evil Dead
"You said the magistrate's wife might be dead?"
"yes."
Mo Yu recalled what happened last night. At three quarters past midnight, he used light skills to enter the backyard of the county magistrate's mansion.
The moonlight on the blue brick ground was like water, but it could not illuminate a single person. Mo Yu sneaked along the corridor and was surprised. How could the wife of a county magistrate not even have a maid to keep watch at night?
Seven mahogany stakes were nailed to the window frames of the east wing, sealing all the entrances and exits of the room tightly and airtight.
There is indeed something strange, Mo Yu thought to himself.
Frost formed on his fingertips as he gently pulled out the nail, pried off a piece of wood, and melted a small hole in the window paper. In the dark room, he saw iron chains as thick as bowls extending from the bed to the four beams. A woman in white was curled up in the middle of the chains.
Moonlight squeezed into the gap, just illuminating half of the woman's face. Under her pale skin, spider-web-like black lines were spreading upwards from the collar, crawling over her jaw, and wriggling towards the corners of her eyes like a living thing.
He was just pondering the cause of this strange illness when his ear suddenly moved and there was no heartbeat in the room.
A chill ran down my spine. The county magistrate's wife had actually been dead for a long time.
He touched the window frame with his fingertips. The peach wood stakes were nailed tightly together. If he tried to forcibly dismantle them, it would alert the secret sentries in the mansion. Mo Yu sighed silently and gently pushed the loosened wooden board back to its original place.
Mo Yu finished his recollection. Ruan Yunsheng unconsciously stroked the edge of the teacup with her fingertips. She remembered that when she sneaked into the Prime Minister's Mansion, she wore an invisibility cloak and sneaked into the room without attracting the attention of any guard. However, Mo Yu who had just entered the room directly exposed her.
So this time he said that a person is dead and that person is dead, there is no mistake.
"Sir," Mo Yu spoke again, "How about I bring the magistrate here for questioning?"
"No need." Wen Ciyuan raised his hand to interrupt, his dark robe sleeves gleaming coldly under the lamplight. "I'm afraid this matter is more complicated than that. I'll go there myself."
Ruan Yunsheng immediately grabbed his wrist and said, "I'll go too."
Wen Ciyuan lowered his eyes to look at her: "Haven't you learned your lesson from last night?"
"Aren't you here?" Ruan Yunsheng raised his chin confidently, "You only said that you couldn't let me go alone, but you didn't say I couldn't go with you."
Wen Ciyuan was choked and speechless. He could only fasten the hood of her cloak and said, "Follow me closely."
As soon as the two of them walked out of the mansion, they ran into Shen Yunzhou squatting on the stone steps, stuffing the third meat bun into his mouth.
Seeing that they were in a hurry, he called them vaguely: "Want some breakfast? The chef in this county magistrate's office is pretty good..."
Wen Ciyuan interrupted: "Do you know where the county magistrate is going?"
"It seems they're going to the charity cemetery." Shen Yunzhou swallowed his bun with great effort. "They said they're going to burn corpses for epidemic prevention... Hey, where are you going?"
Seeing the two of them walking away without looking back, Shen Yunzhou stamped his feet anxiously: "You really don't understand how to maintain your health! Not eating in the morning is the worst for your stomach..."
Unable to suppress his curiosity, he trotted after him. Then he remembered something and grabbed the remaining buns from the steamer and put them in his arms, shouting, "Wait for me!"
The morning mist was like a veil, and several carriages were galloping on the official road. Mo Yu suddenly pulled the reins hard, and the horses' front hooves rose into the air and neighed, and the carriages shook violently.
"What's the matter?" Wen Ciyuan lifted the car curtain.
Mo Yu pointed to the middle of the road: "There's a dead man lying across the road."
Shen Yunzhou jumped out of the car, covered his mouth and nose with a cloth soaked in medicinal wine, and squatted down to check.
The corpse's face was dark blue, his neck was covered with spider-web-like blood lines, and the cracks between his nails were filled with dirt.
"He died of the plague," he added, looking up, "but he died within three hours."
Ruan Yunsheng frowned: "Aren't all the patients moved to the Tzu Chi Hospital?"
"Maybe they're the ones who slipped through the net." Shen Yunzhou sighed as he rubbed his hands with liquor. "The epidemic is spreading too fast. It's inevitable that some people are hiding at home waiting to die..."
Wen Ciyuan glanced at the body and said, "Put him on the baggage cart and transport him to the charity cemetery for unified disposal."
When Mo Yu and Shen Yunzhou were working together to move the corpse, there was a sudden "click" sound, and the right arm of the corpse was bent at a strange angle.
Shen Yunzhou suppressed his nausea and said, "I should have skipped breakfast..."
As they entered the main carriage, Ruan Yunsheng suddenly twitched his nose: "Do you smell it? It smells like... rotten meat mixed with sandalwood."
No one noticed when the curtains swayed—
The fingers of the "corpse" on the supply cart twitched slightly.
As soon as the carriage stopped in front of the stone steps of the charity cemetery, the stench of burnt corpses made it impossible to open one's eyes.
Three bonfires twisted and rose on the grass. The yamen runners used wooden pitchforks to pick up the corpses wrapped in straw mats and threw them into the sea of fire. The crackling sound of burning flesh was like evil spirits chewing bones.
Shen Yunzhou recognized the old woman in the blue cloth shirt in the fire at a glance. She was holding his hand and entrusting him with household affairs at the Tzu Chi Institute yesterday, but now she had turned into charcoal.
He sighed, "This County Magistrate Liu is resolute and decisive, and he should be held accountable..."
Before he finished speaking, Liu Changxing saw Wen Ciyuan, stumbling towards him with his official robe in hand: "Prime Minister! Why are you here? This place is filthy--"
His voice stopped abruptly and his pupils shrank suddenly.
Wen Ciyuan smelled the stench of decay almost at the same time! He grabbed Ruan Yunsheng and quickly retreated three steps. A dark shadow brushed past Ruan Yunsheng's hairpin, and with a "swish" sound, it tore off half of her sleeve.
The "corpse" that was supposed to be lying on the supply cart now stood in the morning mist, its eyes were blood red, its pupil-less eyeballs were moving mechanically, and its black nails were dripping with sticky black liquid.
"How did he survive?!"
“Ho…ho…”
A bubbling sound welled up in the monster's throat as it suddenly leaped towards Ruan Yunsheng! Wen Ciyuan unsheathed his sword to block, but the collision of the corpse's claws and the blade sent a burst of blue-green sparks flying.
Mo Yu grabbed the hemp rope beside him and wrapped it around the waist of the corpse, but was dragged several feet by the monster's brute force, and the soles of his boots scratched deep marks on the bluestone slabs.
During the stalemate, the corpse suddenly raised its head and roared, and black blood spurted out of its mouth!
Wen Ciyuan turned around and protected Ruan Yunsheng in his arms. At the moment when the black blood splattered, his right leg swept out like lightning and hit the corpse in the chest.
There was a loud "crack" sound of bones breaking, and the burly corpse flew backwards like a kite with a broken string, breaking three columns in succession, and finally smashing through the brick wall of the charity cemetery, splashing dust all over the rubble.
Wen Ciyuan stared at his legs in a daze. Did he use so much force just now?
Seeing that the monster was about to stand up, Wen Ciyuan and Mo Yu attacked it from both sides, and the hemp rope wrapped around the neck of the corpse like a dragon.
The monster struggled frantically, and the rope that bound the corpse cut deeply into its flesh, making a creaking sound like sawing wood. It was not until Mo Yu wrapped the end of the rope around the stone pillar seven times and made a knot that the monster could no longer break free that it gradually calmed down.
Shen Yunzhou, who had been hiding nearby, crawled out of the haystack when he saw the situation had calmed down. He trembled as he approached the monster, but was immediately frightened by its bared teeth. He immediately shrank his head and rolled and crawled to hide behind Wen Ciyuan: "What the hell is this thing!"
Wen Ciyuan pressed the tip of his sword against Liu Changxing's neck: "I'm sure County Magistrate Liu knows this."
"I don't know!" Liu Changxing's legs were shaking like sieves. "This must be the work of an evil spirit..."
Ruan Yunsheng suddenly spoke up, "Since you don't know, why is that lady chained in the room?" She slowly approached, her gaze sharp as a knife. "Could it be that she has become like this too?"
Liu Changxing's face suddenly changed, cold sweat soaked his official robe. He didn't understand why they knew about this, as he had clearly hidden it very well.
There was no need for him to answer, Ruan Yunsheng had already gotten the answer from those frightened eyes. She looked around at the piles of burning corpses, and her mind suddenly became clear. She thought that Liu Changxing must have known that people would turn into these monsters after death, so he hurriedly burned all the corpses early in the morning.
"Lord Liu," Ruan Yunsheng's voice was like a silver needle tempered with ice, piercing the scorched and foul air in the charity cemetery. "Do you really not know the source of this plague?"
Seeing that the man refused to obey, Wen Ciyuan gave a wink, and Mo Yu stepped forward. With a flash of silver light, a finger fell on the grass.
Liu Changxing screamed in agony as he collapsed in a pool of blood. His severed fingers were a bloody mess. He trembled as he hid his injured hand in his official robes: "Your humble servant... I really don't know! This is a natural disaster, beyond human control..."
Wen Ciyuan gave a look, and Mo Yu's blade came up again, cutting more slowly this time. The tip of the knife first rolled over the nail, making a teeth-grinding scraping sound, before he suddenly chopped off the second finger.
Liu Changxing's scream was stuck in his throat, filled with pain: "Wen Ciyuan! You are abusing lynching!"
Mo Yu expressionlessly changed to a dagger as thin as a cicada's wing. This time he pinched Liu Changxing's middle finger, cut the tip of the knife through the gap between the fingers, and slowly peeled off the skin and flesh like peeling bark.
Blood dripped along the blue veins, and Liu Changxing watched his finger bones exposed to the air. The white noise of the dagger scraping his bones made his whole body spasm, and beads of sweat the size of beans flowed from his forehead.
“I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you!!”
When the tip of the knife began to pry at the joints, Liu Changxing finally broke down: "It's Lin's Pharmacy! Lin's in the south of the city!"
He collapsed to the ground, twitching like a fish out of water. "Some time ago, they launched a new medicine, claiming it could cure all diseases. People were eating it well, but not long after, they started vomiting. Once they're tormented by the disease, they'll... they'll become like this."
Sweat and incontinent urine mixed with the blood, forming a pool of dirt.
Wen Ciyuan got the answer and signaled Mo Yu to trap the people and stuff them into the carriage, and then head towards Lin's Pharmacy.
At this moment, spider webs were hanging in Lin's Pharmacy, medicine cabinets were overturned on the ground, and broken pottery jars and dried medicine residues were mixed in the thick dust.
Murong Mo sat alone on a crooked cypress examination table, fiddling with a yellowed pulse pillow with his fingertips.
Seeing Wen Ciyuan and his group barge in, he raised his eyebrows with just the right amount of surprise: "Prime Minister, you are in such a hurry, but has the epidemic situation changed?"
Wen Ciyuan's eyes swept over the rat-gnawed medicinal material account book in the corner. "Your Highness Prince Yong, you seem to have some free time, reminiscing about the past in this abandoned medicine shop?"
“Shame on you.”
Murong Mo put down the pulse pillow with a wry smile. "The herbs I brought with me ran out last night. Remembering that Lin Ji was once the largest pharmacy in Northern Xinjiang, I wanted to see if there were any left."
He lifted his sleeve to brush away the spider silk hanging from the beam, "Who knew it would be so dilapidated, with nothing left."
Wen Ciyuan's boot soles crushed over a pile of insect-eaten prescriptions: "I feel that this place doesn't look like a place that contains herbs that can save lives, but rather a place that contains poison that can harm people."
Murong Mo's pupils shrank slightly: "Why do you say that, Prime Minister?"
When Wen Ciyuan told Liu Changxing's confession, Murong Mo's face suddenly changed. He slammed the table and scolded: "These beasts! They actually used fake medicine to harm the people!"
Sighs echoed in the deserted pharmacy: "So the so-called plague is actually a man-made poison disaster."
Then he suddenly thought of something and waved his hands excitedly, "Since they created this poison, there must be an antidote. Someone, search for me!"
"No need." Wen Ciyuan held down his wrist. "If there really was an antidote, how could it have developed to this point today?"
Murong Mo was dejected and silent for a long time. Suddenly, he pushed his wheelchair and walked out. "Now that we know the poison mechanism, the Imperial Hospital may be able to crack it. I will inform them immediately. Don't give up until the last moment."
Wen Ciyuan stared at the figure disappearing at the end of the long street. The shadow of the eaves fell into his eyes, condensing into an indissoluble ink color.
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