It’s worth noting that a man’s impulses sometimes arise in just an instant. How could the murderer have determined that the Crown Prince would engage in intimacy that evening?

There were many aspects that didn’t make sense. Had Yun Ya already figured it all out, which was why he called her “foolish”?

Of course, these were just speculations without concrete evidence. Who would believe them if she spoke up?

Moreover, what reason would Xu Lin have to kill the Crown Prince? If this were a typical power struggle for the throne, the Miao brothers were known to be deeply affectionate toward each other. Would they engage in the mutual destruction common among royal family members?

Would Miao Fengxian kill his brother to seize the throne?

Yun Ya was right; she didn’t know him well enough to make such judgments.

If she were to connect the Crown Prince’s murder with Princess Hanyue’s disappearance and the Wei envoy’s sudden death, the twists and turns would give her a headache. She decided to return to the embassy to practice her meditation techniques first.

This time, she remained in deep meditation until sunset before finishing. No matter how chaotic the outside world was, the embassy, as a gathering place for foreign envoys, remained relatively peaceful with few disturbances, which greatly facilitated her cultivation.

After clearing her mind of distractions, her thoughts became more ethereal, but as she finished, she smelled medicinal scents drifting in from the alley, accompanied by heavy smoke.

Behind the embassy was a medical clinic that often brewed medicinal decoctions. But this smoke… she sniffed and heard the clinic owner scolding a worker with anger: “Where did you get these mulberry branches? They’re so damp, they produce a terrible stench when burned! Did you use my money to buy inferior goods?”

Damp branches, when burned, indeed produced a lot of smoke with a strong odor. Feng Miaojun shook her head, then suddenly had a thought.

A burnt smell?

The note Yun Ya had obtained from the Yao Palace clearly stated that the deceased had a burnt smell in his mouth. The people of Yao were more fond of smoking dry tobacco than other regions, but she doubted that Miao Fengyuan would have smoked before visiting Consort Zhao for intimacy.

Speaking of these words, there was a small book in the Smoke Sea Tower that recorded a short story. Legend had it that on the Snow Peak Plateau in the north lived a small worm, about as long as an earthworm, pure white, yet called “Dusk Red.” For the first half of their lives, they had to grow beneath the snow-covered ground for forty-nine years to develop into adults, then emerge from the ground on an afternoon when the snow had completely melted to mate and reproduce.

The “Dusk Red” had soft bodies without any means of defense against enemies and even feared severe cold. Therefore, during the first half of their larval stage, they desperately accumulated energy, quietly waiting for that one afternoon of release. These creatures seemed weak, but each was a glutton, ceaselessly chewing on plant roots underground, particularly favoring thick tree roots. Even trees with well-developed root systems couldn’t satisfy their appetite. A colony of fifty thousand “Dusk Red” could devour an entire forest within a few years.

However, they lived in uninhabited snowy plateaus and only emerged from the ground once in their lifetime, so very few people knew of their existence. Over a hundred years ago, a cultivator was being pursued by enemies and, in his panic, accidentally entered the Snow Peak Plateau, coincidentally during the once-every-forty-nine-years “Dusk Red” mating season.

The clearing he entered was so densely packed with white worms that there was nowhere to step. Cold and hungry, with the worst-case scenario being death anyway, he gathered a bunch of worms and ate them as he walked, finally leaving the Snow Peak Plateau when the snowstorm ceased.

Upon returning to civilization, he noticed something was wrong.

On the fifth day after leaving the plateau, he found a place to celebrate his survival. Everything was fine until he visited a brothel, where he suddenly felt something was amiss.

During the act, a surge of vitality emerged from deep within his body, accompanied by an intense and uncontrollable urge that nearly drove him mad.

That night, he took multiple women, only regaining his senses the next day when he was completely exhausted. When he awoke, his mouth had a burnt smell, and upon internal examination, he discovered he was severely depleted and needed proper recovery. As a cultivator who practiced internal refinement of the mind, his mental control should have been several levels above ordinary people, yet this substance had made him lose all rationality in a short time, acting solely on the most primitive instincts.

Most disturbingly, the women who had been with him were equally frenzied, with one even dying on the spot.

He still had some of the worms in his possession, so he spent considerable time researching them and finally discovered that the enormous energy accumulated by the worm bodies over forty-nine years would only suddenly erupt during mating. If the worms were swallowed by other creatures, this energy would remain dormant unless the new host was engaged in reproductive activities.

This energy could flow and influence both partners.

In light of this, the discoverer named them “Dusk Red,” meaning their lives were as brilliant and fleeting as the red glow before sunset.

All of their life energy would be consumed during this activity, so no matter how one examined the body afterward, no medicinal residue could be found.

This meant the creature effectively functioned as a super-dose aphrodisiac, but could also provide powerful life force to the organism itself. After all, the primary purpose of “Dusk Red” was successful reproduction, not suicide.

The small book recording this strange tale was handwritten and had been gathering dust in a corner of the Smoke Sea Tower. Feng Miaojun had once pulled it out for casual reading as entertainment, but she thought that not many people in the current world knew about the existence of “Dusk Red.”

Comparing it to the Crown Prince’s death, there were similarities. The effect of “Dusk Red” was to infuse large amounts of life force into individuals during intercourse and stimulate instinctual urges. Although the Dragon Chime Jade on Miao Fengyuan’s body was powerful, it lacked consciousness and couldn’t determine that this situation required protection. She wondered how much of the “Dusk Red” essence the murderer had extracted to make Miao Fengyuan unable to withstand such intense stimulation, resulting in his sudden death.

Most crucially, its effects could last for several days. The killer could have administered it to the Crown Prince or Consort Zhao in advance, knowing the drug would only take effect during their intimate encounter. Since it wouldn’t be identified as a poison, it couldn’t be detected in food or drink during normal inspections.

Feng Miaojun looked toward the palace and couldn’t help but sigh.

The King of Yao had sealed off the Golden City in anger, not realizing that his eldest son’s killer had already slipped out of the royal court days earlier and was now hiding in some corner, feeling pleased with themselves.

This matter had extensive implications. Xu Lin held a significant position, but he was probably not the mastermind behind it all. Calculating it out, who would benefit more from the Crown Prince’s death than Miao Fengxian?

It seemed there was no one else.

The entire city thought this way, and the King of Yao was no exception, so Miao Fengxian was under enormous pressure right now.

The King of Yao had only two biological sons. With one dead, the throne would naturally pass to the other. From this perspective, she couldn’t think of anyone with a more compelling reason to kill the Crown Prince than Miao Fengxian.