The green-haired man's corpse was moved aside and temporarily covered with a tattered cloth that had been rummaged through the storeroom.
Jiang Lin squatted beside the corpse, the pale silver light of his Spirit Eyes shining in the darkness as they swept across the body.
Soon, his gaze fell on his waist, where a palm-sized plaque peeked out from under his tattered robe. It was neither gold nor wood, and under the detection of his Spirit Eyes ' Soul Power, it appeared a strange gray.
"Captain, there's something going on." Jiang Lin pulled out the sign and handed it to Feng Xiaotian.
The sign was slightly smaller than the palm of my hand, and felt cold to the touch, like Shitou or metal. There were no patterns or engravings on the surface, only a string of tiny numbers engraved on the edge—not carved, but more like it was corroded by some kind of Soul Power, with the edges of the strokes abnormally smooth.
Feng Xiaotian examined the plaque twice, his brow furrowing slightly. He handed it to Jiang Lin: "Keep this safe. Check it back at home. Investigate it from three angles: material origin, casting process, and coding rules."
Jiang Lin took the sign and nodded.
Huo Xiao walked over, took the sign from Jiang Lin, glanced at it, ran his fingertips over the surface, and his eyes darkened.
"This material... doesn't seem like something that ordinary people would have. And the casting technique isn't something an ordinary blacksmith shop could produce."
"What's the serial number?" Feng Xiaotian asked.
Huo Xiao shook his head. "I can't tell which faction it belongs to. But this coding rule—three digits for the prefix, four digits for the middle, and two digits for the suffix—doesn't seem randomly created; it seems to have a system."
He looked up at Feng Xiaotian: "You should understand what this means."
Feng Xiaotian was silent for a moment, then nodded.
With a systematic coding system and materials and craftsmanship that are not from the general public, this thing is not backed by a scattered organization, but by a force with a complete structure, resource investment, and management system.
Moreover, this force operates in the shadows.
Jiang Lin's Spirit Eyes shone even brighter as he began to carefully scan the interior of the stronghold.
The stronghold was larger than expected. In addition to the main cave, there were man-made side chambers on both sides, filled with food, water, medicine, and Soul Power replenishing potions—sufficient supplies to support dozens of people for more than half a year. However, there was only one living person in the stronghold: the Green Mane Man.
Those puppets were once living people.
As Jiang Lin searched a side room, the silver light of Spirit Eyes swept across the wall and suddenly stopped at a certain spot.
The gap between one stone brick was half a finger larger than the others, but it was barely noticeable unless you looked closely.
He crouched down, ran his fingers along the cracks in the bricks, and found a tiny bump—he pressed it, and the brick silently sprang open, revealing a hidden compartment carved out behind it.
Several ledgers and a stack of experimental records were neatly stacked in the hidden compartment.
"Captain, come here for a second, I found something." Jiang Lin didn't search it himself, but turned around and called out.
Feng Xiaotian walked over, squatted down, and took out the ledgers and records. He first flipped through the ledgers—they were densely filled with records of the entry and exit of materials, the flow of funds, and the dispatch of personnel, the entries were clear and easy to understand.
His finger hovered over one of the pages. That page recorded the allocation of supplies over the past three months: fifty portions of medicinal herbs, two hundred vials of Soul Power replenishing potions, and a batch of items labeled "experimental materials"—the quantity was twelve.
Twelve living people.
Feng Xiaotian pressed down slightly with his fingertips, leaving a shallow dent in the page. He didn't say anything and turned the page.
The following pages contain earlier records. The earliest entry dates back three years. In the past three years, no fewer than three hundred "experimental materials" have been handled by this location.
Feng Xiaotian closed the ledger, shut his eyes, and took a deep breath.
Then he picked up the stack of experimental records, flipped through a few pages, and his expression grew increasingly grim. They detailed the experimental process by which the Green Mane people used living people to create puppets—
From the initial selection criteria to the method of Soul Power infusion to the steps of body modification, every step is written out clearly, like an operating procedure.
These people weren't killed; they were used up as expendable resources.
Feng Xiaotian closed the record and remained silent for a few moments. He carefully put away the ledger, placing the stack of experimental records separately into another storage compartment.
These are the first-hand pieces of evidence to be given to my father.
Ji Ning poked his head out from another side room, holding a wooden box in his hands. "Captain, I found this."
Feng Xiaotian took the wooden box and opened it. Inside, dozens of small porcelain bottles were neatly stacked. Each bottle had a label with the name of a different medicinal herb and the year of manufacture.
Huo Xiao walked over, picked up a porcelain bottle, poured out the medicinal herbs inside, and glanced at them—a dried safflower, its petals an unnaturally vibrant color, and it was extremely well-preserved.
"An elixir at least fifty years old." Huo Xiao put the safflower back into the porcelain bottle, his brow furrowing. "There are no more than three suppliers of this quality in Heaven Dou City. It's not something he can get his hands on."
He picked up another porcelain bottle, poured out a piece of grayish-white root, and smelled it. "This snow ginseng is even older, at least eighty years old. In the entire Heaven Dou Empire, you can count the number of herbalists who can produce this kind of quality on one hand."
Huo Xiao put the medicinal herbs back into the porcelain bottle and looked at Feng Xiaotian: "The source of these medicinal herbs is easier to trace than the account books."
Every herbal medicine merchant has verifiable shipping records: who bought what, how much, and when—by following this line of inquiry, you can trace the supplier.
Feng Xiaotian nodded and memorized this information.
The outpost was thoroughly searched, inside and out, and everything that could be taken was packed up. Ledgers, records, medicines, supply lists, the numbered plaque—everything was carefully registered, categorized, and packed.
An hour later, everyone withdrew from the stronghold.
Su Mei'er was still waiting at the fork in the road. When she saw everyone come out, she quickly scanned the crowd and breathed a sigh of relief after confirming that no one was seriously injured.
"Is it over?" she asked.
Feng Xiaotian nodded. "It's over."
He didn't say "what we found out" or "what we discovered." On the way back, the atmosphere in the team was much heavier than when they arrived.
It wasn't because of the ferocity of the battle, but because of those ledgers, those records, that numbered plaque—the truth they pointed to was far greater than just a stronghold of Evil Soul Master.
Feng Lingtian walked in the middle of the group, took out Communication Stone from his waist, and sent the brief information he had discovered— the Evil Soul Master's stronghold, ledgers, experimental records, etc.—to his father.
A moment later, the Communication Stone lit up. Feng Qingxuan's reply consisted of only two sentences:
"Well done. We'll talk again when you get back."
Feng Lingtian put away the Communication Stone without saying a word. He glanced at Feng Xiaotian, who was walking at the front of the group; his brother's straight back stood out clearly in the night.
He knew that his father's words, "We'll talk about it when we get back," were not just a perfunctory remark—when they returned to the academy, what awaited them would not be a celebratory banquet, but a series of questions, analyses, and plans.
The group moved through the night in silence. Lu Hanxiao walked at the very back, with Lu Qing beside him. Neither brother spoke, but their shoulders remained close together.
Feng Xiaotian walked at the front, the night wind blowing down from the mountain ridge, carrying the chill of late autumn, making the hem of his clothes flutter.
But he was single-minded, his mind replaying the last words the green-haired man had uttered before his death:
"They are... great..."
What is great?
He couldn't say it.
That person wouldn't let him say it.
Feng Xiaotian raised his head and looked at the faint mountain ridgeline in the distance. The night was as dark as ink, and he couldn't see anything clearly.
But he knew that from now on, what Godwind Academy would face was far greater than a few matches or a few opponents.
The thing was hidden in the darkness.
But they've already begun to get close to it.