Large or Small

"It's a pity that the professor and An Ran aren't here!"

Zhang Xuezhou glanced at Jin Shixue and his assistant, who were lost in a hallucination, and then looked at Zuo Luo, whose body was writhing like a dead snake in the imperial coffin.

His level of intimidation focuses on defeating the opponent, and his ability to guide and control is extremely poor.

Zhang Xuezhou failed to control Zuo Luo's dissipated power or his condition. Instead, he allowed Zuo Luo to reveal himself in a half-real, half-fake manner, and then launched a hysterical and frenzied attack.

He looked at the three male heads trapped among the vines and knew very well that these were the missing persons from before.

The sounds Zhang Xuezhou heard were all coming from these three heads.

Where's your head?

Zhang Xuezhou asked a question, which Zuo Luo, who was in a state of chaos, irritability, and near death, found difficult to respond to.

"I can't die. I haven't been crowned a king or a marquis, I haven't ruled a territory, I haven't become an eight-star or nine-star plant. My life is only three short years. I shouldn't die so young..."

Inside the imperial coffin, three heads, like chirping fledglings, thrashed about, each expressing their own grievances, without responding to Zhang Xuezhou's words.

These words had some effect, but not much.

Zhang Xuezhou found it difficult to get Zuo Luo to obey him and could not squeeze out the last bit of value from him. He could only watch Zuo Luo's constant wailing and muttering.

"My child, you must live on strong and kill Ba'ergu to avenge me!"

Perhaps it was a final burst of energy before death, but a burst of purple light shot out from the vines, and three more heads spoke in unison towards Zhang Xuezhou.

These three heads were filled with resentment and curses, and a strong desire for revenge, resulting in extremely distorted facial expressions.

Zhang Xuezhou looked at the pleading Zuo Luo, but he did not respond.

He was interested in all sorts of things, but not particularly much; Zhang Xuezhou only had eyes for Huang Daoxian.

Just as he was about to take advantage of Zuo Luo's brief moment of normalcy to ask a question, he saw three leaders tumble down from the vines, and then a massive vine body, like a fuse ignited instantly, was continuously annihilated and turned to ash in bursts of purple light.

"Died so quickly?"

Zhang Xuezhou didn't have many special abilities in manipulating the power of realm intimidation; he only managed to prevent Zuo Luo from counterattacking when he was on the verge of death.

If you ask him to do anything more, he really can't.

The feeling of lacking a target arose from the bottom of his heart, and the deterrent effect of his actions vanished in an instant.

As he reached out towards Luo Zhong's remains, a blood-red stalk about the thickness of a finger was grasped in his palm.

This may be remnants left after Zuo Luo's death, or it may be something that was not completely burned.

"Ah! Committee Member Zhang, save me!"

Another Jin historian cried out in alarm, his voice echoing throughout the tomb, which brought Zhang Xuezhou back to his senses.

He stuffed the blood-red stalk into his leather jacket pocket and then turned away.

"Jin Shixue, wake up!"

Upon seeing Jin Shixue, he continued to shout in a panic, while the helper who followed him in rolled his eyes and trembled. Zhang Xuezhou slapped both of them hard across the face.

The physical pain clearly aroused the two of them. Jin Shixue, holding his swollen left cheek, stared at Zhang Xuezhou for several seconds. When Jin Shixue slapped his right cheek again, an even more intense pain surged into his heart, and he was certain that he had escaped the nightmare of Luo Zhong's corpse.

But when his gaze swept over Luo Zhong's imperial coffin, Jin Shixue saw that the coffin lid was open and Luo Zhong's remains were in a half-sitting position, which made his scalp tingle and he almost wanted to scream for help again.

"The dead cannot be brought back to life, and Emperor Luo Li cannot be sitting still. What hallucinogenic plants are growing inside this imperial coffin, or is there some secret palace drug that has not yet dissipated?"

Jin Shixue was also a member of the old regime and held the emperors of the Luofu Dynasty in high esteem. However, after being provoked twice, he began to address Luo Zhong by his temple name directly, no longer showing the same respect as before.

"I don't know," Zhang Xuezhou shook his head and pointed to the imperial coffin, saying, "But the heads of the three missing people are inside, while their bodies are gone!"

"What?"

Jin Shixue's face showed horror. He peeked out briefly, then quickly withdrew his head as if bitten by a venomous snake, no longer daring to look at the situation inside the imperial coffin.

"Ah! Emperor Luo Li has transformed into a demon and is coming for my head!"

Another young helper, awakened from his pain, couldn't contain his fear and frantically ran towards the tomb passage with a searchlight.

Seeing the other person running and stumbling all the way, Zhang Xuezhou didn't try to forcibly stop them.

If Zhang Xuezhou didn't know the truth, he would also be suspicious and even try to avoid trouble. For example, Jin Shixue, who was by his side, actually performed better than many others.

"Committee Member Zhang, shall we continue our investigation?"

Zhang Xuezhou appeared calm. Jin Shixue hadn't fled, but he was also filled with anxiety, hoping to leave as soon as possible and wait for more people to come and continue the investigation.

"You can rest over there. If you want to go out, that's fine too!"

Zhang Xuezhou waved his hand, then placed the searchlight inside the imperial coffin and poked his head inside as well.

Zuo Luo's cause of death was strange, but the scope of the investigation into the murderer who caused Zuo Luo's death was too limited. The other party suffered misfortune and ended up in this state. If it was not Huang Daoxian who punished him, then it could only be Zuo Jin, or a monitor planted by Huang Daoxian.

This was a death by internal strife, and Zuo Luo was the one who was eliminated.

Zhang Xuezhou found it difficult to ascertain the cause of the internal strife in the short term, but he was very curious as to why this internal strife occurred in Luo Zhong's imperial mausoleum palace, and why Zuo Luo wanted to enter Luo Zhong's imperial coffin.

He peered inside and saw that the wooden planks beneath Luo Zhong's imperial coffin were riddled with holes, as if they had been eaten by countless insects.

Normal imperial coffins have a base to prevent them from corroding when they touch the ground. Emperor Jing's imperial coffin was even more elaborate, with a spiritual jade array placed underneath it.

However, the coffin of Luo Zhong was firmly embedded in the foundation beneath it, which caused the area below the coffin to rot.

Zhang Xuezhou could understand the corrosion of the imperial coffin, but he found it difficult to understand Zuo Luo's situation lying in the coffin, and he also found it difficult to understand how the heads of the three missing people could reach the imperial coffin.

He reached out and touched the corroded bottom of the imperial coffin, then tapped it to make a sound.

"That's strange. Could it be that you can change size at will, allowing you to pass through these gaps? But how did these heads manage to squeeze through such tiny openings? Is there something else that can change size as well?"

Zhang Xuezhou had long known that Huang Daoxian had tampered with the Dongshan Imperial Mausoleum, and he was also well aware that many imperial mausoleums must have underground structures, among which the mausoleums of emperors such as Luo Yan were suspected of serious problems.

His intention in creating a scenic area in Dongshan was simply to legally and legitimately dig and cause damage, thereby disrupting Huang Daoxian's arrangements.

But Zhang Xuezhou never considered the potential problems with these arrangements, which could be large or small.

In Zhang Xuezhou's view, Huang Daoxian's arrangement was more of a special kind of formation, like the Nine Palaces Eight Trigrams Formation he set up at Duanhun Ridge. If the formation stones, formation artifacts, formation components, etc., were broken, everything about Huang Daoxian would be destroyed.

"Speaking of which, the Tongtian Jade Ruler can change size at will, so Huang Daoxian's arrangement might also be something that can change size and be hidden, and might even have the ability to travel underground. I wonder if the artifacts he gathered from the Luofu Dynasty are still under this tomb!"

Zhang Xuezhou suddenly remembered his little assistant, the Heavenly Tongtian Ruler, who had stolen the fortune of Dongshan, and a chill ran down his spine.

"A murder has occurred at the tomb of Emperor Luo Li. The thief likely used Emperor Luo Li's reputation to open a hidden passage in the tomb and harm the person. This must be thoroughly investigated, and the passage must be dug out. The death is a serious matter, and if word gets out, it will bring you endless trouble!"

Without the involvement of the remnants of the old regime, the Dongshan Imperial Mausoleum area would be an ancient burial ground, which, like the tombs of past dynasties, could be excavated through archaeological methods.

However, with this group involved, even the Sequence Committee has to weigh the stability of social relations. Zhang Xuezhou had previously used his own money to guide the development of this area in a rather opportunistic way.

Upon discovering Zuo Luo's situation, which was also implicated in a murder case, he couldn't help but try to distort the facts and make connections, attempting to bypass the Zuo Household, who were in charge of the project, and directly dismantle the foundation of Luo Zhong's imperial mausoleum.