Chapter 96

The bodies were stacked together, the ones at the bottom already turned into skeletons, while the ones on top still retained their human shape.

“Those few in the green cloth next to each other,” Three Bliss pointed casually.

“Are you sure?” Shen Yu asked, tilting her head, concerned that his gesture might be too casual.

“Sure,” Three Bliss affirmed. “Their clothes are still the same.”

Luckily, only a few days had passed, and Shengjing didn’t have a never-ending stream of deaths. Besides the newest body on top, the ones below were indeed the ones Three Bliss had pointed out.

Yang waved to the guards, “Bring the bodies up, be careful, don’t bump them, watch out for any explosives.”

“Explosives?!” Three Bliss stuttered nervously.

“Wanna see?” Yang teased him. “Imagine the hearts, livers, spleens, and eyeballs flying around like confetti.”

“No, no, no, I don’t want to see,” Three Bliss recoiled.

The guards, well-trained, lifted the bodies carefully, not betraying any emotion.

Shen Yu frowned as she looked at the bodies on the ground. “Why are there only three bodies? There should be four.”

“Huh?” Three Bliss also looked puzzled. He scanned the pit again and said, “Didn’t see the old man.”

Shen Yu warned, “Look carefully, if you miss anything, I’ll kick you in to search one by one.”

Terrified, Three Bliss hid behind Four Bliss and stretched his neck out, “I’ll look carefully, definitely.”

Yang nodded to Shen Yu, “The level of decomposition and the time don’t match. No signs of being gnawed by wild dogs either.”

Shen Yu asked, “Didn’t you say all four of them were dead? You personally confirmed it.”

Nearly in tears, Three Bliss stammered, “I saw those black-clothed men attacking. I thought they all died. How could one be missing?”

Shen Yu’s brow furrowed. Actually, there was another possibility. Three Bliss didn’t inspect closely. He saw someone killed and assumed everyone was dead. Seeing corpses, he assumed they were all there.

But what if that person didn’t die?

Or, what if that person was actually in cahoots with the black-clothed men?

Yang had already opened his toolbox.

White silk, bags, gloves, bamboo twigs, and neatly arranged on the leather strap were various small knives, hammers, awls, all made of refined iron, used for dissecting the bodies’ chests and abdomens.

Once the autopsy started, Yang’s demeanor changed. Gone was the casual attitude; now, he was extremely cautious.

Silence enveloped the scene as everyone held their breath, afraid to disturb Yang.

Shen Yu squatted beside a body, lost in thought as she looked at its legs.

Yang noticed her action and came over to inspect.

Pointing at the body, Shen Yu asked, “Would a normal body swell like this?”

“The legs of this body are noticeably more swollen than the other two, but the extent of exposure also affects the decay. We’ll have to examine it up close to know what’s going on.”

Just as Yang finished speaking, a voice came from behind—Xie Tingzhou’s voice.

“What have you found?”

Shen Yu turned to look at him, “I’m not entirely sure.”

Xie Tingzhou nodded slightly, “Go ahead, say it.”

Shen Yu said, “I don’t know if you’ve heard of the Three Absolute Legs.”

Xie Tingzhou nodded slightly, “The Three Absolute Legs originate from the Ghost Clan, also known as the Ghost Clan’s Three Absolute Legs. But after the Ghost Clan got involved in a case and disappeared, the Three Absolute Legs were lost.”

He paused for a moment, “It’s said that the Ghost Clan turned to banditry out of dissatisfaction with the court’s ruling. But it’s just a rumor and shouldn’t be completely believed.”

Shen Yu nodded, “The Three Absolute Legs have not been lost. There’s a guard from the Lu family in Hezhou who practices the Three Absolute Legs, and it’s true that the Ghost Clan turned to banditry.”

Xie Tingzhou didn’t know where these people came from, so he didn’t understand the connection.

Shen Yu stood up and said, “The legs of these people seem to be different from ordinary people’s.”

She pointed, “The method of binding the legs in the Three Absolute Legs is also different from other styles, but the swelling is too severe to see the binding clearly.”

“How do you know this in such detail?” Yang asked without looking up.

Shen Yu didn’t answer, and Yang understood that there was something she couldn’t say.

Yang had already begun the autopsy. Xie Tingzhou grabbed her arm and pulled her a little farther away.

Shen Yu was too absorbed in her thoughts to notice.

She said, “It would have been better if we had found out a few days earlier. We could have determined if it was the Ghost Clan’s Three Absolute Legs. Practitioners of the Three Absolute Legs have stable lower bodies, different from ordinary martial artists.”

Xie Tingzhou looked at her profile, her eyes reflecting the blazing torches.

When she was serious, she exuded a dazzling light.

Yang opened the body’s clothes.

Xie Tingzhou glanced over, then stepped aside, blocking Shen Yu.

Shen Yu suddenly looked back, meeting his gaze. Something brushed lightly in her heart, making her instantly uncomfortable, so she turned her face away.

At that moment, Yang said, “The bodies are intact, no wounds on the chest, abdomen, or back, only a three-inch long wound on the neck, deep enough to reach the bone. Barring any surprises, the cause of death for all three is a cut throat. But we still need to dissect to confirm. You two better wait in the carriage. I’ll report back when we have the results.”

“No need to dissect,” Shen Yu said.

Xie Tingzhou turned his head, “You came all the way to the burial mound at night and don’t want to know how they died?”

Shen Yu pondered for a moment, “I came here at night just to confirm these people’s identities. I’m not interested in how they died.”

“Then let’s go back.”

The bodies were thrown back into the pit, and the group returned to the mansion.

Xie Tingzhou stepped onto the carriage shaft. As he entered the carriage, he suddenly turned back and said to Shen Yu, “Come up.”

Shen Yu had ridden a horse here, so she guessed Xie Tingzhou must have had many questions. She handed the reins to the other guards and got on the carriage briskly.

The carriage swayed as it headed back to Shengjing City.

Leaning against the carriage wall, Shen Yu recounted all the information she knew to Xie Tingzhou.

“Bandits are rampant in Huaitang County. Despite several attempts to eliminate them, they persist. Just like Huaitang County, Qichang Prefecture isn’t a wealthy place, and there are bound to be many bandits. But over the years, there has been peace. We’ve never heard of any banditry in Qichang Prefecture.”

“There are two possibilities: either the officials are colluding with them and covering up, or they are righteous bandits.

    One is to burn and kill. ” Robbery is all evil, just to make money.

    There is also a kind of person who has become a bandit even though he has no other way out, but he has not lost his conscience. Robbery is a last resort, so he usually picks some evil tyrants and rich gentry to attack, and occasionally helps the poor people around him.

    There had been such a group of mountain bandits in the early years. The government thought that although they had become bandits, they had good intentions, so they recruited them and put some of them into the army, while some of them were divided into fields and left behind.

    “Do you suspect they are vigilantes?” Xie Tingzhou asked, holding his head.

    Shen Yu didn’t know how to explain it. She always felt that it was strange that food and grass were stolen from Qichang Mansion.

    A group of little-known mountain bandits that even the imperial court did not want to suppress suddenly dared to rob the imperial court of food and grass. There was no step-by-step process at all.

    Shen Yu suddenly opened the curtain and asked, “Where is Sanfu? Bring him here.”