Captain Ke agreed and said, "Shall I leave two agents to follow you?"

Qiu Wuhen waved his hand and said: "No, too many people will disrupt my investigation. I still have to remove these traces. You'd better take them all away."

Qian Jinzhi said: "I'll stay and help you."

Qiu Wu nodded and said worriedly: "What should I do with Yinchai? She needs help."

"Don't worry, tell them to send them directly to Jinzhitang. There are several of my doctors there who have experience in treating frostbite."

Qiu Wuhen agreed and told them to go down the mountain quickly.

The group of people carried the silver hairpin and went down the mountain.

After they left, Qian Jinzhi said to Qiu Wuhen, "Where should we search?"

Qiu Wuhen said: "Who is the eighth person? We have to find him. He is probably the key to unlocking this mystery."

Qian Jinzhi said: "Didn't I find it after searching?"

"But he can't disappear for no reason. He must have left in some way, or he must be hiding nearby. We have to find him."

So, the two of them turned around and searched along the footprints again.

The sky is getting darker and darker, and there is about to be a heavy snowfall.

Qian Jinzhi said: "How can we go back after dark?"

"No problem, the snow on the ground is reflective and you can see the road."

Qiu Wuhen and the others came to the cliff and began to search along the cliff, but there was still no trace.

He immediately expanded the search area and discovered that two to three hundred steps away from the cliff was the creek where the fat man was found drowned.

He came to the stream and looked up and down. Suddenly his eyes lit up. He pointed to a small hole under the grass covered with thick snow beside the stream and said, "Did you see it? There is a hole here."

Qian Jinzhi knelt down and took a look: "It seems like someone got in. Is it some kind of animal?"

Qiu Wuhen said: "Why can't it be drilled out from inside?"

"Drilled out? Yes, you mean that man drilled into the snow from the other side of the mountain, climbed all the way from under the snow to here, and drilled out from here?"

"It's entirely possible. Maybe this person was trying to avoid some kind of scary thing, or a monster, and was afraid of being discovered, so he crawled away from under the snow, then went to the creek, and then walked away on the ice on the creek.

.After all, it’s not easy for people to leave footprints on ice, which is much better than on snow.”

"Then what do we do now?"

"Look carefully along it to see if there are any traces."

Qiu Wuhen carefully observed the ice surface and found shallow footprints, but the footprints disappeared further back.

It seems that there was snow on my feet when I climbed out, and when I stepped on the hard ice, I naturally left two footprints made of snowflakes.

The snow was wiped away and the ice surface was extremely hard, leaving no traces.

Qiu Wuhen touched the footprints with his hands, extracted them and compared them with the footprints in his brain, proving that they were the footprints of the mysterious eighth person from beside the fire.

It seemed that his guess was correct. He should have ran down the cliff, found a hidden place to hide in the snow, sealed the entrance, and then crawled under the snow to the creek.

He obviously knew that there was a creek here, or had seen it, so he thought of running here and then running away along the creek, so that no trace would be left.

Qian Jinzhi asked Qiu Wuhen: "Should we search up or down?"

"If you go down, it will extend to the direction in which those people fled, including the fat man who died by the creek. If this person had run away from danger with them, he would not have run in the same direction as the others. This would have

It's easy to be spotted, so under normal circumstances I think he should run towards the mountains."

"Do you think they were attacked by someone or a monster? Then why are there no traces left on the snow?"

"I just speculated like this, because the face of the deceased was frightened. At the moment of death, they must have encountered something terrible, and they ran away in a panic and divided into several directions. I don't think it is like normal people under normal circumstances.

It looked like he was leaving. So it is speculated that he probably encountered something terrible, and it was unlikely to be a person or a wild animal, because there were no traces left."

Qian Jinzhi said: "Could it be a mountain god or a ghost? On the other side of the mountain is Yeji Temple. That temple is very weird. You forgot."

Of course Qiu Wuhen knew, but he smiled and said: "If the cause of the case is attributed to the ghosts, it will be easier to solve the case. Why would you pay so much money to hire me, a master of criminals, to solve the case? Why don't you just hire a Taoist priest to catch the ghosts?

Is it over?”

Qian Jinzhi laughed awkwardly and said, "Okay, let's go up the creek quickly and continue searching."

The two of them looked along the creek, hoping to find traces of it.

But God was not kind to them. They only searched a short distance, and then it started to snow heavily in the sky, and soon it turned into a blanket of goose-feather snow.

The heavy snow on the mountain was much heavier than that in the city, and soon they turned into fluffy snowmen.

The heavy snow covered all traces. Even the footprints they walked were quickly covered by the heavy snow, so the traces left by the person who escaped before would naturally be covered.

Qiu Wuhen shook his head and said: "Forget it, it's getting dark soon, let's go back to the city."

As they went down the mountain, the snow became heavier and heavier. They walked a little further and reached the official road. At this moment, Qian Jinzhi grabbed Wu Qiuhen and said, "Be careful, there seems to be a wild beast!"

Wu Qiuhen looked around, but found nothing. He smiled and said, "Beast? It's freezing cold here. Shouldn't the beast hide at home and warm himself by the fire?"

"Stop talking, what I said is true."

Qiu Wuhen also listened carefully, but heard nothing.

It was already dark by this time, but because there was snow on the ground, I could look around and see dozens of steps away, but I didn't see any danger.

There were no woods near them, the terrain was relatively open, and the nearest forest was a hundred steps away, so dark that it was difficult to see clearly.

On the other side of the valley are acres of woods, the trees covered with white snow and covered in silver.

From Qian Jinzhi's nervous expression, Wu Qiuhen sensed the danger they faced. However, Wu Qiuhen himself did not notice any danger approaching, which made him unable to get nervous even if he wanted to.

Suddenly, Qian Jinzhi pulled Qiu Wuhen down and threw himself on him, pressing him down.

Qiu Wuhen fell face down and his whole head fell into the snow. Although Qian Jinzhi's delicate body fell on him behind him, there was no warmth at all. Instead, he felt pain and embarrassment.

Which song is this from? If you want to be intimate, why don't you give me some hints first?

As soon as Qiu Wuhen touched Qiu Wuhen's body, Qian Jinzhi had already left and pulled him out of the snow cave.

He wiped the snow from his face: "What are you doing? You want to play a game...?"

Qian Jinzhi pointed down the valley.

Qiu Wuhen looked in the direction of her finger, and was suddenly startled, swallowing up the words that followed.

Because, he saw a roc, stretching out its huge wings, slowly flapping, and flew into the night sky.

Qiu Wuhen looked at the scene in front of him in horror and said to Qian Jinzhi, "What is going on?"

"This roc bird just silently swooped down from the woods on the hillside, trying to catch us two. Fortunately, I saw the shadow on the snow, otherwise I would never have expected that it would sneak up on us from behind."

"You saved my life."

"It's out of the question. We don't know who will save who. We have to find a way to avoid it."

"Then let's run."

"Do you think you can outrun a roc?"

Qiu Wuhen was immediately speechless.

Yes, the roc is extremely fast. Not to mention that there is snow everywhere on the ground now. Even if there is no snow, they can't outrun the roc flying in the sky.
Chapter completed!