Mysterious Tang Dynasty

Chapter 144 Rat Shadow
Li Lijun took a deep breath, knowing that the target he wanted to track down was here.

She immediately stared at the yard with all her attention, and carefully followed the source of the chewing sound, and slowly, she found the direction of the northeast corner.

There was originally an open space in the corner of the family's yard, where a large amount of firewood was piled up, with uncut tree sections beside it, and haystacks about half a person's height.The barn next to the haystack was empty.The crunching sound came from behind the haystack.

Although Li Lijun didn't know what kind of monster it was eating, but it hid in the haystack and didn't make any big movements, which showed that its figure was not that big.It's just that such a small monster, most of which are rodents, can really easily eat half a sheep and a dog?
Li Lijun manipulated the little black crane and quietly landed on the roof of the livestock shed, hiding herself in the shadow of the wall.There has been no major movement from that family so far, only the whimpering of a child can be vaguely heard.It seems that their family is going to pretend to be deaf to the end.

The sound of chewing stopped, the back of the haystack moved slightly, and a black shadow about half a foot high emerged and looked around.

Li Lijun had to widen his eyes to recognize that this should be a mouse.But a normal mouse is not half a foot tall. Its whiskers are quite long, its eyes are golden, and its skin has a metallic luster under the moonlight. I don't know what species it is.

The mouse ran out from behind the haystack and ran along the base of the wall towards the gate of the yard.

Li Lijun manipulated the little black crane, glanced behind the haystack, found a dog's head there, and knew that the barking dog was indeed murdered by a monster.She quickly mobilized the little black crane and caught up with the mouse. She watched it pass through half of the village and arrived at a house at the entrance of the village. She poked her head around and saw a memorial tablet and incense burning on the altar table in the main room. , as well as offerings such as bread and fruit, he shook his body, and the whole mouse suddenly swelled several times, and it seemed to be almost three feet high.

The giant rat crawled to the altar, opened its mouth wide, swallowed the offerings in one gulp, then shook its body, returned to its original size, turned and left the house.

Afterwards, it didn't stay in the village any more, and slipped directly outside the village. It took a lot of effort for Li Lijun to recognize its tracks from the bushes and mounds, and let the little black crane follow.She knew that this mouse monster should be going back to its lair.If she wants to clearly grasp its whereabouts, she must not lose it tonight!

The mouse left Liujiazhuang and ran straight to the east, looking in the direction to go to the village that Lin Guogong gave to Li Shen, but halfway there, he turned into another road and came to a small hill with no grass growing.

This small hill is very strange, neither grass nor trees grow, on the surface it looks like a huge stone ball with a radius of about ten feet, embedded in this loess land, only half of the sphere protrudes from the ground.There are many dry cracks on the surface of the stone ball, and broken stones are scattered all around.On the side close to the direction of Liujiazhuang, the "stone ball" was deflated a few meters, as if a large piece had been dug out.But next to that place, there are clumps of shrubs and weeds, which slightly cover up the defect of the "stone ball".

The mouse stopped at this deflated place, and seemed to be planning to burrow in.Because the bushes and weeds grew tall, Li Lijun was afraid of losing track, so he quickly directed the little black crane to follow closely.

The mouse didn't know if it had noticed something, and it was burrowing in the grass, then raised its head vigilantly and looked around.However, Li Lijun's little black crane used the bushes to cover itself, and it was dark, so it should not have been spotted by it.

It continued to drill into the grass again, and when it reached a place where a large piece of rubble was piled up, it shook its body, and the whole mouse shrank a lot, only about the size of an adult woman's fist.This time, it successfully got into the gap between the broken stones.

The little black crane flew over quickly, and vaguely saw a little flame flashing between the piles of rubble, guessing that there should be a cave entrance, and the pile of rubble was just a cover.

It's a pity that this little black crane is going to fly long distances. Li Lijun was afraid that it would not be strong enough to stick to the destination, so he specially made it bigger, about the size of an adult male's palm, and used particularly tough materials.Such a small black crane is very powerful for carrying out remote monitoring tasks, but it cannot be reduced to the size of a mouse's body and slipped into the gaps in the rubble pile.

Li Lijun bit her lip and let the little black crane fly as close as possible to listen to what was going on in the pile of rubble, only vaguely heard the sound of some metal object hitting the stone.

Could it be that the mouse is still digging a hole in it?

Li Lijun felt a little regretful at this time.She should equip the little paper figurine on the little black crane.In that way, even if the little black crane is too big to climb the mountain, there are still little paper figurines who can continue the task!

But it doesn't matter.She had most likely found the rat monster's lair—this stone ball-shaped hill.As long as it doesn't realize its own existence, it can run away like a monk and can't run away from the temple. No matter where it goes to make troubles, it will return to its nest one day.

Li Lijun left a little black crane on a tree near the hill, with his eyes facing the direction of the cave entrance.The other little black crane was left by her in the old place in the village so that she could continue to monitor the movement in the village.

Li Lijun put away the bronze mirror and water bowl, took out the materials left over from making the little black cranes, and made two paper cranes, one big and one small.The big black crane was almost the same as the two sent to Liujiazhuang, but the smaller one was only the size of an egg, and it was specially customized for the mission of drilling the mountain.In addition, she also made two small paper figurines of different sizes, both of which are black, with concealment symbols and breath-holding symbols painted on them, and even the fireproof and waterproof charms are not left, but anyone who can draw symbols Every place is filled with her paintings.

After doing this, her mana was basically exhausted today, and she just yawned and fell asleep.It's a pity, she originally planned to release the big and small black cranes, and try to reach Liujiazhuang before dawn, so that she can continue the reconnaissance mission tomorrow night.Now that he is powerless, he has to postpone the plan.

This night, she only slept for two hours, but she got up early in the morning to practice, and she was still very energetic.

The monks in Qingliang Temple get up very early, and the morning classes start early.Li Lijun had just finished practicing, when he heard the sound of chanting from the direction of the Daxiong Palace above, remembering what he had just done, he couldn't help touching his nose, worried that he would offend the Buddha.

Therefore, when she went to the side hall where her mother sent her spirit to offer incense, she specially recited the Sutra of Rebirth several times for Mrs. Chen, and also recited the Buddhist scriptures she had learned from other worlds one after another, and worshiped in the hall very solemnly. The Bodhisattva just withdrew.

The amount of sesame oil donated to Qingliang Temple was determined by Concubine Dou, ordered by the King of Sui, and the Sima of the palace would do it for her, so Li Lijun didn't need to worry about it, but she still donated another sum in her personal capacity, asking the monks in the temple to take care of her deceased mother's coffin.

The abbot of Qingliang Temple led several eminent monks to tell some stories of Buddhist scriptures for Li Lijun, Li Shen, Sima of the palace and others, comforted the family members of the deceased, and welcomed the nobles to stay in the temple for meditation.Li Lijun still has business to do, how could he stay?Li Shen was even more concerned about his relatives at home and the monsters in Xinzhuangzi. After thanking the abbot for his kindness on behalf of Li Lijun, he exchanged a look with the abbot, and then pulled his little niece out.

He led Li Lijun down the mountain, got into the carriage, and said to her: "I'll take you to Bieye first, and after you settle down, I'm going back to Chang'an City. Do you want to entrust me with something?"

Li Lijun couldn't help but look at him a few more times.

Young man, you just said last night that you would go to Xinzhuangzi to see the situation, and now you express that you will return to Chang'an City in a hurry. Who are you trying to coax?Were you flirting with the abbot when others couldn't see you?

(End of this chapter)