The morning mist of the beginning of autumn filled the clay figurine shop. Tang Ren was holding the "꺶Afu" he had just bought, and his nose twitched suddenly: "Why does this clay figurine have a fishy smell?" Su Chen took the clay figurine and tapped it lightly, and a crisp sound of broken bones colliding came from the hollow abdomen.

The old master's face changed suddenly: "This is the clay figure made by the dumb girl Ah Xiu who disappeared the day before yesterday!" Qin Feng used a silver hairpin to pry open the seal on the back of the clay figure, and half a bloody fingernail was mixed in the blue-gray clay.

Following the source of the clay to the abandoned kiln, the collapsed dragon kiln was covered with vines. When Tang Ren swung his sickle to clear the way, sparks suddenly flew from the blade - the kiln bricks buried in the soil were left with claw marks with teeth, which were exactly the same as the traces of the ancient kiln in Shushan.

"This, this is the fragment of the box!" Qin Feng picked up the broken pieces of celadon from the thorn bush. Su Chen dipped the broken pieces into the mountain spring, and suddenly oil appeared on the surface of the water, reflecting the image of the Big Dipper. Tang Ren pulled away the duckweed, and at the bottom of the pool were twenty pottery figurines covered in mud.

Heavy rain washed the Taihu stones in the garden, and Su Chen stood in front of the "Nine Lions Terrace". Tang Ren pointed at the cracks in the stone and said, "The color of the moss is wrong!" Qin Feng scraped off the moss, and the ink underneath turned out to be the remains of "The Record of Lacquer" written in fish glue.

Suddenly, children's songs were heard in the corridor. When the people chased to the "Bayin Bridge", twenty wet clay figures were stuck in the gap between the rocks. Tang Ren picked up a clay figure, and his palm suddenly felt a sharp pain - a half-inch long bamboo needle was inserted into the ear hole of the clay figure, and the tail of the needle was engraved with the Suzhou code "seven".

The overnight moored barge smelled of lacquer, and when Su Chen lifted the awning, he saw twenty lacquer boxes glowing bloody in the moonlight. Tang Ren pried open the lids of the boxes with a dagger, and inside were neatly stacked earrings with tooth marks - exactly the same as the evidence in the Xiu Niang case.

"This, this is the base material of Yangzhou lacquer sandstone!" Qin Feng wiped the lacquer paste that splashed on his face. The ship suddenly tilted, and the whole box of lacquer boxes slid into the canal. Su Chen grabbed the lacquer box that was about to fall into the water. The bottom of the box was engraved with the inscription "The 20th Year of Guangxu" in gold.

On the day of Cold Dew, a scream rang out in Huishan Academy. When Su Chen rushed into the library, the headmaster was lying in a pool of blood, holding a half-painted sandstone inkstone tightly in his hand. Tang Ren pried open the dead man's fingers, and a scroll of "Clay Figure Book" popped out from the secret compartment of the inkstone, with bloody ants crawling on the yellowed pages.

"At 5 p.m., the eyes of the clay statues will be painted." Qin Feng recited the incantation on the last page and suddenly pointed outside the window. Twenty faceless clay figures stood on the eaves. The heads that slowly turned in the rain coincided with the faces of the clay sculpture family that had been wiped out ten years ago.

In the sound of evening drums, Su Chen filled the eye sockets of the last clay figurine with cinnabar. The moment the clay figurine burst, the Lake Viewing Pavilion on the top of Huishan suddenly collapsed, revealing a bronze box hidden in a pillar. On the cover of the "Heavenly Manuscript" in the box, the word "Cheng" was branded in blood.

On the glazed tiles of the Xiangzhou boat in the autumn rain, Su Chen unfolded the "Heavenly Manuscript" from the bronze box. Half a mulberry leaf suddenly fell between the yellowed pages, and the veins of the leaf gradually became visible in the rain - it turned out to be a map of the alleys of Wuqianfang inside the gate.

"The vein patterns on the leaves..." Su Chen spread the mulberry leaves on the bluestone table in the garden, "the brushwork is exactly the same as that of Shen Zhou's "Dongzhuang Tu"." Tang Ren came closer while chewing sweet-scented osmanthus candied lotus root. The candy threads stuck to the leaf surface, and suddenly bloody fingerprints appeared.

Qin Feng suddenly pulled the two men down to squat. A poisoned sleeve arrow was nailed to the pillar, and a silk handkerchief was tied to the tail of the arrow. The handkerchief was embroidered with gold thread and the eight characters "Heaven opens things, blood debts must be paid with blood" were embroidered on it. Tang Ren pulled out the sleeve arrow and exclaimed: "The arrow shaft is made of clay from Huishan clay figurines!"

Moss grew in the cracks of the bluestone slabs, and Su Chen walked through the alley counting the house numbers. Tang Ren kicked a bamboo dustpan, and the silkworm cocoon that rolled out suddenly burst, and the white moths fluttered around to form the shape of the Big Dipper. Qin Feng used a torch to shine at the base of the wall, and under the newly pasted paper ash was half a brick with jagged marks.

"The gate was rebuilt in the year of Bingshen..." Su Chen touched the brick inscription, thinking. Water suddenly poured down from the second-floor window, and Tang Ren knocked open a door panel when he retreated. The hanging suxiu in the house fluttered in the draft, and the eyes of the twenty koi were all gouged out and replaced with pearls with the letter Q.

The withered lotus leaves beside the Ruyu Pavilion spun, and Su Chen squatted in front of the stone railing. Fragments of celadon were hidden in the mud at the bottom of the pond, and Qin Feng raised a string of bubbles when he scooped them up with a bamboo basket - there was actually a complete secret-color porcelain urn under the water, with a faded "Yongchang" seal on the mouth of the urn.

"This, this is a pawn shop where someone pretends to be dead..." Before Qin Feng finished speaking, Tang Ren had already dived into the pond. He pulled open the duckweed at the mouth of the jar and found a skeleton curled up inside, with a gilded shrimp whisker bracelet on the wrist bone - exactly the same as the remains of Xiu Niang who disappeared ten years ago.

The copper bell at the corner of the pavilion rang, and twenty red carps suddenly turned upside down and floated up. Su Chen cut open the fish's bellies and found a jade bead with tooth marks in each, and a pattern resembling Taihu Lake stone patterns appeared on the stone table.

The sound of metal clashing came from deep in the rockery. Su Chen held up a lantern to illuminate the stone cave. Tang Ren touched the back of his head and muttered, "This pattern looks very familiar..." Qin Feng scratched the moss with a silver hairpin, revealing the chisel marks of "Guangxu Bingshen": "The same year as the Shushan Kiln Stele!"

The man followed the engraved marks and squeezed into the cracks in the stone. Fine sand suddenly fell from the cave ceiling. Su Chen used the "Heavenly Book" to block the sand. Dark patterns appeared between the oil-stained pages - it turned out to be a map of the secret passage of Huanxiu Villa. Tang Ren kicked away the loose lake stones. Twenty bronze candlesticks were placed in a seven-star formation, and the lamp oil was emitting the unique blue-gray color of corpse wax.

"Be careful of the fire!" Qin Feng just shouted, Tang Ren had already lit the candlestick. The moment the flames rose, the whole rockery rumbled and turned, trapping them in a stone chamber about ten feet square.

Water droplets with a smell of iron oozed out of the stone wall, and Su Chen dipped his hands in water to write on the cover of the "Genesis". The cinnabar "承" character opened when it came into contact with water, revealing the hexagram of the door nails. Tang Ren hammered on the stone wall according to the hexagram, and the moment the secret door opened, twenty black shadows jumped out from behind the Taihu stone.

"It's you!" Su Chen waved his sleeves and threw out the brocade jade beads, the light of the beads reflected the shrimp whisker bracelet on the wrist. The old man in the lead tore open the dough, and it turned out to be the old master of Huishan Clay Figurine Workshop: "Mr. Su, since you know 'Chengtian 꺲', why bother to investigate?"

During the struggle, the "Legacy" fell into the deep pool, and Su Chen jumped into the water. The bluestone slab at the bottom of the pool was engraved with a locked star map, and he inserted twenty jade beads into the grooves. When the mechanism was started, the bricks of the entire villa turned over, revealing the bricks fired during the Jiajing period - each of which was printed with the bloody "Heavenly Inheritance".

Morning mist filled the waterside pavilion, Su Chen placed the shrimp whiskers on the stone table. Tang Ren chewed the freshly cooked plum blossom cake and muttered: "Is this broken whisker worth risking my life for?" Qin Feng suddenly pointed to the surface of the pond - the eaves and brackets reflected in the ripples were spelling out the new word "Cheng".