(Old and young masters, collect it, thank you.) ）

More than a dozen officers and soldiers returned to the scene of the murder, everything in the house was calm as usual, the two corpses remained unchanged and fell to the ground, and the blood on the ground had begun to slowly coagulate.

Song Nan stood at the door and looked around the whole room carefully, the room was not big, and it was clear at a glance that there was no place to hide, just now in order to find the two women, the people of Yihongfang also searched upstairs and downstairs several times, if the two women were still hiding in the building, it must be hidden in an extremely secret place.

Song Nan's eyes fell on a long knife on the ground, it was the embroidered spring knife that Jin Yiwei carried with him, the knife was unsheathed and fell out of the pool of blood, but Song Nan found that there was a dark red color on the blade, which seemed to be bloodstains.

Song Nan picked up the candlestick and bent down to check carefully, there were indeed blood stains in the front section of the embroidered spring knife, not like the blood on the ground, but like a blood mark left by the tip of the knife piercing the body, Song Nan's heart moved, it seemed that Liu Wufu hastily drew a knife to stab the murderer's body when he was attacked, so it seems that the murderer has been injured, judging from the depth of more than an inch pierced by the knife, the injury should not be light.

If the murderer is seriously injured, it is even more impossible to escape from Yihongfang, but the upstairs and downstairs have been searched, where can the murderer hide?

Song Nan frowned and thought, the candle flame in his hand was beating endlessly, and he was slightly stunned and almost burned the skin on his face, Song Nan was startled, and rushed to the back window in three steps and two steps, the back window opened a gap slightly, and a cold wind blew straight from the gap, and it was this cold wind that blew the candle flame jumping.

In the cold winter season, it is a warm night of spring night, but the rear window is not closed tightly, which is really unreasonable.

Song Nan suddenly stretched out his hand to open the carved wooden window lattice, the cold wind hit his face, blowing out the candle flame in his hand, it was pitch black outside the window, and the north wind whistled through the treetops, making a whimpering sound.

Song Nan poked his head out to observe, through the cold starlight, it could be seen that there was a straight wall under the window, because it was on the second floor, more than a zhang high from the ground, the ground was a dark alley, and the bare branches of a big tree lay in front of him, blocking the line of sight.

"Nan Ye, what's wrong?" Fang Jian hurriedly ordered someone to light a lantern and come forward to ask.

Song Nan waved his hand and was about to speak, when Fang Jian suddenly shouted, "Master Nan, your hand ......"

Song Nan looked down, the palm of his left hand was red under the light, and there was faint bloody gas rushing to the end of his nose, Song Nan thought for a while, took the lantern and shone it on the windowsill, only to see several blood stains on the windowsill, and suddenly his heart was like a mirror.

"Brothers, the murderer was injured and fled through the back window, you see, this is the blood stain left by the murderer when he jumped out of the window, it seems that the injury is not light, and he will not escape far."

"It must be so, Master Nan, what should we do?" Fang Jian, Li Zhi and the others nodded in agreement, and at the same time asked Song Nan.

Song Nan said: "I didn't say it, let's chase it, if we can catch the murderer, we will have face in front of the state yamen, and the Jinyi Wei yamen will also be able to explain." ”

Everyone nodded, and at the moment, Song Nan left most of the manpower to block the scene to guard Yihong Courtyard, everyone waited for the state government and Jinyi Wei to come, and only Li Zhifangjian took seven or eight brothers to go out quickly and went around to the alley behind Yihong Courtyard, and under the window of the murder room, several pools of blood and a bunch of broken branches and dead leaves were found, and the traces of breaking were very fresh, it seems that after the murderer was injured, he used the big tree that grew near the window to escape, probably because the injury was too serious, and his hands and feet were not dexterous, so he stepped on many branches, Leave such a visible trace.

"Follow the blood, chase." Song Nan gestured, everyone held seven or eight lanterns, and traced all the way to the west along the scattered but eye-catching blood stains on the snow, passing through several alleys and remote streets, the blood stains were still continuing, Song Nan thought to himself: If the blood continues like this, the iron body can't bear it, maybe you can see the murderer dead on the side of the road soon.

After chasing two more alleys, Song Nan suddenly felt that something was wrong, the terrain was becoming more and more familiar, there was an open space in front of him, and several large bamboo forests rustled on the edge of the clearing, although it was night, Song Nan could still recognize this place, and he couldn't help but stop.

Isn't this clearing and bamboo forest where Fanggu's shop is located? That day, after he came to buy drunk, he accidentally entered the bamboo forest, and saw Fang Gu practicing martial arts in this open space, and was almost mistaken by Fang Gu for a peeping apprentice, and then came and went here many times, although he didn't deliberately remember, but he didn't get the wrong place; After walking a few dozen steps through the bamboo forest, Fang Gu's small shop was gone, but Song Nan couldn't take a single step.

A sense of foreboding came to his heart, because suddenly, some details in Song Nan's mind were automatically connected, which gave rise to a guess that made him stunned, from the sudden closure of Fanggu's shop to the murder of Yihongfang tonight, the whole thing seemed to be developing towards a clue: Fanggu, who knew martial arts, the woman who volunteered to enter Yihongfang as a prostitute, and the direction where the bloodstains led at this moment, after being injured, they should have quickly found a place to bandage the wound or hide, but they insisted on holding on so far to come here to hide, Apparently because this is their own territory, it is more secure to hide here.

All of this seems to indicate that tonight's murder is related to Fang Gu.

"Gu Fang...... Lonely Fang" Song Nan muttered silently in his heart, and suddenly his heart was stunned: "Aunt Fang...... Gu Fang, what an obvious coincidence, the other one is called Qing'er, needless to say that he took a pseudonym from Lu Qingli's name; The murderers of the Yihongyuan murder must be the two sisters Fanggu and Lu Qingli, no doubt. ”

Song Nan was stupid, he originally felt that these two sisters were a little strange, the young woman who opened a shop was already an eye-catching anomaly, not to mention that he also bumped into the secret of her martial arts, everything indicated that they were not for business at all, but under the guise of opening a small hotel, there were other schemes in secret, as evidenced by the killing of Jinyiwei.

Thinking about this, Song Nan was even more hesitant, how did Fang Gu and Lu Qingli look like people who did evil for no reason, although they had no deep friendship with themselves, but they were not bad to themselves, thinking back to their several interactions, Song Nan had a good impression of Fang Gu from the bottom of his heart.

Song Nan was almost certain that as long as he walked a few dozen steps further and crossed the bamboo forest path, he would definitely find them hiding in Fanggu's shop, and he could easily solve this murder case; But a voice in his heart warned Song Nan that there must be a secret in this, and he should not have arrested the two of them so hastily and handed them over to the government.

"Nan Ye, why don't you chase forward?" Li Zhi saw Song Nan standing stunned, and asked in surprise.

Almost instantly, Song Nan made a decision: "Don't chase it, the murderer fled to the west of the city, let's chase it all the way to Tianming?" Don't forget, our duty is to inspect Dongcheng, and this kind of investigation and arrest of people is still left to the arresters of the state yamen. ”

Fang Jian was stunned and said: "However, we have been chasing for more than an hour, the murderer has been bleeding, I am afraid it won't last long, maybe we will be caught immediately." ”

Song Nan shook his head and said: "God knows if I can catch it, I'm sleepy, it's almost dawn, I don't have that energy; In this way, the two of you will go back with your brothers, and the people of the state yamen and the Jinyi guard should have begun a large-scale search, so you go and tell them the direction of the bloodstains, and let them suffer; I'm lazy, this is not far from my house, I'm going back to sleep, you go back to the camp after you are done and hand over the sign, take the brothers to the bathhouse to run a hot bath to relieve fatigue, and take them to the restaurant on the edge of the barracks at noon to have a good meal, which will be recorded in my account. ”

Li Zhi and Fang Jian hurriedly said, "That's embarrassing." ”

Song Nan smiled: "There's nothing to be embarrassed about, go ahead, don't toss, you can't do it." ”

Li Zhi and Fang Jian feel the same, what if they are caught? It's not that if you arrest someone, you don't want to hand it over to the state government to arrest quickly, and those grandsons are not sensible, maybe they can't even say a word of thanks, so why bother with a mouse? Once everyone was deflated, they suddenly felt sleepy and yawning, followed Li Zhi, Fang Jian and Song Nan to say goodbye, and went back to Dongcheng.

The noisy footsteps of everyone gradually subsided, and Song Nan stood in the dark for a while, making sure that they would not disobey their orders and turn back, then they flashed out of the shadows, walked lightly, walked towards the small bamboo forest step by step, lightly raised their legs and slowly settled through the bamboo forest path, and soon arrived outside the backyard of Fanggu's shop.

The courtyard was silent, and the grape trellis when he and Fang Datong were discussing secretly that day had been overwhelmed by the heavy snow, and the backyard that no one cared for looked decadent and desolate; Song Nan stepped across the courtyard door and slowly walked towards the back door of the shop, the frozen ground under his feet was trampled to make a creaking cracking sound, Song Nan's heart beat violently for no reason, he came to the door and took a deep breath and put his hand on the door panel, with a slight force, 'squeak', the door opened in response.