In the south of Qizhou, the Yangtze River is mighty and rushing eastward, the grass and trees on the maple ridge in the north of the river are verdant, and the winding mountain road has long been deserted, only Qin Lin walks on the road covered by the barren grass, one foot deep and one foot shallow.

The Ming Dynasty strictly implemented the policy of suppressing the White Lotus Sect, and the White Lotus Sect in the Jinghu area triggered a strict investigation by the government

-- As a matter of fact, the policy of guiding the road after Yongle has been basically abolished, and it has only been used when the social situation is severe.

Although the Ming Dynasty in the sixth year of Wanli has a lot of hidden dangers lurking, there are Zhang Juzheng in charge of the government, and there are good generals such as Qi Jiguang and Yu Dayou leading the troops outside.

From Jinghu Lake down the river is the south of the Yangtze River, the Tang and Song dynasties are known as prosperous in the market, and the merchants come and go like weaving, and the road introduction system has long been a dead letter there.

Qin Lin was going to take the mountain road to avoid the checkpoints, slowly find a small wharf by the Yangtze River, and take a tailwind boat to the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, so that on the one hand, he avoided the Jinghu area, which was strictly investigated and guided, and on the other hand, he went to the coastal area of the south of the Yangtze River, where the commodity economy was developed.

There are few people on the mountain road, most of the road is covered by wild grass, thorns, Qin Lin's linen clothes are torn by the small thorns on the thorns.

After crossing a fork in the road, he suddenly stopped and looked warily ahead: there were several wattles that had been broken.

In the eyes of ordinary people, this is not strange, although the mountain road is remote, there are hunters, woodcutters, and more likely the traces left by large beasts.

But when it comes to Qin Lin, who is a master of criminal investigation, he will not let go of any clues easily.

He immediately lay on the ground to check the footprints, and was stunned at first after finding a few fresh footprints, and then compared it with his feet with a solemn face, and measured the distance between the two footprints before and after, and then breathed a sigh of relief.

Next, Qin Lin searched carefully among the blocked thorn bushes, and it was not until he found a piece of cloth only the size of his little finger from a small thorn that a relieved smile appeared on his face.

After paying attention all the way and continuing to walk for two or three miles, Qin Lin stopped again, looked at the posture of the thorny bushes falling and breaking, and shouted at a dense bush seven or eight zhang away:

"Come out, friend! Half of the road is towards the sky, we don't know each other, and meeting here is also fate, so why hide your head and show your tail? ”

There was no movement in the bushes, and the mountains and forests were very quiet, only the chirping of birds in the distance.

Qin Lin said confidently: "Brother, you don't have to hide, you walked here alone, wearing a moon-white gown, flat boots, about five feet two inches tall, about twenty-five years old, strong body, and the most important thing is that you have an injury on your left leg, friend, am I right?" ”

There was a sound in the bushes, and a strong young man came out, carrying a small burden, holding a single knife in his hand, and sure enough, there were spots of blood on his left leg, and he was limping when he walked, and saw that Qin Lin was a fifteen or sixteen-year-old half-sized child, and the young man's originally gloomy face showed a look of surprise.

Seeing that his judgment had been confirmed, Qin Lin couldn't help but feel a little complacent:

At first, when he found out that the footprints were calfskin boots, he was a little apprehensive, because he had observed that the people of this era were either wearing straw shoes or cloth shoes, and those who wore calfskin boots were likely to be from the public family, so it was very likely that he would be stopped and checked when he walked alone in the wilderness, and then mistakenly recognized as a White Lotus Sect rebel.

He quickly recognized that the fresh footprints on the road belonged to the same person, and he breathed a sigh of relief, and then judged that this person's left leg was obviously a little lame, but the shape of the footprints was not as consistent as that of ordinary lame, and he knew that he had recently suffered a leg injury, and he had this kind of unstable footprints because of the pain and uneven force, Qin Lin was even more determined.

Although he has become a fifteen or sixteen-year-old boy, his strength has weakened a lot, but his grappling skills are still there, and he is still stable against an opponent with a leg injury.

The pieces of cloth found on the thorns corroborated Qin Lin's judgment, and the clothes of this color were neither the "green battle robes and red belly wraps" of the officials, nor the vermilion mandarin duck battle jackets of the guards, nor the golden flying fish suits of the brocade guards, but only those worn by the common people.

The young man was surprised that Qin Lin had broken through his roots in a few words, but he didn't know that portraying a suspect based on footprints was the simplest criminal investigation technique: the footprints of the elderly were heavy heels and light soles, while the young people were light heels and heavy soles, and the age of the other party could be estimated from the shape of the footprints; The length of the bare feet is estimated from the size of the footprints of the shoes, multiplied by seven times the height of the suspect; The length of the stride can not only estimate the height, but also judge the physical condition of the suspect......

Therefore, Qin Lin did not meet at all, and he had already thoroughly touched the basic situation of the young man.

The young man of the yin owl was not sure of Qin Lin's identity: he looked fifteen or sixteen years old, but he spoke very old; His skin was fair-skinned like a scholar, but his clothes were more tattered than coolies, and he really didn't know what to do.

He said tentatively: "My name is Yu Caigao, I sold a batch of cotton cloth from Qizhou to Jiujiang Mansion, I met a robber half a day ago, I was robbed of my property, and I was also slashed in the leg. Dare to ask the little brother's surname? ”

Qin Lin told him his real name and surname, anyway, no one in this world knew him, saying that he was a poor boy who went to Jiujiang Mansion to meet literary friends, because his father was a skilled hunter, so he could distinguish people by looking at footprints.

That Yu Caigao's eyes rolled when he heard this, and his face was full of smiles: "There are snakes, insects, tigers and leopards in this mountain forest, especially the snakes 'five steps down', since we are all going to Jiujiang Mansion, it is better to go together, and there is a response on the road." ”

Qin Lin nodded without thinking, Yu Caigao was immediately overjoyed, and the two walked together.

Along the way, Yu Caigao used words to test Qin Lin, but what kind of person is Qin Lin? In the interrogation room, a few words can often break through the suspect's psychological defense, and the continuous interrogation throughout the night does not yawn, and when he appears in court as an expert witness, he faces the suspect's defense lawyer's questions from beginning to end.

After walking for more than half an hour, together with the previous walk, it has been more than 20 miles away from Qizhou City, and both of them are a little hungry, so they sit down to rest by a stream.

Yu Caigao took out two pancakes from his baggage and smiled at Qin Lin: "Home-made cakes, Brother Qin can taste them?" ”

"Thank you," Qin Lin agreed to take it in his hand, and opened his mouth to bite it off.

Yu Caigao's eyes flashed with a fierce light.

"Hey, who's there!" Qin Lin screamed and threw out a stone.

Yu Caigao was taken aback, his face became very ugly, and he followed the direction where the stone was thrown, but saw a pheasant fluttering and flapping its wings and flying away, and the look on his face instantly returned to normal.

Qin Lin said with great regret: "It's a pity, if my father is here, this pheasant will definitely not be able to run!" ”

Yu Caigao calmed down, picked up his cake and took a bite, deliberately praised the delicious taste of the baked cake, and secretly observed Qin Lin's movements.

Qin Lin ate the cake in two bites of three bites with the clear and sweet stream water.

Yu Caigao just sneered in his heart, but after walking for a long time at this time, he was also hungry, seeing that Qin Lin was eating sweetly, he also ate the cake in his hand.

Within a moment, Qin Lin suddenly bent over and hugged his stomach, beads of sweat the size of soybeans rolled down from the corners of his forehead, and he moaned one after another: "Ouch, hey, this cold water is really undrinkable, it's too bad, my stomach hurts......"

Yu Caigao was so anxious that he jumped to his feet, asked Qin Lin to rub his stomach again, and came up with the idea of letting him lie down and rest.

Unexpectedly, Qin Lin straightened his waist and stared at Yu Caigao with clear eyes: "No, I'm afraid that if I am poisoned, someone will kill someone...... By the way, you are the senior brother of the White Lotus Sect, you are not called Yu Caigao, you are the high jackal feather pursued by the Jinyi Guard! ”

Gao Jackal Yu couldn't help but be surprised by Dao Break's identity, took two steps back, and asked, "You, how do you know?" ”

Qin Lin said in a deep voice: "I walked behind you for several miles, but you found me early, hiding on the side of the road and trying to plot, it can be seen that every time you walk a section of the road to a wide field of vision, you look back and observe, for fear that someone will chase you, so that you can find the pedestrians who are a few miles behind."

You said that you were robbed by robbers, if ordinary robbers don't want to die as long as they want money, even if they want to kill people, there is no reason to chase dozens of miles, not to mention that the Jinyi guards, officers and soldiers and officials are all searching for the White Lotus Sect on a large scale, what robbers will come out to commit crimes on this outlet?

Hehe, so from the moment I found you hiding in the grass, I knew that what you were afraid of was not a robber, but the Jinyi Guard who captured the White Lotus Sect demon bandits! ”

After Qin Lindao broke Gao Jackal's hiding and forced him to appear, he completely determined his judgment, because he had seen the portrait of Gao Jackal Yu on the shadow map of Jinyi Wei Baihu Shi Wei before.

Originally, the brush portraits of this era were not accurate, and ordinary people might not be able to recognize them when they saw them, but Qin Lin was used to making simulated portraits, and he was very familiar with the proportions of people's facial features, relative positions, and the distribution of facial muscle groups.

Gao Jackal Yu was stunned for a moment, and then laughed: "I didn't expect that you are such a young man, and your mind is so meticulous, I see that you are not like the son of any Orion, but like the Eagle Claw Sun of Six Doors!" Hmph, it's useless to say anything, now that the lifeless mother opens the eyes of the sky, she is going to take your life! ”

"Really?" Qin Lin smiled and stood up straight, his expression returned to calm, and there was no sign of death from poison.

Gao Jackal's eyes widened in shock: "You, you!" ”

Qin Lin patted the tattered placket of his clothes, lifted the hat again, and said slowly: "Since I saw your way from the beginning, how could I fall for your plan?" Hehe, let you die and understand, just now I exchanged the cake with yours, this is called treating others in the way of others, you eat your own cakes, you can't blame me for what happened~~"

Feeling a faint pain in his abdomen, Gao Jackal Yu trembled, of course he knew how fierce the poison in that cake was, and in a fit he slammed into Qin Lin, the steel knife slashed, rolling up the whirring wind, and the momentum was not weak.

Gao Jackal Yu is tall and strong, and his martial arts are not weak, otherwise he would not be able to escape from the round-up of Jinyiwei alone, but his state at this time is really not good.

Dealing with a guy who was injured in the leg and had a lot of poison in his body, Qin Lin easily dodged the pounce and kicked hard at Gao Jackal's injured left leg from the side, and this guy fell and ate.

After the high jackal feather fell, he still had to get up and fight again, he didn't want to fight again after the vigorous exercise, the poisonous surname attacked faster, and he barely struggled to support his upper body with both hands, and the sharp pain in his abdomen came, and his whole body was sore, and he gnawed into the mud with a mouthful, and he only twitched two or three times before he was silent.

"Haha, play dead? Don't be fooled! Qin Lin muttered to himself, and after a while, he reached out to the inner side of the sternocleidomastoid muscle behind the ears of the high jackal feather, and found that the common carotid artery had no pulse, and the arterial pulse could not be faked, and this person was already too dead to die anymore.