"This blood, where did it come from?"
Doubt filled Yang Shifei's mind.
Did Xiang Tianlin vomit blood due to a mishap in his cultivation? Or perhaps…
Numerous homicide cases flashed through his mind, sending a slight chill down his spine.
But thinking about it carefully, what kind of homicide would occur in the bedchamber of the Ninefold Gate Sect's leader?
Yang Shifei pondered for a long while but couldn't come up with an answer.
"Tanxiang, how is it on your end?"
"There's a large pile of books; I haven't finished looking through them yet."
Tanxiang was rapidly sifting through items on the bookshelf. "For now, I haven't found any mechanisms or suspicious letters."
Mechanisms?
Yang Shifei grew thoughtful.
That's right. To achieve something by complete deception, setting up a hidden mechanism or a secret room, wouldn't that be the most secure method?
If someone truly coveted the Taiwu Haoshi, or even plotted rebellion, how could they leave evidence out in the open? They would certainly guard it strictly.
And these bloodstains on the floor, perhaps they were related?
Yang Shifei quickly swept aside the bedding on the bed and began knocking and tapping around the bedstead.
Click!
A strange sound from under the bed startled both Yang Shifei and Tanxiang.
There really was a mechanism!
They heard the sound of stone bricks moving. The dressing table slid to the side on its own, and the wall behind it slightly caved in, slowly opening up.
"There really is a secret room."
Tanxiang's delicate brows furrowed, and she pulled back Yang Shifei, who was about to step forward. "Be careful, there might be traps inside."
"I understand."
Yang Shifei took out a few stones he had prepared earlier from his robes and tossed them into the dim, pitch-black secret room.
But after hearing the echo, both of them couldn't help but pause.
The stones hit the bottom easily, indicating the secret room's interior was quite small, barely enough space for about ten people.
"I thought it might connect to some secret cavern. I didn't expect it to be just a small room."
Yang Shifei cautiously peered into the secret room, then took the candle Tanxiang had just lit and illuminated the interior.
He quickly discovered that this place wasn't as mysterious as he had imagined. The small space only contained a long, black lacquered box, which looked like…
"A coffin?"
Yang Shifei's expression changed slightly.
What's wrong with this Xiang Tianlin, stuffing a coffin in a secret room in his own bedchamber?!
But he gradually also felt a chill wash over his face. This wasn't a psychological effect; the temperature had genuinely dropped considerably.
"The material used for this coffin is extraordinary."
Tanxiang stepped into the secret room first, reached out to touch the coffin, and mused, "This should be Tianshan Wood from the Lingcheng area, extremely rare. It has the effect of nurturing coldness and preserving qi. If supplemented with cold-ascribed White Pool Jade, it can be made into a fine coffin capable of preserving a corpse for a long time without decay."
She then reached her hand under the side of the coffin, felt its temperature slightly, and soon nodded.
"That's right. This unusual coldness is characteristic of White Pool Jade."
"Such miraculous treasures exist in this world?" Yang Shifei listened with surprise.
Tanxiang merely glanced at him. "Even a divine object like Taiwu Haoshi exists. Compared to it, Tianshan Wood and White Pool Jade are ultimately just mundane items."
Yang Shifei was even more astonished.
He was quite curious now just how mysterious Taiwu Haoshi truly was. Could it really summon wind and rain?
"But what's strange is, why would Xiang Tianlin go to such great lengths to prepare this?"
Tanxiang murmured, "These two materials are extremely precious, requiring a vast sum of money to acquire. But Xiang Tianlin himself is in his middle years, and I've never heard of him suffering from some incurable injury. His wife and daughters are alive and well. Why would he…"
"Perhaps, it wasn't prepared for himself."
Yang Shifei's expression gradually turned grim. He pressed his palm on the coffin lid. "Push it open and take a look. Perhaps then we'll know the secret within."
The two exchanged a glance.
Since they had confirmed Xiang Tianlin harbored ill intentions, they naturally had nothing to scruple about during this visit.
Having made up their minds, they worked together to slowly push the wooden lid open.
"…"
But upon seeing the inside of the coffin, Yang Shifei's breath caught in his throat.
Inside, lay three women, long dead.
Their purplish-black, contorted faces still bore the terror they experienced before death. They were bleeding from almost all seven facial orifices, looking extremely horrifying.
And the three women's state of death was identical, yet their clothes were intact.
"Who on earth are they—"
"They are Xiang Tianlin's wife and daughters." Tanxiang's words were startling. "I saw the woman in the middle half a year ago. Although her complexion was ordinary, her body was still quite healthy."
Yang Shifei frowned and observed them closely for a moment, then said in a low voice, "Looking at the marks on her neck, she might have been strangled to death."
Tanxiang examined the interior back and forth for another moment, confirming there were only these three corpses, pressed closely together, inside the coffin.
The two closed the coffin lid again and silently retreated from the secret room.
—Strange.
Both of them were puzzled.
Why would Xiang Tianlin hide the corpses of his wife and daughters here? And how did they die?
Could it be that this tragedy was the reason Xiang Tianlin attacked the government yamen?
"Let's search some more."
Yang Shifei suppressed the unease in his heart and continued to search the surroundings.
Tanxiang continued to inspect the area around the bookshelf but soon paused, pulling out a stack of envelopes from a crevice.
She carefully took one out and looked at it, her expression growing increasingly grave.
It recorded correspondence between Xiang Tianlin and a certain person, seemingly plotting in secret.
But as she flipped towards the back, the originally neat handwriting became increasingly scrawled and messy. By the last letter…
It had even become a bizarre scroll filled entirely with illegible, talisman-like scribbles, making it impossible to discern what was written.
"There's a locked box in the wardrobe."
Yang Shifei called out in a low voice just then. "Should we force it open?"
Tanxiang quickly approached and decisively reached out, forcibly breaking the lock.
This display of strength made Yang Shifei's mouth twitch. The servant girl is that strong?
He quickly cast aside distracting thoughts, carefully opened the square box, and found two items placed inside.
A small, lustrous black jade box, and a letter.
"Another letter?"
Yang Shifei spread the paper open and took a look, letting out a soft sound of surprise.
This wasn't a letter exchanged with someone, but a diary?
"This Ninefold Gate Sect leader has such leisurely inclinations, even secretly writing this kind of… hmm?"
But the more he read its contents, the uglier Yang Shifei's expression became.
Tanxiang, beside him, noticed and asked with a frown, "What's written on it?"
"It's his own experiences from recent times."
Yang Shifei said, his voice filled with shock and uncertainty, "He says his emotions have become increasingly unstable lately, and his memory is failing, as if it were a sign of Qi deviation, but he dared not confide in others for fear of causing instability within the sect. Moreover, recently, his two wives have become increasingly weak and sickly, their temperaments also turning extremely perverse. Even his usually well-behaved beloved daughter became like this, and the family became difficult to get along with. Under the immense mental and physical strain, he felt he was going mad."
He read the contents of the paper carefully, word by word. "Some time ago, a group of people secretly came to the Ninefold Gate Sect to find him, wanting to cooperate in disrupting the order of East City, ideally causing widespread panic. If he could find out the garrison locations of the various sects, he would be handsomely rewarded."
Yang Shifei and Tanxiang exchanged a glance, understanding in their hearts.
If the handwriting matched, this would be irrefutable evidence.
"…Hold on."
Yang Shifei quickly discovered that, judging from the subsequent content, Xiang Tianlin had initially refused.
He considered himself a citizen of the Liang Kingdom and disdained to engage in such acts of seeking glory by betraying his country, so he did not participate.
But then, the situation took a sharp turn.
Xiang Tianlin's wife and daughters suddenly fell into a coma, and that mysterious group visited again, informing him they could gift him a divine item that could cure his wife and daughters.
With no other recourse, Xiang Tianlin finally agreed to the matter and secretly planted many spies in East City, just waiting for the Taiwu Haoshi to be transported there.
And Xiang Tianlin also obtained the long-awaited divine item—
A coffin.
"What on earth is he writing?!"
Yang Shifei's face was etched with shock as he turned to look at the secret room.
The three women in the coffin had been dead for many days, yet the paper said this divine item was extremely effective, causing his increasingly crazed beloved wife and daughter to finally regain their calm. The family had become harmonious once more, happy and content.
Within the handwriting, one could almost feel Xiang Tianlin's joy.
"Is this considered harmonious?"
Yang Shifei's breath grew cold, goosebumps rising all over his skin.