books44 Chapter 326: One Survivor
Chapter 326: One Survivor
Chu Xiaomu and others followed behind Gao Tinggeng's team.
Seeing Gao Tinggeng rushing in and out of several tents one after another, his expression became more and more nervous and ugly. After checking five or six tents in a row, the villagers inside were all dead without exception. Only then did he finally believe that what Chu Xiaomu, Zhou Weide and others said was true, and the villagers of Dongxi Village had been killed. He staggered to a big rock by the river, sat on it and panted, sweat dripping down his forehead, and his hands and feet trembled uncontrollably.
Chu Xiaomu asked: "Captain Gao, can you figure out who the murderer is?"
Gao Tinggeng shook his head and said, "I can't tell either... This is too strange... It looks like a wolf bite, but the tooth marks don't look like one. And... and..."
Everyone asked him what he had discovered.
Gao Tinggeng said: "I touched their wounds, foreheads, and chests. They were not as cold as the dead. Instead, they still had residual warmth. But their hearts did not beat at all. It was really puzzling..."
A soldier said, "The heart has stopped beating for so long, the spirit has dispersed, and he must be dead. The body is still warm, probably because of the hot weather."
Gao Tinggeng shook his head, thinking that the residual heat on the dead had nothing to do with whether the weather was hot or not, and said, "They must have been harmed by evil spirits, there is no doubt about that, but what kind of evil spirits are doing this and where they came from is really hard to figure out..." He turned around and asked Chu Xiaomu, "Brother Chu, did you find anything unusual when you came here?"
Chu Xiaomu told the story of his journey down from the Beast Mountain and how there was a woman alive when he first arrived but died in the blink of an eye.
Gao Tinggeng was suddenly startled and said, "Could it be... Could it be an animal spirit? That's impossible. It's rare to hear of evil spirits among animal spirits. I've never heard of any of them coming down the mountain to our Biyuan..."
Chu Xiaomu said: "Captain Gao, I think only by asking Ding Zhongjun and others to come here, maybe we can find out the real culprit."
Gao Tinggeng slapped his forehead and said, "Yes, yes, yes, I was so anxious that I forgot about it." He waved to the two soldiers beside him and ordered, "You two hurry back to the camp and report this to the Yangying officer and Ding Zhongjun, and ask them to send someone to investigate."
The two soldiers responded, mounted their horses and galloped eastward.
Chu Xiaomu and Gao Tinggeng's teams had never seen such a bizarre tragedy, and they were all worried and silent. In the village, apart from the ding-dong sound of the stream hitting the rocks, there was almost no other sound, not even the insects were chirping, it was terrifyingly quiet.
Xidong Village is nearly three hundred miles away from Dongzhong Camp. If the horses run non-stop, it will take nearly three hours to arrive there. The round trip takes about half a day.
Everyone kept looking towards the east, feeling anxious. Gao Tinggeng walked back and forth beside the stream, watching the sun set, and it would take at least two or three hours for the Dongzhong camp to arrive. He finally couldn't help but say, "This wait is too painful. Brother Chu, why don't we move a few corpses out and take a closer look, maybe we can find some clues."
Chu Xiaomu said, "We don't understand much, so we'll just listen to your instructions, Captain Gao. If there's anything you need us to do, just let us know."
Gao Tinggeng said: "Well, this matter is too tricky, and I won't be polite to you brothers from the Nanding Army. Let's work together to move a few corpses out and have a look." After that, he directed the soldiers to find felt mats, move corpses from the tents, and stand guard on the hillside... The arrangements were quite orderly.
The soldiers were about to stand up when one of them suddenly stopped, with a look of surprise on his face, and said, "Captain Gao, look quickly."
Everyone looked in the direction he was looking at, and saw a woman standing quietly in front of the tent, looking at everyone motionlessly. The sun had set below the horizon, the sky was dark, and the clothes the woman was wearing were almost the same color as the tent, so no one noticed her before.
Gao Tinggeng said happily, "It turned out to be Miss Qiaohua. She is not dead. This is great." He shouted loudly, "Miss Qiaohua, I am Gao Tinggeng from Dongzhong Camp. We have met before."
Qiaohua did not answer, but continued to stand quietly at the door of the tent, staring at everyone motionlessly.
Chu Xiaomu, Zhang Hou and others also recognized her. This girl named Qiaohua was actually the one who was crying sadly when Chu Xiaomu and the other three found her at the beginning. Chu Xiaomu thought, wasn't she dead too? How come she walked out of the tent now? It seems that he was wrong before. This girl Qiaohua was not dead.
Everyone was very happy because as long as there was one person left alive, the real murderer would be easy to find out.
Gao Tinggeng shouted a few more times, but Qiaohua seemed to be deaf and continued to stand quietly. The sun had already set, and although there was afterglow in the west, she was standing in the shadow of the tent, and it was pitch black in front of her, so no one could see her expression.
Everyone thought that this girl Qiaohua must have been so frightened by such a tragic incident that she became stupid and didn't know how to respond when she heard people calling her.
Gao Tinggeng also thought that she was frightened by the murderous evil spirit, so he was about to pull her over for questioning, and said, "Don't be afraid, we are all soldiers from Bicheng, and we are here to kill the evil spirit..." and walked towards her step by step.
Chu Xiaomu pulled Gao Tinggeng to his side, shook his head at him, and said, "Captain Gao, I think something is wrong."
Gao Tinggeng said, "What's wrong? She may be the only one alive in Dongxi Village. I think it depends on her whether we can find the real murderer."
Chu Xiaomu said: "There were also teeth holes on her neck caused by the evil spirit. I saw her die in front of me with my own eyes." Zhang Hou and Zhou Weiyi also nodded and said that it was true.
Gao Tinggeng didn't believe it and said, "Maybe you made a mistake for a moment. She just fell asleep. If she was really dead, how could she be standing in front of us?" After that, he broke free from Chu Xiaomu's hand and continued to walk towards Qiaohua.
Zhou Weide patted Chu Xiaomu on the shoulder and said, "She was fine when I left. How could she die suddenly? You guys must have made a mistake. You are making a fuss here."
Chu Xiaomu thought about it and realized that there was absolutely no one in this world who could be resurrected after death. It seemed that he was really wrong.
Gao Tinggeng said, "Miss Qiaohua, we have met several times. Don't you remember me? More than two months ago, I bought more than a dozen sheep from your house. Your sheep are fat and tender. My brothers praised them highly after eating them. They all said they would buy more sheep from you. So, we are here again today and plan to buy a few more sheep from your house..."