Yan was shouting that everyone was eating, and Xia Fengyi motioned to Meng Tianchu to help Zuo Jiayin and become more and more cumbersome day by day.

At the dinner table, Xia Fengyi deliberately said in order not to let Meng Tianchu think about the case again: "You weren't there last night, do you know what we are doing at home?" ”

Meng Tianchu said: "You all have new tricks every day, how do I know?" ”

Feiyan remembered the funny thing the night before, and couldn't help laughing, even squirting out the food in her mouth, and hurriedly covered her mouth with her hand. Everyone burst out laughing.

Feiyan wiped the corners of her mouth and glared, "Don't laugh, okay?" What's so funny about me, it was really funny last night. ”

Meng Tianchu suddenly became interested: "Oh, since you want to spray rice, I really want to hear what makes you so funny?" ”

Feiyan saw that Meng Tianchu was interested, put the dishes and chopsticks on the table, and said with a fluttering eyebrow without eating: "Last night, the three of us were really boring, and no one told us ghost stories when you weren't there, so I still wanted to go." You can't guess what we did last night,—— we're acting on our own! ”

Meng Tianchu saw Feiyan's excited face, and asked with a smile, "Which one?" ”

Feiyan said: "Don't ask about the play first, you don't know, the eldest lady puts on your clothes and pretends to be a man, and a maid is sending snacks in and doesn't watch it, and directly says, Oh, it's the young master who is back!" ”

Meng Tianchu laughed, and Xia Fengyi and the others also laughed.

Feiyan smiled again and said, "What's more..."

"Wait!" The smile on Meng Tianchu's face suddenly froze. With a wave of his hand, he stood up abruptly and said excitedly: "Okay! You inspire me! Haha, if it weren't for the three of you being crazy, I wouldn't have thought of it! ”

Before everyone could react, Meng Tianchu had already walked out.

Feiyan said: "Why are you crazy again?" Haven't finished eating yet? Where are you going? ”

Meng Tianchu said loudly as he walked, "You guys can eat." I don't eat it, I know what the contents of this box are for. With that, the man walked out of the door quickly.

Of course, the personal guard Zhu Hao followed closely behind.

Meng Tianchu heard Feiyan say that the three of them were acting just now, and suddenly remembered the last time he heard Zhuge Xin say that this Zilin girl had been in the troupe since she was a child, and this box might be related to the troupe.

He and Zhu Hao went to a troupe in the county town to ask, and sure enough, the box turned out to be filled with oil paint on the faces of the people who sang the opera. Since the ancient oil paint was not the same as the modern one, he was not familiar with it. And the ancient opera was a very lowly profession, so the oil paint used for singing was only known to people in the industry, and Xia Fengyi naturally didn't recognize it.

After determining the contents of the box, Meng Tianchu asked Wang Yi to call Zhuge Xin in civilian clothes for questioning. He sat in the yamen and waited. At this time, Murong Zhenxue also came, and her clothes had been changed into her usual short clothes, and after the warmth of the previous night, the two were a little embarrassed to meet.

Zhuge Xin's expression was still very haggard, and he saw Meng Tianchu after coming in. Hurriedly bow down.

Meng Tianchu asked him to sit down and said, "I just asked Wang Yi to change into civilian clothes before going to you, your wife didn't think much about it, right?" ”

Zhuge Xin said: "It's still the master who thinks thoughtfully, I was really shocked when Wang Zhutou came, but before I could speak, Wang Zhutou said that he was doing business in partnership with me." Naturally, my wife didn't doubt it, and since she was a man, it didn't matter. ”

Meng Tianchu nodded, took out the box to Zhuge Xin, and said, "Have you seen this box?" ”

Zhuge Xin looked at it, shook his head, and said, "I haven't seen it." ”

"Think about it again."

"I really haven't seen it, I don't even know what this thing is."

Meng Tianchu saw that he didn't seem to be lying. So he took it back and said, "I heard you last time that Miss Zilin grew up in the troupe, so I thought you had seen it." ”

Zhuge Xin said: "Is this thing from the troupe?" I really don't know. Although Zilin grew up in the troupe, she doesn't sing, so I haven't seen it. ”

Meng Tianchu asked again: "Then you have never seen this thing on her?" ”

Zhuge Xin thought for a while and said: "She didn't even take a burden when she came, and I bought all the things after she came, so it shouldn't be her who brought them." ”

Seeing that he couldn't ask anything, Meng Tianchu asked Zhuge Xin to go back.

According to Zhuge Xin, this box should not have been brought by Zilin, at least this is unlikely, could it be that someone came when she was alone in that house? Thinking of this, Meng Tianchu decided to go to that mansion again to take a look, there must be something that he didn't find.

With Zhu Hao, Wang Yi, and Murong Zhenxue, the four of them drove to Sunset Village again.

Before entering the village, he saw many villagers gathered on the side of the road from afar, Murong Zhenxue leaned out to take a look, and said, "It seems that many people are crying, is something happening again?" ”

Meng Tianchu said: "It's better not to have anything happen, I really don't like this." ”

When the carriage arrived, Meng Tianchu and the four of them got out of the car and saw that it was indeed a dead man, and there was a middle-aged man lying on an unloaded door panel, who should also be a farmer from the perspective of his dress, mixed and wet, with his hair scattered, his face was pale, his eyes were closed, as if he had drowned, wearing straw sandals on one foot, but not on the other.

Meng Tianchu and they got out of the car, the villagers saw Wang Yi wearing a fast trapping costume, and quickly stood with his hands down, Wang Yi asked what was going on, and some villagers replied: "Official, the village is haunted." ”

Meng Tianchu looked at a woman of the same age who was kneeling beside the deceased, thinking that it was the man's wife, so he stepped forward and said, "Why don't you report the dead in the family?" ”

The woman wept and said, "He jumped into the weir and died, what should I report?" ”

An old woman with a bamboo stick beside her skimmed

No, your Liu Si knows how to water, how did this pond drown him? I beckoned it. ”

The old woman said so. Everyone nodded.

Meng Tianchu said while inspecting the corpse: "In broad daylight, what the hell is there, you guys can think of it." ”

The kneeling woman said, "Well, my man really saw a ghost." ”

—

When Meng Tianchu heard this, he also felt strange and asked, "How do you know?" ”

The woman said, "My man is fine with everything. I just like to drink, and every time I don't get drunk and don't go home, I also know that he has to rely on him in the field on weekdays, he is too hard, and it is okay to drink some wine to relieve fatigue, so I don't say it, and I am afraid that he will lose his temper and beat me and the child, last night. He went to the village dog's house to drink, he came back very late, and he kicked the door open, so the child and I were woken up by him, he was soaked, and he looked very panicked, and as soon as he came in, he fell to the ground, and kept saying that he saw a ghost. ”

Meng Tianchu said: "Then several hours have passed since last night, why did he have an accident?" When did he come back last night? ”

The woman said, "I don't know what time it was, but when he came back, the rain had just stopped for a while." Because he said that he waited for the rain to stop before coming back, and forgot to take his coat when he left. After he came back last night, he kept saying that he had seen a ghost, and I thought he had drunk too much, and he was scared by seeing something wrong on the road, so he didn't care. But this morning, oh my... Woo... Woo"

The woman began to cry again, and two children, both about ten years old, came in from the crowd, holding the woman, and the three of them wept together.

A man next to him said, "Poor people, the only orphans and widows who are left really don't know how to live." ”

Meng Tianchu squatted down and examined the corpse. The body surface examination judged that it was a drowning death before death, of course, accurate judgment requires an autopsy to know. But just now I heard the old man say that the deceased knew water, so it is indeed strange to drown.

The woman continued: "When I got up in the morning, my man was no longer at home, and I thought he had probably sobered up and gone to work in the fields, so I didn't think much of it. Later, after I had cooked for the two children, I took the dry food to eat at noon and went to the field with the children, only to find that my man was not in the field, and I was still a little scared when I thought of what happened last night, so I went with the two children to look for it near the village. ”

Meng Tianchu said: "That's not right, it's not been an hour since your man died, it's been at least more than two hours since morning, could it be that he was already dead when you found him?" ”

The woman looked at Meng Tianchu strangely and said, "How do you know that it hasn't been an hour since the man in my family died?" ”

Wang Yi said: "This is the criminal master of our yamen, who solves the case like a god, when and how did the man in your family die, it is not difficult for him." ”

As soon as Wang Yi said this, the onlookers immediately looked at Meng Tianchu with reverent eyes.

Meng Tianchu asked the woman to continue.

The woman nodded and said, "We really searched for a long time, and then many people in the village who worked in the fields found out about it and helped us find him, and later, we found him by the pond." ”

Meng Tianchu thought for a while and asked: "Listening to what you said, there are many villagers who help you find your man, I took a look, your Sunset Village is not big, where do you need to find such a long time?" ”

The woman said: "We thought the same thing at the time, thinking that he had already left the village and gone to the county seat, but we thought that he would not, because he had not said it before, and he did not have any money with him, so we searched the village again and found that he was in the weir." ”

When Meng Tianchu heard this woman say, he felt that this man named Liu Si suddenly came out of the ground again, which was very bizarre.

One of the woman's children said, "We stood opposite my father and called him, but he ignored us and frightened my mother." ”

"At that time, many people in the village stood opposite and shouted at him, saying that the water in the weir pond was cold, and it had only rained, and he would slip down if he was not careful," the woman said. ”

Meng Tianchu said: "Where is the weir pond, take me to see it." ”

A villager said: "Sister-in-law of the Liu family, you take the officials and the old man to go, and I will show you here." ”

The woman thanked them again and again, and then led Meng Tianchu and them forward, and many people in the village followed to see the excitement.

Probably walked a pillar of incense and came to the weir, Meng Tianchu looked at the surrounding environment, the weir itself is not big, originally the weir was used to store water in summer to be irrigated by drought, and it has been raining almost every day in recent times, so the water in the weir has almost overflowed to more than half.

The weir is surrounded by farmland and bamboo forests, and there are many earth graves. Many people in rural areas like to bury their relatives in their fields or behind their houses, so such graves can be seen everywhere in the countryside.

The woman pointed to a place and said, "He was standing in that place, and we all called out to him from the opposite side to come over, and he ignored no one and just stood there, and after a while he jumped down." ”

Meng Tianchu looked at the position that the woman was pointing at, not far from where he was standing, so he said, "Then why don't you go over and grab him?" ”

The woman said: "There is a saying in our countryside that such a person is fascinated by ghosts, and you can only call him soul, but you can't pull him, otherwise you will be taken away by ghosts." ”

Meng Tianchu nodded, and at this time, a person who followed to see the excitement said: "It must be the woman who died the day before yesterday to be brought away, or the previous woman in the haunted courtyard is brought away, we should move that woman's grave out of our village." The other villagers agreed.