A quarter of an hour later.
"My lord, we've gotten the full story."
"The suspect's full name is Ma Yizhen. He became Hongyuan Zhenren's disciple at fourteen and has now studied under him for nine years."
"Because he relied on being Hongyuan Zhenren's eldest disciple and his nephew, he was usually overbearing and treated his junior brothers like servants. He was therefore deeply unpopular."
"The two Taoists traveling with him were Hongyuan Zhenren's third disciple, Zhao Yixiong, and fifth disciple, Liu Yiwei."
"Zhao Yixiong was Hongyuan Zhenren's most outstanding disciple. Hongyuan Zhenren had said several times that Zhao Yixiong would surely inherit his teachings someday."
"For that very reason, Zhao Yixiong and Ma Yizhen had always been on bad terms—one might even say they were irreconcilable."
"Liu Yiwei was Hongyuan Zhenren's clansman-nephew. Because of that connection, both Ma Yizhen and Zhao Yixiong treated him differently."
"However, Liu Yiwei was dull and rigid by nature. Other than devoting himself wholeheartedly to serving Hongyuan Zhenren, he was cold toward everyone else, so his relationships with both men were fairly ordinary."
"Ma Yizhen was tall and powerfully built; Zhao Yixiong was of average height; Liu Yiwei was short, dark, and thin."
Though he considered it unlikely that all three had acted together to murder Madam Ma, Sun Shaozong still ordered Huang Bin to verify their respective relationships with the other Taoists.
But judging from the results of the investigation, unless those Taoists—including some of the young acolytes—had all lied in concert, these three were practically a whole Romance of the Three Kingdoms unto themselves!
If anyone claimed they could work together in perfect harmony to cover for Ma Yizhen sneaking into the capital and killing Madam Ma, Ma Yizhen himself probably would not believe it!
As for the theory that all three had