Chapter 50: Suspicion
February 14th
Shen Kuo rushed into the building without caring about anything. Everyone was shocked, even the puppet was stunned. Xu Chong secretly said that something was wrong and secretly moved forward a few steps.
"Who is so bold as to fight me..."
"It's me!"
Xu Chong shouted, pulled out his sword, and threw it at the puppet. The sword hit the puppet's neck exactly , but the puppet flew backwards and hit the wall heavily.
“Uh… good sword… technique… hehe… just wait… wait…” The puppet was still stubborn even after being stabbed.
In a blink of an eye, a fire started in the attic. Then the old donkey in the backyard was probably startled by the fire and started to scream.
When Xu Chong threw the knife, Shen Kuo was running up the stairs. He didn't know the reason for the commotion behind him and the crash upstairs. He didn't care whether it was a monster or a human, he just went up. Xu Chong took out a knife from the sheath of the messenger beside him and followed closely.
Shen Kuo turned up the stairs and saw that the puppet had been nailed to the wall with a knife and was now burning. The fire was burning the ancient paintings on the wall and began to spread.
"Put out the fire quickly." He shouted, but did not put out the fire himself. He rushed to the window facing the backyard first.
The window here was always open, and below was the barn. In front of the peach trees, each branch seemed to tremble slightly.
Xu rushed over from behind, and now he was no longer afraid, so he grabbed the hot knife handle and pulled it back violently. As soon as the knife was pulled out, the burning puppet fell to the ground. He stepped on it to put out the fire, and then tore off the burning painting on the wall and stepped on it to put it out, finally preventing the attic from being burned down.
Looking at the puppet again, it was burnt beyond recognition. The wood in its belly had cracked, and its face was burnt to a crisp, with the scary smile no longer visible.
Shen Kuo turned back from the window and saw that the puppet on the ground was still on fire. He squatted down quickly and pulled off the hot iron chains without paying attention to Li Cheng'an's warning. The knife was still stuck in the puppet's chest, but its wooden board was turned outward and the edges were curled up. The fire seemed to be burning from the inside. This evil thing actually burned most of itself.
He recognized it as Xu Chong's dagger and guessed that Xu Chong threw the knife at the critical moment. In fact, he had already seen Xu Chong's skill in this way when he was in Yu Silang's lair outside the city.
In any case, this monster was finally dealt with. Although Shen Kuo still had persistence in his heart, he did not think about what he was going to face when he rushed upstairs. He only had one thought in mind, which was to face the strange thing whose truth he could not see and whose principle he could not understand. He had long put life and death aside.
"Xu Jieji, your sword skills are truly amazing."
"Now, I finally know something good?" said Xu Chong, who was squatting on the side in a daze.
"What good news?"
"These monsters can be killed." Xu Chong said with a wry smile.
"Are you sure it won't come back to life?"
Xu Chong glanced at the charred and deformed puppet, whose limbs had fallen off, whose chest was cracked, and whose ears, eyes, nose and mouth were all smoking. He shook his head and said, "Even though he is evil, he is probably not going to survive after being burned like this with smoke coming out of all his orifices."
"Smoke coming out of all seven orifices?"
Xu Chong's words touched Shen Kuo. He quickly checked the head and then tried to disassemble the puppet. After a while, there was nothing left, whether it was the head or the belly. Of course, it was obvious that the cavity was hollow, so there must be something inside.
He thought of something else and quickly stood up and took the seven talismans that were neatly placed on the table to the candlestick and burned them.
"Brother Xu, when Taoist Li comes tomorrow, you will tell him that when this evildoer was alive, the talisman was still affixed, but the talisman could not suppress it and burned together with it."
"It's the only way, otherwise the Taoist priest will definitely blame us for our behavior."
When Xu Chong stood up, he saw the charred puppet figure on the wall, which made his scalp tingle. He also knew that a few days ago, the butcher in the Pig Slaughter Lane also threw a knife at the hat monster. At that time, the butcher was fine. He was still jumping around and showing off his courage to everyone. As a result, he had a seizure the next day, with a crooked nose, squinting eyes, and saliva flowing from his mouth. He hoped that he would not suffer the same misfortune.
The most terrifying thing about the underworld is not its tangible form, such as this burnt puppet, but the invisible fear it breeds in people's hearts. You don't know when its revenge will come.
February 14th
Hearing the night watch outside, another day had passed. Shen Kuo remembered something and hurried downstairs. Xiao Ping and Jin Er were gone. He asked someone and learned that the woman had injured her crutch and left with the help of her maid. Before she left, the maid borrowed a crutch from the old coroner and gave it to the eldest sister. When the eldest sister left, she asked the coroner to bring a message to Shen Kuo: Don't see each other again in this life.
Shen Kuo sighed, wondering if Xiao Ping was just saying these cruel words. Would she always hold a grudge against him and not allow him to explain?
It's unfair to say, Shen Kuo had actually given up the idea of scare her, and she was actually the one who removed the cloth covering the puppet herself.
"Alas, there was a donkey in the backyard that I was going to return to her, so she wouldn't have to walk around with a crutch. But it's a pity that she forgot about it."
He felt that one of the biggest mistakes he had made was that he did not have time to return the donkey, but keeping the donkey could give him an excuse to meet it again in the future, and perhaps there would be room for maneuver.
In any case, the revival of the puppet today did not scare the people in the city, and in fact did not alarm the neighbors nearby. It is finally a good thing.
When it was daybreak, Huailiang came excitedly, apparently having found the beeswax to seal the keyhole.
However, when he entered the yard, he had already realized that something was wrong, because the windows on the second floor were wide open and a faint blue smoke was still coming out.
He went straight upstairs, where Shen Kuo was fiddling with the burnt parts on the table. When Shen Kuo saw him coming up, he quickly asked him to check it out.
"Master Huailiang, things are messed up."
Huailiang walked closer and saw that the puppet was roughly divided into seven or eight pieces.
"Did someone sneak in and burn it, destroying the evidence?"
"It's a strange thing, and I dare not make a conclusion yet."
"Has Xiao Ping been here?"
Shen Kuo nodded.
"Have you tried my plan with her?"
"Tried."
"how?"
"Not her."
"How was her demeanor at the time?"
"I was so scared that I collapsed on the ground."
"He was overacting. Even the slump on the ground might have been an act."
For some reason, Master Huailiang was particularly sure that Xiaoping was the mastermind behind the scenes. In fact, the two of them had never met each other. Xiaoping was just someone Shen Kuo had mentioned occasionally.
"Master, she is definitely not pretending."
“How can we be sure that it’s not fake?”
"Last night, this thing came back to life and started causing trouble again."
"Alive again?" It was the monk's turn to sit down on the chair and regain consciousness. "Can you speak?"
"I told you, it's still that weird voice."
"At that time, Xiao Ping..."
"She fainted in my arms. If she had relied on ventriloquism to deceive me, I would have known it if she was so close to me. The puppet was on the second floor at the time, and Xiaoping and I were on the first floor. We clearly saw it dancing around in the window and heard it laughing and talking nonsense. There were more than a dozen policemen and spies here who witnessed it, and there was no doubt about it."
"How did it burn again?"
"I wanted to rush upstairs to take a look, but Xu Jieji was afraid that I might get hurt, so he threw a knife at it and nailed it to the wall, and it started to burn."
"When did you come upstairs?"
"After Xu Jieji threw the knife, there was no delay at all?"
"No one else is in the room?"
"Nothing, but the windows of this room were always open, so someone might have escaped."
"Who opened the window?"
"I opened it. All three windows were open that day."
The monk walked to the three windows and looked through them one by one. It was obviously impossible to run through the window facing the courtyard. If someone ran from here, they would definitely be seen by more than ten people below. The windows on both sides, one facing the street. The other facing the backyard. There were two rows of coffins stacked against the wall of the backyard, one row with three coffins and the other with two coffins. Both of these could be escape routes, but the one in the front street was too high to jump down.
"Perhaps someone conspired with Xiao Ping to get rid of her suspicion?"
This monk really held on to Xiao Ping and would not let go. What was he thinking of?
"But if someone is playing with this puppet here, how can he escape when I come up?"
"Jump out of the front window." said the monk.
"It's too high. I'm afraid I'll break my legs."
"Go out the back window and jump onto the barn first. Look, there's a branch of a peach tree there that's big enough to get away. It's not too high to jump off the back wall."
"I've thought about that, but there's an old donkey in the barn that Xiao Ping gave me. It's very alert. If a stranger comes within ten steps of it at night, it will bark loudly."
"Xiao Ping's donkey? Isn't that even more suspicious? Maybe the donkey recognized Xiao Ping's friends..."
"Master, please stop making wild guesses. Xiao Ping was in the front yard at the time, in full view of everyone. Although this donkey is hers, she bought it for me in the countryside with a hairpin ten days ago. It is not something she has kept for a long time. In the past ten days, this donkey has also been kept at Yang Chunguan's house. I brought it in exchange for her. Apart from Xiao Ping, this donkey has never seen anyone around her."
The monk didn't say anything, but just shook his head. He saw that Shen Kuo was determined to protect Xiao Ping, so he raised his head and sniffed.
"The smell of burnt wood, mixed with a hint of powder."
"Master, when you came here yesterday, the smell of perfume and powder was like this."
"No, when I came here, there were only two kinds of smells. One was the priceless 'Nian Jun Si' in the herbal incense shop. I think it was left by the original hostess of this place."
Shen Kuo shook his head secretly. This monk not only had a sharp nose, but also knew everything. It was okay for him to know everything about Xiaoping, a daughter, but how could he also tell her one or two things?
"But there is another ingredient that is even rarer. It is the Ice Soul Condensed Frost Dew passed down by Imperial Doctor Sun's family."
"That's Xiao Ping's own sachet. She did come up here, as I just told you."
"There's a strong smell of urine again?"
"That means she was frightened and incontinent."
"The smells here are too mixed, and the urine smell is too strong." The monk still refused to give up, walking around, looking up and sniffing the air. Shen Kuo was also impressed by him and Xiao Ping, who could smell such a rich smell, why couldn't he do it himself.
"There seems to be some fragrance of flowers here."
"Master, don't you see a few peach trees outside the window?"
"It looks like peach blossoms, but it's a little different."
Huailiang walked around the room for a long time, unable to tell what was different, but seemed a little anxious. Shen Kuo could understand his current state of mind, because all rational channels were blocked, and he could even hear those demons laughing at him.
"Master, do you have anything else to teach me?" Shen Kuo asked when he saw that the monk was in a daze.
"How do you open the chain?"
"When I first saw the puppet at the window downstairs, the chains were still there. Then it cursed Li Cheng'an several times, and the chains fell off. I heard the sound of the chains falling to the ground."
"I scolded Li Cheng'an to buy time. I must have melted the glue and paint with fire in a place where you couldn't see, and then opened the lock. By the way, how long did it take for him to catch fire?"
"It took me only a short time to climb the stairs, because I rushed into the building immediately to get a glimpse of the truth. Xu Jieji threw the knife behind me, but I didn't know it at the time, so I climbed the stairs without any pause. When I got up, it was already nailed to the wall and burning."
"The fire started from within. I'm afraid you've seen it clearly."
"That's right. This morning, when I heard Xu Jieji mention that smoke was coming out of the seven orifices of this evildoer, I thought of this. Originally, its pupils could move and its eyelids could flip open, but they were all burned away. However, its face was still intact, only its mouth was burned. Its chest cavity was turned outward, which shows that the fire started from inside its chest and skull."
"This puppet is made of fir wood. It is not easy to burn even if it is roasted on a campfire."
"That's right. The puppet was completely hidden in the window, but someone must have seen the fire if he had set it on fire."
"Even if it's ignited, it won't be that fast."
"By the way, Master, when I turned this puppet upside down yesterday, I heard the sound of water inside, but I couldn't pour it out."
"Is there a sound of water?"
"Master, when I was traveling in Yan'an Prefecture, I saw a kind of flammable water there. It burned completely without leaving any smell. I also suspected that the invisible fire dog footprints that appeared in the east when the Sheji Altar collapsed that day were caused by this flammable water. I also gave this water a name, called 'petroleum'. It is recorded in my booklet 'Dream Stream Essays'."
“Oh, there is such a thing?”
"Yes, there are some in Zoroastrian temples. Zoroastrians use them to light fires and worship the god of fire."
"I didn't know about this. Thank you for your guidance today. I also learned a lot from you."
"I don't deserve it. I don't deserve it."
Shen Kuo felt flattered and quickly made a few polite remarks.
" Master, I'm thinking of something. If the puppet's belly spontaneously combusted, then there must be a self-destructive device."
“How did you infer that?”
"Senior Yu Hao's interlocking mortise and tenon joints are not easy to crack. It can be seen that even if there is something flammable inside the object, it is not easy to ignite it."
"Yeah, there is some truth to that." Huailiang stroked his stubble and said.
"So, if someone was playing tricks upstairs last night, he (she) had very little time to light the puppet. It must have been intended to be burned."
"You were going to burn it? What do you mean?"
"The two 'Candle Shadow Horse Running' lamps have both burned, which shows how exquisite the Yu family's artifacts are. In addition to being used to create mystery and to create strange things, they can also destroy their own evidence. There must be something clever about the puppet that can instantly ignite an internal fire. This also makes sense for it to have something igniting in its belly."
"Go on and see."
" That day, I was ordered by Bao Longtu to search Yu Jing's lair. He was hiding underground and burning evidence. I broke the tunnel mechanism, and Xu Jieji broke into the underground, which was beyond his expectation. I almost caught him, but when he escaped, he didn't take anything else with him, only two bundles of thin ropes. It can be seen that the thin ropes are very important. I heard from the captains that the two bundles of thin ropes were delivered by a tall man wearing a bamboo hat that morning."
"What does this have to do with puppets?" the monk asked with a puzzled look on his face.
"Master Mo Xiao, I actually haven't figured it out either, but I just feel that there seems to be a connection. I was wondering, when the lightning struck that day, why did only one puppet fall from the sky? Where did the rest of the puppets go? When the fire started on the roof of Baifan Building that day, were those puppets also struck by the lightning and burned? Only this one spring failed and didn't self-destruct, so it fell to the ground and was picked up by us?"
He looked up at the monk, but saw that the monk was staring at him seriously, without any change in expression.
