No one could have anticipated that a string of linked murders would uncover an imperial examination fraud scheme.

Beyond the reserve candidate questions for the examination a month away, they had also discovered seven years’ worth of examination questions and model answer scrolls for the Classics, Scriptures, and Advanced subjects — all found inside the Feng Family’s underground shadow school. Most astonishing of all were the answer scroll authors: roughly eighty percent of them were scholars who had already passed the examinations. The answers had been written approximately two months before each year’s examination, with at least three different answer scrolls per person. The scrolls also bore annotations from an unnamed teacher, clarifying key points and refining the prose style.

To put it plainly: in this underground tutoring operation, the teacher could not only predict the examination questions with pinpoint accuracy but also provided multiple model answers for candidates to select from as needed. As for how such precise predictions were possible, the answer was quite simple.

Seven years prior, the current head of the Feng Family — Feng Song’s own younger brother, Feng Yuyi’s uncle — Feng Guangji had been appointed Minister of Rites, overseeing the administration of the annual official examinations. Although the final examination questions were confirmed by the Chief Examiner personally selected by the Emperor, the general scope of the questions was determined by the question-setting committee headed by Feng Guangji.

And so, anyone who had memorized all the candidate reserve questions could naturally pass the examinations on the first attempt.

As for this remote underground school in Yangdu, it was a cram school for examination question prediction — or to call it by its true name, an imperial examination fraud academy.

As the saying goes: good news travels slowly, but scandal spreads a thousand miles. Add to that the fact that the ones who had joined in the search of the underground school were a crowd of young scoundrels who thrived on stirring up chaos — their efficiency at spreading information was truly unrivaled in all of the Tang. By the time the first ray of sunlight fell upon the city of Yangdu, the Feng Family, once celebrated throughout the Tang as a great house of letters, had been reduced to a universally despised “house of filth.” The mocking verse had come true after all: “a belly full of filth pours forth from the gates of letters.”

“It truly defies belief,” Jin Ruo said, scratching his head. “More than ninety percent of students in the Feng Family private school are from humble families — there isn’t even a single young master from a wealthy household. Where would they get money to buy examination questions?”

“You’re thinking too small. Feng Family wasn’t after money,” Lin Sui’an said.

Jin Ruo: “Hmm?”

Ling Zhiyan: “The scholars Feng Family selected were all outstanding talents. After passing the examinations and taking up official posts, quite a number of them earned excellent reputations and serve in key positions throughout the country. They are all members of Feng Family’s network.”

Jin Ruo clicked his tongue twice. “Do you think they knew, when they attended the underground school, that the questions they were answering were the real examination questions?”

Lin Sui’an: “Perhaps they didn’t know at the time — but the moment they sat down in the examination hall, they would have understood perfectly.”

Ling Zhiyan pressed his fingers to his brow. “The answer scrolls Feng Family preserved — once these men achieved prominence, those scrolls became the chains around their necks. This way, they could only stand on Feng Family’s side. They could never betray them.”

Lin Sui’an: “What proportion of the examination candidates over the years did these individuals represent?”

Ling Zhiyan said nothing.

He had been the first to order Ming Shu and Ming Feng to seal off the entire hidden chamber, and had sent Hua Yitang and Lin Sui’an away — even keeping Administrator Zhou out. At present, only he alone knew the list of names from the underground school. Well — Feng Song presumably knew as well, though Feng Song had coughed up a mouthful of blood upon discovering that the second hidden chamber had been breached, and had been carried out.

After that, Ling Zhiyan had ordered Administrator Zhou to seal off the Feng Family residence, the Feng Family private school, and all of the Feng Family’s shops, docks, and properties. The heads of the Yan, Bai, and Jiang families had also been escorted to the prefectural jail. Feng Song, with only half a life left in him, was confined to his own home.

Every one of these directives had been issued by Ling Zhiyan to Administrator Zhou using a black iron tablet.

What exactly that black iron tablet represented, Lin Sui’an — a traveler from another era — did not know. But judging by the expression on Administrator Zhou’s face, which suggested he was on the verge of wetting himself in terror, its authority clearly far exceeded that of the Court of Judicial Review.

“Your primary mission in coming to Yangdu was actually to investigate the Feng Family’s examination fraud, wasn’t it?” Hua Yitang kept his gaze on the Yangdu ward map, his tone perfectly casual. “Otherwise, a minor junior investigator from the Court of Judicial Review — how could you possibly have prior knowledge of this year’s candidate reserve questions?”

Ling Zhiyan was silent for a moment. “I carry a secret imperial mandate. I cannot tell you the full truth. My apologies.”

Hua Yitang looked up, gazing steadily at Ling Zhiyan, his eyes sharp and penetrating.

Ling Zhiyan involuntarily shifted his gaze away. He was about to offer some explanation when Lin Sui’an spoke first: “Junior Investigator Ling, that is a separate case. It will cost extra.”

Ling Zhiyan paused: “How much extra?”

Hua Yitang gave a huff. “Forty bolts of silk.”

Ling Zhiyan smiled. “Agreed.”

Ming Shu and Ming Feng came to report one after the other, and Ling Zhiyan hurried out again — no one knew what other earth-shaking discoveries he had made.

“Let’s go — to the coroner’s hall,” said Hua Yitang, rolling up the ward map and rising to his feet. “Let’s see if there’s anything more we can learn from Dong Chao’s body.”

Lin Sui’an was of the same mind. They had searched the entire underground school and found no trace of Feng Yuyi — it was evident that Dong Chao had hidden him somewhere else. The only lead remaining was Dong Chao’s corpse.

“More than one hour passed ages ago. Feng Yuyi is probably done for, and Dong Chao is dead too — what’s even left to investigate in this case?” Jin Ruo asked, hurrying to keep pace behind the two of them.

Hua Yitang: “Feng Yuyi should still be alive.”

Jin Ruo: “Why?”

Hua Yitang walked at a brisk, unhurried pace. “Because bad weeds live a thousand years.”

Jin Ruo rolled his eyes. “What kind of nonsense reasoning is that?!”

Lin Sui’an understood what Hua Yitang was feeling. Alive, you see the person; dead, you see the body — and for now, neither had been found anywhere in Yangdu. That meant there was still a thread of hope. He simply did not want to give up. He genuinely hoped Feng Yuyi was still alive.

Doctor Yue’s words echoed in her ears: “He is always disregarding his own safety to save others — even if that person is his worst enemy.”

What a strange and contradictory person, Lin Sui’an thought.

In the coroner’s hall, two more bodies had been added — one was Dong Chao, one was Wang Hao. The two of them, killer and victim, lay side by side in the same room, lending the scene an indescribable air of the surreal.

The coroner cradled the examination record and walked Hua Yitang through a detailed explanation point by point. Lin Sui’an listened for a moment — it was all information already known: cause of death, physical characteristics. She moved to the other examination table and lifted the cloth covering Wang Hao.

Wang Hao had died in the midst of utter chaos, and she had not had an opportunity to use her golden finger at the time. Now was the perfect chance.

She pried open Wang Hao’s eyelids. Her vision transformed like a kaleidoscope, and before her appeared a vast night sky filled with a glittering river of stars. She heard a young, childlike voice:

“I want to restore the Pure Gate to glory — so that every disciple of the Pure Gate can eat well, drink well, sleep in a proper house, be happy every single day, and live a good life!”

Her vision drifted slowly down from the night sky, settling on a small, slight figure — a thin little boy of about eight, wearing a patched garment, with a shaved head that bore a small wound, a dirty little face, two missing teeth, and eyes like black grapes dipped in water.

The image vanished in an instant. The boy in the golden finger’s vision grew up in the blink of an eye, merging with the profile before her.

It was Jin Ruo — standing beside the examination table, gazing quietly at Wang Hao’s body with not the faintest trace of emotion on his face.

So Wang Hao’s final lingering attachment had been Jin Ruo. Lin Sui’an could not quite name the feeling stirring in her chest — she simply let out a quiet, mournful sigh.

“Snap!” A folding fan suddenly spread open and inserted itself between Lin Sui’an and Jin Ruo. Hua Yitang sidled up to Lin Sui’an with a series of throat-clearing sounds, and forcibly redirected her attention.

“Dong Chao’s right hand has a fresh callus on the inner side of the first knuckle of his ring finger, and there are ink residue traces beneath his fingernails.” Hua Yitang made a writing gesture with his fan. “This indicates he spent long periods gripping a brush — he was regularly writing or drawing.”

Lin Sui’an shook her head to clear it and refocused. “But isn’t he a wandering swordsman from the martial world?”

“Precisely — so these calluses and the ink must be connected to the identity he concealed while in Yangdu,” said Hua Yitang. “Do you remember Wang Hao saying that Dong Chao had a shop in Jingyun Ward?”

Jin Ruo: “Didn’t Administrator Zhou say Wang Hao was lying —” He stopped himself, catching the inconsistency.

Lin Sui’an: “Dong Chao died at Administrator Zhou’s hands. Now no one can say for certain whether Administrator Zhou was recklessly eager for credit or was silencing a witness.”

Jin Ruo: “Jingyun Ward has a scattered collection of antiquarian bookshops.”

“Antiquarian bookshops?” Lin Sui’an looked puzzled. “Shops that deal in dead people’s things?”

This time, both Hua Yitang and Jin Ruo looked absolutely thunderstruck.

Hua Yitang: “You… don’t know the term ‘the Three Mounds and Five Classics’?”

Jin Ruo: “Even more ignorant than I am!”

The lack of any search tool in this world was truly a curse.

As it turned out, “the Three Mounds and Five Classics” referred to books, and an antiquarian bookshop was simply a bookstore.

Lin Sui’an stood outside the gate of Jingyun Ward, utterly mortified — especially under Jin Ruo’s gaze, which unmistakably said: “illiterate.”

“No wonder the handwritten copy of the Pure Gate’s collected texts ended up the way it did. It’s because the outer sect disciples are all too illiterate to read.” Jin Ruo kept shaking his head.

As a traveler from another era who could only half-recognize traditional characters by guessing from the simplified forms, Lin Sui’an found herself with absolutely nothing to say in response to this verdict.

Hua Yitang was behaving strangely again — the look he turned on her had shifted into something very odd, his eyes faintly reddened, glimmering with a soft shine, making Lin Sui’an’s skin break out in goosebumps.

“Young Gate Master, I’ve found it!” Several small vendors came rushing over, reporting urgently to Jin Ruo. “There really is an antiquarian bookshop whose proprietor matches the person in the sketch — and the location is extremely secluded.”

Jin Ruo: “Lead the way!”

Most of the residents inside Jingyun Ward were commoners. The sight of the magnificently dressed Hua Yitang drew expressions of astonishment from all who passed. At this point Hua Yitang was not in the mood to pose and preen — a casual wave of his fan was all the greeting he could muster — yet even so, he drew clusters of people stopping to stare, particularly young women, who cried out in admiration. At least it didn’t cause a traffic jam.

The antiquarian bookshop the Pure Gate disciples spoke of was tucked into the northwestern corner of Jingyun Ward, surrounded on all sides by abandoned residences and thoroughly desolate. The bookshop lay hidden among a cluster of derelict properties, even more inconspicuous for it. The Pure Gate disciples had interviewed dozens of households in the area before confirming that Dong Chao had regularly come and gone from this place.

This time, there was no need for Lin Sui’an to break anything down — for the bookshop’s door was not locked at all. The interior was empty of people, and the afternoon sunlight fell through the latticed windows onto the desk by the window, casting a grid of golden squares.

The moment Lin Sui’an saw the desk, she knew they were in the right place. The grain of the wood, the angle of the sunlight — it was exactly what she had seen in Dong Chao’s memories. The only thing missing was the scroll-book inscribed with “Ten Cruelties.”

She looked around. Dense bookshelves lined the walls, piled with scroll-books — closely packed, yet arranged with order and care, clearly tended by someone over many years. The shop’s floor space was not large. Jin Ruo led the Pure Gate members in a circuit of the room and went to search the back quarters.

Hua Yitang moved with a deep frown between the bookshelves, eyes sweeping rapidly back and forth as he walked — then abruptly halted.

“What is it?” Lin Sui’an hurried over.

“The arrangement sequence of the bookmarks here is different from everywhere else.”

The characters on the bookmarks were all in ancient seal script — Lin Sui’an genuinely could not detect any difference.

Hua Yitang had just pulled out a scroll-book when one of the Pure Gate members came running back in a hurry. “Young Gate Master has found a hidden door!”

Hua Yitang and Lin Sui’an were overjoyed. They followed immediately, passing through the rear corridor and arriving at the back courtyard, where Jin Ruo stood waiting by the door of the woodshed. One wall of the woodshed had already been cleared away. In the wall was a rather crudely made hidden door — nothing more than a hole chiseled into the wall, haphazardly covered with a wooden board.

Behind the hidden door was a hidden passage — extremely low-ceilinged, with bare tamped-earth walls on all four sides. Jin Ruo led the way at the front. After walking for roughly the time it takes to drink half a cup of tea, faint light seeped in from ahead, and there was another wooden board. Jin Ruo kicked it aside, and everyone climbed through one by one, emerging into what turned out to be another abandoned courtyard.

Hua Yitang stood in the middle of the courtyard and took his bearings, then reached a conclusion immediately: “This courtyard is very close to the bookshop, with several occupied residences between them, and sits in the opposite direction — if one were to enter through the front gate, it would mean passing through half of Jingyun Ward.”

Jin Ruo: “Search it!”

This courtyard was twice the size of the bookshop’s yard, with two main rooms, four side rooms, one kitchen, and the woodshed that served as the tunnel’s exit. Everyone searched it thoroughly — and found nothing.

Lin Sui’an’s heart sank. Could it be that Dong Chao had already killed Feng Yuyi, burned the body, and scattered the ashes in the river?

Hua Yitang’s expression was quite grim as well. He fanned himself slowly while pacing in circles along the base of the walls. As he circled, Jin Ruo suddenly grabbed his arm, hissing softly, “Stop!”

Hua Yitang: “Hmm?”

Jin Ruo crouched down, pushed Hua Yitang gently to the side, and studied the ground intently. “There are drag marks here, and footprints — quite fresh —” He looked toward the courtyard wall. “Leading into the wall.”

The Pure Gate members immediately grabbed several pieces of firewood and began striking and scraping at the wall. In no time they had knocked away the packed earth, revealing a wooden board beneath. The wall, it turned out, had been hollowed out and disguised with a mud-coated board — behind the board was a dog-hole roughly two feet in diameter.

By this point, no one cared about the indignity of it. They squeezed through one by one, and found themselves in yet another courtyard — this one containing only a single flat-roofed room built of mud bricks, with a large chimney standing upright from the roof.

This had to be the last one. If Feng Yuyi wasn’t found here, then the odds were overwhelmingly against him.

Jin Ruo approached with care, pressed his back to the wall, and pushed the door open from the side. The door creaked open, and an indescribable stench of decay poured out, sending everyone staggering back, covering their noses and mouths in unison. Hua Yitang, green-faced, fished out two cloth squares from his sleeve, giving one to Lin Sui’an and pressing the other over his own face. He was about to step in when Lin Sui’an grabbed him by the collar and flung him behind her.

The air inside was stale and murky, the light dim, every surface thick with dust. The drag marks were far clearer here, winding and twisting inward. Lin Sui’an followed the marks one step at a time — and then suddenly, the floor darkened to a deep rust-red. Her gaze traveled slowly upward along the color, and the hair all over her body stood on end.

A wooden table — similar to the butcher’s blocks in meat stalls used for cleaving and chopping — but far larger, roughly the size of a bed. It was propped up on stone blocks, the stone and the edges of the table smeared all over with that dark rust-red. Coils of blackened hemp rope were heaped in one corner of the table. The surface was covered in cuts and gashes running every which way, the crevices packed with congealed, viscous rust-red. Beside it lay an axe and a meat cleaver, and something — a rotting lump of flesh of indeterminate identity — had been left on top of the table. Clusters of green-headed flies buzzed in thick swarms all around it.

From behind her came a chorus of sharply inhaled breaths. Hua Yitang’s was the most audible. Without turning her head, Lin Sui’an reached back with one hand, grabbed Hua Yitang by the arm, and saved him from the undignified fate of crumpling to the floor with weakened knees.

“It would appear this is where Dong Chao dismembered his victims,” Lin Sui’an said.

Hua Yitang: “Urgh!”

Jin Ruo pointed at the lump of rotting flesh. “Wh — what — what is that?!”

Lin Sui’an: “The coroner said that Yan He’s head and the headless body didn’t match because a section was missing from the neck. That is most likely that section.”

A chorus of retching sounds rose one after another.

Lin Sui’an forced down her own nausea and continued deeper into the room, where she found a massive incineration furnace connected to the chimney outside.

The place where burned remains were disposed of.

She continued on and found yet another table — piled with a collection of strange instruments: hooks, pliers, blades of various shapes, stone awls, iron nails, black bottles and jars of all sizes, and a large iron cauldron.

“The Ten Cruelties: severing the spine… boiling alive… drawing out the intestines… pouring molten lead… poison by dove…”

The churning in Lin Sui’an’s stomach grew more and more violent. A ringing had even begun in her ears, and a bone-chilling cold crept up from the tips of her fingers against the current.

Suddenly, a hand seized her sleeve and shook it frantically.

“There — there — there — there — there — over there!” A trembling finger stretched past Lin Sui’an’s ear, and the distinctive scent of fruit wood incense that belonged to Hua Yitang alone flooded her senses. The ringing in her ears subsided.

Lin Sui’an exhaled a slow breath and looked in the direction Hua Yitang was pointing. In the corner of the wall lay two large burlap sacks, loosely tied at the mouths, one of which had a length of hair spilling out from the opening.

Jin Ruo and the Pure Gate members had huddled together in a clump — had dignity not intervened, they would probably have been clinging to each other and screaming. Hua Yitang gripped Lin Sui’an’s sleeve with both hands, his whole body trembling.

“L — l — let’s all go over and take a look… together…”

Lin Sui’an dragged the weak-kneed Hua Yitang forward quickly. Qian Jing cleared its scabbard, and with two swift strokes, sliced open the burlap sacks.

Two deathly pale faces were revealed — one was Feng Yuyi, and the other was, astonishingly, Bai Shun.

Hua Yitang gripped Lin Sui’an’s sleeve with one hand, while his other hand reached out trembling and felt at their nostrils. His eyes went wide and bright.

“They’re still alive!”

Author’s Note: I genuinely didn’t know that “the Three Mounds and Five Classics” referred to books before I looked it up (I am such an illiterate soul, sob)

This case will be resolved next week!

Hurray, cheers!

And tomorrow is a rest day, hooray~