"The prison's ventilation shaft reeked of rotten medicine."
Hearing this, Gu Qinghe immediately poured a Detoxification Pill from her sleeve and handed it to Li Sanshun.
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"Keep it under your tongue. Whatever you do, don't swallow it. Once Corpse-Bone Water mixes with corpse fumes, breathing it into your lungs will damage your meridians. Your cultivation is shallow. If you can't take it, retreat immediately. Don't try to tough it out."
Li Sanshun took the pill, but didn't put it in his mouth right away.
His system relied on his breathing to identify air quality and the components of different scents. If the pill's medicinal aroma covered up the original smell, he wouldn't be able to distinguish the scents inside accurately.
"I'll take a look first." Li Sanshun pinched the Detoxification Pill in his palm, bent down, and crawled into the ventilation shaft.
The shaft was extremely narrow, barely wide enough for an adult to crawl through while hunched over. Its stone walls were cold and damp, and the airflow was poor.
Holding an illumination pearl, Gu Qinghe followed behind him. Its dim light revealed several distinct drag marks on the stone floor, with dark red medicinal stains stretching farther into the passage.
Li Sanshun took a deep breath of the air inside.
A powerful stench rushed into his nostrils, churning his stomach so violently he nearly threw up.
[You have inhaled a mouthful of low-grade corpse rot.]
[Air quality: Poor.]
[Life energy increased by 0.01 points.]
[Detected scent components: Corpse-Bone Water, Breath-Closing Powder, and trace amounts of a living person's residual scent.]
The system's notification rang in his mind.
Li Sanshun's eyes flickered. Breath-Closing Powder? It was a potent drug that could induce a state of suspended animation. After taking it, even one's heartbeat and breathing would slow to almost nothing. If Zhao Chong had really taken Breath-Closing Powder, his life token would have gone dark for a short time, and the guards would naturally have assumed he was dead.
He continued crawling forward. The farther he went, the more clearly the system analyzed the scent, though it gave him no more life energy.
The corpse rot here wasn't a single scent, but a mixture of two. One was the old smell lingering on the corpse bags. The other belonged to a body that had truly died only recently.
After crawling for about the time it took to burn half an incense stick, they reached a movable blue-gray stone slab at the end of the shaft.
Gu Qinghe stepped forward and shoved the slab up with all her might. A wind, colder than the air in the passage, blew over them. The two crawled out and dropped into a spacious underground stone chamber.
This was the underground Corpse Room where the Law Enforcement Hall stored bodies awaiting disposal.
Rows of massive wooden corpse cabinets lined three of the stone chamber's walls. Each cabinet door bore a wooden plaque with its corresponding number.
Holding the illumination pearl, Gu Qinghe hurried to the corner.
"Cabinet Number Fifteen isn't shut all the way." She pointed to half a shoeprint stained with dark red medicine beneath the door.
She drew the short sword at her waist and used its scabbard to push open Cabinet Number Fifteen.
Inside was a black corpse bag, its mouth gaping open. Gu Qinghe prodded it with her scabbard, her brow furrowed. "The bag's empty."
Li Sanshun leaned in for a look. The mouth of the corpse bag was stained with the blood Zhao Chong had spat up, but the bottom was spotless. There were none of the oil or water stains that seeped out of a real decomposing corpse.
"Looks like Zhao Chong's still alive," Li Sanshun said, calmly piecing it together. "Someone fed him Breath-Closing Powder to fake his death. Then they used a counterfeit Law Enforcement Token to open his cell, stuffed him into a corpse bag, and dragged him here through the ventilation shaft, passing him off as a corpse."
"But the corpse cart only leaves once it's carrying a full load." Gu Qinghe looked at the cabinets around them. "The death records from the Corpse Room show four prisoners died last night."
"Check the other cabinets. Since Zhao Chong took up one of the corpse bags, the body that was supposed to be carried out must still be here," Li Sanshun said.
Gu Qinghe immediately went to the record desk and opened the register of condemned prisoners who had died the previous night.
"Four people died last night. Their bodies were placed in Cabinets Two, Six, Nine, and Twelve. At noon, the servant disciples were supposed to load them onto a cart and take them to the cremation pit outside Medicine Peak."
She turned and headed for the four cabinets.
Cabinet Two opened to reveal the body of an old man.
Cabinet Six was just as unremarkable.
Cabinet Twelve was full as well.
When Gu Qinghe opened Cabinet Nine, both their gazes sharpened.
Inside the wide wooden cabinet lay only a prison uniform soaked in black blood. A thin layer of Corpse-Bone Water covered the bottom. The body had vanished.
"Who was originally in Cabinet Nine?" Li Sanshun asked.
Gu Qinghe looked down at the register. "The condemned prisoner was named Ma Quan. He was at the sixth level of Qi Refining and had been imprisoned for selling poisonous pills. The register says he died from poisoning last night, his body covered in pus-filled sores. The examiner specifically noted that his bag should not be opened for reinspection."
Li Sanshun understood it all.
"What a clever switcheroo," Li Sanshun sneered.
"The people handling the bodies put Zhao Chong in Ma Quan's corpse bag. With the note saying 'do not open for inspection,' no one would know whether the bag held Ma Quan, covered in pus-filled sores, as long as they didn't untie it. Then they secretly hid Ma Quan's body in Cabinet Fifteen and poured Corpse-Bone Water over it to dissolve it."
Gu Qinghe followed his train of thought.
"That way, the corpse cart could carry off four 'bodies' as usual. Once it was outside the Law Enforcement Peak's array, Zhao Chong could crawl out of the bag and escape without anyone knowing."
"Who drove the corpse cart last night?"
"A servant disciple named Sun Erhe."
Gu Qinghe immediately checked the entry and exit records for Law Enforcement Peak. "He's been at Law Enforcement Peak for nine years, handling this dirty work. After the shift change last night, he drove the corpse cart out of the peak. He hasn't returned yet."
"Where's the cart now?"
"The records say it went to the cremation pit at Medicine Peak. Come on, let's find the cart outside the crematorium!"
The two wasted no time. They hurried up the stone steps and returned to the surface.
Night lay heavy over the world. Several unused wooden carts were parked in a side courtyard of the Law Enforcement Hall. Gu Qinghe called over the disciple on duty, and they quickly identified the corpse cart Sun Erhe had driven out the previous night.
The cart had clearly been washed. Its boards were spotless.
But Li Sanshun crouched down and reached for the axle beneath the cart.
In the deepest crevice of the axle was a small clump of dirt that hadn't been washed away. It was an eerie grayish white.
Li Sanshun pinched off a little and smelled it. It lacked the smoky, burnt-ash scent of the cremation pit at Medicine Peak. Instead, it carried the sour smell of old medicinal dregs.
"This isn't soil from the cremation pit," Li Sanshun said with certainty.
Gu Qinghe crouched and rubbed the grayish-white dirt between her fingertips. As it crumbled, several tiny black root fragments emerged from within.
Her expression changed.
"White Sand Soil mixed with bits of medicinal roots..." She shot to her feet, staring intently at the residue on her fingers. "This is soil from the abandoned Herb Garden on North Mountain!"
"The abandoned Herb Garden?" Li Sanshun stood up.
"Yes. Fifteen years ago, the sect planted Corpse-Bone Vines on a large scale on North Mountain. Later, the medicinal waste was handled improperly, and the soil became so toxic that nothing would grow. The sect sealed off the entire Herb Garden. Normally, even the disciples on patrol wouldn't go near it."
Li Sanshun's thoughts raced.
It had been fifteen days since the Scripture Library case. The number on the counterfeit token was fifteen, and the portrait was number fifteen.
And there were only two days left until the next fifteenth day.
"They hid Zhao Chong in the abandoned Herb Garden?" A glint flashed in Li Sanshun's eyes. "It's sparsely visited, and old arrays conceal it. It's certainly a good place to hide someone. They must've planned to keep Zhao Chong there for two days, then find a way to smuggle him out of the sect when the next fifteenth day arrived."
"Oh no!"
Gu Qinghe suddenly cried out. She didn't respond to Li Sanshun. Instead, she abruptly pulled a thick booklet of sect administrative notices from her Storage Bag and quickly flipped through it.
"What is it?" Li Sanshun asked, alarmed by her expression.
Gu Qinghe pressed her finger hard against the latest page of the notice. Her face was pale, and barely contained urgency threaded her voice.
"Last month, the main peak ordered that North Mountain's spirit fields be reopened. To clear the toxins from the soil, Medicine Peak has already issued an order to burn it."
She raised her head toward North Mountain and clenched the notice in her hand.
"Li Sanshun, the accumulated rotten medicine and waste soil in the abandoned Herb Garden... they're going to burn it all tonight, at midnight!"
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