When Song Qiyun and the others arrived, Shen Weimu was wiping his mouth with a handkerchief.
No one thought much of it, just assuming Shen Weimu had coughed again.
After inspecting the wound on Wu Qi’s neck, Yuchi Feng frowned and sighed,
“The hand was decisive, ruthless even to himself.”
Lu Yang had long been stunned by the scene.
He exaggeratedly scanned Shen Weimu from head to toe, even catching a peculiar scent of fishiness on him when he got close.
It wasn’t the smell of blood, but a fragrance of food that made one’s mouth water.
His sense of smell must be playing tricks on him—why did it seem like he was smelling fried fish?
Shen Weimu’s eyelashes were thick and long, his skin porcelain white; the closer you looked, the more flawless his handsome features appeared.
But what good was beauty if one harbored ill intentions?
He must never be treated with mercy.
Lu Yang deliberately cleared his throat twice, pointing at the corpse lying in the pool of blood.
“Look, another one dead—your personal servant! No one would believe you’re not the Grim Reaper!”
Shen Weimu glanced at him coolly.
“Is that all you can do?”
Lu Yang bristled and retorted,
“What do you mean by that?”
“What does ‘Sizhi’ mean? ‘Si’ means to oversee; ‘zhi’ means fairness and uprightness. As the Sizhi of the Dali Court, responsible for investigating and adjudicating, you are reckless and rash, baselessly blaming an innocent person for accidents and others’ mistakes. I wonder if this ‘ability’ is unique to you or if it’s a case of bad example from above.”
Shen Weimu calmly countered every attempt to disparage him, even not sparing Song Laoda, who had subtly mocked him earlier.
His voice was even and steady, not forceful, but his words carried an inexplicable pressure.
Lu Yang was both annoyed and ashamed.
It wouldn’t be so bad if only he was being criticized, but Song Laoda was dragged into it too.
Out of loyalty, he wanted to argue with Shen Weimu to the end.
“Young Master Shen speaks correctly. Investigating and judging cases should be based on evidence.”
Song Qiyun interrupted first and quietly advised Lu Yang,
“Right now, the investigation is urgent; keep chatter to a minimum.”
Song Qiyun cupped his hands and apologized to Shen Weimu, promising a delicious meal once the case was solved.
Shen Weimu raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
Judging by his attitude, it seemed like he agreed—playing to someone’s tastes was indeed the quickest way to resolve disputes.
Although proud, Song Qiyun understood the importance of the bigger picture.
Though physically weak, this Shen young master clearly had a temper.
The ongoing case needed his cooperation, and making enemies would only cause trouble.
Besides, with Shen Weimu’s poor health, it wouldn’t reflect well on the Dali Court if he died of anger.
Song Qiyun asked Shen Weimu to recount the events.
“As you saw at the scene, I was reading when Wu Qi took the opportunity to switch the tea and poison it. I caught him, so I asked him a well-known fatal question.”
The Luohan couch held the opened book Records of Abundant Food, and there were water stains and broken tea bowls on the ground.
Upon hearing the tea was poisoned, Yuchi Feng immediately dipped some dry bread into the water stains and ordered live animals brought for poison testing.
“What fatal question?”
Bai Kaizhi couldn’t help but ask, curiosity piqued.
Everyone present was hooked, focusing their gaze on Shen Weimu.
Shen Weimu said,
“I asked him: ‘Do you also cultivate mushrooms?’”
Indeed, that was a fatal question.
Bai Kaizhi: “And then?”
“He admitted to killing Qian Zhiyong and intended to kill me as well. He complained that Young Master Song was too skilled at investigation, so out of fear of exposure, he acted desperately. Then, like Su Nan, he committed suicide.”
Shen Weimu gave a concise summary, leaving out unnecessary details.
Song Qiyun instinctively felt Shen Weimu was hiding something but, after scrutinizing him twice, didn’t press further—after all, they had just argued.
Yuchi Feng’s side quickly confirmed the poison: a live duck that ate the tea-soaked bread collapsed instantly, dying without a struggle.
The tea was indeed poisoned.
Bai Kaizhi later found a yellow paper packet in Wu Qi’s sleeve containing white powder, and the same powder remained under Wu Qi’s right fingernails.
Yuchi Feng, skilled in pharmacology, pinched the powder and smelled it lightly, confirming it as Dongshui Shepo Shuang.
“This poison has a faint herbal scent, making it hard to detect in tea. Only a small amount is needed to be lethal. Symptoms appear after half an hour, causing drowsiness leading to eternal sleep. It’s said to have originated from the Western Regions and is very expensive. This small packet is worth at least fifty taels of gold on the market. Many wealthy families use this poison for suicide.”
“So expensive—it seems he wasn’t just a mere servant.”
Bai Kaizhi made an obvious remark everyone already knew.
The body was carried away for a secondary autopsy in the morgue.
Song Qiyun stood by the pool of blood, hands behind his back, brows tightly furrowed.
What did “cultivating mushrooms” mean?
Three people dead in one day.
“I hope you find the truth soon. If fewer people die, it’s a blessing.”
Shen Weimu excused himself to dinner.
Liu Wuyou had mentioned the Mushroom Fish Ball Soup for dinner, and it would get cold if they didn’t eat soon.
Everyone had grown accustomed to Shen Weimu’s love of good food at any time.
No one objected this time; after all, no one could leave the county office, and he was easy enough to find.
“Who else could we ask?”
Song Qiyun suddenly asked as Shen Weimu reached the door.
The others were a bit confused and didn’t immediately understand his meaning.
Shen Weimu immediately caught on and shared a tidbit,
“I heard the owner of the Red Sleeve Pavilion, Li Hongxiu, also loves cultivating mushrooms. You must have met her during your investigation.”
Before this, Song Qiyun had indeed questioned Dong Ling at the Red Sleeve Pavilion and met Li Hongxiu.
Dong Ling and Duan Gu’s relationship was just that of a client and a prostitute—she was playing a part, but he had fallen deeply in love.
When he ran out of money, she merely treated him politely, expecting he would leave once he realized the situation.
No one thought he would actually seek death.
As for the madam Li Hongxiu—over forty, coated in heavy makeup, vulgar to the extreme, overly enthusiastic—he disliked her enough to ignore her details.
Song Qiyun’s frown deepened.
Another mistake.
This was his second error.
The first was failing to identify Su Nan properly, not realizing she was a woman all along.
Lu Yang promptly volunteered,
“I’ll take men to bring Li Hongxiu back right away!”
Once permitted, Lu Yang practically “sprang” out like he was about to fly, afraid that any delay might cost Li Hongxiu her life too.
“New discovery!”
Yuchi Feng hurried over without even putting down his bamboo tweezers, panting as he reported,
“On Wu Qi’s buttocks, I found this pattern.”
He put down the tweezers and quickly drew a somewhat flattened half-circle connected below to a ‘凵’-shaped symbol on rice paper.
“This pattern looks so familiar, like something…”
“It’s not just on Wu Qi,”
Yuchi Feng continued,
“Su Nan has the same pattern.”
Since Su Nan was female, Yuchi Feng didn’t examine her body himself, but a female coroner had already documented and drawn the identical pattern on Su Nan’s chest.
Connecting their shared trait, it wasn’t hard to guess what the symbol represented.
Song Qiyun:
“It’s a mushroom.”
Bai Kaizhi suddenly understood,
“Yes, yes, that pattern looks just like a mushroom.”
Shen Weimu, already outside the door, suddenly recalled the first night after his rebirth, when four maidservants and two servants died in the house, their chests and buttocks slashed.
Those people could not all have been Wu Qi’s accomplices.
So Wu Qi’s actions on them were not to destroy tattoos but must have held some other meaning.
The question was, who was this special “signal” intended for?
Qi Yu, the County Captain of Tang County, arranged a separate room for Shen Weimu to rest.
Like Shen Weimu, Qi Yu was slender and had caught a cold recently, his health failing with frequent coughing.
Therefore, he only sent subordinates to cooperate with Song Qiyun and others, seldom appearing himself.
Shen Weimu held the warm Mushroom Fish Ball Soup just ladled from the pot, inhaling its aroma—especially fresh and delicious.
He stirred the soup gently with his spoon, watching the soft, springy fish balls tumble playfully among the bok choy and mushrooms.
Mushrooms were a delicacy—fresh and tender.
Fish balls were a seafood treat—fragrant and bouncy.
These two types of “freshness” complemented rather than clashed with each other.
A small amount of bok choy added a splash of green, perfectly balancing the colors like red flowers with green leaves.
“Delicious.”
Liu Wuyou beamed at the praise.
“I’m glad you like it, Young Master. I was worried my cooking wouldn’t suit your taste.”
“Are you used to it now?”
Shen Weimu asked.
Liu Wuyou paused but quickly assured him she could handle it.
There had been more deaths lately, but no matter how frightening, the human heart was scarier than the dead.
It was rare to find such a good master as him—she wouldn’t be foolish enough to quit over it.
“I’ll experiment with recipes more and make more varieties for you.”
She wouldn’t take her monthly wage of ten taels of silver for nothing.
“Good.”
Shen Weimu smiled, his gaze landing on a small mushroom cap, no larger than a fingernail, left at the bottom of the bowl.
“What made you think to use mushrooms?”
“Don’t you like mushrooms, Young Master?”
“No, it’s just that mushrooms seem to have followed us all day. Breakfast was fresh meat mushroom wontons, at noon several people died because of mushrooms, and now mushrooms happen to be in dinner too.”
Liu Wuyou recalled,
“When I cook in the county kitchen, mushrooms are most abundant there, so I used them. The kitchen maid said Tang County is famous for mushrooms, starting early spring, and now the most plentiful is the Spring Mushroom—very fresh and delicious. The mushrooms in the fish ball soup are of this kind.”
Shen Weimu suddenly understood.
“So that’s what cultivating mushrooms means.”
“Li Hongxiu has committed suicide!”
Lu Yang, disregarding all protocol, rode his horse directly into the county office hall.
Song Qiyun, Yuchi Feng, and others were inspecting a brocade pouch taken from Wu Qi, which contained a handful of soil with white threads.
Breathless and with a grim expression, Lu Yang jumped down from his horse and said,
“I saw it with my own eyes—Li Hongxiu hung herself on the railing of the second floor, her neck tied with red silk. She jumped down, and her body swayed above the Red Sleeve Pavilion’s main hall, instantly hanging herself! All the guests present saw it.”
The unfortunate event they feared had happened again—another death, still baffling.
Bai Kaizhi:
“When we saw her during the day, she was perfectly normal, not someone prone to suicide.”
“That’s why it’s eerie! The victims we identified who died by suicide had no signs beforehand.”
“Don’t you know? Tang County used to be a Ghost City. When the rebels occupied Tang County during the previous dynasty, they forced all the inhabitants to hang themselves. Since then, ghosts occasionally haunt the area, with hanging spirits possessing the living, repeating what they did in life.”