Records of the Cattle and Horses of Chang'an

Chapter 318 Footprints

Cui Bianxu nodded and was about to ask Ding Yuan to continue when Huaizhen's voice came from the door: "Shaoqing Cui, I have brought someone here."

"Young Master, I haven't finished speaking." Ding Yuan raised his head and glanced at the little monk outside who didn't dare to look inside.

"Go on."

Cui Bianxu gestured outside, asking them to wait for a moment.

There's no need to rush to investigate the case. If it doesn't work, there's no harm in bringing the person back to the Dali Temple and questioning them slowly.

Ding Yuan pointed at the chest cavity and said, "The victim's heart is missing. Judging from the broken veins, it must have been ripped out directly. Because the speed was fast enough, the victim did not die immediately after being disemboweled. At the same time, the murderer moved very quickly and ripped out the victim's heart quickly..."

He imitated the murderer's action of tearing open the heart and pulling it out, which looked quite perverted.

"That's why the bloodstains here are so...horrible." Experiencing his colleague's actions up close, Cui Bianxu raised his eyelids and continued.

Ding Yuan said, with a look of "You're right," the most crucial point that made his blood boil: "The deceased's missing heart was not found at the scene."

"He took the deceased's heart away?" Lu Xingzhou's voice couldn't help but rise. Oh my god, he said that he was not suitable to go to the crime scene!

"What did the murderer do with my heart?" Wang Leisheng instinctively clenched his legs together, raised his hand and touched his chest, making sure that his heart was still there before he slightly relaxed his tense sphincter.

Ding Yuan looked up at him with a half-smile on his face, and uttered something that made the hairs on his head stand on end: "Maybe he didn't take it away...but...he ate it."

The sound of a pin drop could be heard inside the room. Even the two monks who were muttering outside stopped talking at the same time. They all looked at Ding Yuan in shock. The young monk's eyes, which were already red, immediately rolled down with tears: "Abbot, my master..."

Huaizhen did not respond, but took a deep breath, closed his eyes and recited the scriptures even faster, with the rosary in his hand also turning rapidly.

Seeing this, the little monk pursed his lips, wiped away his tears, and began to recite with trembling lips.

Cui Bianxu looked down at the pieces of meat on the ground and asked, "Why was it eaten?"

Thanks to Li Sheng, his intuitive understanding of the human internal organs is much better than that of other officials in the Dali Temple. He can see that there is a missing heart.

However, the minced meat on the ground, the undigested food residues scattered from the ruptured intestines, and Xing Yun's incontinence seriously affected his judgment.

The energy of a hair is indeed not as dizzying as the direct contact with these filthy things. To be in this position in Dali Temple, his practice is still not enough!

"There are gaps in these organs. We need to transport the bodies back to the Dali Temple to find out exactly how many and which ones are missing." Ding Yuan had a strong psychological endurance. It was normal for people to become incontinent when they died. As a coroner, he had heard this a lot.

But there were too many people here, which affected his ability to calm down and check carefully. Moreover, the weather was hot now. If he insisted on piecing things together bit by bit, even he would not be able to bear the smell.

Cui Bianxu nodded and said to Wang Leisheng, "Send someone to take the body back."

"Yes!"

Afterwards, Cui Bianxu still did not ask the little monk any questions, but continued walking in the room.

There were three windows in Xingyun's room, two on the south and one on the north. The door was on the north side, and one of the south windows was completely shattered. "This window must have been smashed by someone with great force."

Lu Xingzhou felt relieved and started writing with the pen in his hand. When it was smashed to pieces by a strong force, it could be ruled out that there was no evil spirit behind the crime. He could sleep peacefully at night. What Confucius said was the most reasonable!

Wang Mingqian leaned over, observing the remnant of the window frame, which still had sharp wooden thorns, and nodded. "The murderer must be quite large, probably a tall and burly man."

Even if the woman had the strength to smash the window, part of it would be left because of her size, and it wouldn't be so clean and thorough.

Cui Bianxu looked out the window. The location of Xingjing Temple was not very good. It seemed that when the temple was first built, the money on hand was not very sufficient. The gate of the temple faced south and north towards the direction of Daming Palace.

The monks usually live at the back of the temple, and this place is no exception. There is a high yellow wall only two meters behind Xingyun's house. There is a cypress tree in the middle. It is not very tall, only about three meters, but it has lush branches and leaves and is well maintained.

(One zhang in the Tang Dynasty was equal to 3 meters or 3.6 meters.)

"Come and take a look?" Wang Mingqian invited him when he saw him staring at her.

Cui Bianxu nodded slightly, kicked off and flipped out, leaving only a sentence: "Don't touch the window frame."

"You're so long-winded!" Wang Mingqian rarely retorted and turned over.

Lu Xingzhou watched the two strongest warriors leave, and his half-reassured heart began to rise again - if it wasn't a ghost, it might be a monster? Monsters have physical bodies!

He really needs protection!

Unlike the previous place, there are obviously very few people coming here. I'm afraid even the cleaners don't come here often. Because it's in the shade, moss has grown in the cracks of the blue bricks on the ground, and there is even a thin layer of green on the blue bricks.

But precisely because of this, the traces left by the murderer were extremely obvious. Cui Bianxu squatted beside a footprint to examine it, and the more he looked, the deeper his doubts became.

Wang Mingqian carefully approached and squatted down. After just one glance, he couldn't help but exclaim, "How come these footprints look like humans, yet not like humans?"

He looked back and forth, feeling even more puzzled: "Is there only this one footprint?"

Cui Bianxu shook his head, his eyes fixed on the cypress tree. He then leaped up and landed directly in the middle of the tree. He propped himself up on a branch with one hand and searched around before landing on the ground again. He dusted off his hands and said, "There's also a three-claw handprint on the tree."

"This person is very skilled in martial arts." Wang Mingqian glanced at the distance from the window frame to the blue brick footprint, and then estimated the distance to the tree: "There should be only one footprint on the wall."

"Your martial arts skills are too weak."

Cui Bianxu taunted with a sneer, then kicked off with his left foot and flew into the air. The next moment, he landed on the top of the wall. He spotted the footprints with just a glance: "Only half a footprint."

Wang Mingqian wanted to argue for his martial arts skills. He has made some progress in the Jinwu Guard, right?

But she was also afraid that Cui Yi had different ideas from ordinary people, and might just beat her up, and then ask her to check her progress. Then she would have no place to reason, so she could only purse her lips into a line and turn her face away, ignoring him.

Cui Bianxu squatted on the wall and looked around like a monkey. Xingjing Temple was located in the southeast corner of Dunhuafang in the southeast corner of Chang'an City. The temple gate faced north, and the monks' residence was just on the south side, next to Furong Garden on one side and the city wall on the other.