Xu Xian's Grave

An hour later, Xu Xian sat imposingly in the main seat of the interrogation room inside the Inspectorate.

The wound has been re-bandaged, and a faint red tinge is seeping through the gauze.

Ji Feng sat opposite him, his hands on his knees, trembling even more violently than last time. When he saw that Xu Xian had a bandage wrapped around one shoulder and a bloodstain on his face, he trembled even more violently.

This time, Xu Xian finally gained the upper hand and easily captured Ji Feng and his family.

Xu Xian picked up the teacup, took a sip, and put it down. The porcelain cup tapped on the wooden table, and Ji Feng trembled slightly.

"Lord Ji..."

Xu Xian spoke softly, "You go to that pastry shop in the west of the city every three days, and the pastries you buy contain Gu worms. You feed them to them every three days. How much do you know about this?"

Ji Feng's lips were pale, cold sweat poured down his face, and he gripped the fabric on his knees so tightly that his knuckles turned blue, but he didn't utter a word.

"Not going to say anything?"

Xu Xian tossed an oiled paper package onto the table. The oiled paper unfurled, revealing several pieces of osmanthus cake broken into petals, each containing the corpse of a silver Gu worm in its filling.

The insect was dead, but its tiny, rice-grain-sized carcass was half-exposed and half-buried in the pastry crumbs, enough for the monsoon to see clearly.

Ji Feng glanced at it once before lowering his head, his shoulders trembling.

"This is the bag you bought today; Zhao Bao picked it up from the ground."

Xu Xian then pointed to a porcelain dish next to him, on which was half a packet of old pastries that had been found in Ji Feng's house.

"Those were found on your stove. They must have been leftovers... Two packets of pastries, from the same shop, and from the same type of Gu worm."

He leaned forward slightly. "Who exactly ordered you to tamper with the data entry records?"

Ji Feng continued to shake his head, gritting his teeth and remaining silent.

Xu Xian sneered, not pressing him, and just sat there, slowly tapping his fingers on the table.

A moment later, Lu Jing pushed the door open and came in. He glanced at Ji Feng, walked to Xu Xian's side, and whispered a few words.

Xu Xian nodded, and Lu Jing turned to Ji Feng and said something.

"Lord Ji, the Gu poison in your family members has been controlled by the pharmacists of the Investigation Department. The Gu worms in your son's body have been removed, and the Gu in your wife's body is still being suppressed with medicine, but she is not in any danger to her life."

Ji Feng's pupils contracted sharply, and he abruptly looked up at Lu Jing, "Really?"

"It was made personally by Pharmacist Sun from my Inspection Department. It's a Grade 4 medicine... Your son had a small incision in his chest, and the Gu worm was still alive when it was removed."

Lu Jing placed the medical report on the table and pushed it towards him, saying, "Take a look for yourself."

  

Ji Feng looked down at the medical report, his finger tracing the lines of text one by one. When he reached the names of his son and wife, his hand stopped.

He looked up at Xu Xian, his eyes slightly red.

"seeing is believing..."

Xu Xian stood up and tilted his head towards the door. "Lord Lu, take Lord Ji to the medicine room."

...

The medicine room was filled with the bitter smell of herbs, and Jifeng's wife and children were lying on two beds by the window.

The son had a bandage wrapped around his chest, his breathing was steady, and although his face was still pale, he seemed to be alright.

The lady was sitting on the edge of the bed, her face still a little pale, drinking her medicine from a bowl. When she saw Ji Feng come in, she put down the bowl and reached out her hand to him.

Ji Feng walked to the bedside, his knees buckled and he knelt down, grabbing the lady's hand and pressing his forehead against the back of her hand, trembling uncontrollably.

His wife gently patted him on the head twice.

"The children are here, don't do this."

Jifeng didn't look up, nor did she cry out; she just kept trembling.

After a while, he stood up, wiped his face with the back of his hand, turned around and walked back to the interrogation room to sit down again.

This time, his hands were on the table, and he was no longer trembling.

"The person who instructed me to falsify the treasury records was Sun Huan, the Vice Minister of Revenue!"

"Vice Minister?"

Yang Xu, standing nearby, frowned. "Tsk...who is Sun Huan working for?"

Ji Feng said that Sun Huan was the Fourth Prince's man—the Vice Minister of Revenue was recommended by the Fourth Prince, and everyone in the court knew this.

Every time he went to the pastry shop to buy pastries, the shopkeeper would ask him, "How have you been lately, Lord Ji?" If he said he was well, the shopkeeper would hand him the package of pastries laced with poison.

This is how he has spent the past six months.

In the end, he buried his face in his hands, saying, "I shouldn't have been so afraid of death and dragged so many innocent people into this mess."

Xu Xian understood and compiled Ji Feng's statement into a written document, then had Ji Feng sign each page.

Then he took the confession, along with the confiscated Gu-worm pastries from the pastry shop and the silver powder sample from the post station's cellar, and brought them to Mo Feichang's residence.

Yang Xu followed behind, carrying a bag of old pastries he had found in the store.

After listening to the report, Mo Feichang put down his brush, looked at the few pieces of cake embedded with Gu worms on the table, then looked at the silver powder sample in the cellar of the post station, sighed, picked up his brush and wrote two lines on the poem manuscript.

"Silver powder transforms into poisonous insects, children become prisons, the court is teeming with rats, who will question the heavens?"

Xu Xian glanced down at the poem manuscript, then pushed Ji Feng's statement forward. "Lord Mo, can we use this statement to arrest Sun Huan?"

Mo shook his head vigorously.

"Sun Huan is the Fourth Prince's man, and the Fourth Prince will say that Ji Feng is making baseless accusations—Ji Feng is a convicted criminal, and his testimony doesn't carry enough weight in court..."

"Besides, you don't have direct evidence that Sun Huan used witchcraft on Ji Feng's family, nor do you have evidence that Sun Huan had direct contact with the pastry shop owner. You can't touch the Vice Minister of Revenue with just a confession."

He turned the poem over and drew a few strokes on the back.

"This case has reached the point where we've run into a tough opponent with Sun Huan, and besides, the Emperor favors the Fourth Prince, so..."

"So even if the Fourth Prince is found, the Emperor might not take action, and the matter might simply be dropped!"

Xu Xian continued speaking for him.

Mo glanced at him and nodded slightly.

Yang Xu was somewhat unwilling, "Tsk... so Sun Huan can't move?"

"It's not that I can't move, it's that I can't move temporarily."

Mo Feichang placed the brush on the brush holder. "The tax silver case can be closed. Ji Feng's testimony is enough to expose the Ministry of Revenue's Department of Finance. Let's put the Sun Huan lead aside for now and move on to it when the time is right..."

"It's a shame that the owner of the other dim sum shop wasn't caught. If they could have been investigated, they probably could have implicated even more people."

He suddenly remembered something, turned to look at Xu Xian, and asked, "How's the case of the missing child?"

Just then, Pharmacist Sun walked in carrying a porcelain bottle.

Pharmacist Sun was a fourth-rank pharmacist under the General Inspectorate. He was over fifty years old and thin.

He placed the porcelain bottle on the table; inside was a Gu worm that had just been removed from Yan Jun's body.

The insect, about the size of a grain of rice, slowly wriggled inside the porcelain bottle. Its body was silvery-gray with a very fine dark red stripe on its back.

"Boss Mo, Xu Xiaoqi."

Pharmacist Sun pushed up his glasses, somewhat excited, "The Gu worm in Yan Jun's body has been removed. I studied it for several hours, and it's quite interesting; it's a new product."

Xu picked up the porcelain bottle and held it up to the light. The insect was slowly wriggling at the bottom of the bottle. Its silvery-gray body glowed with a dark red luminescence under the light. The dark red stripe on its back flickered with the insect's movements, as if it were breathing.

He put the porcelain vase down. "What are its characteristics?"

"The insect contains silver, and it is mostly made of silver. After the silver powder is absorbed by the Gu insect, a dark red Gu vein will be formed on the insect's back. The body of a person who is infected with this Gu will be gradually transformed by the Gu insect..."

"The advantage is a surge in qi and blood, which can improve one's physique by several levels; the disadvantage is that one's mind will be slowly devoured by the Gu worms, eventually turning one into a puppet that only obeys the Gu master's commands. It's simply ingenious! I've never heard of such a method before! I never thought that silver could be used to refine Gu!"

Silver Gu?

Xu Xian raised an eyebrow, the image of the Gu worm corpses in the Jingzhou cellar flashing through his mind. So the missing tax silver in the tax silver case is here?

However, this was not the time to study this. He immediately told Mo Feichang and Yang Xu everything that Yan Jun had mentioned last night about the dark house and the many children.

After listening, Mo Feichang's expression turned solemn, and he stood up and said,

"Xu Xian, take Lu Jing and two squads of Black Cavalry Guards, and follow Yan Jun to find the Black House and the child!"

"Yes."

Just as Xu Xian was about to leave, Mo Feichang gave him further instructions.

"Don't let your little sister come here alone again. It's too dangerous for such a young child."

Xu Xian's eyelids twitched. "This subordinate has noted it down."

Danger?

I'm not sure if she's in any danger. What danger could a Golden Body Realm expert possibly be in?

He went out and found Hua Xi, who was squatting in the yard licking a sugar figurine. She had also bought one for the turtle, which was sticking to the turtle's teeth from eating it.

After she came to deliver the message, Mo was very worried that it would be unsafe for the child to go out, so he kept her and even bought her a sugar figurine.

Xu Xian walked over and patted Hua Xi's head.

"Baby...you run very fast and do a great job, but I still need your help with a few things..."

Then he whispered a few words in her ear...

...

Meanwhile, in a dilapidated courtyard, a somewhat hunched man rushed into the main house.

"Young Master, the pastry shop is gone! Where has the Investigation Department gotten to? It really is that Xu Xian!"

"Is it Xu Xian again?"

The handsome young man looked somewhat surprised, wiped his hands with a handkerchief, and said, "The Inspection Department has truly produced a talent..."

The shop owner looked at the man and asked, "Shouldn't we move?"

The man shook his head slightly. "Your Highness means that Xu Xian is too clever, causing trouble time and time again. The Investigation Department doesn't need someone so clever, so this place should become his grave..."

As he spoke, he strode towards the door, looking at the many iron cages.

"Let's test the power of the new Gu while we're at it. Even if we fail, we'll only lose a stronghold and some test subjects. It's a good deal!"