Was Old Master Liu really dead? No one knew.
By now, no one outside the Liu Family had seen Old Master Liu's corpse.
The inner prison was oppressively quiet. Cloud Goat waved a hand, and all the secret agents in the room silently withdrew.
He sprang to his feet and paced back and forth. "Old Master Liu isn't dead. We must have uncovered something crucial, and the Liu Family panicked. They had no choice but to use this trick to force us to back off."
Chen Ji feigned surprise. "Old Master Liu isn't dead? Surely not. Would the Liu Family fake something this serious? Liu Mingxian looked grief-stricken to me."
Cloud Goat scoffed. "The officials at court and throughout the realm have done even more outrageous things in their struggles for power and profit. What's so strange about a man in his nineties faking his death to protect his family's descendants? And as for Liu Mingxian, those civil officials are experts at putting on an act."
He turned to Chen Ji. "What do you think I should do?"
Chen Ji lowered his eyes. After a moment, he replied, "Open the coffin and examine the corpse."
Cloud Goat jumped. "Old Master Liu is the current empress dowager's birth father. Investigating the Liu Family is one thing, but opening his coffin would be courting death! I'm only now realizing you've got more guts than I do, kid. What if he really is dead?"
Chen Ji cupped the eight trigrams lamp in both hands and looked up into Cloud Goat's eyes. "Lord Cloud Goat, even if Old Master Liu really is dead, could you accept not opening the coffin to take a look?"
Cloud Goat paced rapidly around the room, swiftly considering every possible outcome of opening the coffin and examining the corpse. At last, he stopped and said with conviction, enunciating every word, "Open the coffin and examine the corpse!"
Just then, a chill wind swept out from the depths of the inner prison, making the eight trigrams lamp in Chen Ji's hands flicker.
Earlier, Chen Ji had only collected the icy currents from the cells designated Jia and Yi. He hadn't dared look into any of the other cells.
But as the chill wind swept through, the icy currents in the cells designated Bing, Ding, Wu, Ji, and others deeper within the inner prison began to stir, surging toward him of their own accord!
The icy currents inside Chen Ji were showing signs of slipping beyond his control!
He couldn't stay here long.
Chen Ji got up and headed out. "Lord Cloud Goat, I've been away so long that my master must be worried. Sorry for the trouble, but please send me back first."
Cloud Goat smiled darkly. "You came up with the idea, and now you want to leave? Come along. We shouldn't bring any other coroners into this, and it just so happens you have some talent for examining corpses. If Old Master Liu is in the coffin, you can investigate his cause of death too. If anything really goes wrong, none of us gets to run."
Chen Ji hesitated. "Lord Cloud Goat, the credit belongs to you and Lord Bright Rabbit. I only offered a suggestion."
"If I don't bring you along, what if your scheme gets us killed?" Cloud Goat sneered. "Let's get moving. We'll pick up Bright Rabbit, and we need to reach the Liu Family's ancestral graves before nightfall."
Cloud Goat and Bright Rabbit weren't good at catching spies, but they were good at protecting themselves, shifting blame, and snatching credit.
He blindfolded Chen Ji again, then asked in surprise, "Why do you keep holding that eight trigrams lamp?"
With that, he snatched it away and put it back where it belonged.
Chen Ji let Cloud Goat tug him by the clothes, stumbling out of the inner prison.
Inside the swaying carriage, he sat upright with his teeth clenched. Without the eight trigrams lamp, the icy currents had grown completely unrestrained.
The gray cloth curtain over the carriage window was blown up by the wind from time to time. The setting sun shone on his face, but he couldn't feel the slightest warmth.
After an unknown length of time, someone lifted the carriage curtain. A cool, austere fragrance washed over him as Bright Rabbit climbed inside. "Huh? Cloud Goat, why did you bring this kid?"
Cloud Goat drove the carriage from the front. "He came up with the idea, so naturally I brought him along."
Bright Rabbit pulled off Chen Ji's blindfold and removed the cotton from his ears. Curious, she asked, "Cloud Goat, I heard you banished all the guards from Luo City's inner prison to Lingnan. Won't Imprisoned Rat be angry that you acted on your own? The inner prison is her territory, after all."
Cloud Goat's face filled with scorn. "She'd better worry about how she'll face the lord inner minister's wrath. The inner prison has been infiltrated until it's a sieve, with intelligence leaking out at will. I'll be sure to report her for it."
Bright Rabbit looked thoughtful. "But being banished to Lingnan is miserable. It's a long way to travel, and I hear malaria runs rampant there. Once you catch it, you suffer for days before you die."
Cloud Goat froze. "Ah... then what should we do?"
"Just kill them in Luo City. Why send them so far away?" Bright Rabbit said earnestly.
"That makes sense."
With that, Bright Rabbit looked at Chen Ji and said earnestly once more, "You wouldn't be setting us up, would you? If you do, you'll die."
Chen Ji smiled. "Lord Bright Rabbit, if I set you and Lord Cloud Goat up, who would I make money from?"
"Good, as long as you know!" Bright Rabbit said with a grin. She raised her wrist to Chen Ji's nose. "Smell it. I just bought this incense at the Daughters' Pavilion. Doesn't it smell good? It was really expensive."
Cloud Goat frowned. "Why are you letting him smell it!?"
Bright Rabbit shot him a glance. "Drive your carriage and mind your own business."
Cloud Goat fell silent, stifling his anger.
Along the way, Chen Ji saw paper funeral money scattered everywhere along both sides of the road. The Liu Family had thrown it into the air along the funeral procession's route on the day of the formal encoffining.
Cloud Goat said disdainfully, "They lived in embroidered robes and ate the finest food, and even after death they scatter so much paper money, hoping to go on enjoying wealth and glory on the other side. Yet they don't spare a thought for the scholars from poor families who can't even afford paper."
Bright Rabbit grinned. "You hate evil as if it were your enemy. The lord inner minister ought to transfer you to the Bureau of Punishments. They investigate corrupt officials every day."
"I'm not going. The Bureau of Punishments is full of old stick-in-the-muds. Boring as death."
After nightfall, Cloud Goat and Bright Rabbit switched places at the reins, and he climbed into the carriage to keep watch over Chen Ji.
"By the way," Cloud Goat said, looking directly into Chen Ji's eyes, "under interrogation, a Liu Family member said Liu Shiyu was very close to an important figure in Prince Jing's Estate. I suspect the estate is involved too, and that Jing Dynasty spies may even be operating inside it... Have you found any clues there?"
Chen Ji's heart tightened. "Lord Cloud Goat, are you certain there are spies in the estate?"
The air in the carriage suddenly froze, as though an invisible hand were pulling between them.
Cloud Goat asked thoughtfully, "Do you think Imperial Physician Yao could be a Jing Dynasty spy? He was highly respected at the Imperial Medical Academy in the capital, and plenty of high-ranking officials and nobles wanted him to make house calls. Even His Majesty wanted to summon him to reside in the palace. But he refused, and three years ago he came all the way to Luo City to serve as an imperial physician at Prince Jing's Estate... Don't you find that suspicious?"
"Suspicious." Chen Ji asked curiously, "Has my master changed in any way over the years?"
"Imperial Physician Yao was known for his sharp tongue even in the capital, but the lord inner minister once said he wasn't like that in his early years. Back then, he was kind and charitable, even willing to treat people for free."
Chen Ji pondered for a moment. "I don't think my master seems much like a spy. Before, when people in the estate asked him to treat them, he wouldn't even go. If he were a spy, how could he pass up the chance to meet the important figures there?"
"That makes sense." Cloud Goat rubbed his chin. "What about your two fellow disciples, then? I checked them. Liu Quxing is from a branch of the Liu Family. Could it be him?"
Chen Ji took a deep breath, looking puzzled. "Lord Cloud Goat, you aren't trying to say you suspect me, are you?"
Cloud Goat smiled. "How could it be you? I trust you completely. I'm just telling you to be careful of the people around you."
Bright Rabbit suddenly said, "Park the carriage in the woods beside the road. We're almost at the Liu Family's ancestral graves. We'll cross this mountain and go the rest of the way on foot."
The three got out of the carriage and followed a mountain path beside the official road, climbing all the way to the summit of Zhuangyuan Mountain.
Cloud Goat and Bright Rabbit moved quickly. Chen Ji had expected to be exhausted and out of breath, but to his surprise, he had barely broken a sweat by the time they reached the summit.
He lay down on the mountain, breathing heavily. "Can we see the Liu Family's ancestral graves from here?" he asked, sounding utterly exhausted.
Cloud Goat pointed ahead. "There they are, at the highest point of Northern Mang."
Chen Ji propped himself up and looked into the distance. At the highest point of Northern Mang Mountain, rows of stone steles and tombs built from stone stretched across dozens of mu. The Liu Family's ancestral graves were truly magnificent.
Stone figures, sheep, tigers, and ceremonial pillars stood before the tombs, some of which rose more than ten chi high!
The Ning Dynasty had a strict hierarchy: common folk could not ride in sedan chairs, commoners could not wear boots, and anyone who was not an official could not wear a conical hat. Every one of those laws proclaimed the rites and social hierarchy.
To have a tomb like those Liu Family tombs, more than ten chi high, a person had to have held at least third rank in life.
Cloud Goat gazed at the ancestral burial grounds and sighed. "For a thousand years, the great civil-official families of our Ning Dynasty have produced generations of ministers and nobles, riding on the common people's heads and drinking their blood. Only by amassing vast family fortunes could they enjoy such splendor."
Chen Ji instinctively felt something was wrong. Had the Ning Dynasty really lasted more than a thousand years? That alone was inconceivable. Judging by the patterns of history, it should have been impossible.
Unless there was an outside force.
At that moment, Bright Rabbit said, "There really is something wrong with Old Master Liu's death. Look, there are more than a hundred private soldiers stationed among the ancestral tombs, and there may even be an attendant official guarding them. The last time secret agents were sent to Luo City to gather information, they investigated this place. Back then, there were only a dozen or so people guarding the Liu Family's ancestral graves."
"Then we can't force our way in." Cloud Goat frowned at Bright Rabbit. "Will you do it? I'm not well suited to opening the coffin."
Bright Rabbit glanced at Chen Ji. "Have him blindfold himself and turn his back to me. You guard me."
Chen Ji turned around of his own accord. He understood that an attendant official's path of cultivation could not be revealed to others.
After he had blindfolded himself, Bright Rabbit sat cross-legged on the mountaintop, drew the short blade at her waist, and cut open the spot between her brows.
Cloud Goat cut his finger and dotted the eyes of more than ten shadow-puppet paper figures, keeping close guard beside Bright Rabbit.
The next moment, a mass of shadow emerged from between Bright Rabbit's brows and separated from her body like a crab shedding its shell.
The shadow stood still, looking exactly like Bright Rabbit, but clad in light black armor and holding a Green Dragon Crescent Blade taller than a person, its blade pointed downward!
Bright Rabbit's original body remained motionless, while the Yin Spirit looked at Cloud Goat and said, "I'm going."
With that, the Yin Spirit strode to the cliff and leaped down. She landed on the treetops below as lightly as if she weighed nothing, each leap carrying her easily over more than ten great trees as she sped straight toward the Liu Family's ancestral graves!
Gradually, the sky turned completely dark, and the Yin Spirit blended into the night.
When Bright Rabbit's Yin Spirit reached Old Master Liu's tomb, she took advantage of the moment when no one was paying attention and plunged straight into the stone-built tomb!
It was as though the stone wall didn't exist!
A long while later, the Yin Spirit flew swiftly back and vanished between Bright Rabbit's brows. Bright Rabbit abruptly opened her eyes and exclaimed in shock, "There really is no one in the coffin!"