ebookland Chapter 1919 The entire audience was shocked; the exit was actually here!
Chapter 1919 The entire audience was shocked; the exit was actually here!
Outside.
It was a small, overgrown backyard.
Further ahead, through a low, equally dilapidated opening in the wall, a shocking scene suddenly came into Li Xiangnan's view.
The charred ruins, the collapsed and wrecked beams and pillars, especially the iconic ruins of the once towering water tower, now resembling a sleeping behemoth, a testament to its turbulent past, and countless broken walls and rubble...
It is the ruins of the Mu family on Nanchizi Street!
In other words, the gap in the wall of this abandoned warehouse faces directly the ruins of the Mu family, a symbol of destruction and evil!
The distance between the two was so close that it felt as if one could still feel the lingering heat of that bizarre explosion a few months ago!
Li Xiangnan was deeply shaken. He pushed open the broken door and stepped out.
Wang Defa, who followed closely behind, couldn't help but gasp when he saw the scene, his pupils suddenly contracting.
He stared intently at the familiar ruins, then suddenly turned to look at the hidden door and the deep secret passage, his face filled with extreme shock.
Song Ziming followed him out, his expression mirroring Song Ziming's. They both gasped, frozen in place, their faces drained of color.
"I... Holy crap..." Wang Defa's lips trembled, unable to utter a complete curse. His fat finger pointed at the ruins, then suddenly pointed to the hidden door behind him, his eyes bulging as if they were about to pop out of their sockets.
"This temple, that temple... no, that passage leads all the way from outside the city to here... and it even goes right up to the Mu family ruins? What the hell was the genius who designed this? What are they trying to do?"
Song Ziming suddenly turned around, staring at a corner of the main hall where the warehouse was located. He looked around, his face filled with shock and contemplation: "So, this is... Pudu Temple?"
An alleyway separates the Mu family from this place!
Pudu Temple is just a stone's throw away!
As everyone filed out, they were all stunned by this astonishing "coincidence"!
Even Guo Qian was not at peace.
He had clearly reminded Li Xiangnan to be prepared, but he himself was already deeply shaken.
He had been here countless times.
Everything was exactly the same as the scene he had personally inspected months earlier.
This hidden passage, which extends from the abandoned temple where drugs were made, has its exit hidden in Pudu Temple, which is just a wall away from the Mu family mansion!
His expression could no longer be described as solemn; on the contrary, it was somewhat ashen.
As the main person in charge of the Mu family bombing case, he knew all too well what these ruins meant.
He suddenly looked at Li Xiangnan, his voice hoarse with excitement and anger, "Advisor Li! Your judgment is probably correct! The Mu family bombing and that dilapidated temple in Xishan were probably done by the same group! That little Buddha... probably already had his hands on the Mu family! Mu Zelin's death..."
He didn't continue, but Li Xiangnan already understood what he meant!
Mu Zelin's death was probably because he discovered the secret here, and even personally followed the person to the vicinity of this hidden passage, and was silenced!
He was killed before he could even report this secret back to anyone in the Mu family!
At the time, Li Xiangnan even suspected that Mu Zelin had died before the bombing, thus completing the loop at this point!
In other words, here...
He turned around abruptly to look at the warehouse he had just left, his heart pounding with fear!
This place—is very likely the primary crime scene, the place where Mu Zelin's grandfather was murdered!
He clenched his fists, forcing himself to calm down from the immense shock of witnessing these coincidences!
His heart was pounding wildly in his chest, not out of fear or dread of the Little Buddha's power, but because of the enormous and dark outline that emerged after connecting some clues!
He slowly walked to the edge of the low wall, looked down at the familiar ruins, and his mind raced.
The Mu family... Mu Zelin... Water tower... Secret passage... Abandoned temple... Drug production... Little Buddha...
A faint line begins to connect these scattered points.
The Mu family was once a prominent family in Yanjing, with deep roots and a vast estate surrounded by strict security.
Someone has been entrenched in this Pudu Temple for decades, monitoring and watching the Mu family for some purpose.
If this person is indeed Little Buddha, he might do this for some important purpose, such as keeping the Mu family's accounts. However, cultivating a group of people and maintaining his own power requires financial resources, or rather, maintaining his vast criminal network requires some special means to consolidate his position.
For example, there were child beggars in Yanjing who controlled child begging gangs, or provided young girls to certain people, or supplied hallucinogenic drugs to places like the Eight Great Hutongs...
The warehouse in the backyard of Pudu Temple has a secret passage that leads to an abandoned temple outside the city, allowing them to evade the attention of the police and the vigilance of ordinary people, and to establish a primary processing point for psychedelic drug raw materials!
Then, this secret passage can be used for transportation, achieving the goal of obtaining both people and smuggled goods without the need for such means.
Moreover, using a temple as cover, with a large number of people coming and going, even unfamiliar faces will not attract attention, making it an excellent hiding solution.
Who would have thought that such a filthy passageway was hidden inside such a popular temple?
And Mu Zelin!
As one of the bird guards who were responsible for liaison with the Mu family, he may have inadvertently discovered some anomalies about Pudu Temple while moving around the ruins of the Mu family, or directly discovered the secret of the passage, which led to his death.
The murderer—or rather, Little Buddha's men—in order to silence witnesses and completely cover up the existence of the hallucinogenic drug passage, did not hesitate to create that shocking bombing case in Yanjing, destroying the iconic water tower. This not only attracted everyone's attention but also perfectly erased the secret of the passage's entrance and related evidence, while also providing them with a perfect opportunity to deliberately lure the Mu family to investigate the secrets of the ledgers!
Yesterday, he, Zhang Long, and Zhao Hu broke into the deserted temple. Although they failed to catch anyone, they took away crucial evidence and realized the connection between the temple and hallucinogenic drugs!
This undoubtedly touched a nerve with the young Buddha, so he did not hesitate to use extreme measures again, blowing the deserted temple into ruins and decisively burying the entrance to the passage, attempting to completely cut off this clue!
What meticulous planning! What ruthless methods! What immense power!
As a righteous policeman, Guo Qian's mind raced, and his face turned a purplish-red, a mixture of rage, fear, and immense pressure. He clenched his fists tightly, his voice escaping through clenched teeth.
"What a wonderful Pudu Temple, what a peaceful Buddhist sanctuary, what a place to save all sentient beings! It turns out to be a den of iniquity, a den of evil that harbors filth and watches over sins! This secret passage, this warehouse, are irrefutable evidence!"
He glared at Li Xiangnan, his eyes burning with the fury of a police officer provoked: "Advisor Li, we must take complete control of Pudu Temple immediately! From top to bottom, from the abbot to the cooks, leave no one unchecked! Investigate thoroughly, investigate to the death! I refuse to believe that such a massive project, built up over so many years, could be without a single clue..."
He was speaking enthusiastically when Li Xiangnan suddenly grabbed his arm and shushed him.
"Uh... esteemed... benefactors? Who... who are you?"
At the same moment.
A voice, tinged with timidity and confusion, suddenly came from the broken door of the front yard.
Everyone felt a chill and turned around abruptly.
There stood a young monk, about seventeen or eighteen years old, holding a broom in his hand. His bald head gleamed with a bluish luster in the sunlight, and he looked completely bewildered.
"..."
Little monk?
Everyone was startled, and instinctively all eyes were fixed on him.