Li Ang and He Fanshuang exchanged glances, their eyes full of disgust as they looked at the Throat Brush.
He knew the lifestyles of the elite were decadent and indulged in excessive luxury, but he had not expected such rotten and corrupt behavior, to the extent of being worse than animals.
Thinking back to the tenant farrs with their gaunt faces and skinny fras at the farmstead, Li Ang said indifferently, "Feeding him to death really would’ve been letting him off easy."
The servant’s face turned embarrassed, not daring to interject. The soldiers from the Xingzhou Town Commandery chuckled and asked with clasped hands, "Young master, do you need us to bring in Gao Fuyun’s family for questioning?"
Li Ang waved his hand. "Hadn’t you asked them before? Gao Fuyun hasn’t seen any strange people lately or encountered anything unusual. Since that’s the case, there’s no need..." Before he could finish speaking, a sharp sound of sothing cutting through the air ca from afar.
Ji Linglang waved her hand, and the window burst open from a distance. They saw a tangerine fla rising slowly and shooting up into the sky. There was an ergency.
Without any hesitation, Li Ang stamped his foot on the ground and leapt out of the window. He threw out his Mind Threads to wrap around the treetops, darting through the woods like a rabbit bounding and a falcon plumting as he rushed towards the flare.
He Fanshuang and Ji Linglang followed closely behind. The rest of the garrison, with their inferior cultivation, had no choice but to follow on horseback.
Another murder had occurred.
This ti, the incident took place on the busiest street in the city center, which was also the location of the Xingzhou Haotian Taoist Temple.
When Li Ang, He Fanshuang, and Ji Linglang hurried to the scene, a large crowd of onlookers had already gathered outside the Haotian Taoist Temple, chattering and asking questions. Many older n and won were praying devoutly, asking Haotian to protect them from any disaster.
Soldiers of the garrison stood in a circle, stern-faced, blocking the onlookers.
Li Ang showed his waist token and stepped over the threshold. Upon seeing Sui Yi and others with serious expressions at the front of the main hall, he had an ominous premonition and asked, "What’s the situation?"
"See for yourself." Sui Yi gestured with his chin towards the main hall. In the center of the main hall sat a figure in a Daoist robe, his back to the entrance, hunched over and leaning forward on a round seat woven from rushes.
Li Ang circled the Daoist. Only when he reached the front did he see how the man had died: his mouth and nostrils were full of mushroom-shaped foam, and his lips and fingertips were cyanotic. He had clearly been drowned alive. A horsetail whisk was tucked into the crook of his arm.
Li Ang turned to Colonel Xing Pengyue of the Xingzhou Town Commandery. "He is..."
"The temple master of the Xingzhou Haotian Taoist Temple." Colonel Xing Pengyue’s expression was extrely grim. "Although he was only a Rain Listening Realm Cultivator, he had an excellent reputation among Xingzhou’s civilians. He was warm-hearted, generous, and never intentionally made enemies. The Daoist disciples said the temple master took a nap in his bedroom every afternoon. Today, he didn’t respond to their calls. His fellow disciples searched and found him dead, without a sound, inside the main hall. The simple Alarm Talismans within the temple also showed no signs of being triggered."
The corpse is still sowhat warm; the killer might not have gone far, Li Ang thought. He pressed the corpse’s arm and turned to Colonel Xing. "Colonel Xing, I suggest imdiately sealing off all gates of Xingzhou City and dispatching n to inquire about recent out-of-town guests at the inns. Additionally, control the personnel within the Haotian Taoist Temple and suppress the news of the temple master’s death."
"Alright." Colonel Xing Pengyue pulled aside his subordinates to give orders. Li Ang took a deep breath and drew out his Mind Threads, piercing them into the skin of the corpse’s chest and abdon. Indeed, the inside of the body was also engraved with dense scriptures, the thod identical to before. However, the location of the scriptures had changed from inside the intestines to the exterior of the intestinal mbrane.
Sui Yi asked, "Exactly the sa?"
"There is a slight difference." Li Ang withdrew the Mind Thread segnt and severed it. "This ti, the scriptures are on the outside of the intestines. Could it be that because the temple master’s position was so important, soone would start looking for him as soon as he went missing, so the murderer didn’t have enough ti?"
"Then why not assassinate him at night?" Yang Yu asked, puzzled. "At night, everyone is asleep, and there would be more ti. Could this be so sort of ritual?"
At this mont, Colonel Xing Pengyue ca over. "Gentlen, we now have a dead temple master from the Haotian Taoist Sect, a State Level figure who was also a Rain Listening Realm Cultivator. The situation might be out of control. I will return and use the Nearby Worm to contact the Luoyang garrison for support. As for your practical course... what do you think?"
Colonel Xing Pengyue’s implication was clear: the death of a State Level temple master from the Haotian Taoist Sect within his own temple was a far more critical matter than a practical course for a few students from the Academic Palace. Now that he had requested support from higher up, they were no longer needed.
"What do you all think?" Sui Yi asked, turning to the students. "If your practical course is canceled due to force majeure, you won’t lose any points."
"But we’ve just discovered sothing," Yang Yu said, sowhat unwillingly. "Huang Yusan, the ruffian suffocated with a dog’s tail stuffed in his mouth, had a terrible character. He lacked the nerve for major misdeeds but was quick to commit petty cris. The dog’s tail ca from one of the dogs he kept and abused. According to neighbors, he deliberately tied an Iron Ring around one dog’s neck. As the dog grew, the ring remained tightly clamped, choking it and making it struggle to breathe. I suspect this is why the murderer arranged for Huang Yusan to die from suffocation."
"We’ve also found sothing," Qiu Feng nodded and said. "The female victim had been previously married. Disdainful of her husband’s unattractive appearance, she strangled a child in the village and frad her drunken husband for the cri. Consequently, angry villagers beat her husband to death.
"After the truth surfaced, she fled her hotown to Xingzhou, pretending her family had been killed by bandits."
That victim had died from a broken neck. Like Huang Yusan and Gao Fuyun, she died because of sothing she had previously done.
The situation was indeed increasingly taking on the feel of so kind of ritual.
Yang Yu and Li Wei were scratching their heads, and even Li Leqing seed hesitant. After three years of hard study at the Academic Palace, mastering so much knowledge and skill, it was deeply frustrating for their first worldly experience to conclude so abruptly.
Seeing the students’ frustration, Sui Yi thought for a mont and said, "You can continue the practical course, but you can no longer actively investigate the case. You must stay inside the garrison; you can only co out when I permit it."
"Understood, Instructor." Yang Yu and the others breathed a sigh of relief. As long as they didn’t have to scurry back to the Academic Palace imdiately, even just staying in the garrison and observing others solve the case was a welco alternative.
"Li Ang, Qiu Feng, and Fang Shuang can stay behind." Sui Yi said, preempting Yang Yu’s question, "Li Ang and Fang Shuang are High Order Rain Listening Realm practitioners, and Qiu Feng is skilled in forensic autopsy, so they can help with the investigation. Everyone else, stay put in the garrison."
"Alright." Yang Yu nodded reluctantly. Deep down, he felt a small thrill of delight at the chance to spend more ti with his crush, Zhang Yuyan.
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