Amidst the clamor, only Ye Chuxiao, a 'ghost' not belonging to this time and space, saw the quiet arrival of danger.

Tiny silk threads crept along the grain of the wooden floor.

Juices laced with potent poison quietly seeped into the fine wine drunk by some of the officials and cultivators, gradually numbing their senses to the energies of heaven and earth.

A fragrance, further encouraging licentiousness, began to permeate the air.

The officials, whose merrymaking had been somewhat restrained, began to fling off their garments more recklessly.

The dancers and singers, already scantily clad in gauze skirts, half-sincerely, half-feignedly, screamed and fled through the flower hall.

The musicians, blindfolded, beat the drums with even greater urgency, playing and strumming the wind and string instruments with more frenzied rhythms.

Some vaguely sensed that something was amiss, but they either chose to remain silent, or their voices were too weak to be heard. They could only choose to watch from the sidelines, at most refraining from participating themselves, hiding in corners and drinking in sullen silence.

A thick fog rolled in over the river.

The guards on the boat were the first to realize that the fog was rising strangely.

They activated the boat's array and began to shout warnings.

But the thick fog seemed to possess consciousness. It stirred and transformed into invisible hands within the mist, dragging the guards into its depths and then crushing them into mincemeat.

Some were directly thrown into the cold river water, pulled down to the deeper reaches of the riverbed.

As for the array on the pleasure boat, it was as fragile as paper, providing little real protection.

From the very beginning, it had been infiltrated and damaged, full of holes like a sieve.

This was a premeditated massacre.

Perhaps someone had tampered with the boat beforehand.

In the flower hall of the pleasure boat, the slaughter had officially begun.

Dark, blood-colored silk threads began to leap and shoot out from all directions, swiftly strangling every life in the flower hall.

Whether they were high-ranking officials or so-called lowly individuals, all were reduced to piles of rotten flesh under the strangling of these threads.

Some tried to resist, but it was too late. Their bodies were paralyzed by the poison, and their perception and utilization of the energies of heaven and earth had been weakened to the extreme.

Without the amplification of heaven and earth energy, the power stored within their bodies was simply insufficient to resist the ruthless strangulation of these bizarre and evil threads.

Moments later, the entire flower hall was utterly silent.

The entire boat had become a dead ship.

The dense fog enveloped it, drifting along the river, slowly sailing into a hidden dead end in a side gully.

Apart from the murderer, only Ye Chuxiao, a 'ghost' not belonging to this time and space, witnessed all of this.

With a slight mental jolt, Ye Chuxiao returned from the past to the present.

With his head lowered, Ye Chuxiao restrained his emotions, not revealing the slightest abnormality.

"The murderer who slaughtered everyone on the boat is Corpse Gatherer Old Man!" Ye Chuxiao concluded.

The crisscrossing, invincible blood-colored silk threads were simply too similar to the Corpse Gatherer Old Man's methods for stitching corpses.

Having similar techniques was not unusual in the cultivation world, but on this Han River, in this Hedong region, for a cultivator with such techniques and such power, could a second one suddenly appear besides Corpse Gatherer Old Man?

With this line of reasoning, Ye Chuxiao retroactively examined everything he had experienced and witnessed, and he couldn't help but feel even more horrified.

"He took advantage of Jin Sanniang's and their cognitive biases. I was also misled at the time."

"Associating the current massacre on the boat with similar cases from eight years ago inevitably leads to the Original Principle Sect, subconsciously feeling that such tragedies are inseparable from the Original Principle Sect. And Corpse Gatherer Old Man has a feud with the Five Poison Emissaries of the Original Principle Sect, so it is only natural to assume that Corpse Gatherer Old Man is not on the same side as the Original Principle Sect."

"The pleasure boat drifted in the thick fog and crashed into the Corpse Gatherer Old Man's alchemy furnace, and we also killed a large number of Corpse Gatherer Old Man's corpse puppets. This made this 'accident' seem even more like a plot to borrow a knife to kill, giving the impression that there was a mastermind deliberately trying to make us conflict with Corpse Gatherer Old Man, and then using Corpse Gatherer Old Man's hand to kill us."

"When Jin Sanniang cooperated with Cui Yu to 'persuade' Corpse Gatherer Old Man, we had already fallen for a deception. People under dangerous coercion often do not question the results they achieve in turning danger into safety, because overturning the results is tantamount to going against the instinct for survival."

"Corpse Gatherer Old Man's purpose is unknown, but he definitely wanted to use this incident to make contact with us and create a deeper connection with us."

"Debt collection...is a decent enough excuse."

"In fact, we are only 'in the mountains,' so we are misled and confused, blurring our judgment in the face of various complex events and information."

"According to the principles of basic deduction, the first to appear after a case is often the murderer. I am barely a screenwriter who has written detective scripts. How could I ignore such important information?"

The memory stone in Ye Chuxiao's hand recorded all the scenery around him.

Ye Chuxiao, who had completely hidden his thoughts, returned to stand behind Jin Sanniang, focusing his attention on Jin Sanniang's strengths.

If he didn't, Ye Chuxiao was afraid he couldn't help but look at Corpse Gatherer Old Man a few more times.

The sensitivity of old monsters like Corpse Gatherer Old Man to gazes should not be ignored.

Jin Sanniang also sensed Ye Chuxiao's direct gaze.

In the past, she wouldn't have cared.

But this was the scene of a tragic and exceptionally bloody crime. At this time, Ye Chuxiao still had such interest?

Could it be that he had developed some incredible fetish in the Ministry of Justice's dungeon?

Jin Sanniang was puzzled.

But she naturally turned her head and asked Cui Yu, "Has the identity been confirmed?"

Cui Yu said, "It has been confirmed. The Inspector is Ma Bao, the Inspector of Xichuan. He and Xue Dingan, the Registrar of Hedong, are old acquaintances. Coincidentally, eight years ago, Ma Bao was still the Chief Clerk of Hedong. He was transferred to Xichuan to serve as Inspector after the Bai family's extermination."

"Ma Bao, the Inspector of Xichuan...Xichuan is more than a thousand miles away from Hedong. Even traveling by boat, it's far enough. Why would Ma Bao leave his post without permission and come here by boat to meet Xue Dingan?" Jin Sanniang asked, puzzled.

This was a question that Ye Chuxiao also wanted to know.

Unfortunately, that trace of Dao rhythm did not come from Ma Bao or Xue Dingan, but from an attending official.

It was the last trace left behind by his violent resistance before his death.

Therefore, when Ye Chuxiao used the Dao rhythm to trace back time, he only saw the spatial content in which that attending official was located before his death.

Loud shouts came from the river.

The firelight illuminated the dark river surface, and the clamorous voices seemed to dispel the darkness and the coldness on the river surface.

Corpse Gatherer Old Man spoke at this moment, "Your reinforcements have arrived. Now, I will collect my reward."

"Not good! He wants to destroy the evidence."

"If the corpse fragments are taken away by Corpse Gatherer Old Man, then even if corpse cultivators with rich experience come to examine them, they won't be able to find any clues related to him, Corpse Gatherer Old Man."

Ye Chuxiao did not speak to stop him.

Instead, he used the Stealing the Moon and Swapping the Heavens technique to secretly hide a small piece of minced meat.

As the top dog of the Ministry of Justice's prison, knowing a bit of the Thief Sect's tricks is perfectly reasonable.