Heavenly Dao Formula

At a quarter to two in the afternoon, Nancheng District.

Li Xing and Zhao Dahai found a tea stall on the street to temporarily avoid the sun above their heads.

This is the time when the sun is at its strongest, and the soil on the streets is whitened; the sky is cloudless, and there is no shadow on the ground for everyone to hide from. The people who live here are taking naps in the afternoon and enjoying the coolness, so that the figures on the road are much sparser.

"Guest officer, would you like something to drink? Here are white water, herbal tea, sour plum soup and sesame soup."

"Ordinary tea will do."

"Okay, I'll bring it to you!"

"Huh... It's really not that easy to find." Zhao Dahai shook his collar, "The evil case happened more than ten years ago, and even going to the scene won't help much. The Donghai gang just killed someone there. That kid must have thought about it too simply."

"We just have to do our best. As for the result, that's beyond our control." Li Xing said with a slight smile, "However, your apprentice's method is ingenious. You can track down the source of abnormal deaths through the distribution of evil events, which is really true for ordinary people." Unexpected."

"He has nothing else but a lot of ideas." Zhao Dahai picked up the green tea and drank most of it in one go.

"I'm a little bit concerned," Li Xing looked at the row of buildings across the street, "Generally speaking, how many people have to die in vain to make the spirit of gathering strong enough to produce charm?"

"Well...it mainly depends on whether the mood swings are big or not, and it has something to do with who died." Zhao Dahai smacked his lips, "But generally speaking, there must be more than a dozen people, and sometimes dozens of people. No surprise."

More than a dozen people... and counting the number of evil cases, the result is not a small number.

"That's weird. This place doesn't look like it can handle more than a hundred people without being discovered." After some visits, they have narrowed the scope down to the junction of Zhengshou Street and Wangfu Street in the south of the city. This area happened to be involved in the four evil cases, so the suspicion was the greatest. The layout of the houses is connected to the left and right, lined up along both sides of the street, which can be described as extremely regular.

The vast majority of the first floor of the houses are shops, pawnshops, and wine shops, and the upper floors are residences, which don't look like they can accommodate a gang.

As for the luxurious mahogany house in front of the tea stand, it occupies a large enough area, but it is actually composed of two buildings, with the brothel on the left and the inn on the right. The combination of the two occupies about half of Wangfu Street, and it is three floors high, which looks magnificent.

It's just that it's really a brothel and an inn. The two walked around the building and found nothing unusual.

"Indeed." Zhao Dahai agreed, "It's okay to say that the inn is very familiar with the brothel, and it is much more lively at night than during the day. Moreover, both of these two houses are open to welcome guests, and there are all kinds of idlers. How could it be possible to kill hundreds of people in fifteen years without making a sound. Unless..."

"Unless what?" Li Xing asked quickly.

Although the other party was unattractive and seemed ordinary, but at least he was the master of the superior, and the external perception might just be hiding his clumsiness.

"Unless they chop up people and send them to the kitchen."

"Pfft——" Li Xing just drank the tea from his mouth and spat it out, "Your idea is really...too sensational."

"I think the guys from the Donghai Gang can do it." Zhao Dahai spread his hands and said, "There are so many places I have traveled, and I can't see any strange things in this world."

"However, we must pay attention to evidence in handling cases. What's more, what we want to investigate is not the opponent's tactics, but a gang's hiding place." Li Xing smiled helplessly, "How about we walk around these two streets a few more times and see Let's see what we can find?"

"That's all." Zhao Dahai took out two copper plates and slapped them on the table, "Perhaps when the two of us go back, there will already be clues on the other side."

They walked out of the tea stand and walked westward along the long street. Li Xing suddenly stopped in the middle of Wangfu Street.

Something is wrong.

"What’s wrong with you?"

Li Xing didn't answer immediately, but turned his head, looked at the other end of the street, and said after a while, "Is this street... so long?"

"Long? It's okay." Zhao Dahai scratched his head, "Isn't it just an ordinary dirt road?"

"Why do I feel like it's getting longer..."

"Hey, don't scare me, it's broad daylight, even if a ghost builds a wall, you can't build it on the main road—"

"I didn't mean that." Li Xing waved his hand, "When I said lengthening, it was a literal extension, and it had nothing to do with evil spirits."

"Then do you know how long it was originally?" Zhao Dahai asked curiously.

"have no idea."

"How do you compare if you don't know? Are you dizzy from the sun?"

"I made the comparison based on this house." Li Xing turned and walked towards the tea stand.

Zhao Dahai had no choice but to keep up.

Back at the tea stand, Xiao Er showed an earnest smile, "Guest officer, do you want to drink anything else?"

But Li Xing ignored the other party, crossed the street directly, and started walking from the middle of the brothel and the inn.

This time, he walked very slowly.

When the shadow of the third floor disappeared under his feet, Li Xing stopped.

"Any questions?"

"Let's go back to the brothel again."

Zhao Dahai sighed, "You have to tell me, what are you looking for?"

"I'm not looking for anything, but measuring the number of steps." Li Xing explained.

"Step count?"

"That's right, I've been in this business for a long time, and I'm used to using the number of steps to estimate the distance. Sometimes even if I don't count it deliberately, I can probably have a count in my head." He paused, "But just now we are crossing This house doesn't seem to have come that far."

"Didn't... go that far?" Zhao Dahai frowned.

"It may also be an illusion, so I'm going to walk again."

The two got into the gate of the brothel and walked straight upstairs. It's not yet open for business, and there are only a few customers who want to grab the top card sitting sparsely in the lobby, but no one cares about their entry and exit.

The second floor is a straight road with stairs at both ends and wing rooms on the left and right. It only took ten breaths for Li Xing to walk from one end to the other.

It became more and more obvious that something was wrong.

Here he took only one hundred and nine steps.

But on the street, he had to walk a full 117 steps to reach the edge of the house!

After that is the inn.

And the result is the same!

When Li Xing stopped on the side of the stairs near the wall, the number of steps was more than ten steps less than that outside.

Adding up the two sides, there is a distance of about twenty steps, almost the width of a wine shop.

"This...what the hell is going on?" Zhao Dahai was also a little puzzled. From the outside, he saw that the two stores were close to each other. Even if the wooden wall is thick, it is impossible to deviate by twenty steps!

Could it be that there is something else going on inside this house?