Since Changling's dragon sword has such a legend, then maybe this dragon sword is really a treasure, but such a treasure has been hanging under the bridge that anyone can see for hundreds of years, but it is safe and sound, I think it must have its special features.

Of course, I don't care about the special nature of the Dragon Descending Sword, but at least I want to understand it in more detail, especially some rumors about it among the folk, perhaps these rumors can explain the magic of the Dragon Descending Sword.

So I inquired about passers-by, especially some of the elderly, about the legend of this dragon-descending sword.

A white-haired old man said that this sword is a river demon that keeps the river in the town from flooding. Of course, this saying is the most widely spread, because this sword was hung at this time back then, and its function was to suppress the river demon and prevent water. It's just that in the eyes of modern people, most of these things feel like nonsense, without any scientific reason. Maybe it was just a kind of spiritual sustenance for people at that time.

Others say that the sword was left by a Taoist priest in the mountains. That year, the flood flooded and drowned many people in the town, and a Taoist priest who practiced meditation saw the blood rising in the town in the mountains, and knew that it was the demons who were doing it in the river, so he came to subdue the demons with his sword. It is said that the demon turned out to be an evil dragon in the Yangtze River, because the river rose, lost its way, and entered the small river of Changling, resulting in the inability to return to the river. When he was bored and angry, he made waves in the small river of Changling, causing floods. The Taoist priest then used the divine sword to guide the dragon and successfully brought it to the Yangtze River, which ended the disaster. The Taoist priest was worried that there would be a demon dragon coming here in the future, so he hung the sword under the bridge, and whenever a demon sneaked into the river, the sword would emit a thousand rays of light and expel it to keep one side safe. And many people have taken pains to say that they have seen this divine sword flickering in the dark night.

The legends vary, but all of them end with the town of the river demon keeping him safe.

So can these things have anything to do with the murder?

I think maybe. Because the murderer and the deceased were most likely preparing to participate in the theft of the Dragon Descending Sword together, but they didn't know what happened in the middle, so that the deceased was brutally killed.

This kind of killing method is also very strange, not like ordinary murder, as if it is some kind of ritual, why do you want to engage in this kind of method that is similar to ritual killing? I think there's a lot of it going on.

I inspected the Jing'an Bridge and found whitish friction marks on the stone railing on the left side of the bridge deck, typical of recent rope strangulation.

Through this trace, I thought of the sketch in Yang Wenxin's house, and the lines on the sketch actually simply reflected their method of trying to steal the Dragon Descending Sword. It is two people dragging the rope on the bridge, one person descends from the bridge deck to the bottom of the bridge, and swings to the center of the bottom of the bridge, and then takes away the dragon sword.

This method seems simple, but it is not easy to implement, the main thing is that the person who takes the sword must reach out quickly and grab the dragon sword in the swing of the rope. But think about it, this dragon sword has been hanging under the bridge for hundreds of years without falling, which shows that the method of fixing the dragon sword is very solid, and a simple swing and grasp obviously will not work. So I guess their approach has failed.

After inspecting the Jing'an Bridge, I went to the scene of the murder again. Of course, the murder scene has been cordoned off and the doors are closed. But my purpose is not to enter the scene of the murder, I want to find out who owns this house.

I found a neighbor nearby, and one of them, a middle-aged man with a shirtless and dark skin and a bald head, told me that the house belonged to a Taoist priest, and the Taoist priest's name was Zhang Weiming. Of course, the so-called Taoist priest is just the name given to him by Zhang Weiming himself, and in the eyes of others, he is a god who uses superstition to deceive food and drink. Zhang Weiming was sued at the police station because he often cheated in Changling, and he knew that he could no longer stay in the local area, so he sold his family property and went to other places to defraud. However, this person still keeps this property, that is, he still has a way out for himself, and if he can't be deceived in other places, he will return here to make a living.

But no one knows where this Zhang Weiming went. I wanted to ask Zhang Weiming's relatives and friends about his whereabouts, but everyone said that he was an orphan and that the Taoist priest in the temple in the mountain had adopted him, but the Taoist priest had already gone west, and the temple in the mountain had long been abandoned, and Zhang Weiming had a quirk by nature, so he had no relatives or friends at all.

Although this clue is broken. But I still found something unusual, that is, Zhang Weiming's door was not prying, nor was it opened by something, but with a key.

Based on this, I deduced two circumstances, the first is that Zhang Weiming participated in the murder, and the second is that Zhang Weiming gave the key to the house to one of the murderers.

So I found Lao Lu, hoping to find this Zhang Weiming through the police.

At the same time, Lao Lu told me about some of the test results in the case.

First of all, the blood at the scene of the murder, the blood on the walls and windows was not human blood, but dog blood. As for this conclusion, I expected, as I had guessed before, that the murder scene seemed to be performing some kind of ritual. Because since ancient times, it has been said that black dog blood can exorcise demons and ward off evil spirits. In all novels and operas, when it comes to the classic episode of exorcism, it will inevitably be said that the Taoist priest will open the altar and sprinkle the blood of black dogs. So much so that later, some pseudo-Taoist priests who did cheating and abduction appeared to sprinkle a bowl of blood first, regardless of whether it was black dog blood or not dog blood at all.

Regardless of whether the murder scene was sprinkled with black dog blood or ordinary dog blood, at least this practice can be determined that there is a ritual similar to exorcism at the murder scene. Why do you do this ritual? Does this ceremony have anything to do with Yang Wenxin's death?

The second is the DNA test of the cigarette butt, which has the DNA of the deceased, the DNA of the dog's blood, and the DNA of another person. Luckily, this person is a native of Wanzhou, and he has also served a prison sentence for theft.

This person's name is Luo Shuchuan, male, 32 years old this year, unmarried. It has been three years since he was released from prison, and he has been working as a cook at a restaurant on North Bin Road, and he has behaved well in recent years.

However, when Lao Lu sent someone to arrest Luo Shuchuan, he learned that Luo Shuchuan quit his job a week ago, and because Luo Shuchuan rented a house to live, there was no specific place to stay, and no one knew where he was.

Lao Lu took me to find Luo Shuchuan's parents, his parents live in Zouma Town, Wanzhou District, and they are both old people over sixty years old with white hair.

From the two old men, I learned that Luo Shuchuan had returned to his hometown a week ago, and carried large bags of gifts and tonics, saying that he had made a fortune and would soon be able to let the second elder live a comfortable life. But for the next week, there was no news, and even the phone was turned off.

It's a pity that the two old men don't know the specific location of Luo Shuchuan's rented house in the city. But we can be sure that after Luo Shuchuan resigned, he spent money lavishly, and there must be a reason.

The top priority is to find Luo Shuchuan as soon as possible. So Lao Lu began to search the whole city.

Half a month later, the police found Luo Shuchuan in a rental house in Sangshuping (place name), but Luo Shuchuan was already a corpse at this time.

But this corpse is very strange, according to the forensic judgment, the deceased should have died for more than a week, but in the closed and hot room, the body actually did not stink and decompose.

I examined the body, the body was lying on the wooden bed in the bedroom of the rental house, there were no obvious fatal injuries on the surface of the body, and the cause of death could not be determined for a while.

But I found that there were bruises on the wrists and ankles of the deceased, which seemed to have been left after being tied with ropes, and that the bruises were not caused after death, but were left before death.

I walked around the two-bedroom rental house and found that it was very clean and there was no trash in the bin. There was not a single food in the kitchen, not even any ingredients. The bathroom urinal was covered with a layer of ash and the remains of insects and ants.

These are enough to prove that no one has lived in this house for a long time, so why did Luo Shuchuan die in this room?

I asked Lao Lu, "How did you find Luo Shuchuan's body?" ”

Lao Lu said: "Someone called the police this morning and said that someone died here. ”

"What about the person who called the police?"

"Didn't show up."

I frowned, thought for a moment, and said, "Check out the person who called the police." What about the owner of this house? ”

Lao Lu said: "I haven't been in touch so far. ”

I said, "Is it possible that the person who called the police is the owner of the house?" ”

Lao Lu nodded and said, "I thought so too." After saying that, Lao Lu ordered his men to find the person who called the police and the owner of the house.

Of course, I can't be idle, because what I am most concerned about is the cause of Luo Shuchuan's death.

At the forensic center, I waited for the results I wanted. I was blown away by this result.

Luo Shuchuan died because of *poisoning,* which is commonly known as arsenic, the 'crane top red' in martial arts novels.

Luo Shuchuan's poisoning death was actually expected by me, and what really shocked me was that he had a large amount of mercury sulfide in his body, which is commonly known as cinnabar. And in Luo Shuchuan's body, no food residues and stool were found.

Cinnabar has the effect of embalming, in ancient times, dignitaries were buried, and many of them were painted with cinnabar for embalming. In addition, there is no food residue in Luo Shuchuan's body, which reduces the reproduction of bacteria. To sum up, the spectacle of the corpse not decomposing is formed.

But why does Luo Shuchuan have a lot of cinnabar in his body? Through Luo Shuchuan's limbs with bound bruises, I deduced a hypothesis. That is, Luo Shuchuan was once kidnapped and tied his limbs so that he could not move and could not escape. After a certain period of time, the murderer mixed arsenic into the cinnabar water and poisoned Luo Shuchuan to death.

Luo Shuchuan's death is very weird, and the kidnapper's behavior is even more weird. But this practice seems to be another ritual, because cinnabar, like black dog blood, has the effect of exorcising evil spirits since ancient times.

Who is the murderer?