"Is the door to this room locked all the time?"

"It's been locked all the time."

"What did you hear?"

"I can't say, there must be a voice, I can't say what it is."

"Is the sound coming from inside this meditation room?"

"It should come from this meditation room, I have always been very alert when I sleep at night, last night, after I heard the sound, I got up from the bed, walked to the window of this room and listened, but the sound was gone, I squatted under the window for a while, and saw that there was no sound, so I went back to sleep."

"After that, is there any sound?"

"Shortly after I lay down, the old voice came back, but it was much quieter than before."

"When you squatted out of the window, was there a lock on the door?" Zhao Zimeng has been paying attention to the problem of locks.

"There is a lock, I looked at the lock, I wondered, the door is locked, how can there be a sound in the meditation room?"

"Master Qian, open the lock."

Master Qian walked to the door and took out an iron ring-like thing from the black leather bag, and there were six things like the head of the driver distributed around the ring—this thing like the head of the driver should be the key to unlock the lock.

Xiao Luhan took the leather bag in Master Qian's hand.

Xiang Daimo aimed the light of the flashlight at the keyhole.

Master Qian inserted one of the keys into the keyhole, moved it up and down, turned it left and right, the lock did not respond at all, Master Qian changed two more keys, and when the third key was changed, the lock was finally opened.

Xiang Daimo slowly pushed the door open, and while pushing the door, everyone heard the sound of the rat fleeing in a hurry.

In the process of unlocking, everyone held their breath.

Zhao Zimeng motioned for the others to stand outside the meditation room, and he and Xiang Daimo slowly pushed the door open, and then walked in—the two of them only took two small steps—and the deep intervention would destroy some important traces.

In the beam of the flashlight, there were some cobwebs and dust fluttering, and there were many miscellaneous items piled up in the meditation room, there were incense tables, there were puff pads, there were door panels, there were candlesticks, there were wooden fish—it was the kind of large wooden fish, there was a drum set—like a drum set, and there was a broken drum next to it, and the cowhide on the drum had been cracked, and some tattered monk's robes tied up with ropes.

Zhao Zimeng and Xiang Daimo could only stand one meter square, and the place beyond one meter was full of debris.

Xiang Daimo aimed the beam of the flashlight at the corner of the wall, where many cobwebs hung from the corner.

Xiang Daimo discovered the situation: "Team Zhao, look-"

Xiang Daimo aimed the beam of the flashlight at a dilapidated incense case.

Only two-thirds of the table top of the incense case remained—the other third was occupied by a broken chair with a layer of ash on the tabletop, and two finger prints on one of the corners—the incense case was about 2.5 meters from the door—the incense case leaned on a drum rack—the incense case had only three legs left.

"Dai Mo, this should be a new handprint."

Xiang Daimo pointed the light of the flashlight at the three legs of the incense case, one of which left a pull mark dozens of centimeters long on the ground, which should have been left when he moved the table.

The flashlight found a new situation, outside the fan-shaped area of the door movement, there were several more obvious footprints, Zhao Zimeng and Xiang Daimo had been standing in the fan-shaped area - near the threshold, and did not dare to move their steps.

The bottom of the door frame is close to the floor tiles, and when the door is opened and closed, even if there are any marks on the floor tiles, the door frame is scraped clean.

Xiang Daimo raised his right foot and looked at the shoe prints left by his right foot on the ground.

Xiang Daimo is wearing leather shoes on his feet, the pattern on the soles of leather shoes is clearly visible, and then look at several other shoe prints, only the basic outline of the shoes, there is no pattern, this is right, the nuns in the temple are wearing cloth shoes on their feet, and it is impossible for cloth shoes to leave any pattern on the ground.

Two people crouched down.

Zhao Zimeng measured the length of the shoe print with the thumb and index finger of his right hand, and the size of the two relatively clear shoe prints was actually different, the size of one shoe print was about the same as the size of the shoes on Xiang Daimo's feet - Xiang Daimo wore shoes of size 42; The size of the other shoe print is 3.5 centimeters shorter, and the size of the shoe should be about 38.5 yards according to the number of yards. The two shoe prints should represent two people.

In the nunnery, there were nuns wearing size 42 shoes, which surprised Zhao Zimeng and Xiang Daimo.

"Zimeng, this should be an important clue, I think, there must be very few women with such big feet in the nunnery, so it shouldn't be difficult to find this person." Linghu Yunfei said.

Judging from the clarity of the finger prints and shoe prints, someone had just entered the meditation room, and the time should have been last night. When Zhao Zimeng and Xiang Daimo walked into the meditation room, they once heard the sound of mice, and there were no rat footprints on the shoe prints, which showed that the time would not be too long.

Not far from the shoe prints, there are a lot of rat paw prints—on the floor of the meditation room, there is a thick layer of dust—and this room has not been inhabited for a long time.

Next, the two people made further discoveries, and the debris in the meditation room had traces of human movement, which could be seen from the incompleteness of the cobwebs hanging on the debris. Because on some sundries in the southwest corner of the meditation room, there are some complete spider webs, and there is a spider crawling around on these spider webs.

"Master Chen, please call a few people to help us move all these sundries outside." Zhao Zimeng said as he picked up two pu mats.

Master Chen turned to leave, and after a while, he brought four masters with him.

"Captain Zhao, let's do these things." Master Chen rolled up his sleeves and rushed into the meditation room.

After Zhao Zimeng and Xiang Daimo exited the meditation room, several workers rushed into the meditation room together.

Half an hour later, most of the clutter in the meditation room had moved outside.

Everyone walked into the meditation room.

There is a large bunk that occupies one-third of the area of the meditation room against the inner wall, and a few broken straw mats are spread on the bunk. The broken straw mat was gnawed by rats.

Zhao Zimeng lifted a straw mat, and there was a lot of rat feces under the straw mat.

The straw mat must have been touched, and if no one has touched the straw mat, the rat droppings should be on the straw mat.

Xiao Luhan uncovered the straw mat, and under the straw mat was a paving board.

Master Chen moved quickly, lifted up the three paving boards, and leaned against the wall.

The underneath the plank was empty, the same as the bed in the meditation room where Jinghei used to live in the Western Zen Temple. The bed is covered with green bricks.

Xiang Daimo used a flashlight to carefully inspect each green brick, including the gaps between the green bricks and the green bricks.

Zhao Zimeng firmly believes that if there is a problem with this meditation room, the problem must be under the meditation bed. There may be a secret passage under the bed near the north wall that is connected to the mountain, and the other three walls, the south, north, and east walls, have no support. Earlier, the author once explained that the north wall of this meditation room is close to the mountain.

There is also some sediment on the bricks – a thin layer of soil that shows signs of loosening between the bricks.

Master Chen was so motivated that he had someone bring a brick knife and climb under the meditation bed, while another young craftsman also climbed in.

Master Chen used a brick knife to pry open the green bricks.

After picking up five green bricks, Master Chen used the grip of a brick knife to dig a few times underneath, and the soil underneath was underneath.

Ten minutes later, the master and apprentice pried up all the green bricks within one square meter. A craftsman brought a pickaxe and a shovel.

The two apprentices dug with shovels, and Master Chen used pickaxes to plan.

Everyone was very disappointed that the shovel had been dug to a depth of forty centimeters, but still did not find the secret passage that the comrades were looking for.

Master Chen wiped his sweat and panted for breath, and the other two craftsmen also straightened their waists, they were both tired and a little deflated.

Xiang Daimo used a flashlight to shine back and forth at the bottom of the pit for a long time.

"Master Chen, how is the softness of the soil?"

Master Chen understood what Xiang Daimo meant: "The soil is neither hard nor soft, no one should have touched it." ”

"Master Chen, don't dig any further, you're already very tired, and it's not too early. Hard work masters. Zhao Zimeng said.

"Captain Zhao, let's do it, let's dig two more shovels deep, it's really not good, we'll call it a day." Master Chen saw the disappointment on the faces of his comrades.

The depth of the two shovels is about 80 centimeters. Dig to 80 centimeters, if you can't dig anything again, there is really no need to dig down.

"Master, I've dug so deep, no matter how deep I dig, it's the result." A craftsman said.

"Don't talk nonsense, dig, dig two more shovels deep, and if there is no result, we will call it a day."

The two craftsmen buried their heads and did it.

Lin Di suddenly walked up to Zhao Zimeng and Xiang Daimo, and tugged at Zhao Zimeng's sleeve with his hand.

"Lin Di, what's the matter?"

"Captain, someone's coming." Lin Di pointed to the outside of the meditation room and whispered.

The light outside the meditation room suddenly brightened a lot—a shadow of light was moving, and it was getting brighter and brighter.

Everyone finally saw clearly, someone was indeed coming, and the person who came was carrying a lantern in his hand - it was a special lantern in the temple, and the old nun who opened the door of the nunnery for the comrades was also among them.

Carrying the lantern was a young nun, followed by two nuns.

Zhao Zimeng and Xiang Daimo walked out of the meditation room, and Master Chen and the others also put down the tools in their hands.

Walking out of the door of the meditation room, Zhao Zimeng saw the other party's face clearly, and the two people behind the lantern were the abbot of Huijue and the other was Nian Ci Shitai.

The ears of the two old nuns were still very good, and they heard the movement in the scripture hall.

Zhao Zimeng looked at his watch, the time was eleven forty o'clock. It was so late at night, and Abbot Huijue and Master Nian Ci hadn't even slept yet—Abbot Huijue was still very concerned about the work of his comrades.

Everyone didn't make much movement, they didn't expect to alarm the abbot Huijue, Zhao Zimeng was a little embarrassed, after all, the temple is someone's territory, and it is obviously inappropriate to twist the lock and open the door on other people's territory, and dig three feet into the ground.