Nine Chapters of Strange Cases

Chapter 250 The Infant Hidden in the Altar
Zhou Zhao was thinking when suddenly his ears twitched. "Ah Huang, did you hear anything?"

The rain was pouring down, pattering and pounding, and the wind chimes in front of the porch were being blown about, making a noisy, tinkling sound.

Ah Huang knew that Zhou Zhao wasn't asking about those things.

He stood up and looked into the room, when suddenly a series of clear laughs rang out.

Cluck cluck...

The voice, ethereal yet tinged with innocence, seemed particularly eerie in this crime scene filled with corpses.

Min Zangzhi, who was holding a flower umbrella in front of the corridor, suddenly tightened her grip and got goosebumps all over her body.

That was the laughter of an infant, so innocent it was almost eerie.

Zhou Zhao pursed her lips and walked into the small building with Ah Huang, giggling...

Another clear laugh rang out.

Zhou Zhao's gaze fell on the wine vat in the corner; if she remembered correctly, the sound came from there.

As Zhou Zhao pondered this, he walked over to the wine vat. The piston on the vat wasn't properly sealed; one side was sticking up.

As he got closer, the sound became clearer, a soft rustling, as if something was moving. There was something alive in the wine vat. Just as Zhou Zhao was about to reach out, the wine vat suddenly made a muffled thud, as if something had hit the side of the vat.

Zhou Zhao paused, and Liu Huang forcefully squeezed in front of her, shielding her behind him.

"Ah Zhao, let me handle this, you step back!"

Before Zhou Zhao could speak, Liu Huang used the tip of his broadsword to knock away the wooden stopper wrapped in red cloth.

"Ah...oh...hehe..."

With the cork removed, the sound became crystal clear, as if there were no obstruction.

Zhou Zhao and Liu Huang exchanged a glance, both looking towards the mouth of the wine vat. Inside, they saw a fair-skinned infant, about four or five months old, with big, dark eyes. When he saw someone looking at him, he seemed to think it was a game of hide-and-seek and giggled…

Even though he was mentally prepared, Zhou Zhao was still extremely surprised.

At the scene of the murder that wiped out the entire family, an infant was found hidden in swaddling clothes.

Zhou Zhao thought for a moment, then reached into the vat and scooped the baby out. She had never held a baby before, and when she felt the soft lump in her hand, her scalp tingled. The baby, for some reason, rubbed its furry little head against her face.

Zhou Zhao's face was expressionless, and his scalp was even more numb.
Her eyes flickered as she looked at Liu Huang, only to find that Liu Huang, who was still standing next to her, had already leaped to the side of the corpse. Although she couldn't see his face, Zhou Zhao could feel that his whole body was saying: We're saved!
Zhou Zhao stiffened and looked at Min Zangzhi, who quickly waved her hand.

"No way! If I hold someone else's child, my child with Ayou will be jealous in the future!"

Zhou Zhao rolled her eyes at Min Cangzhi. "Pah! Married already? All you're thinking about is the child… utterly shameless!"

Just then, Ou Jianshen, who was standing in front of the corridor, walked in. He took the child from Zhou Zhao's hands and said with a smile, "Young Master Zhou, let us brothers take care of this child. We raised three younger siblings, so taking care of a child is no problem for us."

As the limp child slipped from his grasp, Zhou Zhao instantly breathed a sigh of relief.

The feeling of a soft little thing wriggling in your arms is truly unsettling, a hundred times more difficult than solving a case.

When Ou Jianshen held the child, all his previous roguishness disappeared, and his expression softened instantly. He played with the child for a while, rummaged in his swaddling clothes, and then said, "Young Master Zhou, this child has a gold lock around his neck." As he spoke, he carefully took the gold lock off the child and handed it to Zhou Zhao.

Zhou Zhao took it and saw that the gold lock was only the size of a baby's fist. It was clearly the work of an old craftsman. Three bright gemstones, red, green and blue, were inlaid on the lock face, and the words "year after year" and the child's birth date were engraved on the back of the lock.

Therefore, the baby's name was Nian Nian.

Zhou Zhao thought for a moment and looked around the room. She glanced around and her gaze fell on the staircase. Zhou Zhao looked at Min Cangzhi and gestured for him to go upstairs with her. The wooden staircase was quite old, and it creaked with every step.

At the corner on the way upstairs, Zhou Zhao suddenly stopped.

In the gap of the stairs, there was a clump of hair with scalp and bloodstains on it, which looked particularly ominous.

Under the gloomy, rainy sky, it felt as if ghosts or monsters might emerge from this clump of hair at any moment and devour people whole.

"Madam Bai should be kneeling here, her hair has been ripped off."

As Zhou Zhao spoke, he looked toward the window at the corner of the stairs. The window was open, and rainwater was drifting in, wetting the edges of the wall.

She stepped forward and peered out the window. Sure enough, she found a bundle of hemp rope directly below the window. "The murder weapon that strangled Bai Shisan Niang was most likely that hemp rope. The murderer strangled Bai Shisan Niang here and then casually threw the hemp rope out the window. It was extremely brazen."

She pursed her lips. Why?

"The seven victims died around the same time, making it difficult for us to determine the order of their deaths. Judging from the location of the hair and the murder weapon, it is very likely that when the murderer strangled Bai Shisan Niang, Bai Laobao was kneeling in this spot."

Isn't that strange? What was the killer's motive?
If the intention was murder, why kill only Bai Shisan Niang? After the murder, the body was not disposed of, the murder weapon was not destroyed, and even eyewitnesses were not killed. The murderer wasn't worried at all about anyone reporting it to the authorities.

If he is so arrogant, then why did he hang Bai Shisan Niang's body in front of the corridor to make it look like she hanged herself?

This method of doing things is really contradictory.

Ou Jianlu, who had caught up at some point, asked curiously, "Sir, why didn't the murderer force those six people to hang themselves first, and then strangle Bai Shisan Niang? That scenario isn't entirely impossible, is it?"

Zhou Zhao shook his head at Ou Jianlu, "It's not entirely impossible, but it's unlikely."

Since the murderer had already forced the other six to hang themselves, why go through the trouble of personally strangling Bai Shisan Niang? He could have just forced her to hang herself too.

Zhou Zhao paused as he spoke.

"Moreover, those six people neither resisted nor showed any signs of fear."

If a villain broke in and forced them to hang themselves, why didn't they make a big fuss? There were no signs that their mouths had been gagged.

Among the six of them, there was one who was responsible for guarding the house. The courtyard wasn't big; you could run out by opening the gate or rush into the neighboring courtyard by scaling the wall, but they weren't.

Suddenly, thugs broke in, trying to force them to hang themselves. Normally, the brave would resist, and the weak would scream, cry, and struggle in fear. But no, not even the little girl showed any sign of crying.

Ou Jianlu fell silent, carefully considering Zhou Zhao's words.

"Therefore, the murderer was probably not there simply to kill, and it is very likely that the victim knew the murderer and was prepared for it."

The child they hid in the wine jar is the evidence.