“This is such a huge matter—how could County Captain Qi have missed all the signs? The person who kidnapped Brother Shen and the one who ordered Dong Xing both had physiques similar to Brother Shen’s, and County Captain Qi’s build matches exactly. Last night, that man wore official boots, and I even heard him cough. County Captain Qi just happened to have caught a cold and has been coughing nonstop.”
A coincidence?
“Right, and then there was Li Hongxiu’s suicide. We just mentioned her at the yamen, and right after, she killed herself in the Red Sleeve Pavilion. How could that be…”
“So, Tang County’s Captain Qi Yu is the mastermind behind this mushroom suicide case!”
Bai Kaizhi’s final words rang out with a clangorous force, carrying a deafening weight that plunged everyone into deep thought.
The room naturally fell silent.
Crack!
Crack!
The crisp sound of Shen Weimu biting into dried crispy fish echoed clearly in the room.
It was somewhat distracting.
Even worse, the faint scent of the crispy fish wafted over, teasing their hunger and causing their mouths to water uncontrollably.
They had been running around investigating all night and hadn’t had time to eat.
Concentrating on the case was bearable, but now that their hunger was awakened, the gnawing emptiness clawing at their hearts and stomachs seriously affected their focus.
Song Qiyun said,
“Let’s eat first.”
Yuchi Feng and Lu Yang immediately agreed in unison,
“Good!”
With that, the three of them left together.
Standing in the center of the main hall, puffing out his chest, Bai Kaizhi waited to be praised:
“Hey, you’re leaving already? You haven’t even complimented me on my divine deduction skills yet!”
Bai Kaizhi huffed in dissatisfaction and sat down beside Shen Weimu.
“I’ve already thought of a new title for myself. From now on, people in the Jianghu can’t just call me the ‘White Hero’ anymore.”
Shen Weimu chewed on the crispy fish nonchalantly, listening to Bai Kaizhi ramble.
“How about ‘Jade-Faced Divine Seer’? Sounds pretty grand, right?”
Bai Kaizhi asked excitedly.
Shen Weimu gave a perfunctory
“Hmm.”
“Hehe, I think it’s great too. ‘Jade-Faced Divine Seer’ sounds way better than ‘Shadow Hero’…”
Shen Weimu got up and headed back to his room.
As he left, Bai Kaizhi was still lost in his mumbling.
Bang!
Passing by the neighboring room, Shen Weimu suddenly heard a noise.
It was Kang Anyun’s room.
Shen Weimu pushed the door open and immediately saw a stool kicked over on the floor.
Kang Anyun was hanging from a hemp rope tied to a ceiling beam.
His eyes were wide open, tears streaming down his reddened face as he struggled desperately with his limbs.
Shen Weimu quietly observed for a moment.
As Kang Anyun’s eyes fluttered closed, suffocating and near death, Shen Weimu flicked his hand empty and sent out a blade of qi that cut through the hemp rope.
With a thud, Kang Anyun fell to the ground, pain and coughing sounds coming from his throat in a strange mixture.
After a while, Kang Anyun got up shakily, staring blankly at the severed rope on the floor.
He staggered to pick it up, raising it as if to hang it around his neck again, attempting to commit suicide once more.
Twice.
Throughout it all, his expression remained calm and detached, immersed in his own world with no trace of fear or relief from having narrowly escaped death.
Shen Weimu impatiently grabbed Kang Anyun’s wrist, felt his pulse, then slid his fingertips lightly over acupuncture points at Yunmen, Tiantu, Shenzang, and others.
Pfft!
Kang Anyun spat out a mouthful of blood and gradually regained clarity, looking at Shen Weimu in surprise.
“Young Master? How did you get here—”
His eyes then flicked to the rope in his hand and the scene in the room.
Kang Anyun realized he must have hallucinated…
No, he was poisoned!
“What happened?”
Song Qiyun and the others rushed over.
Kang Anyun immediately explained the poisoning but omitted Shen Weimu’s martial rescue.
“I remember coming to my room to get something when suddenly everything changed, like a fairyland—colorful and dazzling. I felt like I was floating, with fairies leading me, ribbons flying, butterflies… The ribbons seemed alive, and if I caught one, it would lift me up like a fairy…”
“Then when my neck was hanging from the rope, the Young Master happened to come in, and I suddenly snapped out of it and quickly cut the rope to save myself, forcing out the poison.”
Yuchi Feng instructed Kang Anyun to carefully recall how he had come into contact with the poisonous mushroom.
“I never touched it, but I got close to look and smelled a faint fresh scent from the mushroom.”
“No wonder so many villagers committed suicide. They were poisoned by it,”
Yuchi Feng said grimly.
He immediately ordered the officers in charge of the search to beware of poisonous mushrooms, covering their mouths and noses while searching.
Any poisonous mushrooms found were to be sealed and transported carefully.
“We all examined the ‘Neck Severer’ mushrooms. Could we have symptoms as well?”
Lu Yang asked.
Song Qiyun answered,
“It’s unlikely. The ‘Neck Severer’ doesn’t need to be ingested to be toxic—just smelling it can be poisonous. The Medicine King Pavilion wouldn’t omit that detail. Besides, if that were the case, wouldn’t the poisoner be dead too? No one would dare buy such a deadly toxin.”
“Exactly. Many poisons change their properties when ground, dried, or cooked,”
Yuchi Feng added.
An hour later, the captains in charge of searching Xihe Village, Miao Wu and Li Chao, escorted the village chief Miao Zhuo to the Dali Temple county yamen.
Xihe Village was large, with over four hundred villagers.
Built west of the river and surrounded by three big mountains, all the villagers belonged to the Miao clan and were exceptionally united.
Miao Zhuo was both village chief and clan leader, commanding great respect.
During previous interrogations, Song Qiyun and the others had never mentioned mushroom cultivation, so Miao Zhuo hadn’t felt any pressure and responded smoothly.
But this time, the Dali Temple officials came in full force, aggressively mentioning poisonous mushrooms right off the bat.
Clearly, they had evidence, and Miao Zhuo and the villagers immediately grew nervous and fearful.
The mastermind’s orders.
Now at the county yamen main hall, Miao Zhuo’s legs trembled so much he couldn’t stand, needing officers to support him to kneel in the hall.
He confessed without hesitation to cultivating the poisonous ‘Neck Severer’ mushrooms and admitted that he committed the crime under County Captain Qi’s orders.
“Just as I suspected!”
Bai Kaizhi whispered excitedly to Shen Weimu.
Shen Weimu handed him a candy pill, but as Bai Kaizhi reached to put it in his mouth, Shen Weimu stopped him.
“Not time yet.”
Bai Kaizhi looked puzzled and whispered,
“Does eating this thing require timing?”
“Mm.”
Miao Zhuo continued recounting the events.
“Last summer, County Captain Qi sent a letter saying the village was poor and offered a way to make money. He arranged for a cartload of soil that could grow valuable mushrooms to be brought to us.”
“He told us that as long as we grew the mushrooms, the Red Sleeve Pavilion would buy each one for a hundred gold.”
“A hundred gold! The villagers never dreamed of such wealth in their lives, so everyone eagerly tended the mushrooms.”
“But the mushrooms were very hard to grow. After half a year, despite trying thousands of methods we’d heard of, none sprouted.”
“Just when the villagers had lost hope, County Captain Qi sent another hundred taels of silver and said there was a secret technique to speed up mushroom growth: using corpses to nourish the mushrooms. Fresh bodies emitting a bit of corpse gas made it easier to grow the mushrooms.”
“At first, I didn’t want to try such a sinister method. I planned to return the money to County Captain Qi when I had the chance.”
“Coincidentally, a widow surnamed Miao in the village hanged herself and was found dead in the woodshed near the pigpen. At first, no one noticed, thinking she had gone home for some emergency.”
“Later, when the body started to stink, we found her corpse. Right underneath was the mushroom soil the village gave her. Amazingly, two mushrooms the size of baby fists had grown—yellow with blue edges.”
“Out of curiosity, we took those two mushrooms to the Red Sleeve Pavilion and easily exchanged them for two hundred taels of gold.”
“I decided to split the money among the whole village.”
“The villagers, who rarely had rice to eat, suddenly had fish and meat every meal, new clothes, and new houses. Naturally, they wanted to keep living this good life.”
“Without discussion, the villagers tacitly agreed not to retrieve Miao’s corpse, waiting for more mushrooms to grow from the soil beneath.”
“But then strange things began happening. The six young strong men who went to exchange mushrooms at the Red Sleeve Pavilion all went to the forest one after another to commit suicide.”
“Five days later, four more mushrooms grew under Miao’s corpse.”
“Four hundred taels of gold—too much money to risk.”
“This time, the village chief sent twelve people with two ox carts. Since it was a rare trip to the city, some brought their wives to shop, and others just hitched a ride.”
“After returning that day, everyone went about their farm work—climbing mountains, gathering firewood, collecting mushrooms. Then, one by one, these people disappeared and were later found dead by suicide in the forest.”
“When we found out villagers were poisoned by touching the mushrooms out of curiosity, I realized I’d made a terrible mistake.”
“To encourage villagers to plant more mushrooms, I didn’t tell them the mushrooms were poisonous, only warned them not to touch them casually.”
“But the more I said that, the more the villagers’ curiosity grew.”
“After another four hundred taels were split, people’s lives changed further. Those who had lost family members got extra compensation.”
“Under my words that ‘making money always comes with sacrifice,’ the villagers became even more respectful of me. The poor think their lives are worthless. Losing a few people for wealth is worth it to them.”
“So no one collected the corpses in the suicide forest. Everyone pretended not to see or know, just to cultivate more valuable mushrooms.”
“Has Duan Gu ever had contact with you?”
Yuchi Feng asked while recording the testimony.
Miao Zhuo shook his head, saying he’d never heard of the person.
Song Qiyun said,
“Duan Gu visited Li Hongxiu’s room the day before her death to discuss redeeming Dong Ling’s servitude. Later, a girl snitched, telling Li Hongxiu that Duan Gu had written a farewell letter to his parents and planned to elope with Dong Ling. This probably angered Li Hongxiu and made her want to kill Duan Gu, so she poisoned him with the hanging mushroom.”
“So was Li Hongxiu’s suicide due to intentional poisoning or accidental contact with the hanging mushroom earlier?”
“Poisoned,”
Shen Weimu said.
“She was responsible for collecting mushrooms and definitely knew better than to touch that mushroom carelessly, or she would have been affected the first time she collected it.”
Miao Zhuo produced a letter written by Qi Yu.
After confirming the handwriting was Qi Yu’s, Song Qiyun asked,
“Did he ever show his face when you met him?”
Miao Zhuo shook his head.
“Out of caution, afraid of being seen, he always wore a veil.”
“That’s definitely him. That guy loves wearing veils. By the way, why haven’t we arrested Qi Yu yet? I’ll go catch him!”
Bai Kaizhi volunteered.
Song Qiyun was about to say it wasn’t time yet when an officer hurried in.
“The man’s caught. He was just about to deliver medicine to County Captain Qi. Following Young Master Song’s orders, we tested the medicine on a live animal. The animal went mad for a while and then died.”
With that, the man was dragged into the hall—it was the old constable Wei Fu, known for his love of sweeping the floor!
Song Qiyun immediately struck the gavel loudly and shouted,
“Bold villain! Confess at once!”
The gavel strike also struck Bai Kaizhi’s heart, shattering his confidence.
Wei Fu the mastermind?
Impossible.
His theory must be wrong…
Shen Weimu quietly reminded Bai Kaizhi,
“Time to take the candy.”