Prince Yu was impatient and didn't bother to wait, striding inside.
As the courtyard had been abandoned, sunlight streamed through holes in the roof, and the doors and windows hung precariously. Inside, besides dilapidated cabinets and a bed, there were piles of miscellaneous items.
Prefect Zhang, Tong Tongzhi, and others lagged behind. They had surveyed the entire house inside and out, finding no place to hide a corpse. Could there be a secret room?
Liu Jian inspected all three main rooms and the two side rooms. Standing under the shade of a tree, he looked at the courtyard. The body certainly wouldn't be buried underground, or the Jinlong Guard would have found it long ago.
"Lord Yin, forgive this official's poor eyesight. You repeatedly claimed someone was murdered in the temporary residence I'm staying in, yet we've searched this place high and low. Where is the body hidden?" The questioning voice rang out. Liu Jian provocatively looked at Yin Wuyan, the commander of the Jinlong Guard. This official was young but fond of playing mysterious games!
Chong Guang and several Jinlong Guard subordinates glanced at the arrogant Liu Jian. Their admiration for him flowed like a mighty river. Lord Liu was a true warrior!
Yin Wuyan looked at the houses before him and said in a chilling voice, "Demolish the houses."
"Yes." Chong Guang responded loudly. Since the body couldn't be found, they would try a desperate measure, provided that the "fat girl" hadn't been mistaken and the body was indeed hidden here.
Amidst clouds of flying dust, the dilapidated houses were easy to demolish. With a crash, a wall collapsed.
"Stand back, don't worry." Gu Qingzhou held Zhan Feiyu's hand and retreated several steps. Since Wuyan was certain the body was hidden in this courtyard, finding it was only a matter of time.
Looking at the collapsed wall, Zhan Feiyu suddenly felt she had taken a risk. What if Steward Liu's previous fear and terror were feigned?
For the first time, Zhan Feiyu regretted her rash actions. If it were private, it wouldn't matter even if the body wasn't found, but now, under everyone's watchful eyes, if her deduction was wrong, her elder brother would be implicated by her.
Gu Qingzhou looked at his distressed young disciple in surprise. "What's wrong?"
Raising her head, Zhan Feiyu's voice was full of regret and unease. "Teacher, I was the one who told elder brother the body was hidden here."
"What?" Gu Qingzhou was taken aback. He looked at Yin Wuyan standing not far away. He actually trusted Little Yu's words so much?
Considering that the Jinlong Guard had already turned the entire residence upside down without finding the body, yet Yin Wuyan was demolishing the courtyard based on Zhan Feiyu's single sentence, Gu Qingzhou suddenly didn't know what to say.
"Even if the body isn't found, at most, Liu Jian will file a complaint, and the Emperor will reprimand me a few times." Gu Qingzhou patted his young disciple's head, who was frowning with regret. "You're usually quite clever, why are you being foolish now? The Emperor's regard for Wuyan shows this is just a trivial matter."
"Found it!"
Hearing Chong Guang's shout, Zhan Feiyu's eyes lit up. If Gu Qingzhou hadn't held her back, she would have rushed into the courtyard to see the body.
With a bang! A thick beam was thrown onto the open ground by Chong Guang. Before everyone in the courtyard could understand what was happening, Chong Guang's Goose Feather Saber suddenly slashed down at the beam.
"This?" Seeing a section of a corpse revealed from the broken beam, everyone's expression turned strange and unsightly. Who would have thought that they would hollow out a wooden beam and stuff a human leg into it?
The beams from all five houses were moved to the courtyard, and soon, a dismembered corpse was slowly pieced together.
"Ugh..." Liu Jian was, after all, a civil official. He knew Zhou Wenquan had been killed, but seeing the gruesome state of the body with his own eyes made him involuntarily gag. The scene was simply too horrifying.
Chong Guang squatted down and quickly examined it. "My lord, the body's blood was drained first, then it was dismembered into seven parts with a sharp blade and placed into the hollowed-out beams."
The legs and arms were severed, the torso was too large and was split in half, and finally, the severed head.
"My lord, the body seems to have been preserved with salt." Even Chong Guang, with his bold nature, felt his stomach churn and a desire to vomit.
First, the blood was drained from the entire body, so dismembering it wouldn't cause blood to splatter everywhere. Then, it was preserved with a large amount of salt. It was likely that with the strong sunlight these past few days, the dismembered parts were also exposed to the sun, preventing the body from rotting and emitting a foul odor.
The courtyard was already dilapidated and decaying, and the beams were somewhat rotten, making it easy to hollow them out. After stuffing the dismembered corpse inside, the beams were reinforced with fine copper wire to prevent them from breaking.
However, since the Jinlong Guard was investigating the body, even when Chong Guang and his men had entered before, they had only glanced at the roof and paid no attention to an extra piece of copper wire on the beam. Even if they had seen it, their first thought would have been that it was left from house repairs.
"Lord Liu, was your steward a carpenter before?" Chong Guang asked with a smile at the pale-faced Liu Jian. If he wasn't a skilled carpenter, he wouldn't have been able to disguise the beams so flawlessly.
The body was found, but the flesh on the fingertips of the right hand had been scraped off with a sharp blade, ensuring that even if the body was found, fingerprints could not be retrieved.
"Could Steward Liu have killed Wenquan?" Liu Jian looked shocked, his body unable to support him, and he staggered back several steps, his wrinkled old face filled with grief. "How could Steward Liu kill someone? I truly never expected this. Everything will be left to the Jinlong Guard to investigate!"
Zhan Feiyu stared dumbfounded at the changing expression of Liu Jian. When the body was discovered, his face was ashen, as if he were at his wit's end. Yet, in a moment, he had completely distanced himself. Anyone who didn't know better would truly believe Lord Liu was innocent.
"Lord Liu has been an official for over thirty years. If he lacked this ability, how could he maintain his position as a second-rank official?" Gu Qingzhou smiled at his bewildered young disciple. Indeed, she was still too young.
Zhan Feiyu realized she had made many mistakes common to transmigrators. She thought herself clever and underestimated the ancients. Apart from not understanding modern knowledge, no one was inherently smarter than another.
"Teacher, I know I was wrong." Zhan Feiyu gave a bitter smile. She thought about the movable type printing and salt-making methods she had introduced. If the Emperor hadn't been a wise ruler, and if she hadn't had her teacher and elder brother to cover for her, she might have been secretly imprisoned by now.
Looking at her dejected young disciple, whose dark eyes had lost their luster, Gu Qingzhou couldn't help but smile. "It's never too late to mend one's ways, especially when your teacher is here. Even the greatest mistakes can be covered up for you."
Until she got into the carriage, Zhan Feiyu still drooped her head, exuding an aura of gloom.
The carriage suddenly stopped. Seeing Yin Wuyan lift the curtain and enter, Zhan Feiyu was stunned and said weakly, "Elder brother."
Yin Wuyan responded and sat down beside her.
It wasn't until they left the main road and turned onto the dirt path leading back to Jinlin Village that Yin Wuyan asked the carriage to stop under the shade of a tree.
Zhan Feiyu, who had been silent all the way, looked up, like an eggplant wilted by frost. "Elder brother, do you have anything you want to ask me?"
Yin Wuyan lifted the carriage curtain. The wind that blew in carried away the heat inside the carriage. "How do you plan to explain yourself?"
Glancing at Yin Wuyan's handsome, cold, jade-like face, Zhan Feiyu lowered her head again. "I had an early awakening. When I was three, I met a strange old man on the mountain behind the village. He lived in the mountains, but no one in the village had ever seen him. He taught me many things. I didn't understand when I was young, but I have a good memory, so I've always remembered."
Zhan Feiyu had regained her memories from her previous life while learning to walk. To explain herself, she had asked Old Man Zhan and the villagers. No one had seen a strange old man. When Zhan Feiyu asked, they merely said she might have met someone from another village in the mountains.
In her childhood, Zhan Feiyu would occasionally say surprising things, reciting a line of poetry or singing an unfamiliar folk song. When the villagers asked, Zhan Feiyu would answer in a childish voice, "The old man taught me when I went to the mountain to gather pig feed."
"So you've fabricated a teacher for yourself?" Yin Wuyan looked at the nodding young girl. A smile flickered in his narrow phoenix eyes. There were many extraordinary people in the Great Qing Dynasty, and the young girl's excuse was quite plausible.
Even if someone investigated Jinlin Village, people with good memories would surely remember that Zhan Feiyu had met a strange old man in the mountains when she was young. As for what he taught her, how would villagers who farmed the land know such details?
However, he had indeed taught her. After every household in Jinlin Village hatched chicks, they would have their children dig up earthworms, chop them up, and mix them with vegetable leaves to feed the chicks. This method increased the survival rate of the chicks, and it was Zhan Feiyu who had mentioned it. Of course, the one who truly taught her was the strange old man in the mountains.
Yin Wuyan knew that the young girl had secrets. If she didn't say anything, he wouldn't ask. Instead, Yin Wuyan would clean up after her and erase all traces.
Just like today, even if the Emperor personally investigated, he would only assume that the Jinlong Guard had found clues and discovered Zhou Wenquan's body.
However, since the young girl intended to confess, Yin Wuyan didn't stop her. Looking at her dejected appearance, his mood improved significantly. "What was going on today? Steward Liu kept shouting about ghosts."
Zhan Feiyu looked up, her gaze falling on his handsome yet young face. The thought of her calling him "elder brother" and occasionally acting spoiled and willful made shame surge within her. She would rather die than admit she was an old aunt in her previous life...
"Elder brother, you don't need to be afraid either." Having decided to "confess," Zhan Feiyu grinned, her dark eyes sparkling with mischief. "Elder brother, watch this."
The moment she finished speaking, Zhan Feiyu's figure instantly disappeared.
Even Yin Wuyan, who was usually expressionless and cold, showed surprise. He reached out his right hand towards where Zhan Feiyu had been, but it met empty air.
After a while, Zhan Feiyu reappeared before Yin Wuyan, her plump face beaming with pride. "Elder brother, I can turn invisible, and I can take things with me when I become invisible."
Steward Liu dared to kill and dismember someone, yet he was so terrified that he shouted about ghosts. This was indeed thanks to Zhan Feiyu's cheat.
Her tense body relaxed, Yin Wuyan took Zhan Feiyu's hand, processing the meaning of her words. The young girl could actually turn invisible and disappear?
Sitting obediently beside Yin Wuyan, Zhan Feiyu grinned and explained, "Last year, I could only be invisible for half an hour. This year, I'm a year older, and I can be invisible for an hour."
Moreover, when Zhan Feiyu turned invisible, it was as if she had entered another dimension. She could see everything outside, but people outside couldn't perceive her existence, nor could they hear her breathing.
Yin Wuyan held Zhan Feiyu's hand without letting go. The things he couldn't understand before suddenly became clear. "You used this method to ambush the Jade-Faced Bandit."
At that time, Yin Wuyan truly didn't understand how the young girl had killed the Jade-Faced Bandit. The Jade-Faced Bandit's abilities were considerable, and even if he had underestimated her, he shouldn't have been killed by a young girl.
And that time at the Bao Feng Cloth Shop with the Zeng family, how she had managed to steal the poisoned tea without anyone noticing, including this time when she played the ghost and scared Steward Liu so badly, thus revealing a flaw.
Nodding her head like a pecking chick, Zhan Feiyu felt completely relieved after revealing her cheat. "If you ever need my help in the future, just ask!"
The words "elder brother" were too embarrassing! No matter how thick Zhan Feiyu's skin was, she couldn't say them now.
"This cannot be said to a second person, including Scholar Gu!" Yin Wuyan knew what Zhan Feiyu was about to say from her expression. Even though he trusted Scholar Gu, Yin Wuyan dared not risk Zhan Feiyu's safety.
Although Gu Qingzhou had severed ties with his immediate family in the Nanling Gu clan over the years, they were still his blood relatives. People's hearts could change, and Yin Wuyan didn't want to test it.
Zhan Feiyu had no intention of saying it voluntarily, but if her teacher asked, she felt she had been too transparent, with many loopholes, even though her teacher hadn't pressed her.
"Be good. If there's anything inconvenient to say, push it onto me." Yin Wuyan maintained a stern expression, his dark phoenix eyes looking seriously at Zhan Feiyu. He needed her affirmative answer.
After a moment of hesitation, Zhan Feiyu nodded. "I understand."
"And don't turn invisible easily in the future, unless you are in danger," Yin Wuyan cautioned again. The young girl was quite bold, but she was also intelligent. If she made a mistake, the consequences would be unimaginable!
"Mhm." Zhan Feiyu nodded again and promised, "I will be careful with my words and actions."
Several days later, a skeleton that had been dead for four years was secretly placed in a cave on the stone wall of the deep mountains of Jinlin Village.
The cave's location was hidden, situated on the side of a cliff. Vines hung down from the branches of trees at the top of the cliff, making the cave completely invisible from above. Even if someone were at the foot of the mountain, the vines would make it difficult to discover the cave.
Besides the skeletal remains, the cave contained some tattered clothing, simple living supplies, and some moldy ancient books that were difficult to find elsewhere. There were even several priceless original paintings and calligraphy.
Of course, in addition to these, there was also a small box in the cave containing some碎银子 and jewelry, which had become damp due to improper storage.