Volume 2: Female Corpse in Monk's Clothes Chapter 87: Serial Disappearance of Beautiful Girls
"What's going on?" Li Yan was shocked when he heard this, and then turned to Tai Min and asked, "Tae Min, tell me, what is going on!?"
"Sir..." Taimin slid down from the chair and said to Li Yan, "It's not...it's not that exaggerated, no..."
"Asshole!" Li Yan was furious. "17 women disappeared in three years, isn't that exaggerated enough? How many disappearances do you think are exaggerated?"
“My Lord, I deserve to die!” Taimin fell to his knees, shaking like a sieve. “I am incompetent. I received so many reports, but I…I couldn’t find the person, couldn’t…find the person…”
"Master Tai," seeing this scene, Yuan Xingtai was also very surprised, and couldn't help but said to Taimin, "It seems that it's not about whether you can find it or not, but that when such a case happens, you shouldn't conceal it, right?
"Why don't you notify our garrison and help with the search?"
"Captain Yuan is absolutely right," Li Yan said angrily, "Such a serious case has occurred, and you dared to conceal the report. This is really an aggravated crime! Do you not want to be the county magistrate anymore?"
"Sir," Taimin argued bitterly, "I don't mean to conceal the truth, but I just can't find any clues to these cases. We have tried our best!"
"You still dare to quibble?" Li Yan shouted angrily, "Now even the Marquis' daughter is missing, are you satisfied with this?
"I'm telling you, if Miss Lu can be found safely, it'll be fine. But if she can't be found, you'll have to wait for your life to be extinguished!
"Someone come here," he shouted outside, "put Taimin in jail and wait for your punishment!"
“Sir, sir…” Taimin prostrated himself on the ground, trembling, “Please forgive me, sir, please have mercy…”
"Master Li," Xu Zun stopped Li Yan and advised, "Although Master Tai is wrong, this serial disappearance case is very strange. Perhaps there is a hidden story. Let's wait until we find out the truth before making any decision!"
"Yes, yes..." Yuan Xingtai echoed, "Lord Li, the most urgent task is to find the daughter of the Marquis' Mansion first. If you want to punish her, don't rush, okay?"
"Well..." Li Yan came back to his senses and said to Tai Min, "Since the two adults are pleading for you, I will give you a chance to make amends. Hurry up and take out the files of these missing women and let Xu Tixing study them!"
“This…” Taimin’s face turned pale and cold sweat broke out.
"Hehe, he lost the case, so where is the file?" Zhao Yu hugged his shoulders and stabbed him from the side.
Hearing this, Taimin lowered his head and seemed to want to crawl into the crack of the ground.
"What an incompetent person, what a bastard!" Li Yan cursed.
The so-called "eating a case" means that the victim's family members come to report the case, and the government, in order to maintain the crime-solving rate, openly says that it is accepting the case, but secretly does not initiate an investigation and simply drags the case out.
This is a common occurrence in feudal government offices and is not considered serious. However, if a major case is also involved, then the nature of the matter is completely different!
Taimin was trembling, feeling so ashamed.
"It doesn't matter," Xu Zun said calmly while holding up the blue book, "Master Taimin, can you first tell us what happened to these missing women?"
"Well..." Taimin lay on the ground and didn't dare to look up, "Three years ago, we received reports of missing girls one after another..."
"Get up, get up and talk!" Li Yan was annoyed that he didn't explain clearly, so he yelled at him.
Taimin then stood up and explained everything in detail:
“At first, we didn’t take it seriously and left it all to the police.
"But we didn't expect that cases would continue one after another until several cases of missing girls occurred, which attracted our attention.
"At the time, we felt that something was wrong and wanted to report it, but... Ju Ran was known as a master detective, and I was also obsessed with it. I was afraid of being punished by the higher-ups, so in order to maintain Shangyuan City's crime-solving rate, I kept the case secret...
"Sir," Taimin said with a bitter face, "We have tried our best to find them, but these girls just disappeared without a trace, without leaving any clues.
"Later, many more cases occurred. We knew we were incapable of solving them, so we just... just..."
Before he could finish his words, he saw Ju Ran enter the room holding a large cardboard box.
"Okay, he's here just in time!" Tai Min simply pointed at Ju Ran, "He knows these things better than me, so let him talk about it!"
"Speak?" Ju Ran smiled in confusion, "What are you talking about, sir?"
…
After a while, Ju Ran knelt on the ground, his face turned pale, cold sweat ran down his face, and he spoke in a trembling voice:
"I'll tell you everything. Please show some mercy!" He bowed to the officials and said, "The first person to disappear was Chen Jiao from Lidian, who was only 9 years old at the time.
“Since it happened in a rural farm like Lidian, it was initially treated as human trafficking.
"We posted notices and searched nearby towns, but we couldn't find Chen Jiao.
"But, not long after, we realized something was wrong!" Ju Ran said, "Shangyuan County has seen a series of disappearances, and all of the missing are beautiful girls between the ages of 9 and 14!
“We then paid close attention and began to investigate with all our strength, but… no matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t find any clues.
"These girls..." Ju Ran raised his head, "The disappearances of these girls are all very strange. In some cases, their entire families disappeared together!"
"What!?"
Xu Zun was shocked, and immediately thought of the mysteriously disappeared Lu Xiaofeng.
Lu Xiaofeng was 14 years old. His entire family disappeared, and even the Lu family bookstore was destroyed.
"Look," Li Yan clapped his hands and shouted, "This is how serious the situation has become. Look at what you have done!
“If it had attracted more attention earlier, would it have come to this point today?
"Xu Tixing, there is no doubt about it," Li Yan said to Xu Zun, "the daughter of the Marquis's Mansion is also one of the victims of this serial disappearance of girls! Who are these people? They are so bold and lawless!"
this……
Xu Zun looked at the blue cover book in his hand, but he was thinking about something else.
"Anu," he whispered to Huo Anu, "where did this book come from?"
"Didn't I tell you!" Huo Anu said, "I don't know who put it in my schoolbag!"
"You..." Xu Zun asked again, "Tell me quickly, what did you see in the academy?"
"It was just a few elderly Taoist nuns who told us some profound scriptures and doctrines. It was dry and difficult to understand and very boring.
"But... they said that the next class will focus on calligraphy and painting..."
"Just talk about the important things," Xu Zun reminded, "Did you encounter anything special?"
"No?" Huo Anu said, "It's all normal. Those girls thought I was a foreigner and found it very strange. They asked me all kinds of questions..."
"What did I ask you?" Zhao Yu realized something and interrupted .
"They just asked me where I came from and why I went to school there!" Huo Anu said, "I told them honestly that I was a guard from Tangzhou and I was here to investigate Miss Lu's disappearance..."
"Oh," Zhao Yu grinned, "You're not lying at all?"
"Hey?" Huo Anu looked at Xu Zun, "Didn't Lord Xu teach me to say this?"
"Right!" Xu Zun gave a thumbs up, "Very well said, now I seem to have figured out most of it!
"It was because Huo Anu revealed her purpose of going to Qinglan Academy that this notebook was stuffed into her schoolbag," Xu Zun smiled mysteriously, "This shows that someone in Qinglan Academy is helping us!"
