Ink panel: Hunting the sun and surveying the sky from the bow.

Chapter 220 Investigation, deadlock
"Boss, this is it."

Shen Qing, accompanied by a constable, stood in front of a residential building.

"The first carpenter in the city to die at the hands of the demon died in this house," the officer said respectfully.

The officer's name was Ji Youwu, and he was the son of a small merchant in Yongzhou City.

He learned martial arts and joined gangs since he was a child. Finally, he spent some money to buy off his connections and entered the Weiwu Division, where he became a constable, which was considered a job at the government's expense.

Among the many runners in the four groups, his background is not good and his cultivation is not high, but he is quite smart.

After Shen Qing became the officer of their fourth group, he did not resist much and continued to investigate the case actively step by step as usual.

After several times, Shen Qing became adept at it, and many clues were given to him to follow.

"Go in and have a look."

Shen Qing took a step forward, placed his hand gently on the door and pushed it gently.

The door was not locked and opened to both sides with a creaking sound, shaking off a layer of white ash.

Inside the house, there was dead silence.

At first glance, Shen Qing saw that the room was covered with a thick layer of dust. The light from outside the window penetrated the dense spider webs, sprinkling on the ground in patches, casting a series of afterimages.

It seemed like no one had lived here for a long time. The air was filled with a damp, musty smell, which made Shen Qing frown involuntarily.

He held the long sword in his hand and walked in first, followed closely by Ji Youwu.

The clean official boots stepped on the ground, stirring up circles of floating dust, which floated in the light coming in through the window lattice and formed beams of light.

"Has this carpenter been dead for more than two months?" Shen Qing asked as he looked around.

Ji Youwu replied, "It should be seventy-eight days to be exact. The carpenter's heart and liver were taken out before he died. The demon must have cut open his stomach while he was still alive, then ate him from the inside out, and finally ate until only half of his body was left."

"In other words, this person watched himself being eaten while he was alive?"

"almost."

Shen Qing looked around.

The house is not big, and you can see it all with just a few quick glances.

There was nothing there except cobwebs and dust, long abandoned.

However, a trace of dried blood on the ground was very conspicuous.

Shen Qing slowly approached the bloodstain and observed carefully. He found that there was only one bloodstain and it was not scattered over a large area. This indicated that the carpenter was eaten while hanging or standing.

There are no other footprints on the ground, which means that this monster either has a very high intelligence and knows how to cover its tracks, or has the means to float in the air.

Either way, it shows that the demon that entered the city is an extremely difficult character.

"Who is the owner of this house?"

"It's from the Zhou family."

Shen Qing raised his eyebrows and immediately became alert.

"To be precise, this was the residence of a manager below the Zhou family's main house. The manager died last year and the house has been vacant ever since," Ji Youwu said in detail.

Shen Qing asked, "Is this carpenter related to the Zhou family?"

"No." Ji Youwu said, "The carpenter is just a lowly worker living in the outer city. It is impossible for him to climb up to the Zhou family, the head of the Thirteen Hongs."

"Then have you ever checked how the cat demon legend came about?"

"We have been secretly investigating several cases of demons in the city recently and found that when all the murders happened, people around heard creepy cat meows. So everyone thinks that this demon is a cat demon."

Shen Qing remained silent, looked around the room carefully and said, "Let's go and ask the carpenter's family if there is anything unusual."

"Yes."

……

Outer city. Shen Qing rode on a tall horse, looking at the outer city blocks in front of him.

Compared with the outer city of Taiping County, the outer city of Yongzhou is both dilapidated and cramped, but it is obviously more regular.

He took Ji Youwu to a slightly noisy neighborhood. The street was filled with a strong market atmosphere of various cakes and rotten vegetable leaves mixed together.

People, some wrapped tightly in heavy coats, some hunched their necks, walked through the rising smoke, appearing half-visible.

Shen Qing was wearing an official robe and cloak, which made him look a little out of place in this market.

Soon, they led the horses into a restaurant.

"Madam boss, give me two bowls of noodle soup and a plate of pork offal."

Shen Qing threw the reins to Ji Youwu and picked an empty seat to sit on.

After tying up the horse, Ji Youwu sat next to Shen Qing.

After a while, a half-grown child followed a woman. The mother and child brought the braised offal and noodle soup to Shen Qing and said with a smile, "My two masters, enjoy your meal."

Shen Qing nodded slightly, took out his chopsticks and started eating the hot noodle soup.

Today, his body size is under control and his daily energy consumption is much less. In addition, with the refining of true qi, his demand for ordinary grains is not that great.

On weekdays, I like to eat some food or medicinal soup containing essence, in order to maintain or improve my cultivation.

But occasionally I will still go to some snack shops to satisfy my appetite.

Shen Qing looked up and found that the restaurant seemed a little deserted.

It’s not that there is no one in the restaurant. It is noon now and there are still many people coming to eat. It’s just that it is surprisingly quiet, which is completely different from the bustling scene in the inner city of Yongzhou.

The people here just focus on eating, with no sadness or joy, and a numb expression on their faces.

With his arrival, these people were even more afraid to say a word when they saw his identity as a member of the Weiwusi Yamen.

Some of the timid ones just took a few bites, threw some coins on the table and left in a hurry.

After finishing the simple meal, Shen Qing turned around and called to the woman, "Boss lady, come here. I want to ask you something."

The woman who was busy behind the stall was startled, looked at the man beside her, walked over nervously, and said nervously: "Sir, what have we done to neglect this?"

"Your family cooks very good food, that's not what I'm asking." Shen Qing turned to look at the woman and said, "I want to ask about your ex-husband. Was there anything unusual before he died?"

"What are you doing..." the woman asked in surprise.

"Find out why your husband died."

On the way here, Shen Qing learned from Ji Youwu that the carpenter's wife and children had remarried and were now the wife and children of the restaurant owner.

The lower classes of the Great Zhou lived a precarious life, and they took so-called chastity the least seriously, and remarriage was a common occurrence.

Seeing that Shen Qing and the others were not trying to embarrass her, the woman secretly breathed a sigh of relief. After thinking for a while, she said, "There was nothing unusual on the day my husband died. He went to the city to find work as usual that morning. I waited for him all day but didn't see him come back. I only found out he was dead the next day."

Thinking of this, the woman couldn't help but redden her eyes.

"Other than that?"

"No, I haven't even seen his body yet."

"OK, thanks."

Shen Qing stood up, took out a few coins from his pocket and threw them on the table, then said to Ji Youwu, "There are no clues here. Let's go to the scene of Xi Cha Si and take a look."

Ji Youwu stood up and followed.

In the next ten days, Shen Qing rushed to various crime scenes to investigate the matter of the demon in the inner city, but there was no progress.

There weren't even many clues, and the demon case came to a standstill.

Half of the time had passed since the date Zheng Yuanqiu had set for him.

(End of this chapter)