"Do you know who takes care of your master's usual diet?" Su Qiubai suddenly asked.

Anya thought for a moment and replied, "Although Master is the head of the sect, his diet is not better than that of ordinary disciples, but he doesn't eat with other disciples. Most of the time, the master's meal is delivered to his room by the disciple, and the disciple who delivers the meal is not necessarily who it is, and it may take some trouble to find out. ”

Su Qiubai nodded, knowing that he was in a hurry at this time, so he put away the fragment and continued to patrol the house.

Originally, he didn't find anything suspicious, but as he was about to leave, a light caught his attention.

Because there is no electricity in Qingyang Mountain, the disciples in the door live the same life as the ancient people, and the night lighting relies on either candles or oil lamps, and the oil lamps they use are not the primitive oil lamps of ancient times, but windproof oil lamps with glass covers. The reason why this lamp attracted Su Qiubai's attention was because it was an antique oil lamp, and the silver lampstand was covered with a paper lampshade, which was a little special in the contrast between the glass oil lamp and the candle.

"Was this lamp in your master's room before?" Su Qiubai asked, pointing to the oil lamp.

Anya walked over and picked up the oil lamp and looked at it, tried to recall, shook her head and said, "I haven't seen it, if there is such a lamp in Master's room, I shouldn't be impressed." However, it has been several years since I left Qingyang Mountain, and I am sure that he only used this lamp later. ”

Su Qiubai took the lamp from her hand, and after separating the lampshade from the lamp body, she quickly discovered the clue.

"Can you see anything inside this lampshade?" Su Qiubai asked.

Anya stared at the lampshade for a long time, but she couldn't see the reason, because it was an ordinary papier-mâché lampshade, not even a pattern, it was already simple to the point of being ugly, and there were bamboo sticks to support it inside the lampshade, but I don't know if the lampshade was too rough in workmanship, or it was damaged when it was used, and the bamboo sticks inside were horizontal and vertical, which looked very inferior.

"What's so nice about this broken lampshade?" Anya asked, puzzled.

Su Qiubai put the lampshade back on the lamp, took the oil lamp and walked out of the door with Anya, and said, "When it gets dark, you will know what secrets are in this lampshade." ”

Although Anya didn't know what medicine he was selling in his gourd, she had to quickly follow him out of Master's room.

The two of them didn't go anywhere else that day, and it soon darkened.

Anya had been thinking about the lampshade, so she urged Su Qiubai and said, "Didn't you say that you can know the secret in the lampshade when it's dark?" Hurry up and sue me! ”

Su Qiubai unhurriedly lit the lamp, covered the lampshade again, and then said to Anya: "You have a good look." ”

As he spoke, he turned the position of the oil lamp and stared at the shadow cast by the oil lamp on the wall.

Anya watched him fiddling quietly, and after a while, she finally saw his intentions.

"This ...... Is this the word? Anya asked in surprise.

Because as Su Qiubai kept turning the direction of the oil lamp, the messy shadows on the wall finally became clearer and clearer, and the final structure of these shadows was obviously one word.

When Su Qiubai finally stopped what she was doing, Anya looked at the wall again, but she was stunned in surprise, because there was a word "king" on the wall.

This was obviously not a coincidence, and it was no accident that the oil lamp suddenly appeared in Master's bedroom. It seems that the bamboo sticks in the lampshade were deliberately messed up by the master, in order to use the shadow of the lamp to illuminate a king character, but what does this character represent? Anya naturally thought of someone.

"Wang ...... Senior Brother Wang? She spoke her guess in disbelief.

Su Qiubai was afraid that some disciples who passed by would see the words on the wall, so he stretched out his hand and turned the direction of the oil lamp, and the shadow on the wall suddenly became chaotic again.

"I don't know either, but I'm sure that this is also an important hint from your master, as for what this word represents, we have to wait for us to confirm it before we can know." Su Qiubai said.

Anya has been shocked by her own speculation, although she knows that Wang Bo is not a very good person, but she has never thought that he is a bad person, if this thing is really done by him, then what is his purpose? The position of the leader? It's impossible, there are still two senior brothers above him, and he is not the master's favorite disciple, so it will not be his turn to be the head of the sect anyway. In addition, Anya couldn't think of any other reason for him to murder his master, so she could only hope that she guessed wrong, and the word king actually meant something else.

Now the two have two pieces of evidence, but they are all vague and cannot directly determine who is the murderer based on this evidence. In order to further narrow down the suspects, they decided to screen the disciples according to the information given by the two pieces of evidence.

First of all, they want to find out all the disciples surnamed Wang in the Qingyang Sect, if they correctly guessed the meaning of the word Wang on the lampshade, then the murderer must be among this group of people.

This is not a difficult thing, Anya went to check the list of disciples, and found that there were only three disciples surnamed Wang, plus Wang Bo, it was four people.

"Except for Senior Brother Wang, the other three disciples surnamed Wang are just ordinary disciples, and they have no reason to harm Master." Anya looked at the transcribed list of disciples surnamed Wang and said suspiciously.

Su Qiubai shook his head when he heard this, and said, "There may be a mastermind behind this murderer, so we can't make a conclusion based on the motive yet." After all, your master's meals are all delivered by ordinary disciples, and it's not impossible for them to do it. If you can find a list of the disciples who brought food to your master two months ago, maybe it will be easier to calculate. ”

Anya said in embarrassment: "This kind of thing will not be recorded, after all, no one would have thought that someone would dare to harm the head, so it has always been temporarily assigned." ”

Su Qiubai frowned when he heard this: "Temporary assignment? What do you mean? ”

Anya replied, "The usual meals of the master are made by the disciples in the sect in turn, so the disciples in the kitchen also rotate from time to time, and after the meal is ready, one of these disciples will be randomly assigned to deliver food to the master, so it is difficult to record the specific list in detail." ”

Su Qiubai frowned and thought for a long time, and muttered suspiciously: "If this is the case, then it will be much more difficult for this disciple to start, because the poisoning interval of the honey fragrance is fixed, and it will affect the efficacy of the medicine early or late." And since this food-delivering disciple is assigned at random, the murderer may not be able to guarantee that he will have the opportunity to deliver food every time he needs to be poisoned, so the possibility that the murderer is a food-delivering disciple is small. ”

Anya immediately understood what he meant, and asked rhetorically: "Is it possible that someone tampered with the food on the way to deliver the food?" ”

Su Qiubai nodded and said, "Since the suspicion of the disciple who delivered the meal has been ruled out, there is only this possibility left. But it's a problem to investigate, do you have a way to gather all the disciples together? I would like to ask them a few questions. ”

"This ...... Let me give it a try, as long as Senior Brother Zhong doesn't obstruct it, it shouldn't be a difficult matter, there are only ninety-six disciples in the Qingyang Sect in total, if you can't gather them, it won't take much time to ask them one by one. Anya replied.

"Well, it's getting late today, so it looks like we'll have to talk about it tomorrow. One day has passed since the three-day period, and we still have two days to go, so we must hurry. ”

The two of them had made up their minds and went back to their rooms to rest.

Early the next morning, Anya knocked on Su Qiubai's door, and seeing that she looked very eager, Su Qiubai asked, "What's wrong?" Hurry. ”

Anya also walked directly into Su Qiubai's room, closed the door with her backhand, and said: "Early this morning, Senior Brother Zhong left the sect with the disciples in the door, I asked the left-behind disciples, saying that they took them to practice outside the mountain, and I don't know when I will be able to come back!" ”

Su Qiubai also frowned when he heard this, taking his disciples out of the mountain to practice at this time was obviously to avoid their investigation, this Zhong Mingyang really began to obstruct them!

"What now? He only left one disciple to stay at the master's gate, and that person was still his confidant, and he couldn't ask why. Anya said anxiously.

Su Qiubai thought for a moment and asked, "Apart from the left-behind disciple and us, is there anyone else here?" ”

Anya nodded and said, "Senior Brother Li and Senior Brother Wang have stayed, but what's the use of them staying?" ”

Su Qiubai paced back and forth in the room for a while before he said, "Do you think your Senior Brother Li is a person you can trust?" ”

Anya looked at him suspiciously and asked, "Why do you suddenly ask that?" ”

Su Qiubai replied: "It is no accident that he suddenly appeared yesterday and came to our aid. His purpose is self-evident, of course, but why does he dare to be so sure that he is on our side? After all, we only have three days to investigate, and if we can't find out anything by then, you will inevitably be expelled from the sect, and he who helped you will probably not have a good time in the future. Do you think that your Senior Brother Li is such a selfless and selfless person who sacrifices himself for others? ”

Anya shook her head without hesitation and said, "Although Senior Brother Li is usually kind and kind, no one can be offended, but he is not to the point of selflessness. It's a little strange to hear you say that, he never does anything he doesn't know for sure, but why is he sure that we'll make it? ”

Su Qiubai suddenly laughed and said, "That's right, he naturally has the secret of the murderer, so he dares to approach us so reassuringly, but I'm afraid it's not so easy for us to cooperate with him." You also know that he is not a selfless person, so he naturally has conditions for doing so, and as for whether he can agree to help you, it depends on whether you can agree to his conditions. ”

Anya replied without hesitation: "As long as the real culprit who killed the master can be found, I am willing to pay any price!" ”

Su Qiubai asked rhetorically: "Can the position of head also be given up?" ”