Chapter 400: Resolving the Mistake
In Hekou Town, the shop owner diligently helped Di Renjie and Fang Jiu clean the room.

Fang Jiu had never stayed in an inn in his life. He stood aside with his hands and feet tied, watching the boss clean up, still holding his precious bag tightly in his hands.

Di Renjie saw this and raised a gentle smile: “My last name is Huai Ying, what is your name, little brother?”

Fang Jiu replied stiffly, “Fang Jiu,” and then said nothing more.

After a while, the shop owner hastily tidied up the room and the bed. “It’s ready. My name is Zhang Shen. If you have any other instructions, please let me know.”

Di Renjie smiled and nodded: “We haven’t had enough food along the way. Can you arrange some food for us to eat?”

Zhang Shen looked embarrassed and said, “To be honest, our business has been slow recently, so we don’t have any vegetables in the store. If you want to eat, please go to the street. There is a restaurant on the left.”

Fang Jiu couldn’t help but look at Zhang Shen again. The various situations that had occurred in this store since it opened were really strange.

Di Renjie did not blame Zhang Shen: “If that’s the case, then forget it.”

Only then did he notice that there seemed to be something wrong with Zhang Shen’s clothes. Upon closer inspection, he found that his pants were worn backwards.

Di Renjie couldn’t help but laugh: “I’m so sorry, we were in a hurry to find a place to stay, and we urged the store owner so hard that he even put my shirt on backwards!”

Zhang Shen was startled, and hurriedly lowered his head to check his pants, and found that he had put them on backwards. He smiled awkwardly: “Oh, I’m really sorry to make you two laugh. When we heard the knock on the door just now, we had already gone to bed.”

It was already late at night and it was raining, but Di Renjie didn’t find it strange and just nodded.

Zhang Shen felt a little flustered and didn’t dare to stay with the crowd any longer. He said “Excuse me” and hurriedly left.

Di Renjie slowly turned around and looked at Fang Jiu, his eyes flashing with a strong interest in this young man: “Brother Fang, I see you are also on the road, you must be hungry, how about I treat you to a meal together?”

Fang Jiu was indeed a little hungry, but considering the baggage he was carrying, he did not dare to agree.

He shook his head and patted his bag: “Thank you, father-in-law. I brought my own dry food.”

Di Renjie was naturally enthusiastic and smiled when he heard this: “Hey~ We have occupied one of your guest rooms. Meeting each other is fate. This meal can be regarded as making friends. There are so many of us in our group, so we don’t need a pair of chopsticks from you!”

At this time, Li Yuanfang walked into the house and heard what Di Renjie said, and he already understood what he meant.

He was also full of enthusiasm, so he stepped forward, took Fang Jiu’s hand, and said with a smile: “Please don’t be polite. My husband has always been hospitable and happy to communicate with others. Come on, come on, let’s go together!”

Fang Jiu heard that they were not locals with accents, and he did not want to create any more trouble. He just hoped to spend the night safely and continue on his journey after the rain stopped.

“No, no! Thank you very much! I’m really tired and want to rest.”

Seeing that Fang Jiu refused so firmly, Di Renjie and Li Yuanfang did not force him and had to take Zhang Huan, Li Lang and others out for dinner.

When I walked into the courtyard, I saw the innkeeper Zhang Shen and a man who looked like a waiter whispering in a very hurried manner.

Di Renjie looked at them strangely, only to see that the waiter was holding something wrapped in a lotus leaf in his arms. Zhang Shen said something and then patted the waiter hard on the back, and the waiter quickly ran towards the back door.

Seeing Di Renjie and Li Yuanfang looking at him, Zhang Shen’s face suddenly changed. He turned around hurriedly and slipped into the lobby, pretending to be busy.

Upon seeing this, Di Renjie exchanged a meaningful look with Li Yuanfang, and his doubts grew even more.

“Why are everyone in this store weirder than the last?” Li Yuanfang scratched his head in confusion.

Di Renjie stood there and said nothing.
–
Di Renjie, Li Yuanfang and others went out to eat. Fang Jiu stayed alone in the room, closed the door, and finally breathed a sigh of relief.

He unpacked the bundle again and carefully examined the letter inside.

The letter was not wet by the rain at all, but it was slightly wrinkled. Fang Jiu smoothed out the wrinkles with great care and then put the letter away properly.

Then he took out the dry food from his bag and started to eat it.

However, after taking a few bites, he felt thirsty and wanted to drink water. He shook the water bag, but found that it was empty.

He couldn’t help but sigh, picked up the water bag, opened the door and walked out, wanting to ask the shop owner for some water.

At this time, the sky outside was completely shrouded in darkness, but the heavy rain had stopped.

Fang Jiu looked around and saw a figure busy in the next room where the light was on. “Shopkeeper! Shopkeeper!” Fang Jiu ignored him and asked Zhang Shen to order some water.

But the figure in the lighted room suddenly stopped and blew out the light in a panic.

As the lights went out, the surroundings suddenly became dark. Fang Jiu couldn’t help but look back at the room where the lights suddenly went out.

It had just rained and the air should have been very fresh, but Fang Jiu smelled something very fishy and disgusting.

He couldn’t help but frown and followed the source of the smell, only to find that it was the room with the light on.

Fang Jiu had an ominous premonition in his heart. He smelled a smell that was a bit like the smell of killing chickens and ducks, it was the smell of blood!

His heart was beating fast as he approached the door cautiously and tried to peek inside through the crack.

But while the mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind it. He did not expect that the shop owner Zhang Shen, whom he had just called, came behind him and attacked him with a wooden stick.

However, Zhang Shen’s hand did not go down. Just at this time, Di Renjie, Li Yuanfang and his party came back.

Li Yuanfang was quick-witted and quick-handed. He moved forward and grabbed Zhang Shen’s arm that was holding the wooden stick. Zhang Shen couldn’t help but scream in pain and the wooden stick fell to the ground.

Fang Jiu then turned around and was shocked to realize that someone was trying to attack him.

“I didn’t expect it to be a shady shop that specializes in murder and robbery!” Li Yuanfang hated evil and looked at Zhang Shen fiercely.

Zhang Shen howled in pain and begged, “Please spare my life, my hand… my hand is about to break!”

At this time, Di Renjie led the head of the village, a group of soldiers, Feng the butcher and Gong Sheng, holding torches, and rushed into the inn.

Li Yuanfang let go of Zhang Shen and kicked open the tightly closed door of the guest room. A strong smell of blood instantly filled the air.

The torches shone brightly, illuminating everything in the room.

The guy was holding a headless corpse and was about to hide it when he was caught.

The village head was shocked when he saw this, and ordered someone to put the head together with the body to verify their identity, and it was indeed a perfect fit.

Seeing this, Zhang Shen could not help but cover his eyes with his hands, sighing deeply, and feeling full of despair.

The head of the village was furious. He stepped forward and pointed at Zhang Shen: “It is you! This old man just revealed it to me, and I was skeptical. Zhang Shen, Zhang Shen, you are a well-known person in Hekou Town. How could you do such a thing?”

While Di Renjie was out for dinner, he solved another murder case and rescued two good people who had been wrongly accused.

The shop assistant wrapped the human head in lotus leaves and went out to destroy the body, and ran into Gong Sheng who was buying a pig head on credit from Feng the butcher.

It was dark and raining, and the waiter was impatient and careless, so he took the pig’s head, which was also wrapped in lotus leaves, and took it as a human head. As a result, Gong Sheng and Feng the butcher were almost wrongly accused of murder.

The village head exclaimed sincerely: “Sir, you are really amazing. How did you know that the murderer would be these two?”

Di Renjie smiled calmly and explained, “Gong Sheng was holding a human head, walking leisurely on the street with an umbrella, and he didn’t even realize that his clothes were stained with blood. This is really unreasonable. No murderer would do this.”

“And judging from the wound on the head, it must have been chopped off more than ten times. Butcher Feng was originally a pig butcher, so it wouldn’t be that difficult for him to chop off a human head.”

“The most important thing is that the two of us searched the homes of Gong Sheng and Feng the Butcher and found no signs of murder, so I concluded that they were not the murderer!”

Li Yuanfang nodded slightly, while Fang Jiujie, who had survived the disaster, was even more stunned.

Di Renjie continued, “So I asked Gong Sheng if there was any accident on the road. Sure enough, he said he was knocked over once. The pig’s head also fell to the ground.”

“So I made an assumption that it was dark and raining, and Gong Sheng didn’t notice that the pig head in his hand had been swapped.”

“We said before that the deceased was a foreigner, so I thought of an inn, and there was only one inn in Hekou Town. In the evening, when we arrived at the inn to stay, the inn owner Zhang Shen behaved very abnormally.”

“Of course, the most important thing is that I happened to see the guy running out the back door holding something wrapped in a lotus leaf, so the murderer is naturally obvious.”

The village head suddenly realized: “So that’s why you ordered us to rush back to Hekoudian. We didn’t expect to catch him in the act!”

(End of this chapter)