parentshiftbook Chapter 49 Mei Rugu's Death
Chapter 49 Mei Rugu's Death
That piercing, distorted scream, like an ice pick, instantly pierced the lively atmosphere of the Jade Spring Garden's front hall.
Caught off guard, most of the audience stood frozen in place, looking around blankly.
But Huang Shujian moved almost at the same moment the scream rang out!
"Zhao Ming! Keep an eye on those two down there!" He shouted in a low voice to Zhao Ming behind him.
Before he finished speaking, he had already rushed to the railing of the private room, braced himself with one hand, and like a white crane, he leaped directly from the second floor!
"Splash!"
He landed at an empty octagonal table in the front row downstairs.
The tabletop groaned under his weight, but with a push, he shot off like an arrow, soaring over the heads of the astonished audience and hurtling toward the backstage entrance on the side of the stage!
Zhao Ming, who was in the private room, was so shocked by Huang Shujian that her heart stopped, but she immediately forced herself to calm down and stared intently at the two short-sleeved men in the third row who were still looking around, not knowing what was going on.
Backstage was in complete chaos.
The echoes of the screams still reverberated between the beams.
The bewildered actors, musicians, and servants gathered together, their faces filled with panic.
Huang Shujian skillfully avoided the panicked crowd, passed through the messy prop area, and rushed straight to the backyard—the area where the troupe members lived and rested.
Outside the door of the innermost room, three or four waiters were slumped over; they were the same men who had just rammed the door.
Their faces were ashen, their eyes unfocused, and their bodies were trembling uncontrollably; they were clearly terrified.
One of the men, his finger still trembling, pointed at the door that had been smashed open a crack, his lips quivering but unable to utter a sound.
Huang Shujian strode to the door and pushed it open.
The door was jammed by the bolt from the inside, and could only be pushed open a crack about the width of a hand.
Without hesitation, he slightly lowered his shoulders, and a surge of immense power suddenly erupted!
"Snap!"
The wooden bolt behind the door, which was already cracked from the impact, snapped in two.
The door slammed open with a loud bang!
The pungent, nauseating smell of blood, mixed with a sweet, cloying scent of cosmetics, hits you like a tangible force!
The scene inside the room instantly came into Huang Shujian's view.
Under the dim yellow light.
A hemp rope hangs down from the roof beam.
A body was hanging from the lower end of the rope.
A headless, bloody body.
Fresh blood dripped down the smooth, skinless muscle fibers, pooling on the ground into a thick, dark red puddle.
It has no head.
The skin... was also completely peeled off.
Behead them and skin them.
She looks exactly like Lan Xiaodie from Xingliyuan a month ago!
Huang Shujian's pupils suddenly contracted, and his heart sank.
The killer struck again.
Moreover, it was in Yuchun Garden, in Mei Ruguo's room.
His mind raced, and without looking at the gruesome corpse, his gaze swept across the back wall of the room—where there was another tightly closed window!
He rushed to the window and flung it open!
Outside the window is a backyard that is slightly larger than the one in Xingliyuan, with a few jujube trees and some flowers and plants.
The afterglow of the setting sun slanted in, casting a dark red hue over the ground.
Huang Shujian's gaze immediately fell on the windowsill.
The unusual brown hair was not found.
However, on the outer edge of the windowsill, near the corner of the wall, there was a clear footprint covered in mud!
The footprints are clearly defined; they are shoe prints!
The strange shoe prints look a bit like the shoes worn by actors when they perform, definitely not barefoot!
Huang Shujian felt a chill and looked up.
The branches of the jujube tree next to the wall were trembling slightly and irregularly, as if someone had just stomped on them.
The killer hasn't gone far!
Huang Shujian's eyes sharpened, and without the slightest hesitation, he pressed down on the windowsill with one hand and nimbly flipped out of the window.
The moment he landed, he lightly touched the ground with his toes and soared into the air like a white crane, precisely grabbing the trembling branch of the jujube tree.
Take advantage of the momentum to make a swing.
He landed steadily on the backyard wall, which was nearly two people high!
Standing atop the wall, the view suddenly opens up.
The setting sun was sinking behind the western city walls, and the sky was dyed a magnificent yet desolate blood red.
Against the blinding light, a blurry figure was moving rapidly on the distant, closely packed roof tiles.
The figure leaped and ran across the rooftops with swift movements and a strange rhythm, clearly indicating an excellent familiarity with the terrain.
it's him.
Huang Shujian was resolute.
He pushed off with his feet, leaped off the wall, and landed on the roof of another house, where he immediately displayed his agility!
He doesn't specialize in lightness skills now, but the "White Crane Skill" emphasizes agility and is good at turning and leaping, so it's barely enough for this kind of rooftop chase.
He spread his body out, arms slightly outstretched, like a white crane soaring close to the ground, leaping and weaving among the uneven roof tiles, tightly chasing the figure in front of him.
Behind them, from the direction of Yuchun Garden, more gasps, screams, cries, and frantic running finally erupted.
More people discovered Mei Ruguo's tragic condition, and panic spread rapidly like a plague.
But Huang Shujian had already put all of that behind him.
In his eyes, there was only the shadow of someone desperately fleeing on the rooftop ahead.
The distance is gradually closing.
Huang Shujian was finally able to see the man's attire more clearly.
The person was dressed in blue and pink, similar to the costume of a female lead in a theatrical troupe, and wore a laurel wreath from the troupe.
On his back, he carried a bulging gray cloth bundle.
It's very likely that inside is Mei Ruguo's head, and... that skin that was peeled off!
Huang Shujian's eyes were cold, and he tried several times to pull out the Mauser pistol from his waist.
But the opponent was really cunning, deliberately running around roof corners, behind chimneys, or on steep tiles, its figure appearing and disappearing in the backlight of the setting sun, making it extremely difficult to aim at.
Firing rashly not only risks missing the target but could also trigger more unnecessary trouble.
He could only push his speed to the limit and try his best to catch up.
However, the person in front was moving extremely fast.
However, the White Crane Skill is not a specialized light-body skill, making it quite difficult to catch up.
Gradually, the distance between the two did not shorten, but instead tended to widen again.
Huang Shujian was anxious.
Just then, his gaze swept across the street below.
On a relatively wide street, a horse was walking at a leisurely pace.
On a chestnut horse sat a young man dressed in a silk jacket, looking arrogant and haughty—it was Ba Qing.
He was followed by two bodyguards on foot, each carrying a gun.
"Hissing sound..."
Baqing stopped in front of a roadside stall selling dried fruit and looked at it with great interest.
The two guards immediately understood and stepped forward without saying a word, grabbing several handfuls of red dates and melon seeds from the stall, piling them in their hands, and presenting them to Ba Qingma with beaming smiles.
The stall owner was an honest, middle-aged man. He watched as handfuls of his painstakingly dried fruit were snatched away, his face contorted with heartache, and his lips moved as if he wanted to say something.
"Um?"
One of the guards, with sharp eyes, immediately glared at him.
"Old man, it's your good fortune that Young Master Ba would even consider your worthless dates and melon seeds! What? You dare ask for money?"
Before the stall owner could even defend himself, the guard slapped him across the face!
The stall owner staggered from the blow, covered his face, and dared not utter another sound.
Another guard stepped forward and kicked the stall over!
Red dates, melon seeds, and walnuts were scattered all over the ground.
Passersby had already kept their distance, heads down, and hurried past, afraid of getting into trouble.
Ba Qing, riding leisurely on his horse, ate dates and watched this scene with a smug smile on his face.
Just then, a clear but angry voice rang out:
"Stop! How can you bully people like this!"
Among the crowd were two female students carrying books, both wearing white tops, dark blue knee-length skirts, and two braids.
One of the female students with an oval face stepped forward.
Her face was cute and a little childlike, but it was slightly flushed with anger.
"In broad daylight, they robbed us and even assaulted us! Is there no law anymore?" the female student pointed at Ba Qing.
"You! You need to apologize to him! And you need to pay him back!"
Ba Qing was taken aback, seemingly not expecting anyone to dare to step forward.
He sized up the audacious female student, chuckled, and spat out the date pit from his mouth:
"Where did this bookworm come from? Has he gone mad from studying too much? Does he even know who I am?"
The oval-faced female student didn't back down and shouted, "I know!"
"You are Ba Qing, the son of County Magistrate Ba Liming."
"Precisely because you are the son of the county magistrate, you should set an example, protect the people, and uphold the law."
"Instead of being like... Huang Shujian, who oppressed the good and harmed the villagers."
Hearing this, Ba Qing laughed instead. He crossed his legs and cracked his whip, saying, "What you said makes some sense."
"The biggest cancer in this Goose City is that pornographic book..."
He was about to continue his rambling...
suddenly!
Everyone felt the light above their heads dim.
A figure darted down from the rooftop next to them!