"The poisoner can either restore the victim's sanity and turn them back into an ordinary person or keep them under control for life." Yu Shuang looked at Shen Qingfeng, paused for a moment, and said, "Moreover, for this almost lost technique, there may be only one person left in the whole Southern Xiang Kingdom who knows it."
Shen Qingfeng hurriedly asked, "Who?"
Yu Shuang paused again and said, "The former leader of your subordinate."
The "leader" Yu Shuang mentioned was the founder of the "Trackless" organization in the Southern Xiang Kingdom and also a powerful national teacher in the kingdom. It was said that he was extremely mysterious, with unfathomable martial arts skills and proficient in the art of disguise. He disappeared after the fall of the Southern Xiang Kingdom. To this day, no one in the world has ever seen his true face, and no one knows his real name. Everyone only knows his code name - "Lan".
This mysterious person was said to be well - versed in astronomy, geography, pathology, and pharmacology. As the once - famous leader of Trackless, many countries had dispatched a large amount of manpower and material resources to search for him, but so far, no one or any organization had found even a trace of him.
People in the world all said that no one could find out information about Lan. If someone did, it was only because Lan wanted them to.
Shen Qingfeng was stunned for a moment. After thinking for a while, he said, "So... the person who used the body - nurturing technique on Xiang Cheng should be Lan. Then... if the symptoms of the lead - and - silver water are removed, will there still be traces of it in the human body?"
Yu Shuang said, "People who have undergone the body - nurturing process are inherently poisonous, including their blood, body fluids, sweat, etc. They can no longer be considered normal people."
Shen Qingfeng asked again, "Do you know how to treat it?"
Yu Shuang shook his head and sighed, "Your subordinate is incompetent. There are very few people who have had their bodies nurtured with lead - and - silver water. Your subordinate has only seen it for the first time. It took a long time just to determine that he was poisoned by lead - and - silver water, not to mention treating it... And there is no record in the books about what will remain in the constitution of the body - nurtured person after the madness symptoms of lead - and - silver water are removed. Your subordinate really doesn't know..."
Shen Qingfeng was silent for a moment and reached out to rub his chin.
Actually, by this point in the questioning, he had basically sorted out the whole thing.
In this life, he had met Xiang Cheng one year earlier than in his previous life. In his previous life, Yu Shuang had not discovered the traces of lead - and - silver water on Xiang Cheng when treating him. He had only treated it as an ordinary madness symptom, and Yu Shuang's ordinary treatment methods had indeed taken effect. Although Yu Shuang had said that there was a "poison of unknown origin" on Xiang Cheng, since Xiang Cheng had returned to normal and there was no record in the books, Yu Shuang had never found out what the poison was until the end.
That meant that within this year, Lan had come to Lige City and removed the effects of the lead - and - silver water from Xiang Cheng's body.
So, could it be Lan who had placed Xiang Cheng in the mass grave of the Lu family's army?
What did he want to do? Why did he hide the corpses of the Lu family's army inside the Three Saints Mountain? Did King Xia Jie know about this?
Wait, King Xia Jie?
Shen Qingfeng's breath caught sharply. The image of the sealed door of the mass grave emerged in his mind.
On the dark stone door, soldiers holding weapons were carved at the bottom, while in the middle were a coiling dragon and an image of Xing Tian standing high above.
The unsealed door of the strange tomb, the beast - sacrifice pit inside, the strange evil - suppressing structure of the whole tomb, and the other ventilated exit inside the mass grave that he and Yu Shuang had not had time to explore...
Shen Qingfeng suddenly took a step back. His whole body began to tremble, and he was on the verge of losing his balance. Yu Shuang quickly reached out and steadied him.
Shen Qingfeng covered his chest and gasped heavily. He turned to look at Yu Shuang, his expression showing a panic that Yu Shuang had never seen before. "Yu Shuang, I've found a problem with that tomb."
Yu Shuang was stunned. He could clearly feel Shen Qingfeng's body trembling.
"My lord..."
Shen Qingfeng reached out and made a gesture for silence. He lowered his voice and said, "This is the Marquis of Dingbei's Mansion. Come with me to a place. We'll talk on the way."
-
The place Shen Qingfeng wanted to go was Shifang Zhai. Actually, even before Yu Shuang came to find him, he had already planned to go to Shifang Zhai to find Liu Mei.
After all, he currently didn't have comprehensive information. In order to investigate Qi Shuhuan's motives, since Shifang Zhai made a living by selling information, cooperating with them would naturally yield faster and more accurate information.
Now, Shen Qingfeng was considering whether to also entrust the investigation of Xiang Cheng's matter to Shifang Zhai.
In the carriage, Shen Qingfeng moved closer to the door, separated from Yu Shuang sitting outside the carriage by only a layer of gauze curtain.
"Yu Shuang, do you still remember the structure of that mass grave?" Shen Qingfeng asked softly.
Yu Shuang nodded. Afraid that Shen Qingfeng couldn't see, he answered with an "um" while riding the horse, "I remember."
Shen Qingfeng's voice was still low, "Do you think the structure of that mass grave is very similar to the shape of a gourd?"
Yu Shuang was stunned. After Shen Qingfeng's reminder, he suddenly had an epiphany. From a structural perspective, the tomb only had a large beast - sacrifice pit and a small mass - burial side chamber. There wasn't even a corridor between the two chambers, only a door as a partition. This was completely unprecedented in the tomb - structures of all dynasties.
Shen Qingfeng said, "Think carefully. If we take the mass - burial side chamber as the head of the gourd, where does the mouth of the gourd point?"
Yu Shuang was silent for a while. He took a deep breath and said, "From the structure of the whole mountain, the mouth of the gourd points to the Golden Summit Temple on the Three Saints Mountain."
"Right." There was a strange light in Shen Qingfeng's eyes. "I had previously speculated in the tomb that the other passage was behind the image of Xing Tian. I also speculated that the mass grave was used by King Xia Jie to sacrifice the Lu family's army. But have you ever thought about how the Lu family's army died and how they were secretly transported to Lige City?"
Xiang Cheng was silent.
Shen Qingfeng ignored him. Staring blankly and intently at a certain place inside the carriage, he said to himself, "Yu Shuang, have you ever heard of an ancient sacrificial method called the Gourd Spirit?"
Yu Shuang was shocked all over.
The so - called Gourd Spirit was a long - ago belief among sacrificial sorcerers. They thought that gourds could contain the souls of the dead, and then use these souls for a series of blessing and sacrificial activities. They believed that there was a spiritual fire inside the gourd, and this spiritual fire could burn out the remaining power of the souls and refine it. The more tragically the dead died, the stronger the power of their souls. The souls would be continuously burned inside the gourd, and the pure power obtained from the burning and refining could be used for sacrifices.
This ancient sacrificial method also had a requirement, that is, it must use the souls of those who had died within seven days. The shorter the time since death, the better the refining effect of the souls, and correspondingly, the better the sacrificial effect. So many evil - minded people would choose to kill and refine souls. Because it was extremely cruel, the ancestors of the Li Xia Kingdom had listed the Gourd Spirit sacrifice as a forbidden technique and burned the relevant books to ban it.
"The structure of that mass grave, apart from those deliberately designed to suppress evil, is, on the whole, a huge gourd." Shen Qingfeng said, "The fresher the souls and the more tragically they died, the better the effect of the Gourd Spirit sacrifice... Lu Jiang and his team died by the Yu River. If they wanted to transport more than nine hundred corpses from the Yu River to Lige, how long do you think it would take?"
Yu Shuang understood what Shen Qingfeng meant. Breaking out in cold sweat, he said, "It's impossible to reach in seven days."
If it exceeded seven days, the Gourd Spirit would lose its effect.
That meant that the death of the Lu family's army was, from beginning to end, a trap.
And Lan had played a significant role in enabling this trap to go undetected for even fifteen years.
Shen Qingfeng paused for a moment. Then, he punched the cushion of the carriage with such force that Yu Shuang sitting outside was startled. Shen Qingfeng gritted his teeth so hard that they made a clicking sound, and fierce light shot out from his eyes. "I will definitely find out the truth and make King Xia Jie pay with his life for the Lu family's army!"