Chapter 180 It’s Man-Made
The house where the crime occurred was also crowded with villagers. The old village chief and his men were collecting the body of the scholar's wife.

When Li Daoxuan came in, he saw a young man slumped in a chair, staring at the beams with lifeless eyes.

This person is Li Xiucai, also known as Li Juncai.

It is said that he was a scholar who passed the provincial examination in the first year of the Guangxu period, but later failed in the provincial examination and started working for others.

It is rare for me to go home normally, but since my wife became pregnant, I have been coming back more frequently, and he happened to be back today as well.

Li Daoxuan looked at the poor man and then looked into the house.

There were bloodstains everywhere on the ground, which was enough to show how tragic the crime was when it happened.

When the old village chief saw Li Daoxuan coming in, a trace of guilt appeared on his old face, but the guilt was fleeting and no one could see it clearly.

He waved to Li Daoxuan, and then said in a hoarse voice: "Daoxuan, you are here too."

"Yes, Grandpa Cheng. I heard something happened here, so I came to take a look." Li Daoxuan replied.

"Well, go and have a look." The old village chief hesitated, pointed at the house and sighed, "If you find it too unbearable, it's better not to look."

"I'd better go and take a look." Li Daoxuan took a deep breath and decided to take a look at the woman's body. After all, this matter was really beyond his expectations. He didn't expect that the suspect in his mind was actually dead.

And it was to cause death by disembowelment.

If she was really possessed by the vengeful fox, she would not have died so easily. Now that her caesarean section has been opened and the fetus she was carrying is nowhere to be found, it is obvious that Li Daoxuan's previous guess was roughly correct. The fetus in the belly of this scholar's wife is not simple.

Now that one person is dead, he has one less clue.

Without waiting for the old village chief to say anything, Li Daoxuan walked into the house.

A strong smell of blood rushed into the nose.

He saw the bloody intestines scattered on the ground and could imagine the scene in his mind.

A few steps away, a white cloth was covering a person.

Li Daoxuan took a deep breath, but it was full of the smell of blood. He calmed himself down, calmed down his emotions, walked over, reached out and gently lifted the white cloth.

All I saw was a pale and bloodless face, which still contained a look of fear and pain.

Pulling down further, I saw that the woman's clothes had been cut open by something, and large amounts of blood had stained her clothes red.

When Li Daoxuan looked at her belly, the shocking scene was like killing a fish and cutting open its belly. Even he, who had seen many life and death situations, couldn't help but gasp.

There was nothing left in the woman's stomach, only bones and flesh. The abdominal cavity was empty, as if it had been emptied out by something.

"Hmm" Li Daoxuan felt a little nauseous.

He suppressed the discomfort in his stomach, covered the cloth, then looked at the old village chief and asked in a deep voice, "When did you find out?"

"This morning." The old village chief said with a cough.

"When Jiang Niang came to wake her up, she saw blood all over the room. When the quilt was lifted, Jiang Niang fainted from shock. I also got the news and hurried over here."

"Didn't Aunt Jiang hear any noise? With this kind of means, there can't be no noise." Li Daoxuan asked again in confusion.

"No, I asked Jiang when she woke up just now, and she said she didn't hear any noise." The old village chief shook his head. "Daoxuan, do you think this was man-made or..."

The old village chief hesitated to speak, and Li Daoxuan knew what he meant.

Just by looking at the woman's tragic death, Li Daoxuan couldn't tell whether it was human or evil.

He looked around the room again and saw no signs of a struggle or fight. Although the bedding on the bed was stained with blood, it was not too messy.

Li Daoxuan walked around the bed but found no clues.

He looked at the bloodstains outside the bedroom again and fell into deep thought.

"Is this the case?" Li Daoxuan stood in front of the window and walked out of the bedroom step by step.

He walked to the last place where the bloodstains remained. It was a wall, a little far from the window and the door. Standing there, Li Daoxuan looked at the wall, where there was only a scroll hanging, but the center of the painting was empty, with nothing but the signature and inscription.

Li Daoxuan pointed at the painting on the wall and asked Li Xiucai who was slumped not far away: "Brother Juncai, why is the center of your painting blank?"

When Li Xiucai heard the question, he looked over blankly. His expression recovered a little, but he still couldn't hide his grief.

Looking at the painting that Li Daoxuan asked about, Li Xiucai was also suddenly stunned. His face was full of tears, but his eyes revealed surprise. Then he asked in confusion: "There should be a chicken in the painting, why is it empty now?"

"There is a chicken in the painting, but it doesn't exist now?" After hearing Li Xiucai's answer, Li Daoxuan stared at the painting closely.

He reached out to touch the scroll, but a ghostly aura pushed his hand away.

"Ghost energy?" Li Daoxuan frowned, and the energy in his fingertips flowed. When he touched the scroll again, the ghost energy that was originally floating on the surface dissolved and dissipated.

The scroll is just a scroll, there doesn't seem to be anything special about it.

But after hearing what Li Xiucai said, and considering the ghostly aura he had just felt, Li Daoxuan didn't think there was anything wrong with this painting.

He touched the painting, then gently turned the page of the animation, and suddenly he saw a crack on the edge of the scroll, as if there was something mixed in the painting.

Li Daoxuan gently opened it and saw countless eye-like things, flattened and densely stuck to the bottom of the mezzanine.

This appearance shocked many people around, as no one had expected that there would be so many eyes in such a seemingly ordinary painting.

"These corns? Why are there so many corns?" Li Xiucai asked in surprise. He walked forward a few steps, held the painting to examine it, and saw that the corns on the painting began to peel off one by one and scattered on the ground, as if countless pairs of eyes were looking at everyone.

Although we knew it was just a corn, everyone was still a little scared.

"There's something wrong with this painting." Li Daoxuan said, "Who gave this painting to your family?"

"This was given to me by my teacher. He said the painting was called "Hearing the Cock Crow and Rising to Dance", which warned me to study hard and not slack off." Li Xiucai replied.

"Drawn by your mentor?" Li Daoxuan asked.

"It was not painted by him. I heard from my teacher that this painting was painted by a monk he saw in the Da Baoen Temple in Jinling. He was so excited at the time that he asked for a few paintings." Li Xiucai continued.

"Da Baoen Temple?" When Li Daoxuan heard the name Da Baoen Temple, he subconsciously thought of the matter of the yellow fox.

He looked at the signature on the painting again, which read "Zen Master Wuwei".

"Master Wuwei? Master Wuwei, why does he sound so familiar?" Li Daoxuan thought to himself, feeling quite puzzled about this monk.

Looking at the crowd in chaos, Li Daoxuan felt that this was not the time to think about these things. He also had to see how this matter happened.

Judging from the bloodstains on the ground, they did not extend towards the door or window, but in front of the painting.

It was obvious that the murderer walked here with the contents of the woman's stomach, then stood in front of the painting and disappeared.

He neither went out of the window nor left through the door.

"It's really strange. The bloodstains only disappeared in the hall. How could this person disappear on the spot?" Li Laosan said on the side. He was discussing this matter with everyone. Everyone's eyes were following Li Daoxuan's every move.

"Disappeared on the spot? If it really disappeared on the spot, then why didn't the murderer disappear directly in the bedroom after taking the fetus? Why did he come to this painting? What about the original chicken in the painting? Why did it disappear as well?" Li Daoxuan heard what Li Laosan said, and kept thinking in his mind, "The chicken flew away? Fly, fly, fly!"

An idea suddenly came to Li Daoxuan's mind.

He looked at the tables and chairs in front of the painting and walked over to take a closer look. Sure enough, there were drops of blood on the tables and chairs, as well as tiny claw marks.

"So that's it!" Li Daoxuan suddenly realized, "I think I know how this person got out."

He reached out and picked up some blood on the table and rubbed it on his fingertips.

This blood and the blood on the ground were from the same time, and it was undoubtedly the woman's blood.

"It seems that this is not evil, but man-made."

(End of this chapter)