When Shen Cheng came back, I was in a meeting with several criminal police officers in Shen Cheng's office, and he had already changed into a police uniform, but the clothes had been wet from the rain outside. Shen Cheng threw the umbrella aside and ordered to all the criminal police: "Follow me and go to the police immediately." ”

The first time Shen Cheng returned to the police station was before dawn, so everyone didn't know that Shen Cheng had come back and went out to investigate the case again. Several persons in charge of the criminal police felt a little dazed, and someone asked Shen Cheng where he was going, and Shen Cheng smiled and said that he had already thought of where the people in the house would go.

Several criminal policemen were overjoyed when they heard this, and immediately got ready to go, Shen Cheng turned to face me: "Professor Li, do you want to investigate aimlessly by yourself, or follow me?" ”

I didn't hesitate: "If you've already determined the whereabouts of the people in the house, why should I waste my energy and police resources." ”

Shen Cheng: "Then do you think my day's re-investigation is a waste of energy?" ”

I didn't answer Shen Cheng, in my opinion, Shen Cheng took the contest with me too seriously, thus ignoring the urgency of solving the case. For the sake of fairness, he did not ask anyone about my reasoning and the progress of the investigation of the current case, but chose to continue to investigate on his own.

But I have to admire Shen Cheng, it only took one day for Shen Cheng to find out everything. When I was on the road, through talking with Shen Cheng, I knew that he had also identified the murderer as someone in the house. He also analyzed all the things that I analyzed and reasoned out in a very short period of time.

What's more, Shen Cheng actually determined the whereabouts of the people in the house. What Shen Cheng determined was not the general direction of the northwest direction of the southern region, but a relatively accurate range. He hand-drew a small map for everyone, and in the center of the map was a small dot, and Shen Cheng told us that the small dot was where the people in the house would go.

The dots represent a small village, surrounded by mountains, and the car can only drive to the bottom of the mountain, and the only way to reach the impoverished village is on foot. When the car stopped, we finally knew why Shen Cheng said that the car could not be driven, it was a narrow mountain road, so narrow that it could only accommodate three people walking side by side.

Together with Jiang Jun and me, Shen Cheng brought a total of seven or eight criminal policemen, and we walked on the mountain road, and as the altitude increased, the temperature became lower and lower.

Shen Cheng never said why he was sure that the people in the house would come to this place, and I never asked, I was convinced of Shen Cheng's judgment. He'll be wrong the first time, but not the second time. However, the criminal police who followed Shen Cheng finally couldn't help it, and they asked Shen Cheng why he was so sure.

Shen Cheng smiled: "In that village, there are only four families living in total, or rather, there are only four families left. None of us stopped, and Shen Cheng took the lead and explained to us as he walked forward: "Those four families are survivors of the plague twenty years ago. ”

Shen Cheng told us that twenty years ago, there was a plague in that village. Surrounded by mountains and inaccessible, the village is close to a water source, and the people of the village are self-sufficient, living on the clean stream and their own vegetable garden, and the people in the village have little communication with the outside world.

More than 20 years ago, there was a great plague in the village, and the plague left only a few of the more than 100 people in the village dead, and the corpses were scattered all over the field, and the government was finally alarmed. The government carried out a medical cleanup of the village, and the source of the plague was cut off, but the only survivors were the four elderly families who have lived to this day.

"Vice Captain, what do you have to do with the people in the house?" A detective asked, puzzled.

Although the temperature in the mountains was very low, we continued to walk up without stopping, and sweat still soaked our clothes. Shen Cheng seemed to be talking about something that had nothing to do with the people in the house, but I noticed a detail. The plague in the village occurred at about the same time as the church was founded.

Sure enough, Shen Cheng's next words solved my and everyone's doubts.

Shen Cheng explained: "After the plague broke out, there was Pastor Luo who went to the village with the government. ”

At that time, Pastor Luo had been sent by other churches to preach in the southern district of Chongqing City and serve as the audit supervisor of the church's construction, which was still being planned, and the news of the plague reached the city. The government immediately set out with medical staff, accompanied by a few volunteers, and Pastor Lowe, who was in his twenties at the time, also volunteered out of love.

However, the plague was worse than expected, and before the other volunteers could reach the village, they could not bear the psychological pressure and returned, so Pastor Luo was left alone to follow the government personnel to the village. When they arrived, there were not many people left alive in the village, and with the help of the government, the survivors were taken to the city hospital.

Pastor Lo has been guarding the victims in the hospital, the virus in the village has been eliminated, and those who survived still want to return to the village to live. So, Pastor Luo was responsible for escorting the villagers back, but the strange thing is that Pastor Luo was gone for more than ten days, and even the construction of the church was temporarily delayed.

When Pastor Lowe returned, Pastor Lowe temporarily changed the design of the second floor of the church.

"I inquired about the designers and builders of the church building back then." Shen Cheng said to us, and I suddenly realized that because of the strangeness of the church building, Shen Cheng directly found the designer and builder.

The construction of the church was co-financed by the churches in other places, and Pastor Lowe oversaw the construction, but the designer and builder of the church were not on the side of the church. The designer of the church building was personally found by Pastor Luo, who was also well-known in the local area, and Shen Cheng soon inquired about this person.

The designer is already full of gray hair, but his memory of this past is still very clear, the reason is that during the design and construction of the church, people in Chongqing were panicked, and many people wore masks when they went out. Rumors of the plague in that village were raging, and everyone was worried about whether the plague would spread to the city.

Because of this special event, the designer also remembers Pastor Lowe and the building of the church very well. Pastor Luo went to volunteer and temporarily changed the construction design of the second floor of the church, which was also told to Shen Cheng by the designer.

After Shen Cheng listened, he immediately sensed that something was wrong. According to the designer, Pastor Lowe asked for an extra room to be dug at the end of the corridor on the second floor, without windows, and to use it as a grocery room. The so-called grocery room was not filled with miscellaneous items, but was used for the people in the house.

Pastor Luo suddenly asked to change the design after returning from more than ten days in the village, so Shen admitted that the house had something to do with the village, that is, the people in the house had something to do with the village.

Shen Cheng peeled off the cocoon and found the government officer in charge of the rescue operation that year, that person had retired, and Shen Cheng personally found his home. An official has not encountered several major events in his life, so the retired old man remembers that incident clearly.

When the old man was investigating the origin of the plague, he asked the surviving villagers, and the villagers' answers were also incredible. The villagers said that the plague was caused by a monster in the village, and that on the day the monster was born, it rained in the village in a rare heavy rain.

The heavy rain drowned the vegetables and plants that everyone had worked so hard to grow, and from that time on, the monster was regarded as an ominous sign by the villagers. Sure enough, not long after giving birth to the monster, the monster's mother died, and his father accidentally fell from the mountain a few years later while chopping wood, and died a miserable death.

Everyone said that the monster killed the parents and killed the whole village, and twenty years ago, the plague happened, and the survivors also believed that the plague was caused by the ominous monster.

"Monster, what monster?" Jiang Jun asked.

Shen Cheng didn't look back: "The government official didn't ask in detail, their words sounded ridiculous, and besides, the government quickly found the source of the plague, so the matter was over." ”

The old man almost couldn't remember the episode as he recalled the plague. Pastor Luo had been taking care of the villagers in the hospital while they were hospitalized, and presumably those villagers had told Pastor Luo about the monster in detail.