Abduct a shadow guard to investigate the case

The sun is slanting to the west, and the sunset is just beginning to appear on the horizon.

Dan Muda took Shen Yao out of the medicine hall and walked along the stone road to the execution hall.

Along the road are high walls and black tiles, and the roadside vegetation is scattered, showing the style of the villa.

"You just came to the villa. Did old man Jun be suspicious and ask you all kinds of things just now?" After walking for a while, Dan Muda looked left and right to see if there was no one there, and asked Shen Yao.

Shen Yao looked at Dan Muda in surprise, and said, "Ah, that's right. You actually called your hall master 'Old Jun'?"

"Haha, just yelling in private, don't tell others. Old man Jun is like this, he is a little old man, and he is still so sensitive and suspicious."

"Oh, don't worry, I won't tell others, and I have no one to tell." Shen Yao smiled, rolled his eyes, and said, "I heard that there are often demon sects making trouble here in Yuling County, right? Because of this, Hall Master Jun is more cautious?"

"Who knows." Dan Muda walked swaggeringly, and said casually, "But the Demon Cult has not appeared much in the past two years. Your news is too outdated. Mingshanzhuang destroyed a large branch of their altar here, and the vitality of the Demon Cult was seriously injured, and it is said that they have retreated outside the pass."

"Oh, it's so powerful!" Shen Yao pinched his chin, and he asked again, "Brother Dan Muda, actually I want to ask, Hall Master Jun said just now that the murderer was the 'abandoned shadow guard', this is What's the meaning?"

"Haha, what kind of brother is not brother? I'm afraid I'm not as old as you, so you can just call me by my name." Dan Muda patted Shen Yao on the shoulder and said, "You don't know, we hide the name of the villa, divided into There are two halls of Xuanwu and Zhuque. The Xuanwu Hall is in charge of recruiting martial arts and shadow guard training. The Zhuque Hall is in charge of finance and medicine. It is a place independent of the two halls. It is said that it is set up for fair punishment. The head of the punishment hall is Gao Zhan. The "abandoned shadow guard" is usually seriously injured or made a big mistake, and can no longer be sent. Shadow guards who go on missions are sometimes used as dead soldiers for the last time, or they are used by the pharmacy hall to test medicine."

"You villa is really cruel to the shadow guards..." Shen Yao frowned.

"Hey, don't think too much about it. The shadow guards are the most humble existence in the villa. Most of them are orphans bought by the villa or descendants of criminal slaves. They have been trained since childhood and instilled with the idea of ​​absolute obedience. Knives or doing some uh... secret tasks are often worn out quickly. In fact, if the villa hadn't taken them in, many of them probably wouldn't have survived as children." Dan Muda raised his eyes and glanced at Shen Yao and said.

The word "secret" was heard by Shen Yao, and he could roughly imagine that it must be some dangerous and dirty tasks that could not be exposed to the public. He then asked, "What is the general fate of the medicine man who tests the medicine?"

"Oh, it depends on their luck. If they all tried some highly toxic drugs, they might... die sooner." Dan Muda curled his lips and said.

"So you must die..." Shen Yao's face darkened, obviously a little unacceptable, "Do you also test medicine with medicine people? I remember that you are studying poisonous Gu?"

"I still think about it. It's just that the level is not enough. Only those who have been in the medicine hall for at least five or six years and have real talents are eligible to be assigned to the medicine man." After Dan Muda finished speaking, he took a step forward and jumped in front of Shen Yao , raised his finger and pointed at himself, "Of course my talents are definitely enough, but the time hasn't come yet."

Shen Yao gave him a flattering laugh, and then said, "By the way, can you often see Master Lu?"

"Master, that's a high-ranking person," Dan Muda put his hands behind his head, and said, "At our level, we can only look at him from a distance during the New Year's and holiday gatherings. No, he half I just started retreating to practice more than a month ago, and I won’t leave until next month.”

"Oh," Shen Yao nodded. He touched his chin, thought for a while and asked, "You said, why did that shadow guard kill my cousin? Did he hate him for using him to test medicine?"

"Hate?" Dan Muda laughed and said, "Shadow guards are heartless and ruthless, they only obey orders, so there is no love or hate. Actually, I think, maybe it was the medicine your cousin gave him that day It was too fierce, he went mad and killed people for a while, I heard that he broke the rope that bound him at that time. It’s just that they didn’t kill him right away, probably because they wanted him to say more…” Dan Muda muttered in a low voice .

"Say a little more?" Shen Yao grasped the point.

"Ah, it's nothing!" Dan Muda patted his head suddenly, and turned his eyes, "I'll show you my baby."

"What?" Shen Yao leaned forward, and before he finished speaking, he felt something fluffy and cold had been bounced on his neck. He stretched out his hand to wipe it, and saw a big palm-sized, snow-white spider crawling onto it. On his own hands, every tentacle on the spider's body brought him a chill as it crawled.

"Ah!" Shen Yao's face turned pale in an instant, and he yelled, hopping and swinging his arms vigorously.

"Hey, hey," Dan Muda hurriedly stretched out his hand to take the spider back into his arms, and said with a smothered smile, "You can't, a big man, so afraid of spiders, it's too worthless!" After holding back for a while, he finally couldn't bear it Zhu patted his legs and laughed wantonly, "Haha, haha——"

"Hmph!" Shen Yao's face flushed a little, while he checked his robe while glaring at each other, "Don't play this kind of joke with me again."

"Okay, okay, if you don't drive, you can't drive," Dan Muda slowly stopped laughing, pointing to the front, "turning the corner is the execution hall, let's go quickly."

On the way to the interrogation room of the torture hall, the torch casts a dark shadow on the wall, and there seems to be a suppressed panting/groaning coming from the front, and it seems that it is just the echo of the draft.

As soon as the door of the execution room was pushed open, a strong smell of blood came to the nostrils.

Shen Yao couldn't help covering his nose, and looked into the room, only to see a man with bare upper body, disheveled hair, and blood stains all over his body. He was hung in the center of the execution room by his hands folded backwards, with his toes barely touching the ground.Four braziers surrounded him tightly, and just standing at the door felt the heat wave, not to mention the sweat mixed with blood of the man who was hung up continuously winding along the clear and tight muscle texture of his upper body Down below, the ground under his feet was already dark red.

There were two criminals standing in the room, one tall and one short, and they were also sweating profusely. The short criminal held a red-hot iron rod and suddenly poked it into a wound on the waist of the hanging man, scorching the flesh. The smell of the smell came out with a puff of white smoke, and I felt frightened when I looked at it from a distance.The bound man clenched his hands tightly, sweating like a waterfall in an instant, his already drooping head was tilted back in pain, revealing his tight chin and elongated neckline, his Adam's apple was rolling, his pale and dry eyes The lips parted slightly, revealing a hoarse moan, and then he bit his lips tightly, but his body twitched and trembled uncontrollably.

The criminal officer yelled, "Quick move! Who ordered you to kill people? Did Shadow Hall give you the courage?!"

"Cough!" Dan Muda coughed dryly at the door.

The two criminal officers turned their heads and saw someone coming, so they withdrew their hands and walked to the door. The short man said, "Dan Muda, why are you here? This is this?"

"This is Vice Hall Master Shi's nephew. He just arrived at the villa today and wants to see the interrogation situation." Dan Muda introduced.

"Disrespect, disrespect!" The criminal officer clasped his fists at Shen Yao, and said, "This man is very stubborn. The torture training in the shadow hall is not in vain. The trial has not made much progress so far. We are thinking of other ways."

"Be careful not to beat people to death, there will be no proof of death." Dan Muda said.Shen Yao turned his head to look at him, and found that he was looking straight at the tortured person in the center of the execution room, with faint excitement in his eyes.Shen Yao was startled intuitively, thinking that Dan Muda was actually a bit bloodthirsty and abusive inside. Before his heart could feel cold, Dan Muda turned his eyes to look at him, still with a lively and willful expression , Shen Yao couldn't help feeling that he had made a mistake just now.

"Don't worry, we have counted." The two looked at each other, and the tall criminal turned around and returned to the center of the torture room, picked up a bowl of clear water from the side table, grabbed the victim's hair with one hand, and forced him to look With one hand, I put clear water by his mouth.

"Xuan Qi, do you want to drink?" the criminal officer asked.Shen Yao saw that the man called "Xuan Qi" rolled his Adam's apple.

"If you want to drink, quickly admit to murder, and tell the truth who ordered it. This bowl of water is yours."

"Subordinate...uh..." The man spoke with difficulty, his voice was as harsh as a dry string, thinking that he had reached the limit of thirst, but he didn't expect that the next sentence he said was, "No...killing..."

"Huh!" The criminal officer was not too disappointed, tilted the mouth of the bowl, and the clear water was slowly poured on the ground, making a splashing sound.

Xuan Qi's chest heaved more and more, his Adam's apple rolled several times, but he never made another sound.

After the water was poured out, the criminal officer threw the bowl back on the table and turned to look for new instruments of torture.

"Wait a minute—" Shen Yao said suddenly, "He didn't admit that he killed someone. If you tortured him like this, wouldn't it be a trick?"

"Beating into a trick?" The criminal officer seemed to have heard some joke, and said, "My lord, he was caught at the scene of the crime! He is so stubborn, but he wants to live a few more days, so that he will not taste the feeling that life is worse than death." How can you tell the truth!" He said, picked up a thorn whip, and walked towards Xuan Qi, but was stopped by Shen Yao one step ahead.

Shen Yao walked up to the tortured shadow guard, the man hadn't lowered his head yet, Shen Yao found that he was a young man about his own age, although there were a few strands of wet/wet hair sticking to his pale face, as well as blood and sweat , but it can still be seen that his facial features are deep and distinct, and his appearance should be called good-looking among men.The swaying flames cast a shadow on the side of the man's straight nose, he bit his blood-stained lips tightly, restraining the shaking of his body and chaotic breathing, his slightly closed eyes looked down, The deep eyes make people think of the dusty black jade, and the repressed stubbornness is hidden under the docile forbearance. When Shen Yao looked at those eyes, his heart suddenly moved, and a feeling of deja vu came to his heart.

He asked, "Let me ask you, did you really kill my cousin?"

"My lord, it's useless. No matter how much we torture him, he won't admit it. It's useless for you to ask." The voice of the criminal officer came from beside his ear.

"If he still doesn't admit it after all the torture, is there something hidden?" Shen Yao turned around and asked.

"What hidden secrets can there be!" The tall criminal snorted coldly.

Shen Yao looked at the man again, and said, "Xuan Qi, do you have any hidden secrets? You might as well tell me, and I will definitely find a way to help you."

The man remained silent, but his black eyes shrank slightly, as if there was a faint light flashing by, which was so fast that Shen Yao couldn't catch it, and the feeling of deja vu became more and more serious, and Shen Yao almost couldn't help asking him directly, whether It was the disguised man in the cave on that rainy night.

"Okay, my lord, I can understand how you want to find out the cause of Vice Hall Master Shi's death, but leave the interrogation to me." , Xuan Qi lowered his head expressionlessly.

Shen Yao frowned, and asked Dan Muda, "Is the stone room where the crime happened still the same?"

"Uh... I heard that it was sealed and not moved. I'm not sure if it's still the same as it was when the case happened."

"That's good!" Shen Yao nodded, turned around and said to the criminal officer, "Dan Muda and I went to the stone room to investigate, please stop for a while before performing torture, if there is anything new, it may help the interrogation. "

"Huh? Heh... It's really unheard of for you, the nephew of Vice Hall Master Shi, to plead for mercy for a murderer."

"I just want to find out the truth, please!" Shen Yao bowed to him.

The criminal officer snorted and said, "Forget it, let's have a drink of tea first."

"Thank you!"