Knowing he was making excuses, as long as the excuses weren’t completely untenable and someone was “willing” to take the blame, there was nothing that could be done about him!

Just like those “rich idlers”, even if you knew it was them, without solid evidence, it was difficult to pull them down from their high positions.

Bai Zhu and Liu Yuan looked at Jiang Chengzhu, who was being pressed to the ground. Facing his excuses, their expressions were cold, but they showed no sign of urgency: “Does Young Master Jiang think we have no evidence?”

The wind blew into the lantern shop from outside, making the lanterns inside sway. Liu Yuan looked up at the lanterns swaying all over the shop and gave Jiang Chengzhu, whose face was pale, a smile: “The evidence… isn’t it right in front of us?”

…

…

The wind blew, and the exquisite octagonal palace lantern in his hand swayed slightly. The beauty on the lantern looked this way, her expression sorrowful!

Lin Fei looked down at the beauty lantern in his hand, then looked back at the similar beauty lanterns in the hands of the constables behind him for a moment.

This was the prize offered by the Thousand Lanterns Shop at the Mid-Autumn Festival. The lantern in his hand belonged to the Dali Temple, and the lanterns in the constable’s hands were also prizes won that day.

The remaining lanterns were all “borrowed” by the Dali Temple.

Dozens of exquisitely beautiful lanterns hung from the beams of the Dali Temple, swaying in the wind. Zhao Mengzhuo, who had received the news and hurriedly ended his visit to his friends to return to the Dali Temple ahead of time, was startled: the beauties on the swaying lanterns wore different dresses, had different hairstyles, different movements, and different expressions, but their faces… were all exactly the same!

The Jiang family members and their guards in the Jiang family mansion of the Thousand Lanterns Shop had all been subdued. Lin Fei, carrying the beauty lantern, walked into the ancestral hall of the Jiang family mansion!

The ancestral tablets of the Jiang family filled the entire wall of the ancestral hall, and a stone tablet stood beside the tablet wall, like a screen blocking the way in front of the ancestral tablets.

The stone tablet was inscribed with the Rebirth Mantra.

After examining the Rebirth Mantra on the stone screen for a moment, Lin Fei reached out and touched the few inscriptions on the screen that had become somewhat blurred from being worn.

With a click of a mechanism opening and closing, the wall of ancestral tablets for the Jiang family, covering the entire wall, slowly rotated open like a hidden door.

As the hidden door spun completely to the side, a passageway filled with ever-burning lamps appeared before them.

Even though it was broad daylight, even though they were on the ground, looking at the passageway filled with ever-burning lamps, the blood-like talismans drawn on the dark stone walls, and the enormous stone coffin at the end of the passageway, everyone felt as if they were standing before an underground mausoleum. A chill, inexplicable, rose from the soles of their feet and spread throughout their bodies.

“Young Master Lin!” a constable behind him called out to Lin Fei.

Although the sight sent chills down his spine, a hidden joy welled up within him: the efforts of the past few days had not been in vain; the true evidence might lie within the stone coffin at the end of that passage!

Lin Fei nodded and stepped into the corridor filled with ever-burning lamps.

…

…

After taking down all the swaying beauty lanterns overhead and placing them one by one before him, Zhao Mengzhuo’s expression grew increasingly solemn as he looked at the beauties on the lantern faces. He turned to the few remaining officials in the Dali Temple hall and asked, “Who are the women on the lantern faces?”

Zhao Mengzhuo was no fool. Having learned from Lin Fei’s deliberate dismissal, he guessed that this case of the missing young woman was no ordinary one, and the murderer’s identity must be quite extraordinary!

Although he didn’t know much about the details of the case, the fact that the beauties on dozens of lantern faces were all the same person suggested that the most important clue in this case lay there! So, who was this woman?

Wei Fu, who had returned before everyone else, happened to run into Zhao Mengzhuo, who had returned earlier. Upon hearing this, he sighed and stepped forward to reply, “Your Excellency, this woman is Li Yin, a member of the imperial clan who was tragically killed by bandits on her way back to her hometown years ago!”

Although he hadn’t dealt with cases for a long time, Zhao Mengzhuo had still heard of this matter because of Li Yin’s special status. After all, only Li Yin’s family among the imperial clan had suffered such a fate.   

But now, the portrait of this “unlucky” clanswoman Li Yin has appeared on the surface of the beauty lanterns in the Thousand Lantern Shop… Zhao Mengzhuo looked at Wei Fu, who walked in and spoke, his face extremely ugly: “Why did the Thousand Lantern Shop paint Li Yin on it?”

…

At the end of the eternal lamp corridor, in the stone coffin, lay a huge yin-yang stone plate, surrounded by densely drawn talismans.

Underneath the stone plate was a knotted strand of hair, and on the hair was a doll sewn from tattered cloth, on which was written a person’s birth date and time.

The sight sent a chill down the spines of the constables, who turned to Lin Fei, who was looking down at the stone coffin, and asked, “Young Master Lin, what is this?”

“The birth date and time of the Yin year, Yin month, and Yin day,” Lin Fei said, picking up the rag doll and the knotted hair and examining them. “It’s Li Yin’s birth date and time. This is a so-called substitute Yin-Yang plate, used to replace Li Yin!”

The most important reason why Jiang Chengzhu was valued so highly by those people was that Jiang Chengzhu, or rather, the entire Jiang family, shared this interest with them.

“Although the Jiang family works for those people, there’s only one Li Yin, so naturally they don’t get a share!” Lin Fei put down the rag doll and the tangled hair, saying, “So they created a substitute magic array for Li Yin.”

The constable found it both terrifying and inexplicably ridiculous: “Why go to such lengths to find Li Yin and then to ensure she can’t rest in peace even after death?”

Lin Fei looked up at the talismans that resembled ghostly scribbles around them, saying, “They think that trapping a woman like Li Yin, whose birth date and time are so auspicious, here will ensure the Jiang family’s continued prosperity!”

The constable glanced at the chilling magic array, then subconsciously looked outside the ancestral hall.

Everyone in the Jiang family ancestral home had been apprehended, and Jiang Chengzhu at the Thousand Lantern Shop had also been subdued. All members of the Jiang family had been checked; none were missed—all had been captured!

Was this sinister magic array truly effective? Or was it merely a means to satisfy selfish desires, harming others without benefiting oneself?

Thinking of the sickly-looking elderly members of the Jiang family, adorned with images of gods and Buddhas, prayer beads, and talismans, and then of the third young lady of the Yuan family in prison with a jade Guanyin pendant around her neck, the constable found it all rather laughable!

“I heard the Yuan and Jiang families have donated a lot of money to the temples!” the constable couldn’t help but say. “They don’t believe in gods and Buddhas when they commit murder and arson, but when they’re plagued by illness, they pray for divine protection!”

Ultimately, what made them bow down wasn’t the gods and Buddhas, but their own fear and dread of death and disease!

Looking around, besides some sinister incantations, there was nothing else.

There was only a lock of Li Yin’s hair; where…where were Li Yin’s real remains?

Just as he was thinking this, a constable rushed in from outside the ancestral hall, jogging to Lin Fei and saying, “Young Master Lin, the Chang family says they’ve found a strange object.”

(End of Chapter)

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