In April, the weather began to gradually warm up, and the farmers in Huaiyang County walked to the village with hoes after a day's work.

Last year's grain surplus was still surplus after paying taxes, and if this year's situation was the same as last year's, he would be able to raise enough money to go to the capital, participate in the imperial examination, and gain fame.

"Brother!"

A familiar voice came from behind, Su Lin turned his head, and a familiar figure ran from the entrance of the village barefoot.

"Lingyu, why are you here? Didn't it make you stay at home and practice calligraphy? ”

"Brother! Zhang's family is here, saying that tomorrow is the big day of his young master, let you go early! The whole village is waiting to eat your food! Su Lingyu said with some pride.

"I already knew this, let's go, I just happened to be ready to go back."

Su Lin touched the other party's head with a smile, picked up the hoe and walked towards the village, and the sunset pulled the two figures, one tall and one short, into a long one.

Su Lingyu jumped up and down to follow Su Lin's side, pointed to the bamboo basket in Su Lin's hand and asked, "What is that?" ”

"The grasshopper that I caught, Xiao'e kept clamoring for it yesterday." Su Lin said.

Su Lingyu frowned, and asked suspiciously: "Who is Xiao'e?" ”

"Lingyu, sometimes you still have a bit of a sense of humor." Su Lin said with a smile.

Su Lingyu frowned, shook his head, and no longer paid attention to Xiao'e in Su Lin's mouth.

Anyway, her brother has been strange since he was a child, and often says strange words, such as capital, proletarians, etc., and such as the humorous cell just now.

Until now, she couldn't understand what humor was and didn't know what cells were.

Su Lingyu shook his head, and changed his words: "Brother, have you heard?" Wang Xiucai from the next village died, and he hanged himself at his husband's house. ”

"Wang Xiucai is dead?" Su Lin frowned.

Wang Xiucai and him, can be regarded as a gentleman's friend, although the status of the two is very different, but appreciate each other, in Wang Xiucai's eyes, Su Lin is a rare genius in the sky, scriptures and poems are not self-taught, quick thinking, unique vision, the new decree promulgated by the emperor, he only needs a little speculation to guess the holy will, repeatedly hit.

In Su Lin's eyes, Wang Xiucai is a talent with an open mind and a strong sense of innovation, and the most rare thing is that he is compassionate and compassionate.

Of course, Su Lin knew that he was not a genius of Tianzhong, and he could guess the holy will many times, just because he was the same as Zhu Jiuqin, the founding king of the Great Xia Dynasty, and he was the same as a traverser.

Although the Great Xia Dynasty was a feudal dynasty, Zhu Jiuqin was a Ming monarch.

After he overthrew Long Zhao and ascended the throne, he vigorously reduced the tax burden, punished corrupt officials, improved agricultural tools such as dikes and plows, invented advanced facilities such as hour hands, windmills, and waterwheels, and promulgated innovative decrees to curb the wealthy families, greatly improving the level of national productivity, and was quite loved by the people.

Ten years ago, Su Lin just crossed over, and when he heard these deeds, he knew that Zhu Jiuqin was also a traverser like him, but unfortunately a few days before he crossed, Zhu Jiuqin died, and Su Lin did not have the opportunity to meet with this traverser predecessor to catch up with the old days.

Not long after that, the crown prince Zhu Minben succeeded to the throne, although he did not have his father's unparalleled eloquence, but he treated the common people very well, after ascending the throne, he began to refine the law of the commercial bank, reduce the tax burden of the peasants twice, and improve the Enke system.

From those new laws, Su Lin vaguely saw some shadows of modern laws, but he could see some pedantic and conservative from the details.

If he guessed correctly, Zhu Jiuqin should have left a guide book for social transformation for his son, but Zhu Min should not have been a traverser.

A few years ago, Su Lin heard that Wang Xiucai went to Longyuan County to apprentice, and before leaving, he specially left a book for him, in which he was full of spirit and ambition, not at all like a person who would look for short-sightedness, such a good person, why did he die suddenly?

"How did he die?" Su Lin asked.

"Grandpa said that he was crazy, he said that he and Mr. 's daughter knew each other and fell in love, and this year he was going to come to the door to propose, but this year the woman was killed in the woods, her head was cut off, and her viscera was also cut off.

Su Lin was shocked when he heard this, and said solemnly: "Why is the government not happy? Why wouldn't they be happy! ”

"Brother! How can his husband have any daughters, just a son, who does he know and fall in love with? Not to mention that Mr. has no daughter, he didn't even find the body in the woods, and when the head catcher and the villagers arrived, they looked at Wang Xiucai and pointed to a clearing on the ground alone, saying that the body was there, and everyone said that he was crazy. ”

Su Lin's brows furrowed even tighter, and he vaguely felt that something was wrong.

The sky was gradually dark, the iron-gray canopy was covered from the west, Su Lin and Su Lingyu walked into Huaiyang Village, the light was dim, and only the outline of the village house remained, under the old locust tree at the entrance of the village, a vague figure lay on the ground motionless, Su Lin slowed down and shook his head helplessly.

Li Ergou in the village was drunk and lying here again, and he was the same in the winter last year, if Su Xiao'e hadn't found it in time, he would have frozen to death under the tree.

Su Lin shook his head with a wry smile, stepped forward to wake up the other party, but before he could take a few steps, he suddenly slammed his feet, and the whole person froze in place.

Under the old locust tree, a petite girl was lying on the ground, scarlet blood soaked the yellow mud under her, her legs completely disappeared from below the knees, and the broken knees were exposed with white bones, and the bone stubble was sharp, as if some kind of creature used brute force to forcibly break off the lower limbs.

Su Lin fell into an ice cellar, and the blood in his veins seemed to be frozen.

"Xiao'e? Xiao'e! ”

Su Lin's voice was distorted with fear, and he staggered to Su Xiao'e and squatted down, trembling to help her up, but the sister in his arms had long since lost her life.

"Brother, what are you screaming all of a sudden?" Su Lingyu on the side looked at Su Lin in surprise, puzzled.

Su Lin turned his head tremblingly, his eyes were red, and he looked at Su Lingyu in disbelief.

There was no trace of sadness or fear on her immature face, only confusion and doubt, and her eyes never fell on her sister.

Su Lin stared at Su Lingyu in shock, and hugged the corpse in his arms tighter.

"Lingyu, can't you see it?" Su Lin said hoarsely.

Su Lingyu pinched the corners of his clothes with both hands and shook his head in a panic: "Brother, I don't understand what you are talking about?" Why are you crying? ”

"Xiao'e...... Your sister. ”

"I, my family is just me and you, this joke is not funny at all, not at all, not humorous at all!" Su Lingyu bit her lip, so anxious that she was about to cry.

Su Lin was silent.

Wang Xiucai's matter resurfaced in Su Lin's mind again, and in a flash of light, Su Lin suddenly understood why the other party died.

He gritted his teeth, forcibly suppressed the sadness in his heart, and gave up continuing to ask.

The abnormality of the situation is already in front of us, and nothing can be changed by entangled in the details, and the most important thing now is to ensure the safety of him and Su Lingyu, and to find out why Xiao'e was forgotten by Su Lingyu.

Is it a demon? Or is it an evil cultivator? Or something else?

He hadn't heard of anything like that in the past ten years, but now, he had to think about it.

Sadness and fear eroded Su Lin's heart like a devil, but the latent sense of crisis suppressed the out-of-control emotions, and Su Lin knew that he had more important things to do at this moment.

Su Lin gently put down his sister's corpse, lowered his center of gravity, and lay down next to the corpse, carefully observing the traces on the ground.

The yellow sand near the body is very clean, and there are no traces of rolling and dragging on the ground, except for the place where Xiao'e is lying, there are no obvious blood stains around, indicating that this is likely to be the first scene of Xiao'e's murder, and the killer did not move the body.

So the murderer of the murderer...... Or demons, it's likely to be around here.

"Brother, what the hell are you doing?" Su Lingyu was frightened.

"Shhhh Hide behind a tree...... Don't make a sound. Su Lin pointed to the crooked-necked tree at the entrance of the village and made a silent motion.

Su Lingyu was stunned, although he was very scared, he still obediently ran behind the old locust tree and squatted down holding the trunk.

She secretly looked at Su Lin, with a hint of dazedness in her frightened eyes, although she didn't understand what was happening, she knew that her brother must be for her good.

Su Lin watched the surroundings vigilantly, clenched the hoe in his hand, hunched his waist, and cautiously walked in the direction of the earthen house.

He must first ensure the safety of his home and settle Su Lingyu before making plans.

Their grandfather had left the village three days ago to visit his relatives, and it was impossible for him to come back so early, so there could be no one in the house.

Su Lin's palm touched the rough wooden door, and gently pushed it open, and the simple outer room was unobstructed, and there was nothing suspicious.

He tiptoed to the curtain in the inner room, slowly lifted the curtain with a hoe, the knee-high earthen kang leaned against the wall, and there was a dustpan in the corner, there was no place to hide in the narrow space, and the room was safe.

Su Lin breathed a sigh of relief, ran out of the house to the old locust tree, and pulled Su Lingyu into the house.

He came to the inner room and lifted the quilt on the earthen kang, revealing a cracked wooden partition, Su Lin's two fingers buckled the grooves of the partition, and the finger tendons exerted force, and the wooden board was lifted whole, and the vermilion narrow wooden box appeared in front of them, and Su Lingyu next to her opened her mouth wide, she never knew that there was such a thing hidden at home.

"Looks so expensive!" Su Lingyu exclaimed.

Su Lin took out the wooden box, opened the lid, two knives, one long and one short, lay quietly in the box, the long knife scabbard was slightly curved, the surface wood grain was shiny, and the velvet rope tied in the middle had been soaked in blood, showing a strange black and red, and the scabbard was close to the position of the knife, engraved with words that did not belong to the Great Xia Kingdom.

Su Lin's thumb pressed against the blade, and slowly pulled out the long knife, the blade was as cold as water, and the forging pattern was complex and beautiful.

The other knife, with a straight blade, resembled a dagger, and Su Lin judged that it should be a small knife.

These two knives were taken from Su Lin's grandfather, and they were extremely sharp, and the old man had been regularly maintained for many years.

It is also the best weapon that the Su family can come up with, if there is really a so-called demon, this is Su Lin's only reliance.

"Squeaky ——!"

Su Lin's face was expressionless, and he slowly and silently drew out the blade and protected Su Lingyu behind him.

The door shaft of their old house was in disrepair, and if it was not opened and closed carefully, it would emit a sharp hiss.

The voice just now indicates that someone has come in.