Chapter 113 The Truth in the Fragment
After entering Master Xugu's room with Duan Lansheng and watching him restore the doors and windows to their original positions, Lu Yuanyuan finally believed that he had really come to help today.
Well, time is of the essence. As long as he doesn't get in my way, I'll let him be.
Although the environment was pitch black, it didn't prevent her from clearly seeing the layout of the room. Master Xugu's room was very simple and clean, with no luxurious furniture or decorations. Because it hadn't been cleaned for a while, a thin layer of dust covered various places. Behind the desk were several wooden bookshelves side by side, the books on them arranged in descending order of height. It seemed Master Xugu had a bit of obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Since it all started with those two boxes of books in the secret room, let's begin with the same theme.
Lu Yuanyuan walked into the bookshelf and rummaged through it for a while. Sure enough, it only contained some very ordinary books.
But that's not surprising. How could a truly secret be so openly displayed?
According to the way it's portrayed in the TV series, if Master Xugu really possessed something important, he would probably hide it in a secret compartment or some other hidden place.
Lu Yuanyuan bent her knuckles and cautiously tapped on the bookshelves, walls, and tables, trying to determine if there were any empty spaces behind them by the solidity of the sound. However, after tapping around the vicinity, the sound remained unchanged, a dull "tap-tap."
Lu Yuanyuan took a deep breath, letting it settle in her stomach, and went to the last bookshelf. On the bottom shelf was a metal incense burner. She squatted down and moved it, only to find that the incense burner was incredibly heavy, ridiculously heavy.
Lu Yuanyuan's heartstrings were touched.
If she were still a frail mortal woman, it would be normal for her not to be able to lift heavy things. But for a Golden Core cultivator to be unable to move an incense burner even with brute force is somewhat abnormal.
Lu Yuanyuan slid her fingers down and felt the bottom of the incense burner. Sure enough, the thing couldn't be moved at all; it was fixed to the frame.
There must be a reason for anything unusual.
It was late at night, and it wasn't advisable to move the bookshelf. Fortunately, the incense burner was still a little distance from the wall. Lu Yuanyuan's hands were slender, just enough to slip inside, and she tentatively knocked on the wall. This time, she heard a distinctly different, crisp sound.
There's definitely something strange behind this incense burner!
Lu Yuanyuan stretched out her arm and groped around in the darkness for a while. She pressed something and with a "click," a hidden compartment was revealed. It was a small, square space carved into the wall, no bigger than a few bricks stacked together. Reaching out, her fingertips touched the rustling of paper. Lu Yuanyuan pulled it out; it was a very thin, thread-bound book.
A silver moon peeked out from behind the clouds, illuminating the space behind the bookshelf through the paper window. Lu Yuanyuan squatted down, flipped through a few pages, and was astonished.
I initially thought that something mysteriously hidden in such a place must be some kind of evil magic that couldn't be exposed to the light of day. But after reading it, I realized that it seems to be Xu Gu's diary.
No, to be precise, it's not Xu Gu's diary. Because it doesn't record Xu Gu's daily life—what she ate, where she went, and what she did—but rather her records of concocting medicinal ingredients for someone. It also intermittently records the physical condition of the person taking the medicine.
The ingredients for this medicine are quite peculiar, containing several unfamiliar terms.
The memories of the day had not yet faded when they suddenly flashed back into her mind. Lu Yuanyuan vaguely remembered seeing these unfamiliar names in the medicine and poison atlas in the secret room earlier that day.
It seems that Xu Gu has also read those books. Not only that, she has also put the contents of the books into practice and used them to concoct medicines.
Could it be that Xu Gu is the owner of that secret room?
If that's the case, then for whom did she refine these medicinal ingredients?
Lu Yuanyuan frowned and continued flipping through the pages.
Throughout the entire story, the identity of the person who took the drug remains unknown, and their real name is never revealed. It is only known that they are likely a young woman, as Xu Gu refers to them as "she".
She turned the book upside down, and as she neared the end, she finally saw something different—no longer the monotonous records of medical treatments. She noticed a hastily written annotation; due to its age, the ink was blurred, and some parts were illegible.
[My senior brother's deep love for his daughter... and his insistence on this method... however, I still believe it is inappropriate. Interfering with the natural order of life and death of an infant through human intervention is detrimental to one's virtuous conduct.]
The date on the document is 24 years ago.
...
Lu Yuanyuan stopped and stared at the words.
Although it consists of only a few words, it contains a huge amount of information. As you slowly digest it, the ins and outs of the story gradually take shape.
If I'm not mistaken, those strange diagrams and books in the secret chamber were all found by Xu Gu's senior brother from outside. Xu Gu was merely entrusted by him to help him concoct a medicinal ingredient according to the contents of the book in order to save his daughter.
His daughter was the unnamed person mentioned earlier who had taken the medicine. Judging from the description, she was very weak, whether due to congenital deficiencies or acquired factors, it was unclear. To cure her, it would be necessary to use some immoral methods.
Lu Yuanyuan pondered.
Even she could tell those books were sinister, so how could Xu Gu not notice? Clearly, Xu Gu didn't approve of her senior brother's choice. But perhaps out of pity, or perhaps moved by her senior brother's love for his daughter, she still agreed to help.
So, who is the senior brother that Xu Gu mentioned?
Actually, it's quite easy to guess.
First of all, this person is definitely not a cultivator from Danqing Peak. The reason is simple: since Xu Gu calls him "Senior Brother," his seniority must be higher than Xu Gu's. What he's about to do is dishonorable and morally reprehensible, so the fewer people who know about it, the better. If he were a pill refiner himself, he could easily handle the task of refining medicinal ingredients on his own without needing anyone else's help.
The only explanation is that he's not in the alchemy field; he can't refine anything too complex, so he had to ask Xu Gu for help. This also suggests that he and Xu Gu have a good personal relationship.
Secondly, based on the years, this senior's daughter was still an infant twenty-four years ago. Assuming she is still alive, she should be twenty-four or twenty-five years old this year.
In Shushan, there is only one person who meets all four conditions: high seniority to be Xugu's senior brother, not a pill cultivator himself, has a daughter, and the daughter is twenty-four or twenty-five years old.
The leader of the Shu Mountain sect.
His daughter is the original senior sister of Shushan.
Lu Yuanyuan pursed her lips.
She had always suspected that Yin Xiaozhu and the real senior sister were related, and were very likely siblings.
But if they really are siblings, the contrast is just too stark.
Born incredibly ugly and scorned by everyone, yet possessing an unkillable constitution that allows it to withstand any abuse. Incredibly resilient, it can even shed its skin and be reborn after being burned by fire.
One was beautiful and graceful, the apple of the eye of the Shu Mountain Sect Master, but she had been frail and sickly since infancy. Without external intervention, she would probably have died long ago.
Worlds apart.
It's almost like a bizarre complementarity.
At the same time, many details began to connect in her mind.
In the secret room, so many pages of the book that recorded insidious secret techniques had been torn out. Could it be the work of the Shu Mountain Sect Master?
Xu Gu also said that the method the Shushan Sect Master used to save the original senior sister was not something that should be revealed to the public. Although the specific method is unknown, it is certainly not a good thing, and it fits the evil theme of the other secret techniques in that book.
Furthermore, upon seeing this, Lu Yuanyuan vaguely guessed why Master Xugu had become suspicious of Yin Xiaozhu.
It's important to know that Master Xugu once prepared medicinal ingredients and regulated the body of the original senior sister during her childhood, so she can be said to have watched the latter grow up. In other words, she should be a relatively close elder to the original senior sister.
As sons grow up, they tend to distance themselves from their mothers; as daughters grow up, they tend to distance themselves from their fathers. The original eldest sister, as she grows up, will gradually lose the close bond she had with her biological father in childhood.
Xu Gu is her senior of the same sex, so in principle, she doesn't need to follow the principle of avoiding suspicion.
But the original senior sister at that time had likely already been replaced by Yin Xiaozhu.
To keep the secret of the switcheroo a secret, he had to keep his distance from everyone, especially the original senior sister's acquaintances. That way, he wouldn't be easily exposed.
Given this intentional or unintentional estrangement, Xu Gu, as the same-sex elder who is most familiar with the original senior sister, is most likely the first person to notice the awkwardness.
When suspicion reaches a certain level, Xu Gu will naturally begin to test Yin Xiaozhu.
Lu Yuanyuan still remembered that night more than three years ago, she overheard Yin Xiaozhu's friend cursing Xu Gu as an old geezer and saying that Xu Gu had invited Yin Xiaozhu to go to Hanlu Spring to heal her wounds.
That must have been a test from Xu Gu.
To enter the Cold Dew Spring, one must take off one's clothes, soak in the water, and stand naked in front of each other.
Xu Gu likely didn't realize that Yin Xiaozhu was a man, but was simply trying to determine whether the other person had been switched by comparing physical characteristics, such as whether there was a mole in a certain place.
If the original senior sister were still alive, she would have no reason to refuse this request.
Yin Xiaozhu would never agree to that. Once submerged in water, it wouldn't be as simple as just a mismatch in physical characteristics; his biggest secret would be exposed.
Furthermore, the reason why Xu Gu mysteriously disappeared in the Lingbao Secret Realm was because the Shushan Sect Master gave her a secret mission.
Why did he choose Master Xugu out of so many fellow disciples with profound cultivation?
This was most likely not a coincidence or a random choice. Rather, it was because Xu Gu was his most trusted junior sister.
Twenty-four years ago, Xu Gu not only helped him a great deal, but he also kept his mouth shut very well, and in all these years, he hasn't let out a single word.
This history laid the foundation for the sharing of secrets between the two sides. Twenty-four years later, when the leader of the Shu Mountain Sect needed a reliable person to work for him, the first person he would naturally think of was Xu Gu.
The chaotic story gradually took on a clearer outline. Lu Yuanyuan took a slow breath, sorted out her thoughts, and then turned the pages to continue reading.
New annotations began to appear on the later pages, all of which were Xu Gu's insights into alchemy. Moreover, the intervals between them became increasingly longer.
It seems that the original senior sister's health is indeed improving, so the intervals between preparing medicinal ingredients are getting longer and longer.
Patiently reading to the last page, Lu Yuanyuan's gaze finally settled, and she spotted a useful passage.
[...The Ten Thousand Swords Pavilion caught fire, damaging its collection of books...Although my senior brother was unwilling to tell me their origins, he knew I...instructed me to repair the remaining scrolls and then completely destroy them...However, just in case...I copied...]
The date on the document is eleven years ago.
So that explains why the books in the secret room had two different handwriting styles!
Those books stained with ashes were the ones that survived the fire. They were dirty, but the books themselves weren't severely damaged, and the writing was still legible, so they were put back in their boxes untouched. The books that were so badly burned that they were no longer readable were repaired by Xu Gu himself.
Given the Shushan Sect Master's trust in Xugu, entrusting this matter to her is quite reasonable.
Unfortunately, much of the text in this passage has been blurred.
What comes after "just in case"?
Lu Yuanyuan picked up the paper with suspicion, flattened it, and held it up to the moonlight, trying to see something through the light.
Just then, she suddenly heard footsteps approaching behind her. Lu Yuanyuan snapped back to reality, shoved the papers haphazardly into her bosom, and turned around to see Duan Lansheng holding a silk cloth bundle. The knot on the bundle had been untied, revealing several dark books inside.
Duan Lansheng squatted down in front of her, unfolded the cloth bag, and said, "I found a hidden compartment in the roof beam. Is this what you're looking for?"
Lu Yuanyuan picked up the top book, flipped through a few pages, then picked up the second book. After reading for a while, her heart started pounding wildly.
She remembered seeing these books in the secret room, but those were already revised and edited versions.
Master Xugu actually has the original burned document hidden here?
It seems that although the Sect Master of Shushan instructed Master Xugu to destroy the original document after completing his task, Xugu did not follow his instructions.
What Xu Gu was thinking back then is now impossible to ascertain. In any case, she did not tell the Shushan Sect Master and kept the original documents that had been burned.
At this moment, Duan Lansheng's question interrupted her thoughts. He had grasped her wrist without her noticing: "You want to find that plant, right? Let's look for it together."
Lu Yuanyuan frowned slightly and pulled her wrist back: "...No need, there's not much. I want to see it myself."
Duan Lansheng paused for a moment, and this time, he didn't ask why: "Okay. I'll go outside and take a look first."
After seeing him off, Lu Yuanyuan turned her back to the moonlight and began to carefully flip through the old books.
The tattered pages, exposed to high temperatures, were exceptionally fragile, carrying a musty, dusty smell. It seemed as if turning the page with even the slightest force would cause them to crumble into dust. The pages were almost entirely blackened, the edges scorched yellow, and very little of the content was legible.
If one hadn't read the book beforehand, it would be very difficult to fill in the covered words. Only Xu Gu could have done it.
It was an accidental discovery, and Xu Gu liked to make annotations in his books, so he thought he might find similar clues in the original document. But after looking at it for a while, Lu Yuanyuan gradually realized that something was wrong.
Some of the illustrations in these two fragmented scrolls were quite unfamiliar; she didn't seem to have seen them in the newly revised book. Perhaps it was because there were so many different kinds, but she was getting a little dizzy looking at them.
As she flipped through the pages, a familiar plant outlined in black and white lines suddenly caught her eye.
Lu Yuanyuan's pupils contracted, and she abruptly stopped moving.
She looked at it carefully for a while, then took out the things she had kept hidden in her storage ring until today.
In the darkness, the flowerless plant in her palm emitted a faint bluish glow, as if sculpted from translucent porcelain. It was exactly the same as the picture in the book.
She found her!
Sure enough, her feeling that the new book was short of ingredients was not unfounded.
When Xu Gu was revising the new book, he must have written it by comparing the old and new versions; it's impossible that he deliberately omitted any content. However, many pages in the newly revised book have mysteriously disappeared, which must have been torn out by someone.
This person's methods are extremely meticulous, and they do things without anyone noticing. They have a completely different personality from the person who roughly tears off large pages of a book, loosening the stitches.
Is it Yin Xiaozhu?
Yin Xiaozhu couldn't have entered Shushan on a whim because he liked dressing up as a woman. He must have had his own secret purpose, something that he could only accomplish by staying in Shushan.
Duan Lansheng could discover the secret room unintentionally. If Yin Xiaozhu was intentionally investigating the surroundings, it wouldn't be surprising if he found the entrance. And it was precisely because he had read the books inside that he knew where to pick the sky-blue plant.
No, there are more than just this one missing page; he definitely took more than just this one page.
The contents of these books are so sinister; they're probably meant to harm people. Perhaps Yin Xiaozhu didn't want anyone to find a specific way to break the curse, so she went all out and secretly tore up all the content she needed.
He did indeed do it flawlessly. However, he overlooked one thing: Master Xugu actually had the original, which had been burned, hidden in his possession.
After much searching, she finally found the answer.
She wanted to see what this plant was for, and why both Duan Lansheng in her past life and Yin Xiaozhu in this life wanted her to eat it.
Goosebumps silently rose from her arms. This page seemed exceptionally heavy; the shackles of the secret had finally been unlocked before her eyes.
This page was burned to an exceptionally dark gray, almost illegible. The plant's habitat and properties were completely obscured by the soot. But she could still clearly see a line of text in the middle.
[...The Ashoka herb has leaves but no flowers and never bears fruit. If ingested within half a month of pregnancy, it can silently and imperceptibly dissolve bones and destroy the fetus.]
Lu Yuanyuan froze, her mind going completely blank for a moment.
The words were all familiar, yet when combined, they seemed utterly foreign, appearing both near and far in her eyes. Her blood seemed to freeze, cruelly tearing her veins apart. Her eyes were fixed on the page, oblivious to the fact that her hands had crumpled the pages and her teeth were clenching so tightly they were clicking.
She thought her life's blood had long since dried up. But this belated knife still pierced her heart.
After an unknown amount of time, she slowly pressed her trembling hand against her flat stomach.
It turns out that in a past life, a tiny, fragile life once lived in this place.
However, at that time, because of the very special nature of her body, her menstruation was always irregular, sometimes going several months without a period, which she had long been accustomed to. Therefore, even though there was another life growing inside her, she was initially unable to detect it through changes in her menstrual cycle.
But the person who discovered this secret did not welcome its arrival.
In the world of cultivation, cultivators' bodies are not as fragile as those of mortals. Miscarriage-inducing drugs used by mortals have no effect on them.
Once pregnant, there are only two ways to have an abortion.
One scenario occurs when there is no other choice. For example, if the cultivator's body is severely injured and the golden core in their abdomen can no longer spare any extra power to supply the fetus, it will automatically sever the connection with the fetus and prioritize allocating all its power resources to protect the mother.
Another option is that pregnant cultivators who do not want children can voluntarily summon the fetus's primordial spirit when it is one month old and crush it with their own hands.
There are only these two paths to take.
In her past life, Duan Lansheng did not love her, so naturally he did not want her child.
But he must have known that once she discovered she was pregnant, she would never willingly give up the child.
Logically and emotionally, Duan Lansheng would not have attacked her and seriously injured her without any reason.
So he used a method she would never discover to kill the child in her womb.
It made her feel no pain, no awareness, and like a fool, she happily ate it.
Indeed, many things are different in this life than in the last—because Yin Xiaozhu's identity was exposed, his belongings were cleared out, and the Myriad Swords Pavilion had to reorganize its books... This series of chain reactions, one after another, led to Duan Lansheng accidentally discovering the secret room and finding traces of burning on the pages.
To be more precise, without so many missing preludes, Duan Lansheng in his previous life might not have been able to discover that secret room. Let alone use that secret room to trace the clues and find Master Xugu's original, burned book.
Furthermore, early pregnancy often presents with no symptoms, making it difficult to detect even with pulse diagnosis. The herb *Wuyoucao* (a type of herb) is only effective if consumed within the first fifteen days of pregnancy.
Duan Lansheng was a sword cultivator and not particularly skilled in medicine.
Just don't forget that in his past life, he and Yin Xiaozhu were good friends.
The period when Duan Lansheng gave her the Worry-Free Grass was also the period when she was limping and going in and out of Danqing Peak every day. She often saw Yin Xiaozhu because her leg had been healing for a long time, and he even examined her spirit and pulse.
Yin Xiaozhu was the top disciple of Danqing Peak. In this life, she only had a relationship with Duan Lansheng once. And the fact that Yin Xiaozhu was able to discover her pregnancy in such a short time suggests that he could have done the same in his previous life.
However, Yin Xiaozhu in her previous life never discussed this matter with her.
Perhaps it's because I'm not familiar with her, or maybe there are other concerns.
But Duan Lansheng must have known she was pregnant because Yin Xiaozhu told him the news afterward.
In this life, when Yin Xiaozhu discovered her pregnancy, he also didn't tell her the truth and wanted to terminate the pregnancy immediately. However, this was because there were too many complex conflicts between them.
In her previous life, Yin Xiaozhu had no conflict of interest with her, nor did he use her as a tonic or a blood bank.
He disliked men and had no feelings for Duan Lansheng that went beyond friendship.
So no matter how you look at it, he had absolutely no motive or reason to target her or kill her child.
After eliminating all possibilities, the only person with the motive to do this could be Duan Lansheng.
Therefore, the only explanation is that after Duan Lansheng learned from Yin Xiaozhu that she was pregnant, he did not want the child. So, he sought a solution from his senior sister, who was well-versed in pharmacology, to secretly and peacefully resolve this "trouble".
...
The cool moonlight shone on her cheeks, illuminating the damp, icy sheen. Lu Yuanyuan didn't reach out to wipe it away; instead, she tore off a page from the book and crumpled it in her palm. A surge of spiritual energy poured into it, and the page instantly turned to dust, scattering into the air.
The carefree grass also fell to the floor, and she lifted her foot, indifferently and mechanically crushing it.
Fifteen days have already passed, and this item has lost its effectiveness; keeping it is of no use.
If, during the day, she had ever felt tired for a fleeting moment, and considered escaping Mount Shu to the mortal realm, to find a beautiful place with clear waters and lush mountains, and live the life she desired, then from this moment on, all those thoughts had died.
She will definitely kill Duan Lansheng, even if the price is mutual destruction in the flames.
If Duan Lansheng couldn't empathize with her pain, she would do it in another way, by making him feel the pain from a different perspective.
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