In the early morning of the next day, the train passed the Beijing-Tianjin Railway, and the steam engine alternately spewed black and white smoke, like a dragon flying on the ground. Qiu Xiaogeng looked at the scenery outside the window, the wheat on the Great Plains was growing, the poplar trees were wilting under the scorching sun, and the geese flew from Taihang Mountain to the Bohai Sea.

The ancients said that when parents are here, they don't travel far. Now, Qiu Xiaogeng's parents are gone, so he wants to travel alone at the end of the world?

A nine-year-old boy with a white cloth wrapped around his waist, a heavy filial piety, his eyes are red and swollen, and a blood jade pendant is hidden in his heart. opened the suitcase that his mother prepared for him last night and saw two raw pears - it turned out that it was not life and death, but death! He nibbled on a raw pear and shoved the other one to the man opposite.

Ye Kenan politely declined, and he had changed into the uniform of a patrol police inspector. The left arm was wrapped in a bandage around the neck. He had a patrolman's saber between his ribs and a revolver pinned to his waist, all of which were in Japanese style. At that time, the Higher Patrol Police Academy, supervised by the Japanese ronin Kawashima Naniwa, moved the Japanese Metropolitan Police Department to Beijing.

The German Concession handled the case as a major case. According to the unequal treaty, the Chinese government had no jurisdiction in the concession. Fortunately, there was a handwritten letter from the regent, and Ye Kenan took away the only eyewitness, Qiu Xiaogeng.

Those Assassins are not good at coming, and they have great powers, and it is very likely that there will be a second wave. Ye Kenan persuaded Xiao Geng and immediately took the train to Beijing. The bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Qiu Desheng have been collected and put into coffins by colleagues from Deutsche Bank, and they will be buried in a feng shui treasure.

"Where are you taking me?"

After nibbling on the pear, Qiu Xiaogeng put the kernel in a handkerchief, which is the rule that you can't litter in German schools.

"Where you were destined to go."

Since last night, the boy's fate has changed completely.

"Inspector Ye, originally I wanted to join the Navy when I grew up, but now I have changed my mind, I want to be a detective like you."

"Revenge for my father? Do you really think that the detective is just a thief? My dad and my grandfather, what kind of dirty work have you never done? I beseech you not to enter into my business. ”

"What's wrong with the loss of yin virtue? Inspector Ye, do you mean that you arrested the six gentlemen in the year of Wuxu? ”

"Phew!" Ye Kenan looked around the carriage, "Don't talk nonsense about this kind of thing, be careful of being informed!" ”

In the afternoon, the train passes through the Yongdingmen city wall in Beijing and stops at the railway station in front of Zhengyangmen. Looking at the Daqianmen and the Arrow Tower, the scenery is different from Tianjin, and it still stays at the intersection of the two worlds. The camel caravan from Mongolia has entered the city gate, and Dashilar has been bustling with people, showing off their talents, monkeys, dog skin plasters, and children and daughters, not to mention the hordes of beggars called Hanako. Foreigners also turned a blind eye, and the Western noblewoman sat in an open-top carriage and held a small parasol to Dongjiaomin Lane.

In front of the train station, the "Outline of the King James Constitution" promulgated by the Qing court was posted: the first article "The Qing Emperor rules the Qing Empire, and it will be respected forever", and the second article "The sacred dignity of the monarch is inviolable". However, Ye Kenan and Xiao Geng stopped to take a closer look, and the inspector shook his head and said, "It basically plagiarized the Meiji Constitution of Japan." ”

Ye Kenan bought the boy bean juice and belly burst to try it. After the west exit of the West Zong Bu Hutong, there is a big archway in front of it, four pillars and three rooms on the seventh floor are nearly five zhang wide and two zhang high, and the east and west cross the Dongdan North Street. Qiu Xiaogeng went around twice under the archway, and saw Chinese, German and Latin, which was actually an apology issued by Emperor Guangxu, mourning for the German minister Klinder who was killed here in Gengzi Nian.

"So this is the Clinder Monument!"

"The Eight-Nation Coalition entered Beijing and captured Enhai, the captain of the Shenji Battalion who had killed Clinder, where the Germans beheaded him. After the Xinchou Treaty, the imperial court set up a memorial arch in the same place as a commemoration of the victory of the foreigners over China. Ye Kenan spat quietly, thinking of his father who died under the guns of the Eight-Nation Alliance, "I bet that this monument will fall within ten years!" ”

"Will Germany lose in the future European war?"

"Nine times out of ten, the people on this street don't know anything about foreign countries, they don't know that Germany and France are feuds, and they think that the Eight-Nation Alliance is a family like brothers."

Ye Kenan secretly thought to himself, this child is destined to work for the imperial tomb for the rest of his life, but it's a pity! Pity!

At the entrance of the Regent's Palace, a Western-style four-wheeled carriage was ready, with a majestic stallion snorting and a coachman dressed in European costumes. The carriage was cleaned up, and Ye Kenan and Qiu Xiaogeng sat face to face. The carriage galloped westward, and the scenery of the capital gradually blurred, and soon returned to the desolate wilderness, where the land was full of famine all these years, and the feet of the Son of Heaven were not spared.

The carriage ran over the Yongding River, and the "Lugou Xiaoyue" written by Emperor Qianlong emerged. There are countless stone lions on the railing of the Lugou Bridge, and the coffin of Emperor Guangxu passed on the bridge two months ago.

"The place you are going to is a hundred times more important to the emperor of the Qing Dynasty than the Jingshi University Hall." Ye Kenan realized that this sentence was not deceiving, "Have a good rest, there are still two hundred miles to go!" ”

The carriage drove for three days and three nights, and in the afternoon of the fourth day, it came to the mountainous area of Yi County, Baoding Prefecture. Except for getting out of the car to pee and, Xiao Geng never left the carriage for half a step. Ye Kenan is also aggrieved, the heirs of the six doors, the elite of the Qing National Police Circle, make it like the tolerance of escorting exiled prisoners in "Water Margin".

Qiu Xiaogeng got off the carriage, looked at the Bauhinia Pass of the Taihang Mountains in the west, and the Yongning Mountain in the north, with layers of mountains and greens, pines and cypresses all over the mountains, and the ancient Yishui originated here...... It's like drawing a complete map in your head. He remembered that more than 2,000 years ago, the wind and water of Gu Yan Kingdom were sluggish and cold, and he couldn't help but have the thoughts of generosity and sorrow. The map of Du Kang presented by Jing Ke and the King of Qin depicts the situation of the mountains and rivers in this area.

When he was studying in a German school, the teacher often explained the geography of the world, spread out the map of Europe, and told the boundaries of the German Empire from the Rhine to the Memel River. When he was in mechanical class, he only saw a drawing of a Mercedes car, and his eyes seemed to have an internal combustion engine boiling and the cylinders moving pistons, like twenty galloping horses......

After a magnificent stone archway, it is the big red gate. Guarding the door are the soldiers of the Eight Banners, holding bulky bird guns, like old ghosts dug up in a tomb compared to Ye Kenan in the uniform of an Oriental police officer.

The soldiers in front of the big red gate, raised the Yellow Dragon Flag of the Qing Dynasty, and sang the army song "Ode to the Dragon Flag" of the national anthem of the Quan Dynasty -

Yu Si Wannian,

The Great Empire of Yadong!

The mountains are independent of each other,

Rivers stretch the waves of civilization;

Four hundred trillion people's gods,

The land is large and the products are abundant.

Yang I Yellow Dragon Imperial Emblem,

Sing the Song of My Empire!

Although the singing is loud and the lyrics are magnificent, Qiu Xiaogeng is completely insensitive.

Passing through the Great Red Gate, there is a wide main shrine road, and on both sides stand stone people, stone horses, stone elephants. When you see the roof with many yellow glazed tiles, you know that it is a royal symbol; The green glazed tile building is the mausoleum of the concubine, the princess and the elder brother.

The nine-year-old boy was like a bird out of a cage, touching the stone carvings on the Shinto road all the way. Although he grew up in the German Concession of Tianjin, he loved stones, antiquities, and statues since he was a child, and every time he touched them, he would be inexplicably excited, so much so that he wanted to build them himself. Everyone, including the German teacher, praised him for having the hands of a skilled craftsman.

After several huge mausoleums, many shirtless migrant workers pulled cartloads of stone and wood, and it seemed that there was another huge project. There is a large construction site in the mountains, which is the Chongling Tomb of Emperor Guangxu. There is also the Mausoleum of Concubine Chong next to it, and Concubine Zhen, who was pushed to the well of the Forbidden City in the year of Gengzi, is waiting to be buried.

Ye Kenan grabbed the boy's hand and walked through the dusty construction site to the tent in front of the treasure dome - this was to protect the tomb from being seen. showed the regent's handwriting, and he led Xiao Geng in. The perimeter is heavily guarded, and the armed bannermen have guarded the tomb for the Qing Dynasty for generations. Finally, they saw a deep burial hallway.

"Don't be afraid!"

Ye Kenan said in the boy's ear, in fact, it was for himself, and it was the first time he had entered the underground palace. The lamps on both sides of the tomb are not as deep as you might imagine, but spiraling and sinking. It is not easy for a grave robber to dig up the entrance to the tomb. Walk to the door of the first tomb, two bluestone slabs weighing a thousand jun, each carved a Bodhisattva statue, the appearance of a man and a woman, the male is majestic and majestic, the female eyebrows and kind eyes, are peerless boutiques. Stepping through the door of the tomb, Ye Kenan's right hand was trembling, but Qiu Xiaogeng did not panic. In the second gate, there are still two Bodhisattvas, but the posture is slightly different.

Stepping through the third door, they heard the pounding of hammers and stones. In the empty and dark underground, there is only a lone figure, squatting in the corner to work.

"Qin Customs!"

Ye Kenan screamed, and the tall man stood up. As soon as he turned around, he was stabbed in the eye by the horse lamp in Ye Kenan's hand, and hurriedly lowered his head and said, "Is it the father-in-law in charge?" ”

"Lao Qin, you are knocking underground every day, are you deaf? How can my father-in-law have such a majestic voice as me! ”

Twenty-four-year-old Ye Kenan, afraid that his voice would be too young and mistaken for a eunuch, deliberately suppressed his voice and made a few dirty words when he spoke.

"Inspector Ye of the Patrol Police Bureau?" Qin Customs raised the lantern and walked up to them, "People are coming?" ”

"Look at it!"

The light illuminated Qiu Xiaogeng's face, and the nine-year-old boy subconsciously blocked his face, but was grabbed by Ye Kenan, and his face was aimed at Qin Customs.

"Beiyang!"

Qin Customs summoned the name that he had been thinking about day and night, and carefully looked at the boy's face - this skeleton, this outline, this eyebrows and eyes, especially the stubbornness like a stone in his eyes, it was really carved out of the same mold as himself!

"Lao Qin, it's true! I've tested it! Ye Kenan patted the child's shoulder, "Then I'll withdraw!" Let's talk about it! I really can't stand the bad luck of this dungeon...... Sin deserves death! How can you say this in the emperor's blessing? ”

"Inspector Ye! There are successors of the tombsmith clan, such a great kindness, unforgettable, please be worshiped by Lao Qin! ”

Qin Customs knelt down and kowtowed.

"Be nice to this kid, he's so smart, don't wronged him! By the way, this is a letter to children. Ye Kenan took out an envelope from his arms and stuffed it into Qin Customs' hand. He put down the boy's suitcase and turned to run out.

Xiao Geng's eyes rolled with tears, feeling that he had been deceived again, and said loudly: "Arschloch! ”

When he rushed out of the tomb, Ye Kenan was a little reluctant to give up on this child: Boy, my task is to send you to your biological father. After the murder of the enemy, the outside world is too dangerous for you - only by hiding under the imperial tomb can you avoid those assassins. This is your true home, the place you were destined to be.