Chapter 149

Shen Shi Yao's tomb is located in Yunlai Peak, the second peak of Mount Shu, which is located across the ravine from Diancang Peak, and is rich in Fengshui. There are quite a number of casual cultivators living on the mountain, and a lot of local people bury their family members here.

In order to keep it a secret, Shen Shi Yao's tombstone was written with her boudoir name when she was unmarried. In fact, in this deep forest, no one would probably have discovered this hidden tomb in their lifetime. Zong Zi Heng had left his spiritual markings here, otherwise he would not have been able to find it.

Zong Zi Heng paid his respects first, and then performed a ritual before starting to dig the grave. He stood on one side, watching his mother's coffin being exposed little by little, and his heart couldn't stop tightening.

Li Bu Yu whispered soothingly, "Emperor, don't worry, you are also trying to protect Consort Shen, she won't blame you."

Zong Zi Heng looked ahead without squinting. He couldn't look at Li Bu Yu directly with his eyes. He was afraid that his eyes would give away his emotions.

Last night, he and Xu Zhi Nan had discussed their countermeasures all night.

Li Bu Yu's identity was not trivial, and they were still in the territory of the Wuliang Sect, plus they had a common enemy, Zong Zi Xiao, to deal with, and Zong Zi Heng was in an unprecedented struggle.

In the end, they agreed that they must not lash out until they found conclusive evidence. Ten years had passed, and if this evidence still existed, it could only be on Shen Shi Yao's corpse, but Shen Shi Yao was already a white skeleton, so what clues could be left behind?

Zong Zi Heng thought of the Zhou Hou Spiritual Stick given to him by Huang Dao Zi. Whether Huang Dao Zi was worthy of trust or not, he had to give it a try for the time being, but with this magical treasure, there had to be someone he could ask.

Shen Shi Yao's coffin was finally raised, lying silently across the night.

Zong Zi Heng walked over and gently wiped the dust from it with his hand, sorrow condensing on his white-jaded face like the moonlight.

The surrounding was silent as no one dared to disturb Emperor Kong Hua.

Only after a long time, Zong Zi Heng said, "Open the coffin."

Li Bu Yu's face changed slightly, "This ..."

Several Wuliang Sect cultivators also looked at each other. Why should the coffin be opened to move the grave?

"Open the coffin." Zong Zi Heng aggravated his tone and repeated again.

"Emperor, what's going on here?" Li Bu Yu walked up to Zong Zi Heng's side and whispered, "It's inauspicious ah." He glanced at Xu Zhi Nan, as if hoping that Xu Zhi Nan would also come to persuade Zong Zi Heng.

Xu Zhi Nan, however, did not say a word.

Zong Zi Heng said softly, "I want to see my mother."

A dignified Emperor Kong Hua referring to himself as "I" sounded like an ordinary person who missed his mother, and no one could not resist being emotionally moved. However, to open the coffin of a buried person is a great disrespect to the deceased and will harm the blessings of future generations, which is a great taboo.

Li Bu Yu looked at Zong Zi Heng's tensed jaw and focused eyes and knew that he could not be persuaded, so he pondered a little: "Okay. Open the coffin."

The seven nails on the coffin were pried out one by one.

Everyone stepped back.

Zong Zi Heng pressed the coffin lid and said silently, "Mother, I'm sorry." He mobilized his spiritual power and pushed the thousand-pound lid off the ebony coffin open.

Inside the coffin lay a dry skeleton of a person dressed in brocade, surrounded by jeweled and famous objects.

Zong Zi Heng leaned over the coffin, his shoulders trembled violently, and tears flowed quietly down his face.

Ten years had passed. The sins his mother had committed and the mistakes she had made had been fully repaid to her and to himself. All the resentment has been dissipated and all that remains in his memory is the goodness of his mother.

The day he buried his mother, the day he decided to carry all the burden alone, he wished that she could atone for her sins and reincarnate as a happy and good person.

But if his mother did not commit regicide, if she did not hang herself but was murdered, he needs to find out the truth!

Holding back his grief, Zong Zi Heng jumped into the coffin, carefully removed her fancy clothes and examined the white bones.

People who hang themselves usually break their cervical vertebrae, but Shen Shi Yao's neck bone was intact, most likely because she hadn't struggled, but other than that, there was nothing unusual. This is not enough to conclude that she was murdered.

If the autopsy had been done back then, it would reveal that something was wrong, but he was on the verge of falling apart at that time, did not have the slightest suspicion of Li Bu Yu, and missed the best opportunity.

Disappointed, Zong Zi Heng gathered his mother's clothes back together, but accidentally touched the crown on her head.

There was still sparse hair above the skull, scattered in all directions after losing the restraints on the crown. Zong Zi Heng's sharp eyes spotted something. He ruffled the hair and found a spider web of cracks on her Baihui point.

Zong Zi Heng's heart tightened. He stroked and observed it carefully and found this crack was very strange, because it was slender and extended. Most bizarrely, the skull was intact.

Cracks on the bones are either caused by collision or sharp objects, and it would invariably cause damage to the bone and leave marks forever, but this crack was so light and shallow, with only a slight bump on the surface. If he didn't touch it with his hands, it seemed almost smooth, almost like ... embroidered on.

Such a seemingly sinister mark, appearing on the deadly Baihui point*, was most likely the cause of his mother's death.

Poison? Witchcraft? Evil spell? What the hell is it!?

Xu Zhi Nan was more knowledgeable than him and might know.

Zong Zi Heng quickly restored Shen Shi Yao's skeleton and clothes to their original state, jumped out of the coffin, and summoned back Li Bu Yu and the others after gathering his emotions.

The coffin was re-nailed with seven nails, and Li Bu Yu put the coffin on a flying magical treasure and flew to Zhangyang overnight.

Zhangyang was not far from Mount Shu, and they buried Shen Shi Yao that night at a pre-selected site, with Zong Zi Heng kneeling before the grave until dawn.

---

Upon returning to Yunding, Zong Zi Heng told Xu Zhi Nan what he had discovered.

Xu Zhi Nan listened in silence and slowly held his forehead.

Seeing this, Zong Zi Heng did not pressure him, knowing that Xu Zhi Nan already had the answer, and instead he was scared of hearing the answer.

It was only after a long time that Xu Zhi Nan whispered, "Emperor, the cracks you saw are the lightning patterns that were cleaved out by the Thunder Ancestor Treasure Grant."

Zong Zi Heng looked ahead in a daze, his eyes like two pools of stagnant water.

"When ordinary lightning strikes a person, it will only leave spider web-like red lines on the surface of the skin, but the Thunder Ancestor Treasure Grant draws heavenly lightning, which can pierce through the skin and strike the three souls and seven spirits, so naturally it can also leave marks on the bones."

Zong Zi Heng murmured, "So it's either Li Bu Yu, or the old master of the Wuliang Sect."

Xu Zhi Nan nodded seriously, "I think it should be Li Bu Yu. If Li Bu Yu wanted to create the illusion that Consort Shen had hung herself, no traces would be left on the surface, and the old Sect Master could do it without the Thunder Ancestor Treasure Grant, but back then, Li Bu Yu did not have the cultivation to defeat Consort Shen with a single strike."

"Then, then my mother ..." Zong Zi Heng slowly turned his face to look at Xu Zhi Nan, a sea of deep despair in his eyes, "her soul scattered already, hasn't it?"

The most terrifying thing about the Thunder Ancestor Treasure Grant is that it can shatter a person's soul to the point where they don't even have a chance to reincarnate, completely erasing them from the three realms.

Xu Zhi Nan bowed his head in discomfort.

"My mother has done a lot of evil, but she is ... also very pitiful." Zong Zi Heng trembled and choked, "She was very bitter and has never felt happy and joyful even until death, I want ... I want her to atone for her sins and be reborn in an ordinary family in the next life. No need to be rich and famous as long as someone treats her sincerely, so that she doesn't have to become...a bad person." He covered his eyes as tears rolled down on his fingers in a raging torrent.

"..." Xu Zhi Nan was tormented in his heart, but he did not know how to comfort Zong Zi Heng. There were no words here that could soothe such a pain.

"But, Li Bu Yu killed her." Zong Zi Heng slowly raised his head, his face fierce and sorrowful, "He killed her and scattered her soul, so that she would not even have a next life anymore, and even framed her for the crime of regicide, and in the end, I am the one who will bear eternal infamy!"

"Li Bu Yu deserves to die." Xu Zhi Nan clenched his fist.

Zong Zi Heng pranced up, grabbed the hilt of his sword and ran towards the door, but before Xu Zhi Nan could stop him, he stopped in his tracks. He stared at the closed doorway and his eyes burned with hatred, but this moment he calmed down instead.

"Emperor." Xu Zhi Nan walked up to him and gently squeezed his shoulder, "Li Bu Yu deserves to die, but we must not be impulsive at this time. We must find an opportunity to capture him alive so that we can hear the truth out of his own mouth."

Zong Zi Heng's face was not yet dry from tears, but his eyes were surprisingly clear: "Yes, capture him alive." He wants to take revenge, he wants to find out the truth, he wants to look Li Bu Yu in the eyes and peel off that hypocritical face!

"Let's call Li Bu Yu alone to a place far away from Yunding. I'll join forces with Emperor and take advantage of his defencelessness. We should be able to restrain him."

"Have you brought the Golden Carved Jade Suit with you?" The Golden Carved Jade Suit is the number one magical treasure of the Chunyang Sect. If Xu Zhi Nan has it, he can fight against the Thunder Ancestor Treasure Grant.

"As the Sect Leader, I always carry the Golden Carved Jade Suit with me, but if I use the magical treasure, the movement will be too loud and will definitely summon people from the Wuliang Sect."

"What then?"

Xu Zhi Nan wanted to say something but stopped.

"What else can you hesitate about at this point!? Just speak!" Zong Zi Heng said in a coarse voice.

"I do have a plan that is almost foolproof, but it requires the Emperor to put your posture down, and I'm afraid it would be disrespectful to the Emperor."

"Just say it."

"The Emperor may not have noticed ..." Xu Zhi Nan spoke so mincingly for the first time, and he considered repeatedly before saying, "What gaze did Li Bu Yu use to look at Emperor?"

"What do you mean?" Zong Zi Heng didn’t understand.

"Uh ... my sect cultivates the extremely positive Chunyang Technique in which we cannot release ourselves for a lifetime, otherwise the Technique will be broken immediately. Emperor is aware of that."

"What are you talking all this nonsense for?" The more Zong Zi Heng listened, the more confused he became.

Regardless, Xu Zhi Nan said quickly: "My sect is not allowed to have women inside, so there are many cut sleeves*."

Zong Zi Heng was stunned.

He recalled Li Bu Yu's attentiveness to him when he was a teenager, the way he looked at him, the several times he came close without knowing whether it was intentional or unintentional, and the day before, when he was bathing in the Mandarin Duck Pond and Li Bu Yu ...

Xu Zhi Nan said awkwardly: "Other people may not be able to see it, and the Emperor also has not noticed it, but I have seen it so much that it is not surprising. Li Bu Yu has probably admired the Emperor since he was a young boy."

Zong Zi Heng was so shocked that he did not know what to think. He had thought that only Zong Zi Xiao had that abnormal obsession with him, but Li Bu Yu?

"So, if you want to securely capture Li Bu Yu alive without disturbing the Wuliang Sect, only the Emperor can do it."

 

 ----

PS: Time for Xiaobai to put up his seductive skills…? *coughs* 

 

Baihui point*[百会]---An acupuncture point found at the center of the head. Right here

cut sleeves*[断袖]---slang for gay

 

Edited on 2 May. 21 (Emzie)

 

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