Since the "Emei Blood Baby" left by Ning Cui does have a case, it can be seen that most of the so-called "Lanzhou Ghost Monkey" is not groundless, and then thinking back to the disappearance of tourists on Mount Emei, it was not until the last moment that the body of the baby was fished out from the blood pool of the dust hermitage, and Shang Bu did not give up to understand the origin of the words "Emei Blood Baby". So from this point of view, the four words "Lanzhou ghost monkey" are not as simple as they seem, and they are also a problem that Ning Cui did not give up to Shang, the so-called "ghost monkey" may only be the final result of the case, and before this result is found, it is very likely to be an unrelated case.

At that moment, Xie Yixiang asked the three arresters of Lanzhou Mansion to report the large and small cases in recent days one by one, and carefully identify the clues. Who knew that after listening to it for half an hour, almost all the cases involving human lives were disputes between the local Han people and the Semu people, and there was nothing strange about it, and it had nothing to do with the "ghost monkey" provided by Ning Cui.

Seeing that the inquiry was fruitless, the servant Gu catcher immediately muttered: "The 'ghost monkey' that Shang Shen Hunt and Miss Xie San want to investigate, could it be a small case? You must know that there are only three of us catchers in the entire Lanzhou Mansion, so if it is not a big case, the other small cases will be handled by the following arresters, and it is not our turn to come forward." If none of the three of us have a case to investigate, then why don't you pass on the following arrest and ask?"

Shang Buqi immediately agreed, and asked the head of the servant to summon the people in the yamen to ask questions, and asked seven or eight more to catch quickly. In the end, the hard work paid off, and when he asked a person surnamed Liu, Liu thought for a while, and said: "Speaking of which, I have a case related to monkeys in my hands, but ...... However, it is only a very small case, and even my Lanzhou Mansion Yamen doesn't bother to pay attention to it, which round of Shang Shen's arrest came to Lanzhou in person to ask?"

Xie Yixiang raised her eyebrows and hurriedly asked, but Liu Zhukuai muttered: "It's just a small theft case, which happened about half a month ago." On that day, Cao Yuan, the owner of the Chengxi grocery store, came out to report the incident, saying that a monkey had slipped into his house the night before, seemed to come looking for food, made a mess of his kitchen, and stole a piece of jade pendant that had been passed down from his Cao family for generations. When the family heard the movement and came out to chase after him, the monkey fled over the wall and was never found again. ”

After saying that, he couldn't help but add: "To say that in this Lanzhou city, the Han people and the Semu people are almost five or five open; the so-called forest is big, there are all kinds of birds, and conflicts between them are not uncommon, which often makes my yamen anxious." How could we bother to pay attention to such an ordinary theft? So it was just a routine record at the time, and we never paid attention to it again. ”

Hearing what Liu Zhukuai said about this monkey theft case, Xie Yixiang, Xian Jingyue and Shang Buqi discussed it, since there was no harvest in the big and small cases in Lanzhou Mansion, you might as well go and see this theft case first. The three head catchers of Deng, Yu, and Fugu wanted to accompany them, but they were rejected by Xie Yixiang, saying that if a small theft case alarmed the head catchers of Lanzhou Mansion, they were afraid that they would startle the snake, and only let Liu Zhu, who was in charge of the case, accompany him. However, despite this, what she is really worried about in her heart is that in such a mixed situation as Lanzhou Mansion, it is inevitable that there will be no collusion between officials and bandits, and everything is not yet clueless, so it is best not to let the forces of the yamen intervene in advance.

At that moment, the three of them rested in the yamen for a while, and then went to the west of the city under the leadership of Liu Zhukuai. The four of them walked all the way for about half an hour, and finally came to a relatively prosperous street, which was the residence of the informant Cao Yuanwai. After the servants who arrived at Cao's house opened the door to greet him and ask for clarification, he invited the four of them to serve tea in the main hall, and then went to the grocery store on the street to call Cao Yuanwai back from the store.

When Liu Zhu finished his opening remarks, Xie Yixiang got straight to the point and carefully inquired about the theft that night. Due to the fact that half a month had passed, Cao Yuanwai did not expect that the yamen would really send someone to investigate, but only said that the relevant details had long been unclear, and he did not dare to alarm the yamen again. Fortunately, Cao Yuanwai's wife has been haunted by the fact that the ancestral jade pendant of the Cao family was stolen by the monkey, so she remembers it very clearly, and even told everyone about it. Who knew that after the four of them listened to her story, it was similar to what Liu Zhukuai said before, but a monkey stole into the kitchen of the house to forage for food, and also stole a piece of jade pendant.

Xie Yixiang couldn't help asking, "Are you sure that it was a monkey who entered the house that night to steal, but you could see it clearly?" Mrs. Cao shook her head and said that she hadn't seen it with her own eyes. But I heard Cao Yuan say outside: "My wife really didn't see it, but I and the two servants in the family could not see it clearly. It was about two o'clock, my wife and I were sleeping soundly, and we were suddenly awakened by the noise in the kitchen, so I got up and went out to check with the lamp. When I opened the door, I saw that the two servants in the side room had also opened the door and came out, also awakened by the movement in the kitchen. In other words, apart from my husband and wife, there are only two servants living in the house, who are also my fellow workers in the grocery store, and my two daughters are married and do not live in the house. So when I saw the servants appearing, I knew that most of the noise in the kitchen was a thief, but I didn't know where it came from. I was scared, so I yelled and asked, 'Who?' to scare them away. As soon as I finished speaking, I heard a loud 'bang', and a hazy black shadow slammed open the kitchen door and rushed in the direction of the servant's room opposite the kitchen, but it climbed onto a few boxes of groceries by the wall and climbed towards the wall with all its strength. With the help of the lantern in the servant's hand, the three of us could see clearly, and what came out of the wall was clearly a brown-black monkey with a long tail behind its buttocks, and in a blink of an eye, it went over the wall and was never seen again. ”

Hearing Cao Yuanwai's recollection, Xie Yixiang was not in a hurry to see the layout of the Cao family, and immediately asked: "Cao Yuanwai just said that it was half a month later, and he can't remember it clearly. But now these memories are clearly vivid, I don't know why?" Cao Yuanwai was stunned for a moment, and stammered: "This ...... This one...... I couldn't remember it at first, but I just heard my wife's story, and then I remembered it......" said, even he himself was a little dissatisfied with this explanation, and said: "Alas, in fact, it was just a small theft case, and I went to the yamen to report the case at that time, because I was afraid for a while. Now that the monkey has never been here again, how dare he bother the government with some trivial things. ”

You must know that Xie Yixiang was born in Jinling, and she is mixed with the criminal arrest room and officialdom, and she is no matter how good she is at observing words and feelings, how can she hide it from her if she has a strange look on her face? At the moment, she was waiting to ask this Cao Yuanwai, but she listened to Shang and said lightly: "Enough, don't waste time on him, the key to this case is not on him." Let's go and see what the stealing monkey is. With that, he immediately got up and walked straight out of the main hall.

said that in the previous case of "Emei Blood Baby", Xie Yixiang and Shang Buqi investigated separately according to their own methods, and only then did they come together in the end. So after careful calculation, this is the first time Xie Yixiang has worked with Shang Buqi, and I also want to see with my own eyes the case-handling methods of this Beiping god to see if I can steal some skills from it. At that moment, Xie Yixiang didn't ask any more questions, glanced at Xian Jingyue and Liu Zhucouri, and walked out of the main hall with the merchants.

This mansion outside Cao Yuan is not large, a total of only six or seven zhang square, in a rectangular layout, in the middle of which is an empty courtyard. Facing the direction of the gate, is the north main hall where everyone just spoke, there are four rooms on the left and right sides of the main hall, one on the left is the bedroom of Cao Yuanwai and Mrs. Cao, the other is the study, and the two rooms on the right are the boudoirs of Cao Yuanwai's two daughters, because the daughter has already been married, it is also vacant for a long time, and only when the daughter returns to her parents' house will live for a stay. In addition, on the east and west sides of the courtyard there were two larger rooms, the two servants' quarters on the west and the kitchen on the east.

After seeing the layout of the mansion, Shang Buqi walked straight out of the gate and came to the street outside, then looked left and right, and then went around the long street, and then went around to the back of Cao's house through an alley half a mile away, to see the wall behind the mansion. It wasn't until he had surveyed all this that he realized that everyone was following him all the way. At that moment, Shang Bu didn't give up, so he sneered at Xie Yixiang and said, "Okay, tonight I will let your girl open her eyes and see the highest level of solving the case - 'portrait'." ”