The tenth year of the Republic of China, December 25, 1921, snow.

Shanghai, Huangpu River.

Qin Beiyang's China Merchants steamship did not have any Christmas spirit, but was full of chili peppers and peppercorns from Hankou and Chongqing. He saw the steamer on the opposite side with the Haneda family crest, and the Huangpu River was rolling north, and the snow was scattered on the sparkling river. The skyscrapers of the Bund flying the flags of various countries have become a silhouette of black and dark silhouettes, like the shrunken Manhattan Island.

After a gap of four years, he returned.

And it.

The town's tomb beast Jiu Se crouched at the feet of his master, smelling the diesel smell of various ships on the Huangpu River, and salivating with a foodie expression.

I never thought that it was snowing heavily in Shanghai, whether it was the public concession, the French concession or the old city, all wrapped in silver. The snow made the air clean, Qin Beiyang was refreshed, and led the sweaty horse to disembark at the sixteen-shop pier.

Lao Jin and Zhongshan carried their luggage and shoulders, and the nine colors disguised themselves as hunting dogs. Passing through the small east gate, it is the county seat of Shanghai, which was founded in the early years of the Yuan Dynasty. In the nine buildings of Qiaojia Road in Nanshi, Qin Beiyang found an inn with spacious stables.

The appearance of the inn is inconspicuous, but the structure is very ancient, the beams of the house are actually the Nanmu of the Ming Dynasty, and it must have been the residence of the dignitaries and nobles in those years. Qin Beiyang inquired with Mr. Bookkeeper again, and learned that this was the ancestral residence of Xu Guangqi, a great man in the late Ming Dynasty. The Chongzhen Dynasty's scholar of the Ministry of Rites and the second assistant of the Wenyuan Pavilion Scholar Cabinet, China's most famous Catholic "Paul", was born in this nine-room building.

The sweaty horses stayed in the stables to rest, and the rest hired a sampan to cross the snowy Huangpu River.

Qin Beiyang was dressed in a gray craftsman's robe, with a black silk belt tied around his waist and a three-foot Tang knife on his back. The wind mixed with snowflakes in the sky blew up his long black hair, turning him into a real "hairy thief". On the sampan behind him, there stood the town's tomb beast nine colors, the "town tomb beast hunter" Lao Jin, and the Hanfu boy Zhongshan.

He remembered what Meng Po said that back then, when the loyal king Li Xiucheng fought Shanghai three times, the army pressed the border, and the victory was in hand, but unfortunately the cold snap struck, and the Huangpu River froze three feet. The soldiers of Zhongwang lacked winter clothes, so they could only hastily withdraw their troops, and the river was full of Taiping troops frozen into soldiers' statues.

A Japanese cruiser flying the flag of the rising sun cut through the bow. The wave nearly knocked a boat of people into the water. He jumped to the stern of the bumpy boat, firmly controlled the rocking oar, drove a flat boat, facing the sun, riding the wind and waves, and landed in Lujiazui, Pudong.

The empty fields, as far as the eye can see, withered vines and old trees, faint crows, small bridges and flowing water, there is only one muddy crossing road.

Qin Beiyang, one foot deep, one foot shallow, behind him is the entire demon capital, and there are four men waiting for him in front of him.

The first one, wearing a tweed coat, a top hat, wrapped in a plaid scarf, a British style, a slender and straight body, about thirty years old, Zhou Yu's majestic hair, I don't know if Xiao Qiao got married for the first time? Needless to say, he is a Ph.D. in physics at the University of Cambridge - Li Longsheng.

The second, wearing a leather jacket, cargo pants, a beret, and thick glasses on the bridge of his nose, is the young owner of Mr. Sai's machine iron factory - Qian Ke, after the famous Qian family in Huzhou.

The third, with a robe and a horse coat, riding boots, and a mink hat, is the youngest member of the National Assembly of the Republic of China, a direct descendant of Genghis Khan, a member of the Golden Family, the king of the small county of Ordos, and Timur.

The fourth, in a modern pilot's outfit, with a fur hat wrapped around his head, flying goggles resting on his forehead, revealing a pair of beautiful Italian eyes and two thick beards on his mouth, Giuseppe Caproni, the air combat hero of the World War.

Behind them was a huge plane. Double-layer wings, twin tail booms, three fuselages, twin propellers, single flat tail and three vertical tail layouts, painted with green, white and red flags, are the Italian Caproni large transport aircraft.

"Beiyang, we all thought you were dead!"

Qian Ke pounded Qin Beiyang's chest hard, but it was as hard as the walls of the underground palace.

Two years ago, God ordered Qin Beiyang to die of cancer, but he survived; ordered him to die in the crater of a volcanic island in the Arctic ice sea, and he survived again; Don't know what the next command is?

Two months ago, Qin Beiyang inquired about the addresses of Li Longsheng, Qian Ke, Xiaojunwang, and Caproni, and sent people down the mountain to take a telegram, agreeing to meet in Lujiazui, Pudong, Shanghai, on Christmas Day 1921.

When the four received the telegram, they thought of each other in unison. Chanco, who studied aircraft design in Germany, piloted an airship and the Four-Winged Angel Tomb Beast across the North Sea to Cambridge. Caproni flew from Milan to London in his own large transport plane. These four men, along with the Four-Winged Angel Tomb Beast, decided to sail from the air to China, avoiding the suffering of the ship's storms and waves.

The transport plane took off from London, crossed the European continent, refueled for the first time in Budapest, the second in Constantinople, the third in Tehran and the fourth in Kabul. Li Longsheng, who accompanied the Swedish explorer Sven Hedin on this road last year, flew over the Pamir Plateau into China and refueled for the fifth time in Dihua, the capital of Xinjiang Province. They took many precious photos of the Silk Road in the air: the ancient city of Loulan, the Lop Nur Desert, the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang, and the sixth refueling in Lanzhou, on the banks of the Yellow River, crossed the Yellow River basin and the Yangtze River Delta in the wind, and just landed on the Huangpu River today.

"Where's the four-winged angel?"

Qian Konu pouted: "It's still on the plane!" ”

Yes, the nine colors of the town's tomb beast already have a sense.

After a short greeting, Qin Beiyang asked them if they were cold? The three men in their coats, leather jackets, mink hats, and flight suits said that people who flew at tens of thousands of feet in the air, even if it was a little bit of wind and snow?

Between the curtains, Lao Jin laid out a few rolls of straw mats and velvet carpets, spread them in the muddy snow, quite the ancient style of the Qin, Han, Wei and Jin dynasties. Nakayama lit a bonfire around him to dispel the chill.

According to the customs of the ancients, Qin Beiyang knelt on his heels. Both Lao Jin and Zhongshan have been trained to sit and not squint, and they are effortless. Chanco and Caproni struggled, both of them were accustomed to sitting in chairs, and they felt fresh when they first learned to "sit upright", and within a few minutes the arch of their foot was about to break, first exchanging pressures on the left and right heels, and finally becoming a girl's duck to sit on. The little king was a Mongol and used to sit cross-legged. The town's tomb beast Jiu Se was the most afraid of the cold, crouching behind Qin Beiyang.

Lao Jin warmed two pots of white wine and rice wine, and five catties of beef tendon meat, and shared them with everyone. Caproni was a man of wine and woman, chewing on beef and saying that he liked to fly planes and drink brandy at the same time, and that he would take down more enemy planes in air combat.

If a foreigner passes by and sees these people kneeling on the ground drinking and eating meat, they must think that they have encountered a group of perverts of Christmas carnival Costume Play (it is important to know that the word cosplay is not invented by the Japanese).

"Beiyang, you asked us to go all the way back to China to meet, not just to drink wine, eat meat, and brag about the past, right?"

Li Longsheng returned to business, and Qin Beiyang said with a smile: "Even if you drink wine and eat meat, brag about the past...... And how? "The World Says New Words" contains Prince Youxue visiting friends at night, but when he arrives at the door, he does not enter and returns, and he says: Take advantage of the excitement and return! ”

"A good one to take advantage of the excitement and return with all the excitement!" Li Longsheng drank a glass of liquor, "There was a Hollywood movie star, who bought a ticket to cross the Atlantic Ocean one day, went to Trafalgar Square in London to feed the pigeons, and set off for New York on the same day. I flew 10,000 kilometers in the sky and came to the Christmas snow night in Lujiazui, Pudong, to drink wine, eat meat and brag with the Beiyang brothers! ”

It was dark, and it was white. There is also the meaning of "Water Margin" Fengxue Mountain Temple Lin rushing at night.

This meal of eating meat and drinking wine was unexpected, but Qin Beiyang didn't say anything, so he took the people and horses to say goodbye first. Lao Jin left the carpet and straw mat, Zhongshan picked up the luggage, and the nine colors sat on the small sampan.

Qian Ke still sat on the seat, looking at their backs blankly, puzzled: "He summoned us from Europe to the Huangpu River, just to drink wine and eat meat?" ”

"No, he has big plans in mind."

Li Longsheng smiled slightly at the corner of his mouth, turned his head to look at Caproni's plane, and there was a tomb beast sleeping in the cabin.

The night is deep, the snow has stopped, the clouds have broken, and the moon has risen......

Crossing the Pujiang River at night is another scenery. Qin Beiyang arrived at the old city of Puxi and returned to the nine buildings on Qiaojia Road.

Lao Jin glanced at the stables, and hurriedly said, "The ghost is gone!" ”

"This sweaty horse has been with me for more than a year, and it will never run away for no reason, it must have been stolen."

Lao Jin has been in the northwest for many years and often encounters horse thieves. Qin Beiyang went to the street and found messy horseshoe prints and footsteps in the snow. It shows that the ghost god is violent, and the horse thief cannot ride on the horse, so he can only hold the reins and take it away on foot. The fight between man and horse is unimaginable. The other party must be a top master of playing horses, otherwise he would have been kicked by the horse's hooves and broken his neck.

"Follow the horses' hooves!"

Qin Beiyang, Lao Jin, Zhongshan, and Jiu Color, once again stepped on the snow, picking up the lamp to find a thousand miles of horses. Fortunately, there was a heavy snowfall on Christmas Eve, otherwise it would have been impossible to leave a trace on this stone-paved road.

The weather is cold, the snow is unusually strong, and the horseshoe prints are also very clear - enter the French Concession to the west, turn due north at the French Tomb Mountain, cross the Edoa Road, which is the Public Concession, and on the right is the big world that has fallen into darkness and silence, and the horseshoe prints of the ghost god have disappeared.

Lao Jin looked at the ground carefully: "Master, the horse thief is very clever, thinking that we will follow, he swept this snow field." ”

Qin Beiyang squatted down and looked at the glass-colored eyeballs of the tomb beast in the town: "Nine colors, nine colors, can you find the ghost?" ”

The nine-colored spirit stone heated up, and it rushed towards the north.

The group crossed the tram tracks and arrived at the racecourse road, where a high wall stood in front of them. With its steel and iron bones, Nine Colors slammed twice against the wall, and ran to a closed door. Candles lit in the sentry box, guarded by Indian doormen.

A faint light dimly illuminates a line of nameplates: SHANGHAI RACE CLUB.

Qin Beiyang remembered that this was the well-known "Shanghai Horse Racing Hall", and there was a vast horse racing track in the high wall. This place is heavily guarded, and even if there are nine colors, you still can't break in.

He stepped back across the road and whispered, "I know who the horse thief is!" ”

"Master, you are the best at solving cases!"

Lao Jin flattered, Qin Beiyang shook his head and said, "Do you remember the Englishman you met on the steamer on the Yangtze River?" ”

"The guy who offered five thousand oceans to buy the Phantom?"

"He's been salivating over the gods for a long time! By the way, did you notice his size? ”

Zhongshan finally interjected: "Well, shorter than a few of us." ”

"I've heard that the top horse racing riders are basically small, and the tall and strong ones can't run fast. This man knows horses, loves horses, and even steals them—and he thinks that only a bloody horse like the Spectre can help him win the race! ”

Lao Jin was already sleepy: "How can I bring the ghost god back?" ”

Qin Beiyang is close to the wall of the racecourse, and the lantern shines on the wall to announce that the next race time: January 1, New Year's Day in 1922, the Lunar New Year Cup Special Race.

Seven days left.