Chapter 29: Opening the Coffin

Did the elder Master Liu truly pass away? No one knows.

Nowadays, apart from the Liu family members, practically no one has seen the elder Master Liu's corpse.

The inner prison was oppressively quiet. Yun Yang waved his hand, and all the secret agents in the room silently withdrew.

He suddenly stood up and paced back and forth in the room. "The elder Master Liu is not dead. We must have investigated a key point, and the Liu family panicked. They could only use this method to force us to stop."

Chen Ji feigned surprise and said, "Elder Master Liu is not dead? No way. Would the Liu family fabricate such a major matter? I saw Liu Mingxian's expression, he looked very sad."

Yun Yang sneered and said, "Officials high and low in this court and country do even more outrageous things for power and profit. What's so rare about a ninety-year-old elder faking his death to protect his descendants? And Liu Mingxian, those civil officials are used to pretending."

Saying this, he turned his head to look at Chen Ji. "What do you think I should do?"

Chen Ji lowered his eyes and after a moment replied, "Open the coffin and examine the corpse."

Yun Yang jumped in surprise. "Elder Master Liu is the current empress's biological father. It's fine for me to investigate the Liu family, but opening his coffin is courting death! I just realized, your guts are bigger than mine. What if he really is dead?"

Chen Ji held the Eight Trigrams Lamp in both hands and raised his head to look at Yun Yang. "Lord Yun Yang, even if the elder Master Liu is truly dead, how can you be at ease without opening the coffin and taking a look?"

Yun Yang paced quickly around the room, rapidly considering all the possibilities after opening the coffin and examining the corpse. Finally, he stopped and said firmly, one word at a time, "Open the coffin and examine the corpse!"

At this moment, a wave of *yin* wind blew from the depths of the inner prison, causing the Eight Trigrams Lamp in Chen Ji's hand to sway.

Just now, Chen Ji had only collected the ice flow from cells A and B and didn't dare to look at the other number cells.

But at this moment, as this *yin* wind swept through, the ice flow from the deeper cells in the inner prison, like C, D, E, Ji, and others, were actually stirred and moved, surging up actively!

The ice flow within Chen Ji's body actually had a faint tendency to become uncontrollable!

This place was not suitable to stay long.

Chen Ji stood up and walked towards the outside. "Lord Yun Yang, I've been out for so long, my master is probably worried. Please trouble yourself to send me back first."

Yun Yang smiled sinisterly and said, "You came up with the idea, and now you want to leave? Let's go together. This matter isn't suitable for bringing other coroners. It just so happens you have some talent in examining corpses. If the elder Master Liu is in the coffin, you can also check his cause of death. If something really goes wrong, no one is getting away."

Chen Ji hesitated. "Lord Yun Yang, the merit is yours and Lord Jiao Tu's. I just provided a plan and strategy."

"If we don't bring you, what if your plan screws us over?" Yun Yang laughed coldly. "Let's go quickly. We need to pick up Jiao Tu and arrive near the Liu family ancestral grave before nightfall."

Yun Yang and Jiao Tu were not good at capturing spies, but they were good at self-protection, shifting blame, and seizing credit.

He covered Chen Ji's eyes again and said in surprise, "Why are you always holding this Eight Trigrams Lamp?"

Saying this, he chopped his hand, snatched it over, and put it back in its original place.

Chen Ji let Yun Yang pull and tug his clothes, stumbling out of the inner prison.

Inside the shaky carriage, he sat upright, biting his teeth tightly. Without the Eight Trigrams Lamp, the ice flow actually became unrestrained.

The gray cloth curtain of the carriage window was occasionally blown open by the wind. The setting sun shone on his face, but he felt no warmth at all.

He didn't know how long had passed when someone lifted the carriage curtain. A wave of cold, majestic fragrance rushed over. Jiao Tu squeezed into the carriage. "Eh, Yun Yang, why did you bring this boy?"

Yun Yang drove the carriage in front. "This boy came up with the idea, so naturally, I want to bring him."

Jiao Tu pulled off Chen Ji's blindfold cloth, took the cotton out of his ears, and asked curiously, "Yun Yang, I heard you exiled all the guards in Luocheng's inner prison to Lingnan? Won't Prison Rat be angry that you acted on your own? After all, the inner prison is her territory."

Yun Yang showed sarcasm. "She should be worrying about how to face the anger of the Inner Minister. The inner prison has been infiltrated like a sieve, and intelligence leaks casually. I must impeach her with a memorial for this matter."

Jiao Tu said thoughtfully, "But exile to Lingnan is very harsh. You have to walk a very long road, and I heard that malaria is rampant there. After getting it, it will be painful for a few days before dying."

Yun Yang was slightly startled. "Ah... then what should I do?"

"It's fine to just kill them in Luocheng, why run so far?" Jiao Tu said seriously.

"You have a point."

Saying this, Jiao Tu looked at Chen Ji and said seriously again, "You shouldn't be tricking us, right? If you trick us, you'll die."

Chen Ji smiled. "Lord Jiao Tu, if I trick you and Lord Yun Yang, whose money will I still earn?"

"Good to know!" Jiao Tu said with a happy smile. She raised her wrist close to Chen Ji's nose. "Smell this, I just bought incense in the Daughter Pavilion. Is it fragrant? It's very expensive."

Yun Yang frowned. "What are you letting him smell!?"

Jiao Tu glanced at him. "Drive your carriage properly, mind your own business."

Yun Yang sullenly shut his mouth.

Along the way, Chen Ji saw white paper money scattered everywhere on both sides. That was what the Liu family scattered towards the sky on the day of the grand funeral, on the funeral road.

Yun Yang said disdainfully, "Living in luxury, and even after death, they still want to scatter so much paper money, wanting to continue their glory and wealth in the afterlife, yet they don't see poor scholars who can't even afford paper."

Jiao Tu said playfully, "Looking at your appearance of hating evil as your enemy, you should be transferred to the Main Criminal Department. They investigate corrupt officials every day."

"I'm not going. The Main Criminal Department is a bunch of old farts, boring to death."

……

……

At night, Yun Yang and Jiao Tu took turns driving the carriage. He squeezed into the carriage to guard Chen Ji.

"Right," Yun Yang looked directly into Chen Ji's eyes. "The Liu family descendants once said during interrogation that Liu Shiyu had a very good relationship with some important figure in the Jing King's residence. I suspect the Jing King's residence is also involved, and there might even be Jing Dynasty spies operating in the king's residence... Have you discovered any clues in the king's residence?"

Chen Ji's heart tightened. "Lord Yun Yang, are you sure there are spies in the king's residence?"

The air inside the carriage suddenly solidified, as if an invisible hand was pulling between them.

Yun Yang asked thoughtfully, "Do you think Imperial Physician Yao might be a Jing Dynasty spy? He is highly respected in the capital's Imperial Hospital, and a large number of high officials and nobles want him to come to their homes for diagnosis. Even His Majesty wants to summon him to reside in the palace. But he is unwilling and actually ran to Luocheng three years ago to be the Imperial Physician for the Jing King's residence... Don't you think it's strange?"

"It's strange," Chen Ji asked curiously, "Has my master changed much in recent years?"

"Imperial Physician Yao was famous for being harsh in the capital, but the Inner Minister once said he wasn't like this in his early years. At that time, Imperial Physician Yao was benevolent and compassionate, even willing to diagnose people for free."

Chen Ji thought for a moment. "I don't think my master is like a spy. Earlier, someone in the king's residence sought him for diagnosis, but he was unwilling to go. If he were a spy, how could he give up the opportunity to contact important figures in the king's residence?"

"That makes sense," Yun Yang stroked his chin. "Then what about your two senior brothers? I checked them. Liu Quxing is a collateral branch of the Liu family. Is it possible it's him?"

Chen Ji took a deep breath, showing doubt. "Lord Yun Yang, you're not beating around the bush to suspect me, are you?"

Yun Yang smiled. "How could it be you? I have absolute trust in you. I'm just advising you to be careful of the people around you."

Jiao Tu suddenly said, "Stop the carriage by the tree forest. We're about to arrive at the Liu family ancestral grave. We'll climb over this mountain and walk there."

The three of them got off and walked along the mountain path beside the official road, all the way up to the summit of Zhuang Yuan Mountain.

Yun Yang and Jiao Tu were very fast. Chen Ji originally thought he would be tired and panting, but he didn't expect that by the time he reached the mountain top, he hadn't even sweated much.

He lay on the mountain, breathing heavily, and said extremely tiredly, "Can you see the Liu family ancestral grave from here?"

Yun Yang pointed forward. "It's there, at the highest point of Beimang."

Chen Ji propped himself up and looked into the distance, only to see continuous stone tablets and tombs piled with stone materials at the highest point of Beimang Mountain, actually extending for several dozen acres. The Liu family ancestral grave was very imposing.

In front of those tombs, there were stone figures, stone sheep, stone tigers, and stone watch pillars. Some tombs were over ten feet high!

One must know that the Ning Dynasty had strict regulations. Common people were not allowed to sit in sedan chairs, commoners were not allowed to wear boots, and non-officials were not allowed to wear hats. Every written law marked the hierarchy and grades piece by piece.

Tombs like those of the Liu family reaching over ten feet were not allowed for anyone below the third rank in life.

Yun Yang looked at the tombs of the ancestral grave and sighed, "The families of civil officials in my Ning Dynasty have accumulated high officials for generations for a thousand years, riding on the heads of the common people and sucking their blood, accumulating a large amount of family property, so they can have this kind of splendor."

Chen Ji subconsciously felt something was wrong. The national destiny of the Ning Dynasty had actually continued for over a thousand years? This itself was an unbelievable thing. According to the rules of history, it was fundamentally impossible, right?

Unless there was an external force.

At this moment, Jiao Tu said, "There is indeed a problem with the death of the elder Master Liu. Look inside the ancestral grave tombs, there are actually more than a hundred private soldiers stationed there, and there might even be patrol officials guarding it. The last time we sent secret agents to scout Luocheng, they once probed here, and at that time, there were only over ten people stationed at the Liu family ancestral grave."

"Then we can't force our way in," Yun Yang frowned and looked at Jiao Tu. "You make a move? I'm not good at opening coffins."

Jiao Tu glanced at Chen Ji. "Let him cover his eyes back to me, and you guard me."

Chen Ji actively turned back. He understood that the cultivation path of patrol officials could not be known by others.

However, after he covered his eyes, Jiao Tu sat cross-legged on the mountain top, drew out the short knife at her waist, and cut open her own brow center.

Yun Yang cut open his own finger and dotted the eyes of more than ten paper shadow puppets, guarding tightly beside Jiao Tu.

The next moment, a group of shadows suddenly drilled out of Jiao Tu's brow center, like a shedding crab, detaching from her body.

That shadow stood firm, with the exact same appearance as Jiao Tu, but wearing black light armor and holding a Green Dragon Crescent Moon Knife taller than a person in its hand!

Jiao Tu's original body did not move at all, while that *yin* spirit then looked at Yun Yang and opened its mouth to say, "I'm going."

Saying this, that *yin* spirit walked to the edge of the mountain cliff and leaped down. It landed on the treetops below the mountain as if weightless. Every time it jumped, it could easily cross more than ten large trees, rushing straight towards the Liu family ancestral grave!

Gradually, the sky completely darkened. That *yin* spirit also merged with the night color.

When Jiao Tu's *yin* spirit arrived in front of the elder Master Liu's tomb, it took advantage of everyone's inattentiveness and crashed straight into the stone-piled tomb!

That stone wall seemed to not exist at all!

After a long time, the *yin* spirit quickly withdrew, drilling into Jiao Tu's brow center and disappearing. She suddenly opened her eyes and said in surprise, "There really is no one in the coffin!"