
"And the other fifteen brothers, along with the sixty-three underground ghosts, have extremely complex injuries."
"Knives, swords, daggers, short spikes, ox-horn axes, hammers, whips, maces, brass knuckles, etc. According to the coroner's analysis, the injuries on their bodies were made of a total of 29 weapons, and most of them were poisoned, and the poisons were complex, including mineral poisons, animal poisons, and plant poisons. One of the brothers was poisoned by a mixture of poisons."
"They also had injuries on their fists , palms, and fingers."
"These fist, palm, and finger techniques also come from thirteen different fist, palm, and finger techniques."
"But these fists, palms, and fingers have one common characteristic, which is that they are extremely vicious. Their strength is all feminine, penetrating the internal organs, breaking bones and tendons. On the surface, the skin is intact, but the inside of the place where it is hit is all rotten like bean dregs."
Old He closed his mouth and listened obediently to Lu Yi's analysis.
To be honest, investigating cases, hunting down criminals, gradually unraveling clues, finding the murderer behind the case and bringing him to justice, all these technical tasks are the specialties of the detectives in the Sikoutai.
As for the Guardian, he is better at 'weaving a big net', 'monitoring the world', 'fabricating charges' and 'confiscating property and exterminating the clan'.
Lu Yi's analysis seemed to open a new door for Lao He, allowing him to glimpse into a brand new world.
Like the five men at the table next to him who were also listening carefully, he looked at Lu Yi with eyes wide open and in amazement.
Although I still didn't understand the profound meaning of Lu Yi's words.
But it sounds really professional and impressive.
Lu Yi closed his eyes.
Green light flowed in his eyes , and in his mind, the lotus-seed-shaped spiritual light trembled slightly. Amidst the large light floating around, his thinking ability was operating at a power several times higher than that of ordinary people, and he tried his best to analyze the information brought by Lao He.
Based on these materials, Lu Yi, relying on an intuition, summarized and inferred the most likely analysis results.
"Two groups of people."
Lu Yi murmured, "There were two groups of people who killed our brothers."
"A group of people, precise, efficient, and of extraordinary origin. They should be involved with Liu Wu. They are the ones who helped Liu Wu clean up the clues that he accidentally left behind. They are the ones who killed the three brothers, and they are the ones with extremely sharp swordsmanship."
"Well, you see, the three brothers died the earliest, on the 23rd, 25th, and 26th of the twelfth lunar month before the New Year. They were murdered by someone. During those three days, they must have tracked down some reliable clues, but they were greedy for credit and wanted to take all the credit. As a result, they were discovered and decisively killed."
"The place where they died should be related to Liu Wu."
"After the death of the three brothers, Liu Wu must have been warned or frightened, so he disappeared and never showed up again. The deaths of the brothers who followed had nothing to do with that group of people with sharp swordsmanship."
"As for the other group, they are mixed, vicious, and violent. They have no discipline. But judging by the strength of their palm, fist, and finger techniques, they are from the same lineage. The main techniques they practice are from the same family."
"Many of the injuries on the bodies of the fifteen brothers who were killed were unnecessary. The people who did this not only wanted to kill them, but also wanted to vent their anger, torture them severely, and even intimidate their opponents."
"There is a big fish hiding in our team's territory."
Lu Yi opened his eyes and looked at Lao He with clear eyes.
The moment he opened his eyes, it was as if two cold swords pierced out of his pupils. Lao He and the five men did not dare to look him in the eye and turned their heads away in a hurry.
Lu Yi tapped his fingers on the map.
On the map, next to Jiangtanzi Street, Youlouzi Street and Zhenglong Hutong, near the canal east of Fengtiaofang, there is a very large neighborhood with a total of three streets and five alleys, which is marked in light red on the map.
"Si Ji Fang, no one thought of investigating it?" Lu Yu asked Lao He.
Old He shuddered, then shook his head desperately: "No one dares. No one dares. The generals and eunuchs above don't dare either!"
