Taoyun and Longcao are exhausted, and the road to Lanzhou is the extreme edge.

Who believes that the westward journey begins here, one heaven outside the sky and one heaven again.

- Ming Wang Yi

Lanzhou, also known as "Jincheng", originated from the establishment of county governance in the Western Han Dynasty, taking the meaning of "Jincheng soup pool"; In the early years of this dynasty, the world was unified, and after the imperial court expelled foreign races several times, it set up Lanzhou Wei here. Due to the prosperity of the Silk Road from the Han Dynasty to the Tang and Song dynasties, there was a grand occasion of "silk going west, Tianma coming east", Lanzhou is located in the most important station, has been extremely prosperous, only half of the population is Han Chinese, more are foreigners, including Turkic, Sogdian, Tibetan, Dangxiang, Khitan, Persian, etc. To this day, the people of the world are still accustomed to using the names of the previous dynasties, and these foreigners are uniformly called "Semu people".

It is said that Xie Yixiang, Xian Jingyue and Shang Buqi walked together, from Jiazhou Mansion all the way to the north, first out of Jianmen Pass to leave Shudi, and then take Longnan for more than a thousand miles, five days later, they came to this Lanzhou City.

At the foot of Mount Emei that day, the Beiping God Catcher finally confessed to Xie Yixiang and Xian Jingyue, saying that he and the "face-tearing demon" Ning Cui chased all the way, and even moved a few times in the middle, but was escaped by the other party because of his martial arts defeat, which can be described as angry and ruthless; he wanted to give up, but he was a little unwilling. Who knew that Ning Cui came to provoke him instead, and took the initiative to leave a note, which read: "Emei blood baby, Lanzhou ghost monkey, Yumen walking corpse, Tianshan true dragon." "It's just four strange cases, and I want to make a bet with Shang Buren. That is, as long as Shang does not give up and can solve these four strange cases, Ning Cui will willingly be arrested and confess his guilt.

However, Shang Buqi was obsessed with solving cases in his life, and he was most dissatisfied with the control of officialdom, so although he had solved countless cases over the years, he was always just a small catcher in Beiping Mansion, and he and Ning Cui had been chasing and fleeing in the past few years, and they were somewhat regretful. So in the end, he really made an agreement with Nan Ning Cui and went to Mount Emei alone to investigate the so-called "Emei Blood Baby" case.

With the help of Sister Yue of Jiazhou Mansion and "Jingyue Yixiang", although I couldn't figure out the origin of the baby's body in the blood pool of Zhichen Nunnery, the serial disappearance case on Mount Emei for a hundred years can be regarded as solved, and there is no need to worry about the murder of lone tourists from other places. And Shang Buqi was happy to see such a strange case, so he planned to go to Lanzhou as promised and continue to inquire about the "Lanzhou Ghost Monkey" case provided by Ning Cui. But the investigation of the case, the ultimate goal of Shang will always be to arrest the "face-tearing demon", he knows that his martial arts are not as good as the other party, and now he has met the famous "Jingyue Yixiang" in Mount Emei, and he also happens to have a grudge with Ning Cui, so he should invite the two to go along.

As for Xie Yixiang, even she didn't expect that she would agree to Shang's invitation, and rushed all the way to Lanzhou, the northwest city. Although she also wanted to arrest the "Face Tearing Demon", compared to the words and thoughts that she had released from the prison with her own hands, the idea of arresting Ning Cui was not so strong. And she went from Huguang to Jiangxi and then to Shudi, and she had been away from Jinling for more than half a year, and she couldn't help but feel homesick, and wanted to go back to the torture room and the general's mansion to see, but she didn't expect that in the end, it was the senior brother who first competed for the moon.

Xian Jingyue, as the commander of the pro-army Governor's Mansion, was ordered to investigate the murder of King Heng in Bifu, and should have rushed back to Jinling immediately to report to the emperor, so when investigating the case of "Emei Blood Baby", he also said not to delay too much. Who knew that after the whole case, he and Ning Cui had a face-to-face meeting, and he could be regarded as having some understanding of this "face-tearing demon", although this woman had killed countless people, it seemed that she was not "killing innocents indiscriminately", but because her definition of "innocent" was somewhat different from the standards of ordinary people, and even from a certain extreme point of view, the "face-tearing demon" was a person with a considerable sense of justice, and what she did was actually "doing the right thing for heaven" in her opinion. It's like she made a bet with Shang Buqi to let Shang Buqi solve this strange case on Mount Emei, in the final analysis, it is to stop the evil deeds of the dust hermitage, isn't this "doing the right thing for heaven"?

It is not that the difficulty lies in the process of handling the case, but in the beginning, and in how to find a needle in a haystack of files of missing tourists and find out the traces of the murderer in the Emei Mountain, which covers an area of more than 200,000 acres. If it weren't for Sister Yue's persistence, Xie Yixiang's reasoning and the portrait of Shang Bu Ren, if one of the links was missing, he would really not be able to solve this strange case. And in the end, if it weren't for Xian Jingyue's trick of "splitting Huashan alone", the body of the baby found in the blood pool of the dust hermitage would have been taken by Zhu Ruoyu, the head of the Emei Sword Sect.

From this point of view, since the "Emei Blood Baby" case has involved so many innocent lives, presumably the other three cases of "Lanzhou Ghost Monkey", "Yumen Walking Corpse" and "Tianshan Falling Dragon" are definitely not simple, and even more lives have been implicated. Xian Jingyue has always been cold-eyed and warm-hearted, although he will not deliberately do chivalrous deeds, but if he happens to bump into him, he will never stand idly by. So when he heard Shang Bu's invitation, he agreed on the spot, and when he passed by Chengdu Mansion, he informed the pro-army Governor's Mansion of the secret line in Chengdu Mansion by the way, and submitted the matter of Bifu to the emperor by letter, and then passed through Lanzhou. As a result, Xie Yixiang had no choice but to come with her senior brother.

At this time, Xie Yixiang, Xian Jingyue and Shang Buqi were eating beef noodles and drinking beef in a noodle restaurant in Lanzhou City. Speaking of this Lanzhou ramen, it is famous all over the world, Shang Buqi is very familiar with it, facing the noodle restaurants on the street, he sniffed in the wind on the street, and knew that the beef soup of the noodle restaurant was freshly boiled, and the three of them went in to taste it, and the taste was really authentic.

Xie Yixiang took a sip of beef soup, only to feel that her lips and teeth were greasy, and she couldn't help but bring up the old things again, and said: "Speaking of this 'face-tearing demon' Ning Cui, it is clear that he and Yan Sidao are in the same group, and the refugee turmoil in Jinling City back then was conspired by the two of them. And this time she made a bet with Shang Zhutou, leaving these four brainless cases, I am afraid it is not simple, there may be a bigger plot in secret, and it is even very likely that Yan Sidao is setting up a situation behind the scenes, and we don't know anything about it. Now that he has come to Lanzhou like this, it seems that he has taken the initiative to drill into their trap. ”

Hearing this, Shang Buqi didn't care about it, and said with a smile: "It doesn't matter what kind of trap he is, as long as there is really a strange case, then I will just solve the case." Now that the game has begun, I will definitely not lose if I don't give up!" Xie Yixiang saw that he was obsessed with this way, and even a little crazy, and he didn't bother to argue with him, so he immediately turned his head to look at his senior brother. Xian Jingyue drank the last mouthful of soup in the bowl and said slowly: "Whether it is Ning Cui or Yan Sidao, in terms of wisdom and martial arts, the strength of the three of us is enough to deal with it, and the key is the remaining three cases." If it is as serious as the matter of Mount Emei, we cannot stand idly by. ”

Hearing what the senior brother said, Xie Yixiang was speechless for a moment. Speaking of which he and Xian Jingyue are both descendants of the Sword King, the truth learned from the master since childhood, are the old way of doing chivalrous righteousness, hoeing the strong and helping the weak, but as he gradually grows older, he has experienced many things over the years, and he is no longer the innocent little girl back then, although he can still abide by the teachings of the saint and his own conscience in the general direction, but in the process of acting, he has gradually learned to compromise.

In contrast, the senior brother is still the same senior brother, and he is still the "Jiangnan knife" who almost does not understand. If you want to come to the chivalrous man in the play, if he really exists in the world, he should be like a senior brother. It's just that such a first Jingyue, such a senior brother, and such an unmarried husband, Xie Yixiang sometimes feels very admired, but sometimes she feels a little alienated, and even a little unattainable.

Xie Yixiang hurriedly put away her mind and said no more. Since he has come to Lanzhou, he has also decided to find the case of "Lanzhou Ghost Monkey" left by Ning Cui, and the most straightforward way is, of course, to go to the yamen of Lanzhou Mansion to ask. Because Shang Buqi was used to being alone, he did not ask for help from the yamen when he was investigating the case in Mount Emei, and now that he has the companions of "Jingyue Yixiang", he doesn't care. At that moment, after the three of them finished eating beef noodles, they went all the way to the yamen of Lanzhou Mansion, and Xie Yixiang used the old method to reveal the identity of the head of the Jinling Torture Arrest Room, only saying that he came to investigate the case by order.

When the officials of the government heard the name of the torture and arrest room, they hurriedly invited the three of them into the back hall, but after a while, three men dressed as headhunters came to receive them, two of whom were Han Chinese, with the surname "Deng" and the surname "Yu"; The two sides introduced each other, and when the three catchers heard that there were actually "famous catchers in the world, Nanzhuang and Northern Shang" among the "evil people grinding" businessmen who did not give up, they immediately showed admiration, and then heard the name of the third lady of the general Xie Fengxuan's family, they were even more surprised; in comparison, Xian Jingyue, the "first person in the world in ten years", was only a name in the rivers and lakes, and in the eyes of these officials, it was not as good as Shang Buqi and Xie Yixiang.

After Xie Yixiang explained his intentions, the three heads of the Lanzhou Mansion Yamen were at a loss, and shook their heads one after another and said: "Ghost monkey? I haven't heard of it, what is that? ”