The two sedan chairs stopped on the side of the road together, and Nie Xiaoman and Su Jingmo walked down. The two rounded the corner, and Nie Xiaoman stood up to take a look forward, then pointed to the row of houses side by side.

Nie Xiaoman said: "Jingmo, this is probably what Wang Chaozong said about Xinanli, right?" ”

Su Jingmo responded: "Since he told you that it is Xinanli in the middle of trouble, I think it should be here." The two continued to walk side by side, and Jing Mo said, "There seem to be more than a dozen houses of the same style over there. Has the Emperor ever explained which one it is? ”

Nie Xiaoman said: "It's okay, he said that since there is such a murder case in this family surnamed Mao, and Wang Chaozong is waiting for us there, we will never go to the wrong family." ”

At this time, not long after the summer heat, the weather is still hot, and the scorching sun hangs obliquely in the sky, giving people a feeling of scorching, but fortunately, the wind has not disappeared. The doors of the people here are still mostly closed, and there is no special or disturbing phenomenon.

Jing Mo looked left and right, trying to identify which house was the home of the murderer, and suddenly saw a person walking out under the shade of the trees in front of the row of houses.

The man wore a short black robe with narrow sleeves and a black felt hat on his head, which was lowered to his eyebrows, and looked like a poor man. He took a few steps forward, grabbed the hat in his hand, and bowed to Xiaoman and Jingmo.

The man said, "Master Nie, Su Shangcha, the younger one has been waiting for the two of you for a long time. ”

Nie Xiaoman nodded. "Is Brother Chaozong still here?"

The man replied, "Of course, the headcatcher is waiting for the two masters. ”

Jing Mo raised his finger and asked, "There is a doorway with a bronze medal under the shade of the tree over there, but it is Mao Yuhong's house?" ”

The man bowed and replied, "No, my lord." Mao's house is a doorway next door to the bronze medal. ”

Jing Mo frowned and said, "Why don't you send someone to guard the door?" ”

Then the man said, "There is one who is there to keep watch, but he is sent in the house, so as not to provoke the eyes of passers-by." The king was afraid that you two masters would not find a place, so he asked me to wait here for the masters. ”

Nie Xiaoman nodded again, and Jing Mo didn't say anything more. We walked to the door of the bronze plaque. The card is marked with "three long and two short fasting" five Han Li, and the door number is the third number of the person. The second person next door to this family is Mao Yuhong's family. There is also a small wooden plaque in the No. 1 character next door to the left of the Mao family, which is a torture room master named Feng Chao.

As soon as the two of them walked into the two Panhua courtyard doors of Mao's house, there was indeed a catcher in a green shirt standing inside the door. At the same time, a little maid of sixteen or seventeen years old, wearing a collar placket and a cloth skirt, came out of it and greeted the two.

She said, "See, my lord, Master Wang and his wife are talking in the hall. Please come in. ”

The little maid turned around and walked into the hall, obviously to lead the way, and Nie Xiaoman followed her in. Jing Mo also followed.

The furniture in the hall is quite rich, and there are several extravagant atmospheres, but the calligraphy and paintings on the walls are ordinary. Wang Chaozong sat and talked with a half-old woman. The woman wore a hoop, a crown of her hair and pearls on a golden beam, a stand-up collar gown, and a double-sided Suzhou embroidered palace fan in her hand.

Every wrinkle on her face seemed to be filled with sorrow. Wang Chaozong straightened up his slender body, straightened the light green shirt on his body, and was about to greet Xiaoman and Jingmo, but the old woman who was sitting suddenly spoke first.

She prayed as she gave the salute, saying, "Alas! Please, sir, my poor son died so miserably! I beg the adults to hang his head high and avenge him! His father is still in the same house, and only my mother and son are left here. This is all to be able to study at Maoshan Academy, so we helped to come here. Who knew that he hadn't finished reading the book, but he died first, and he died like this!

Her voice was sour, and tears welled up in her eyes. The target of her speech was obviously Wang Chaozong. Nie Xiaoman was speechless, but nodded. Wang Chaozong finished a few short sentences and began to speak.

Wang Chaozong said: "Lord Nie, Su Shangcha, I have to work again to work the two of you, the corpse is upstairs, or let's go up and have a look first." ”

Nie Xiaoman nodded: "Well, you lead the way in front." ”

This two-story house has two entrances in the front and back of the courtyard. The first one entered the street, which was the room of the deceased Mao Yuhong, and the second one was the bedroom of the deceased's mother, which was the old woman who complained. Everyone walked into the deceased's bedroom first, and there was silence in the bedroom, except for a small catcher who silently stood by the corpse.

The body lay across the back of an officer's hat chair behind a desk by the window, and another chair overturned over beside the body. The corpse wore a scarf, wore a straight jacket, had a wide white collar, slits on both sides, a hidden pendulum, a silk scarf around the waist, and a jade belt hook. There was a large patch of blood on the collar of the straight jacket. The deceased had a slender and fair face, and his hair was neatly and beautifully tied, and he was about twenty years old.

His jade belt hook seems to be a good piece of jade, warm and square, and there is a jade ring on the ring finger of his right hand. However, at the moment his limbs were stiff, his eyes were open, his pale lips were not closed, and his two rows of teeth were exposed, and the shape was quite terrifying.

Nie Xiaoman leaned over to take a look at it first, and asked Wang Chaozong in a low voice. "You've experienced it once?"

Wang Chaozong replied, "Yes." He was obviously killed by a musket. I only searched his body for a while, and the body had not moved. ”

A musket has a cast copper or wrought iron firing tube with a firing door at the lower end of the firing tube to ignite the gunpowder, and a wooden stick or spear called a "rudder rod" at the end of the firing tube, which is easy for the shooter to hold, aim and control.

In the first year of Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty, our Ming army obtained Western arquebuses from two captured Franc ships in the Battle of Xicaowan in Xinhui, Guangdong. In the twenty-seventh year of Jiajing, when he captured the Japanese who had invaded Shuangyu along the coast of Daming, he seized the arquebus, which was called an iron cannon by the Japanese people. The Ming Dynasty's military bureau attached great importance to imitating arquebuses and made bird guns.

The bird gun is the name of the new arquebus in the Ming Dynasty, because the size of the muzzle is like a bird's beak, so it is called the bird gun, also known as the bird's beak gun. The old muskets were slowly phased out, and many of them also entered the civilian population.

Nie Xiaoman tore the deceased's apart to see the fatal scars. There is some black ash on the straight jacket and undershirt. The wound was on the left side of the chest, and there was also a hole in the right side of the vest, and it seemed that when the projectile entered the left chest, it was slightly to the right, and it passed through the right back.

Jing Mo said: "This trace looks like suicide. Jing Mo's voice was very low, he was originally said to Nie Xiaoman, but he was unexpectedly heard by Wang Chaozong.

Wang Chaozong smiled and said, "Su Shangcha, the small one is not talented, but there are still several signs here, which seem to be contrary to your opinion." ”

Xiaoman also frowned slightly: "Jingmo, you are always so impatient!" You just took a quick look, how can you draw such a big conclusion? ”