Gu Estate's main hall.
Kong Chaosheng glared furiously at Ning Ye. "How can you be certain Gu Yanping wasn't burned by demonic fire?"
Ning Ye answered unhurriedly, "Because Gu Yanping's teeth and bones are still there."
"What do you mean?"
"Demonic fire burns flesh and melts bone. Its destructive power is immense. Though Gu Yanping's teeth were blackened, they remained completely intact. True demonic fire would never leave them like this."
Lv Yi cried, "It could also be because the culprit's cultivation wasn't up to par!"
Ning Ye nodded. "Insufficient cultivation might indeed make that impossible. But if their cultivation was inadequate, how could they make the demonic fire burn entirely from within? I have already examined Gu Yanping's body. The fire began inside him—that much is certain—and it started from the mid-origin region. That requires an exceptionally sophisticated technique. Someone capable of such a method could not possibly leave the teeth and bones wholly unharmed. Even if they could not melt them away completely, they could at least destroy part of them. Yet now, they have merely been blackened."
Kong Chaosheng clenched his fist. "Then what do you think it was?"
"Inner Fire Powder," Ning Ye replied. "It is originally an auxiliary medicinal pill for those cultivating fire-element techniques. Taking it generates internal fire, and guiding it with spiritual power can aid fire-element arts. It is not poison. But Gu Yanping was not a cultivator. To him, Inner Fire Powder was equivalent to poison. His inner fire ignited on its own, with no way to dispel it, producing an effect similar to demonic fire burning the body."
The concubine, Lin Ruo'er, was trembling all over as well. "Then what makes you so sure it happened at the Hour of the Pig yesterday? What makes you think I did it?