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“Brother Gu, where in the God Realm are you from?” Gou Monan’s carefully spread out his Yao sense to investigate the surrounding area, but he didn’t forget to make small talk while his was at it.
After thinking it over, Ye Zichen decided to travel with him. Although he couldn’t relax with this uninvited guest the way he could with Yang Jian, they were still safer traveling together.
“The Northern Divine Mountain,” said Ye Zichen.
“Is there a Gu Clan on the Northern Divine Mountain?” Gou Monan seemed rather familiar with the Northern Divine Mountain.
When Ye Zichen heard that, he couldn’t help but arch his brows. “Brother Gou, are you familiar with the Northern Divine Mountain?”
When he heard “Brother Gou”, Gou Monan’s expression turned rather awkward.
“You’d best just call me Monan. Brother Gou…”
“Hahaha!” Ye Zichen burst into laughter; he’d only just noticed that “Brother Gou” sounded awfully similar to the word “coward.”
Once he was done laughing, he turned back to Gou Monan, who’d yet to answer his question.
“You could say I’m familiar with the place, yes. One of my clanswomen married into the Northern Divine Mountain’s Di Clan. Her husband is the eldest son of the main lain, Di Jiao. Furthermore, I was once fortunate enough to visit the Northern Divine Mountain myself and spend some time there.”
“Ah, that’s how it is.” Ye Zichen nodded. He knew a little about the Di Family; Di Long was one of their clansmen. They weren’t a small family clan, either.
“The Gu Family is no major clan. We definitely can’t compete with the Di Family,” laughed Ye Zichen.
“You’re being modest, Brother Gu. Making it into the mausoleum alone proves that you’re no ordinary man. To raise up an elite like you, I doubt your Gu Family is the minor clan you make it seem. It ought to be one of the more reclusive family clans,” said Gou Monan, nodding as he made his analysis.
If he was willing to believe that, Ye Zichen felt no need to tell him otherwise. He simply smiled a faint, ambiguous smile.
Gou Monan could see that Ye Zichen didn’t want to discuss his family background any further, so he didn’t ask any more questions. They simply walked side by side into the castle, wandering aimlessly in search of god fortune.
The Divine Mausoleum was also called the Transcendent Mausoleum.
It’s interior wasn’t some tomblike palace of the dead; it seemed more like the splendid palace of an emperor.
The towering walls were entirely red, and they pierced straight into the clouds. The ground below was formed entirely of granite.
The palace’s layout was extremely complicated, but it wasn’t eerie or unsettling like that corridor had been. It had lots of corners, and around them, they saw quite a few courtyard entrances.
They’d once gone into one to look around, but it was completely empty. Never mind transcendent fortune; there wasn’t even a single pill or artifact.
“Brother Monan, before we met, you ought to have already walked around a fair bit, yeah?”
“I won’t lie to you, Brother Gu. I walked for quite some time before encountering you. I even witnessed a bloody spectacle.” Gou Monan nodded.
Bloody?
Ye Zichen furrowed his brows. He didn’t quite understand what Gou Monan was saying.
Wasn’t he trying to say that he had indeed encountered others earlier, and more than one of them at that? If he called it a “bloody spectacle”, at least one person had to have killed another, too.
“Brother Monan, might you explain?”
“Brother Gu, do you really want to hear?” Gou Monan’s eyes suddenly flashed with a hint of fear. He looked around, then lowered his voice and said, “It wasn’t long ago…”
The incident in question was just as Ye Zichen thought: there were others here too.
Just after leaving the corridor, Gou Monan wound up here. He’d only just arrived, so he was quite curious. Furthermore, he’d never seen such a lavish, splendid palace in the Northern Kingdom, so he went for a walk as if he were a tourist.
Just as he was admiring the towering, spending palace, the dense smell of blood assailed his nostrils.
People!
Anyone capable of entering the mausoleum wasn’t some greenhorn leaving home for the first time. Even if Gou Monan were far more naive than he already was, he’d still know this smell meant people nearby, and that someone had gotten hurt.
He’d planned to leave, but for some unearthly reason, he found himself walking towards the source of the smell. Inside a little courtyard, he saw a person with a full head of silver hair facing away from the doorway. He was covered in blood, and there was an already lifeless body lying in front of him.
“Brother Gou, it’s fortunate you run quickly. Otherwise, you might not have lived long enough to meet me.”
Gou Monan pounded his chest in lingering fear. He could see that the killer was the cruel, violent type; had he been discovered, he might have fallen there too. He would have wound up just like that corpse.
“You were quite lucky,” said Ye Zichen. Gou Monan couldn’t help but nod.
“Let’s go over and take a look,” said Ye Zichen suddenly.
When Gou Monan heard that, his eyes went as wide as cymbals, and his jaw opened so wide, you could practically stuff an egg in it. “Brother Gu, you’re insane!”
“Why do you say that?”
“That man kills without batting an eye. I could tell from his aura that I’m no match for him, otherwise, I wouldn’t have chosen to run away like that. If you go now, won’t you just be throwing your life away? Please, forgive me for my bluntness, but based on your aura, you’re weaker than me!”
“What is there to be afraid if?” Said Ye Zichen with a shrug. “The killer and his victim most likely just got into a fight over treasures. Besides, you said it happened shortly after you entered this place, right? Do you think he’s still there after all this time? I’m just curious and want to take a look. If you’re worried, you can tell me the location and I can go by myself.”
“How could I be so cowardly? If you’re going, I’m going with you!”
Ye Zichen followed Gou Monan down a winding path for over an hour. Fortunately, he had a guide; Ye Zichen feared that, with directions alone, he couldn’t possibly have found the place.
They didn’t just walk, either; they passed through several courtyards, too. The place in question turned out to be a hidden doorway within the final courtyard. It was completely covered in leaves. It would be hard to find unless you were the one who built it.
“This is it,” said Gou Monan, pointing to the doorway hidden behind the leaves.
“I’m just glad I had you to guide me,” said Ye Zichen, at a bit of a loss for words.
Gou Monan scratched his head in good-natured embarrassment. Then, he pointed to his nose and laughed, “I’ve always been rather sensitive to smells.”
“Sensitive to smells?” Ye Zichen arched his brow.
“That’s right. You ought to be able to tell from my surname; my true body is a kind of dog,” said Gou Monan.
Ye Zichen nodded. Canines did indeed have sensitive notices.
Little White’s nose had been sharp, too.
When he thought about Little White, he couldn’t help but miss him. They’d met at the Tenth Divine Mountain, but Little White went straight for the temporal divine artifact before they even got a chance to chat. Ye Zichen didn’t even know his friend’s current cultivation.
“Brother Gu, shall we go in?” asked Gou Monan tentatively.
“We came all this way. I naturally want to go in and take a look,” said Ye Zichen, heading straight for the entrance.
However, Gou Monan reached out and took hold of him. “Be careful! There might still be someone inside!”
“Quit it! We’re talking right here in the doorway. If we were going to be discovered, it would have happened already.” Ye Zichen then passed through the leaves without another thought.
It was as if he’d entered another world. An arched door stood proudly before them, followed by a room less courtyard.
If this was really an imperial palace, those who lived here were either the emperor’s children or his concubines.
When he looked at the lay of the courtyard, it seemed relatively likely that the inhabitant was female. What did it mean for an imperial concubine to create a hidden passage like that? Could it be that she…?
But now. Those who worked within the imperial harm were all eunuchs. She couldn’t possibly have been… with them….
Perhaps she was with a palace guard?
After all, an emperor was just one man. With a harem of three thousand beauties, even if he wanted to love and cherish all of them, he couldn’t possibly manage it. It was hard to prevent the overlooked concubines from doing this sort of thing.
Just thinking about it made him blush!
But Ye Zichen was already no longer in the mood to think about that; the smell of blood hit him right in the face. As soon as he entered the little courtyard, he saw the exact bloody scene Gou Monan had described.
To tell the truth, seeing it in person had a far stronger impact than hearing it secondhand.
Gou Monan described the courtyard as covered in blood. That’s because this wasn’t a corpse so much as the pieces of one.
The body had been split into chunks. It seemed that this was the killer’s strange hobby; different body parts were sorted into different piles.
The head had been placed on the tea table visible upon entering the courtyard.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Gou Monan rushed in from behind. When he saw the head’s features, he let out a sudden shriek.
“Dahai!” He dashed up to the tea table as if he’d gone mad, then looked into the head’s still-open eyes.
Gaze sharp, he let out an infuriated roar.
Based on the man he called Dahai’s expression, he hadn’t known how he’d died. From his expression, it was clear that his death had come as a complete surprise.
Gou Monan continuously called out his name, but Ye Zichen walked over. He gently brushed his hand across Dahai’s face and shut his eyes.
“Enough. He’s already dead. Crying out like that won’t do you any good.”
“Dahai!” Gou Monan collapsed on the ground. Ye Zichen didn’t ask him about their relationship, but Gou Monan started mumbling to himself, as if telling a story. “Dahai and I have known each other since we were little. He’s a few years older, so he’s always been like a big brother to me. When I was little, my body was weak, and I couldn’t cultivate. It was Dahai who snuck books out of the clan for me to read.”
“As time went on, we both became Yao Kings. Before we entered this place, he said that if we were lucky, we might be able to become Great Yao Kings. That was his greatest dream! You have no idea how excited he was when the mausoleum opened, but…”
“It’s all my fault! If I hadn’t run when I saw that murder, if I’d fought him tooth and nail, this wouldn’t have happened!”
“It’s all my fault! It’s all my fault!”
Gou Monan slammed his fists into the dirty. Meanwhile, Ye Zichen circled the little courtyard and the little pavilion at its center.
There weren’t any particularly obvious marks of battle. If they’d really fought over treasures, there ought to have been more scuff marks. Ye Zichen had a hard time believing anyone could insta-kill a Yao King; at that level, an expert’s detection abilities were extremely high.
That only left one possibility… The one who’d done the killing was familiar to his victims!