Chapter 41 The sacrifice uses bones as a frame and resentment as a soul.
Is he dead?
Cui Mingcan's tone was filled with sadness and heaviness.
"Yes, they died completely. There wasn't even a skeleton left."
"And then? What happened next?" Cui Mingcan couldn't help but ask her.
Shang Su glanced at him and laughed heartily: "Later, later I married his younger brother."
"Younger brother?" Cui Mingcan frowned, then suddenly realized that this story sounded so familiar. A chill ran down his spine, and he exclaimed, "You're the widow who was burned to death!?"
She rested her forehead on her hand, glanced at him casually, and smiled without saying a word.
"you guess."
"..." It seems so.
Cui Mingcan swallowed hard and asked cautiously, "Then why did you kill the Liang family and slaughter the entire Chen family village? And those grooms, were they kidnapped by you?"
Although Granny Zhang gave a general account, no one knows the truth better than the person involved.
"You talk too much." Shang Su squinted and glared at him coldly.
Cui Mingcan stiffened and flinched. "I'm just curious, did they really do something very bad to you?"
"you guess."
She kept repeating those two words, and Cui Mingcan choked, realizing that she had no intention of sharing her story anymore, so he gave up on asking questions and started thinking about how to escape.
"Take him away." Shang Su was also exhausted, so he ordered someone to take him away, adding one more instruction: "Take good care of him."
"yes!"
Cui Mingcan had no choice but to obediently follow, waiting for the right opportunity to activate the formation to save himself.
There was no one else to rely on, Cui Mingcan gritted her teeth, determined to teach them a lesson once she got out! How dare they abandon her and run away!
That's absolutely outrageous!!!
*
Liang Mansion.
"Can we really fool them like this?" Cen Ying hesitated for a moment as she squatted in front of the Liang residence.
The three men, dressed as beggars, squatted on the street corner, with a broken bowl placed in front of them in a rather respectable manner.
"Of course, you still don't believe in my abilities?" Bai Yuheng boasted, "I'm confident I can handle that little spying technique."
"Wow! You're amazing! You know everything!" Cen Ying exclaimed, her eyes shining with admiration.
Bai Yuheng was extremely pleased and chuckled.
"Why is Chen Ping'an the head of the Liang family?" Cen Ying was completely puzzled.
Bai Yuheng said, "Granny Zhang said that Chen Ping'an fell off the cliff after rushing back from the imperial examination, which is indeed true. However, the group that was secretly following him took him away to blackmail Shang Su."
Cen Ying was completely confused and asked in bewilderment, "Who is it? Why would they use him to blackmail Shang Su? Wasn't Shang Su tied up and tied up on Broken Arm Cliff by the villagers of Chenjia Village? Why would they blackmail her?"
“You’ve hit the nail on the head.”
Li Tiankuo said, "Shang Su was not harmed because of a curse, but was sacrificed."
"!!!"
"A conspiracy that has been planned for more than a decade, or even decades, under the cover of rumors about jinxing someone's fate."
"What?!" Cen Ying was dumbfounded, completely unable to understand what the two of them were talking about.
"Human sacrifice, especially women born in the year, month, and day of the Yin, who are pregnant, are most suitable for sacrifice."
"According to the county magistrate, when he came here to take office, the Liang family also moved here and established their household here."
The newly appointed magistrate, eager to make his mark, secretly ordered an investigation into the old cases accumulated in Anping County. Whether by divine intervention or his exceptional abilities, the investigation uncovered a criminal gang.
This evil sect, which wreaked havoc on the court in the previous dynasty, was eradicated by the imperial court. Even during the reign of the current emperor, the emperor ordered the sect to be completely wiped out. However, they managed to hide their identities in Chenjia Village and escape the eradication, continuing to this day. Now, the entire village is inhabited by followers of this sect.
The county magistrate was merely a newly appointed minor official with no powerful backers, no clear vision of the future, and no one to protect him, so he dared not act rashly. Later, after suffering several humiliations at the hands of his colleagues and finding no one to turn to for help, he lost all faith in the imperial court and let things unfold as they would.
When Li Tiankuo, in his capacity as the Wise Prince, came to the government office to review the case files, he realized that the matter could not be kept secret for long. So he dismissed the others and tried to confess to them.
"Smack!"
Warm tea splashed along with the broken pieces, grazing his forehead. The magistrate prostrated himself in fear, trembling like a leaf.
"Qian Song, how dare you!"
Bai Yuheng was also startled by his sudden outburst of anger.
Li Tiankuo's cold brows and sharp eyes sent a chill down his spine, making him tremble: "Your Highness, please calm down!"
"Calm down!?" Li Tiankuo narrowed his eyes. "Anping County is hiding such a huge cancer, and you're not reporting it? Do you want to see our dynasty perish like the previous one!?"
"Your Highness, please calm down!" Qian Song knelt on the ground, pleading with him to calm down, but his back remained stiff, perhaps due to his dissatisfaction.
"How can you expect me to calm down?! As the local official, you don't care about the people below, allowing the evil faction to grow stronger. Do you know that if this crime is punished, even executing your entire family would be enough?"
Qian Song's shoulders slumped, his heart filled with sorrow. He thought of how he had passed the imperial examination at a young age and finally obtained a good job, only to have it snatched away by those of the highest status, leaving him in this predicament... Although commerce was thriving, he was always required to hand over extra money. On the one hand, he was loyal to the people and couldn't bear to see them suffer, and on the other hand, he filled the gaps himself. But what was the result? His elderly mother, wife, and children had no money for medical treatment and no medicine to cure them!
He lamented that the Confucian classics he had studied for so many years, and the policies for governing the country and caring for the people, were all shackles. He wanted to see if those noble families still had the ability to resist an attack by the evil sect!
Knowing he couldn't hide the truth any longer, Qian Song tried to explain, "Your Highness, please listen to me. Ever since I learned about that evil sect, it has been under my observation. Those people only operate in Chenjia Village. There is infighting among them. Some are unwilling to seek revenge, while others are radical. They have been fighting for several years and are still lying low, not daring to make a move. They haven't affected anyone else! I hope Your Highness will investigate thoroughly!"
"And how did you find out?" Bai Yuheng asked.
"I made a booklet specifically to record their whereabouts..." After saying that, he took out a small booklet from his pocket, which was filled with dense writing. "These are all things that are unusual. After investigation, I wrote down the details. I have recorded all their movements in this booklet."
Li Tiankuo took it and examined it closely with a furrowed brow.
"I ask for nothing else but Your Highness to grant my wishes one by one. From now on, Your Highness may kill or punish me as you see fit." Qian Song was in tears. His home was already empty. His parents had passed away long ago, and his wife and children had also left one after another. Now, he was the only one left within the five degrees of kinship. He had nothing left to hold him back in the world. He knew he deserved to die. He only hoped that the Prince would grant him this request.
Li Tiankuo sneered: "Having committed such a heinous crime, you still want my help? What unrealistic dreams are you having?"
"This humble official dares not! This humble official dares not!" Qian Song kowtowed repeatedly, and bloodstains soon appeared on the pine-ash ground.
Bai Yuheng frowned and said, "Tell us your request first, and we'll see if we can fulfill it."
Qian Song glanced at Li Tiankuo, and seeing that the latter only had a stern expression and no intention of objecting, he quickly said:
"I've heard that Your Highness is currently cultivating at the Tianyan Sect. I wonder if you could help me return something to the son of an old friend in the sect."
As he spoke, he also took out an old cloth bag, about the size of a palm, from his pocket and presented it to them.
"This is my only wish, and I hope Your Highness will grant it!" Qian Song kowtowed heavily, his voice trembling with tears, but he solemnly said, "After this matter, I will plead guilty to the court. As for how to punish him, I will follow His Majesty's decree without uttering a single complaint!"
Li Tiankuo sneered, not even glancing at what was in his hand, and said coldly, "Your crimes are heinous, and I will definitely report to the Emperor and take your head, you audacious tiger!"
Knowing he was in the wrong, Qian Song kowtowed heavily and said, "Qian Song accepts his fate!"
...
"So the Liang family and the people of Chenjia Village are all from the evil sect?" Cen Ying asked.
Li Tiankuo nodded, but then shook his head: "Yes, but also no."
Cen Ying was momentarily stunned by this, and asked, "What does it mean to nod and then shake your head?"
"In fact, after many years of living in the evil faction, many people have lost their desire to pursue power and just want to live a peaceful life."
Li Tiankuo continued, "So some of those people willingly became members of the evil faction, while others were forced into it."
“Especially the Chen Zongbai family. According to Magistrate Qian, Chen Zongbai and his wife did not want to have any further involvement with the evil sect, so they did not instill the evil sect's ideology into Chen Changsheng and Chen Ping'an from a young age. However, people in that environment will inevitably be influenced by it,” Bai Yuheng explained.
"Chen Ping'an knew that his parents had been killed by his clan for trying to leave the evil sect, so he thought of reporting it under the pretext of going to the capital to take the imperial examination. However, under the emperor's nose, he had no help at all and was repeatedly obstructed..." Bai Yuheng secretly glanced at Li Tiankuo and continued when she saw that he did not react.
"When he returned, he almost fell to his death off a cliff. He later lost his memory and was taken back by his clansmen. They gave him the alias Liang Qizong and made him the leader of the evil sect, specializing in deceiving others to gain their trust and then recruit them."
Li Tiankuo added, "According to Qian Song, Chen Ping'an was probably faking amnesia, because he was also collecting evidence against them."
Cen Ying suddenly realized, and then asked, "Since he still remembers and is the leader of the evil sect, why didn't he save Shang Su?"
"He probably couldn't have saved her by then; Shang Su might have already been sacrificed."
Cen Ying had many questions she wanted to ask, and she pressed them urgently, "Then why did they offer sacrifices to Shang Su?"
"Who killed all the people in Chenjia Village and Liang Mansion? Was it Shang Su? Or did Chen Ping'an take revenge?"
As they spoke, the three dodged passing pedestrians and leaped into the Liang residence, which was almost completely burned to the ground.
The scene was one of devastation.
The air still seemed to smell of burning corpses.
Bai Yuheng tried to avoid the blood-stained stone slabs on the ground, but found that there was no way to avoid them. She sighed and said, "They sacrificed Shang Su to bring a demon back to life. Shang Su's constitution is most suitable for this kind of demon to reside in. With bones as its frame and resentment as its soul, it is an extremely evil and wicked thing."
"And those villagers and Liang family members who were burned to death," Bai Yuheng looked around and said in a deep voice, "were also sacrificed, but in a different way than Shang Su. They were skinned, had their tendons pulled out, and were bled out. Their flesh was used to offer up their spirits, and their blood was used to nourish them. Their skin was used as puppets to walk in the world."
Li Tiankuo said, "This is why both the previous dynasty and the current dynasty have tried their best to eradicate this sect."
"They are too good at bewitching people, making them think that by being sacrificed, they can obtain supreme power, be free from the constraints of the three realms, experience no pain, be unafraid of life and death, and live forever in the world."
Bai Yuheng nodded: "The ghost messengers that Xiao Can encountered were these people who were sacrificed. Because of some kind of power, they could not be reincarnated and could only be kept in their skins day and night and be ordered around. As for the so-called supreme power, it is just a trick to scare ordinary people who have no spiritual power."
"The leather suits are perishable, so they need more mortals to join the evil faction to provide them with leather suits. And when they need to walk on the road, they wear heavy iron shoes and alien skeletons that can support their bodies."
"So that's why the ghost messengers we saw earlier were so huge. Their entire size could have been terrifying!" Cen Ying suddenly realized, and recalling it, she felt a wave of fear again.
“Yes, it’s really impressive to people who haven’t seen it before,” Bai Yuheng nodded in agreement.
"Then who were those ghost messengers acting on their orders? Were they Chen Ping'an, who was pretending to have amnesia and wanted revenge? Or were they Shang Su, who was sacrificed?"
Bai Yuheng smiled and said, "That is a good question."
"As for who instructed those people..." Bai Yuheng paused, then suddenly laughed, "We'll find out in three days."
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Author's Note: See you after Thursday! [Milk Tea]
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