Taolin Lane, the western suburb of Yangzhou Prefecture, was originally a beautiful place in Yangzhou Prefecture. There were more than a dozen wealthy merchants living here. The reason why those rich people built their houses here was because they loved the environment here. The small river in front of the house was weeping willows, the flowers and plants on both sides were flourishing, and the peach blossoms behind the courtyard were 100 acres. In this environment, they felt like they were living in a paradise.

However, in this beautiful place, there is a house that looks out of place. The house is located on the north side of Taolin Lane. The tall courtyard wall is covered with weeds, and the white gray on the wall has fallen off a lot. The originally vermilion gate has now become a little black and purple, and the stone steps in front of the house are covered with moss grass.

This deserted house is the mansion of Wu Shiyun, a famous writer in Yangzhou Prefecture. Fifteen years ago, Wu Shiyun was ordered to behead him by Emperor Kangxi for being involved in the case of anti-poetry disobedience.

Afterwards, the local government wanted to sell the house, but the wealthy merchants around him were worried about causing trouble, and the other hand, everyone thought the house was unlucky, so no one invested in buying the house. It was precisely because of this that as time drifted, the Wu house gradually became abandoned.

But late at night more than ten days ago, the residents around heard a burst of women crying. At first, everyone thought they had heard it wrong. After carefully distinguishing it, they confirmed that they were not wrong. There was indeed a woman crying, and she was not a woman.

Hearing the crying of a woman in the middle of the night, the owners of several houses sent their servants out to see and listen to which household was disturbing the people late at night? When the servants came to the sound, they were all shocked. They found that the place where the woman cried was heard was the abandoned Wu House, which had been abandoned for a long time.

Just when these servants were inexplicably frightened by their discovery, the crying sounds in Wu's house stopped, and the surroundings suddenly became extremely quiet, as if nothing had happened just now.

Seeing this situation, all the servants ran back in fear. After arriving at home, they told their heads of the family everything they saw.

After hearing the strange situation in Wu's house, the residents around him did not sleep all night. Before dawn the next day, all the merchants in Taolin Lane went to Huang Baishan's place and asked him to send someone to investigate the matter.

After hearing about Wu Zuo, Huang Baishan didn't take it any more to heart. He randomly assigned a group of yamen runners to Wu Zuo to check it out, so he put the matter behind his mind. However, he did not expect that at about noon, the group of yamen runners had not come back to report.

At this time, Huang Baishan felt that the situation was a little bad, so he immediately called Tong Zhen, the chief inspector of the government office, and briefly explained the process. He ordered Tong Zhen to take people to Wu's house to investigate and see what the yamen runners did.

When Tong Zhen led the constable from the government office to Wu's house, he did not find anything unusual, but when he brought people in, he was shocked by the scene in front of him. The seventeen yamen runners sent by Huang Baishan before all died in the backyard of Wu's house.

Seeing that the wounds on these yamen runners were not caused by humans, Tong Zhen and the constables who came with him were a little beaten. When they were cleaning up the body, they found that the words "ghosts" were hidden under the body of a yamen runner, and a chill came out.

After a brief look at Wu's house and found that there was nothing unusual, Tong Zhen ordered people to carry the bodies back and then block the news in case the incident caused panic.

But there is no airtight wall in the world. I don’t know why? The news of the murder of the yamen runners was leaked. As the rumors spread by the people, the matter turned into a ghost in Wu’s house and came back to take revenge.

Since the seventeen yamen runners were killed, almost all the residents around them spent money to invite magical tools from the Buddhist and Taoist sects to suppress ghosts and ward off evil spirits. Everyone also raised money to invite many monks and Taoist priests to do several rituals around Wu's house. First, to save the dead souls, and second, to hope that doing so can protect their own safety.

But even so, when the residents around him passed by Wu's house on weekdays, they still felt a little fuzzy. That night, two horses came to the gate of Wu's house. After the horses stopped, one of them immediately came down a man in the uniform of a yamen runner, and the other one immediately came down two teenagers. These three people were none other than Liu Hua, Sun Shidong, and Li Touer.

Li Touer looked at the ghostly Wu Zhai and couldn't help but feel a little timid: "Two young men, this is Wu Zhai. Now it's so dark that I can't see anything. Let's investigate again during the day?"

"What? Are you afraid? Checking such a place, the effect of night is better than that of daytime, because only when it is highly consistent with the situation at that time can you find the other party's flaws when thinking from the perspective of others."

After saying this, seeing the two of them still confused expressions, Liu Hua explained softly: "The first time the residents around him noticed that this place was abnormal, it happened to be dark. They said they heard the crying of women here, but when the families of those residents came to the door of Wu's house, the crying stopped.

You just said that it is night now, and it is dark and you can’t see anything. If that’s the case, how did those women know that someone is coming outside the door? And they happened to stop crying when those people arrived at Wu’s house?

When I came, I observed it and found that the house was not too close to the surrounding residents. There was only one possibility for those residents to hear the crying here, that is, the other party was crying at the door, otherwise the sound would not have spread so far.

Since those women were crying at the door and knew that someone was coming outside the door, why didn’t they speak? Instead, they suddenly stopped crying? This has to be doubtful, and why did those women cry at night?”

"Does this still need to be thought about? Of course, the unjust soul of the Wu family has come back to take revenge. Otherwise, how did my seventeen colleagues die? I said, Mr. Liu, let's leave here quickly. I feel more and more panicked." Li Touer looked at Liu Hua nervously.

"There are no ghosts in this world, only science, hey... Why do I tell you this? You don't understand even if you say it." After the words came, Liu Hua looked at the door of Wu's house: "I want to enter Wu's house to check. Do you two dare to go in?"

"I won't go in if I beat you to death. We'll wait for you outside." Hearing Liu Hua's inquiry, both of them shook their heads and rattled them, saying that they would not go into Wu's house.

Seeing that the two of them were determined, Liu Hua and Sun Shidong asked for a fire note, and then Li Touer asked for a torch. After lighting the torch, Liu Hua uncovered the seal that the prefect of the prefect's office had posted on the gate of Wu's house in the early stage. Then he pulled out the iron bolt on the door and pushed the door into Wu's house.

"Bang...bang...ah...ah..." As soon as he entered Wu's house, before he could take two steps, Liu Hua was tripped by the weeds and broken bricks in the yard. He almost tripped and swept down with a torch. He found that the ground nearby was full of broken bricks and weeds.

Suddenly, Liu Hua seemed to have thought of something. After closing the door of Wu's house from inside, he slowly squatted down. Through the light of the torch, he carefully observed the broken bricks and weeds on the ground. As he looked, he found suspicious points.

Near the gate, many broken bricks were markedly kicked away, and they were kicked from the inside out. It was probably because the person inside almost tripped while walking, and then kicked the broken bricks on the ground aside with his feet.

In addition, some weeds on the ground had traces of being pulled, and some of them were pulled off. Some of them were picked up a few weed leaves that were pulled off from the ground. Liu Hua stood up and observed them carefully.

After careful inspection, Liu Hua found that these dead grass had traces of rubbing, and some fragments were stained on the leaf of one of the dead grass. After pondering for a moment, he put the weed leaf in his arms.

The entire Wu house covers a very large area. It is a two-entry house with more than 40 houses. The backyard was where Wu Shiyun and his family lived, and in front was where the people lived.

Liu Hua tried to extinguish the torch and experienced the feeling of walking in the dark. Because the weeds in the house grew very tall, and the ground was covered with broken bricks, ordinary people would easily trip over if they did not use lighting props to smear the way from the house.

Assuming that my judgment was correct, those women were crying at the door, but when someone appeared outside the Wu house, the crying sound suddenly stopped, and there was no strange noise. Based on this situation, thinking of the dead grass that was pulled off at the door, Liu Hua suspected that there were other people in the Wu house at that time, besides the crying women.

After analyzing it in his mind, Liu Hua continued to walk forward with a slander. When he walked to a room closest to the door, he suddenly stopped.

Because he smelled a faint stench. If it weren't for the silence in the middle of the night, there would be no other people around him, and Liu Hua's energy happened to be highly concentrated, he probably wouldn't have noticed this smell.

He came to the window next to the house, and sniffed it carefully through the broken window. He was sure that there was indeed a faint stench inside. He had smelled it in his previous life and still remembered it fresh, because it belonged to the smell emitted by the corpse after it rotted.

After confirming the smell, Liu Hua couldn't help but wonder, because according to the previous statement by Huang Magistrate Huang, the yamen runners were killed at the door of the back hall of Wu's house, and all the bodies had been transported away. But if that were the case, why would there be a stench of corpses in this room?

Thinking of this, Liu Hua suppressed the doubts in his heart and continued to check other rooms. After he walked through Wu's house, he did not find any other suspicious points. Only the room closest to the gate made Liu Hua feel the most suspicious.
Chapter completed!