Chapter 13 Method
Chapter 13 Method
The night was long, but half an hour later, through the few words that Xue Baoping knew, the one or two syllables that he could utter with great effort, and Li Wuxiang's extremely patient inferences and guesses, he finally roughly figured out his current environment.
Jinshui Town is named after the Jinshui River. But Xue Baoping has never left Jinshui, and her parents are also local residents, so she doesn't know where Jinshui Town is, where the Jinshui River originates from, where it flows to, and who is in charge of Jinshui Town.
The last one is not known, not because we are not aware of the superior administrative agency in Jinshui Town, but because there is no such agency at all.
When it comes to "emperor", "court" and "dynasty", Xue Baoping is quite confused. But fortunately, her parents were from wealthy families and she was smart when she was a child, so she vaguely knows that two or three thousand years ago, there was a person called "emperor" and a "dynasty".
The rules and etiquette of the world today, as well as the names of most mountains, rivers and lakes, were also determined at that time. But after the fall of the Ye Dynasty and the loss of the emperor, the world only knew that many areas in the world were under the jurisdiction of the "Eight Divisions of Xuanjiao" - the greatest gods and immortals in the Wonderland passed down the immortal methods, and those who practiced this immortal method were called Taoists or Qigong practitioners. Ordinary people don't know whether they have really seen gods and immortals, but they heard that the world within the jurisdiction of the Xuanjiao is more prosperous than outside the sect.
After asking several times, Li Wuxiang realized that "outside the sect" is actually a geographical concept. The Eight Sects of Xuanjiao control many areas of the world, but there are still many more areas that are not affected by the Xuanjiao and are only governed by the city lords and town lords of various places. It is very similar to the warlords in his past, fighting back and forth, and changing the flags on the city walls. Jinshui Town is such a town outside the sect.
More than 30 years ago, Jinshui Town was still very prosperous. At that time, the Jinshui River was much wider than it is today, and merchant ships passed through the town, giving birth to a prosperous atmosphere. But then the "Xuanjiao incident" occurred - the Taoist priests of the Xuanjiao clashed with the Qigong practitioners who had been stationed in Jinshui Town in previous years. After the fight, many people died in the town. Since then, the Jinshui River has gradually dried up, and only small passenger ships can pass through it, and the town has declined.
The east of the town where the Xue family lived was originally the most prosperous area in Jinshui Town, because there used to be a small dock here, which was used to berth many passenger and cargo ships. After the Jinshui River channel was blocked and the Xuanjiao incident happened, the newly relocated families moved to the west and east of the town, because it was closer to the main road to the nearest Qingjiang City.
Therefore, as Wang Wen said before, among the houses along the river near Zhendong Bridge, only the Wang and Xue families are still occupied. Xue Baoping was unable to move away, but the Wang family was different. His family had been hunters for generations, and the new town owner in recent years liked game. Zhendong was closer to Bishan, so his family also stayed.
"So, a prominent person in the town died here tonight." Xue Baoping heard Li Wuxiang's voice in the darkness. She had very good hearing, and she had been trying to hear clearly where Li Wuxiang was speaking, but his voice was erratic, as if it was opposite, far away, and behind her.
"Besides, the laws of Jinshui Town seem to be decided by the town master. If you pursue this, I think you will become the murderer and criminal."
These two sentences were like a bucket of cold water, which calmed Xue Baoping down instantly. Only then did she realize one thing: someone had died in her family... and this person also had a vicious hunter brother and father!
She took a few quick breaths, looked up into the darkness, and spoke with difficulty: "I—"
"Don't do anything." She heard Li Wuxiang say, "You know nothing."
Xue Baoping wanted to make some more noise, or write something on the dark ground with his hands, but he suddenly heard the door slam shut, followed by Wang Wu's voice: "Open the door, open the door!"
Xue Baoping shuddered all over, and immediately turned her face to the darkness, and uttered twice. But she heard no response, as if Li Wuxiang had disappeared.
Then a loud clang was heard. The bolt on her door had been used for more than ten years, and it had become rotten due to the continuous rain in Jinshui Town. Wang Wu knocked on the door several times but no one opened it, so he simply kicked it open. He rushed into the yard, carrying a bow and arrow, holding a double-pronged hunting fork in one hand and a torch in the other, and shouted angrily: "Didn't we agree to play together? You did something behind my back? Ah? Brother? Brother! Come out quickly, stop playing, the Taoist priest invited by the town master wants fresh tiger bones, and he wants it now!"
The yard was dark and no one responded, so he rushed directly to the main house. Xue Baoping panicked, not knowing whether he should listen to Li Wuxiang's advice to "do nothing".
She went to lock the door. But a ball of light had already shone in through the crack in the door, and then there was another bang, and she saw Wang Wu's face illuminated by the torch.
Xue Baoping took two steps back, leaned against the wall, and closed his eyes tightly, knowing that Wang Wu would see the mess in the house, the bloodstains on the ground, and the corpses in the next moment.
But after a while, she heard Wang Wu's voice and smelled his foul breath: "Where's my brother? Where is he?"
Xue Baoping was startled, and then she opened her eyes—Wang Wu was right in front of her. She quickly glanced to the side, and with the light of the torch held by Wang Wu…there was nothing on the ground, just a piece of compacted soil, and the bloodstains, corpses, and even the bloody clothes were gone, as if everything that happened half an hour ago was just a dream. "I'm asking you, where's my brother?" Wang Wu grabbed her face and shook it, then glanced around the room and saw the bowl on the windowsill and the meat inside.
Xue Baoping raised his arm and pointed outward.
"He left? When did he leave?"
Xue Baoping stared at him, looking up, and said nothing.
Wang Wu frowned and looked at her. He saw that her collar had lost its buttons and was torn. He suddenly hummed and laughed twice: "Okay, Sister Xue, I'll come to play with you after I finish this. Humph, I'll let you see who is better, me or my brother."
After he finished speaking, he slapped Xue Baoping's face, picked up his hunting fork, and rushed out the door, shouting, "Brother! Brother! Wang Wen! Where are you? Dad will beat you to death--"
The gate was kicked open with a clang, and then fell back. Xue Baoping slid down to the ground, gasping for breath, and tremblingly crawled to the window to grab the tinder on the ground. He blew it several times before it lit up, and then looked at the ground carefully with the light.
Still nothing, not even the smell of blood. She gritted her teeth, raised the flame and looked up at the beam -
A few pieces of rags were hanging on the beam, and there was no bloodstain, but she was sure that they were the clothes Wang Wen had worn before.
“Li…Li…” She tried to make a sound, but the extreme tension made her throat choke. She could only write with her fingers in the dark as she did before - “You eat people?”
She didn't know if Li Wuxiang was still there. But a moment later, she heard a voice behind her: "I don't think so."
Xue Baoping panted briefly and lightly, was silent for a while, and wrote again with trembling fingers: "What should I do?"
"His brother knows that he has been here, so he will come to ask you again in the end. If it were at my place, they might not be able to do anything to you, but this is Jinshui. Whether it is to vent his anger or for some other reason, he will probably come to see you often in the future." She heard Li Wuxiang laugh behind her, "Then there are two ways. One is that we leave quickly tonight and leave here."
Xue Baoping immediately shook his head.
"Well, that's the second one. Let's go kill his whole family tonight, then no one will suspect you, what do you think?"
Xue Baoping was stunned, but after a moment, she clenched her fist and made a slight sound: "Huh..."
"Okay? Okay. Well, I need you to do me a favor. Turn around first. I'll be behind you, but don't be afraid of anything you see. Are you ready?"
In the new week, if you want to be on the recommendation list, you have to compete with the books of the same period. This competition means that whoever has the best data and the highest subscription will advance to the next round of recommendations. If the data is not good, there may be no hope!
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(End of this chapter)