Though fear had already crept into their hearts, they could at least keep their composure.
"Search the bodies. See if there are any other useful clues!" "Right!"
The constables carefully searched the remaining eight bodies, examining their weapons and noting distinctive physical features one by one. The money on them had not been touched.
Clearly, though, this did not look like murder for money. It looked more like a feud in the Rivers and Lakes.
Generally speaking, once grudges in the Rivers and Lakes were involved, things became more complicated.
On the one hand, Great Yong officially forbade people of the Rivers and Lakes from acting too recklessly. On the other, it had a tacit understanding with the martial world: as long as they did not attack ordinary people indiscriminately, fights between martial artists were given considerably more leeway.
But that was only generally speaking. So many people dying at once, nearly all of them accomplished fighters, meant some upheaval in the Rivers and Lakes even if no ordinary people were involved. This was a major case.
After another careful search, a constable found a small booklet on one of the bodies. He opened it, and his brow immediately creased.
"A travel pass? Something's not right here."
Suspicious, the constable immediately went to find the Chief Constable, who was examining the dead men's weapons nearby.
"Chief, there's something wrong with this travel pass."
"Let me see!"
Constable Li took the single-sheet booklet, barely half a palm wide, and examined its contents. He immediately spotted the problem: the official seal was clearly fake.
On Great Yong's official seals, special details were worked into the dot and left-falling strokes of the character for "prefecture," as well as the surrounding border, spacing between characters, and blank spaces. This seal was clearly forged.
"Would