Chapter 41 Exploring the Secrets

Guo Hongba’s expression stiffened for a moment, but he ultimately invited Xiao Muchen and Murong Huan into the Guo residence. The reason was simple: the Vice Censor smiled far too gently and captivatingly. Confronted with such a smile, he felt as powerless to resist as if he had been struck by a love potion.

Once inside the Guo residence, Murong Huan’s expression grew cold and composed once again. She noticed that even the ground across the courtyard was paved with the freshest seasonal flowers. Along both sides of the path, beautiful maidservants held incense burners aloft. These maids were dressed in magnificent attire, radiating a dazzling beauty that looked even finer than the garments she herself had worn previously.

Guo Hongba was merely a Rank Eight Supervising Censor, yet the clothes worn by the maids in his household were hardly inferior to those of the young ladies of the Su family.

A-Zhu couldn't help clicking her tongue repeatedly in amazement, sighing, "Lord Guo, your maids are all dressed so well! You really treat your servants wonderfully!"

"Naturally. Servants are human beings, too. We cannot have the master achieving wealth and glory while still tightening the food and clothing of the servants. I am a person who is very willing to share prosperity with others!"

"You are so kind, Lord Guo. It must be such bliss to be a servant in the Guo family!" A-Zhu sighed with emotion once more.

Xuanyu curled his lip from the side, thinking to himself: What a foolish girl.

Although Guo Hongba wore a smile on his face, cold sweat was trickling down his back.

He hurried forward, leading Murong Huan and Xiao Muchen to the main hall, and immediately instructed two alluring maids to serve tea.

"Newly arrived Mengding Ganlu tea, please have a taste, Vice Censor Xiao!"

At a signal from Guo Hongba’s gaze, the two maidservants used their slender, delicate fingers to support the teacups, carefully holding them up before Xiao Muchen.

Raising her eyes, A-Zhu caught sight of the two maids continuously casting seductive glances at Xiao Muchen, making eyes at him while the snowy swells beneath their thin, translucent gauze garments heaved tumultuously.

Xiao Muchen was slightly startled. Just as he was about to take the teacup, A-Zhu’s voice rang out most inappropriately: "Two older sisters, aren't your clothes a bit too skimpy? Besides, look—the front of your dresses is practically falling off. If the guests see this, how embarrassing!"

"Clatter!"

A few crisp sounds of teacups shattering against the floor instantly echoed through the hall, followed by a deeply stifled chuckle. Following the sound, A-Zhu looked over and saw Xuanyu standing to the side, covering his mouth as he laughed so hard he couldn't straighten up.

Guo Hongba’s face flushed beet red. He hurriedly barked at the two flower-bright maids who were trembling like shaken branches, "Get out! Roll out of here!"

With that, he turned to apologize to Xiao Muchen, "Pardon me, Vice Censor Xiao. Those two clumsy maids just now ruined your mood. Shall we move to another place to talk?"

Xiao Muchen smiled faintly without a word. Noticing that Murong Huan had been steadily gazing at Guo Hongba with an unusual expression, her knuckles clenched so tightly together that she seemed on the verge of attacking Guo Hongba at any moment, he suddenly stood up, walked over to Murong Huan's side, tightly grasped her hand, and said to Guo Hongba, "A long conversation won't be necessary. As I just said, I merely brought a divine physician to examine the health of Lord Guo's wife!"

"Oh right, where is your esteemed wife at the moment?"

***

The courtyard of Guo's primary Madam was unexpectedly distant from the main hall where Guo Hongba was located. As the group just reached the courtyard gates, they heard a chaotic uproar of shouting, footsteps, and the sound of porcelain shattering echoing from within.

Just as Murong Huan crossed the threshold, an object flew directly at her head. Involuntarily, she reached out and caught a small wooden stool.

As the stool fell away, a woman with disheveled hair instantly appeared before their eyes. Her expression was a mix of weeping and laughing as she kept screaming, "Retribution! It's all retribution! You will meet with retribution too! All of you will meet with retribution!"

Guo Hongba was extremely displeased and shouted, "What is the meaning of this? What are all of you doing, unable even to take care of the primary Madam?"

A crowd of maids and servants threw themselves to the ground in trembling terror, "This slave deserves death! This slave deserves death! It is our fault for failing to properly care for the primary Madam!"

***

"Out, out, out! Get out of here!"

At Guo Hongba's shout, the servants immediately scattered like birds and beasts. At this moment, Xiao Muchen suddenly called out, "Wait, Inspector Guo. If you chase all the servants out of this courtyard, who will take care of your esteemed wife? The divine physician I brought is merely here to diagnose the Madam; surely she cannot be expected to also tend to your esteemed wife's daily living and diet, can she?"

"How could that be? Naturally not!" Guo Hongba smiled, then pointed his gaze toward one of the female servants, "You! Stay behind to wait on the Madam, and everyone else leave. Do not disturb the divine physician's diagnosis!"

The servant woman's body stiffened, her face turning ashen with fright, yet she resignedly nodded, "Understood, this slave obeys!"

Guo Hongba hesitated for a moment before smiling again, "Vice Censor Xiao, I will leave the Madam's illness to this divine physician! I..."

Xiao Muchen nodded, "If Inspector Guo has nothing else to attend to, please go about your business. I shall sit here for a moment; there should be no problem with that, right?"

"No problem! Of course no problem!"

With a slightly stiff expression and a forced smile, Guo Hongba had no choice but to retreat with his attendants.

Once Guo Hongba and all the servants in the courtyard had departed, Xiao Muchen had Xuanyu lead the servant woman to the side before turning to Murong Huan: "What is wrong with you? Why do you hold such intense hatred upon seeing this Inspector Guo?"

Murong Huan pondered for a moment and replied, "He was also one of the men who participated in the assassination of my father and mother. I remember those eyes of his!"

As her memories gradually revived, the pairs of assassin eyes that had surrounded and killed her mother emerged with increasing clarity in her mind. Even if they had been masked, she could reconstruct their facial features one by one.

This was also the very first skill she had mastered since learning martial arts and Daoist arts from her master: bone-reading portraiture, using blurred impressions to recreate clear and complete likenesses.

"It turns out that this Lord Guo is actually one of the enemies who killed my lord and Madam, A-Huan..." A-Zhu chimed in, feeling sorrowful as well.

Xiao Muchen pondered for a moment and asked, "Who on earth is your mother?"

"I heard she was a secret guard under Crown Prince Li Hong, as well as a physician and a successor of Li Chunfeng."

"Li Chunfeng?"

Hearing the name Li Chunfeng, Xiao Muchen’s expression changed with extreme astonishment: "Li Chunfeng was not only well-versed in astronomy, calendrical calculation, divination, and Daoist teachings, but he was also the very first person in history to classify wind speeds. He was someone who truly transcended the mortal realm to seek the ultimate truth of the Great Dao. Your mother was actually his disciple?"

"I only heard it from others; I do not know its truth."

"Then do you know who your master is?" Xiao Muchen asked in turn.

Murong Huan shook her head, "I do not know."

Xiao Muchen fell silent, asking no further questions. His expression held a few doubts mixed with a sudden comprehension.

Right at that moment, piercing, shrill laughter abruptly sounded from within the courtyard: "Who are you? Here to watch me make a fool of myself? I'm going to kill you... Hahaha... I'm going to kill you..."

Following the sound, the group looked over to see that Guo's primary Madam had found a kitchen cleaver from somewhere and was hacking wildly at empty air. A-Zhu was so terrified she immediately hid behind Murong Huan. As Guo's primary Madam lunged forward brandishing the cleaver, Murong Huan struck the blade from her hand with a single sweep, simultaneously driving her elbow into the woman's back to knock her unconscious.

"A-Zhu, drag her into the room. We shall begin using incense for hypnosis!"

"Alright!"

***

Guo's primary Madam's bedchamber was not as opulent and resplendent as the rest of the Guo residence they had seen earlier; instead, it reeked faintly of urine and excrement.

A-Zhu pinched her nose and couldn't help sighing, "What is going on here? Has your primary Madam's room never been cleaned? Why is the stench so foul?"

Hearing this, the servant woman scurried over, "I'll clean it! I'll clean it!" With that, she hurriedly scooped up the soiled and disorderly bedding from the bed and hauled it outside, quickly returning with a fresh, clean set.

"Can you clean and tidy up the room as well? Given how magnificent the front of the Guo residence is, why is the primary Madam's courtyard like this? Could it be that because your primary Madam went mad, you stopped serving her and began abusing her?"

"No, no, how would we ever dare abuse the primary Madam? It's just that the master gave orders telling us to let the Madam do as she pleases and not interfere too much..." At this point, the servant woman's expression shifted drastically, and she viciously slapped herself across the face, muttering to herself, "What am I saying? Nonsense! Pure nonsense!"

"Why are you acting so strange? You were halfway through your sentence—why did you hit yourself?"

The servant woman's actions quickly drew the attention of both Murong Huan and Xiao Muchen.

At a subtle cue from Xiao Muchen, Xuanyu stepped forward and pressed her again: "What on earth happened in the Guo family? Why did your primary Madam end up in this state?"

"I don't know! I was only assigned to wait on the Madam a short while ago. I truly don't know why she became like this."

With a cold sneer, Xuanyu drew the sword at his waist and lowered his voice once more:

"Let me warn you once again: Vice Censor Xiao does not have a great deal of patience. You can refuse to speak, but if Vice Censor Xiao uncovers that you and your master conspired to murder for wealth, the punishment awaiting you will be brutal tortures, or perhaps the extermination of your entire clan!

Oh right, you must have heard of the penal tortures in the Ministry of Punishments prison, such as the donkey-foal peg-pulling and the immortal-revealing fruit, haven't you?"

Hearing Xuanyu put it this way, the servant woman's legs went soft with fright. She collapsed to her knees once more, kowtowing repeatedly as she blurted out, "I'll talk! I'll talk! When our primary Madam first married into the Guo family, she was actually quite happy. Lord Guo treated her well at the beginning, and the couple could be considered mutually respectful. But then, not long ago, the Madam somehow discovered that when her family was originally attacked and killed by bandits, it had actually been plotted by the master for the sole purpose of seizing her family's wealth."

"Was your Madam's maiden family very wealthy?" A-Zhu couldn't help asking.

The servant woman replied, "Indeed they were. Our Madam's family name was Xie, and she was originally the younger sister of a wealthy merchant from Bozhou. I heard that when doing business in her early years, they encountered an attack by a group of river pirates. The Madam fell into the water while fleeing, and it was Lord Guo who rescued her. Afterward, that wealthy merchant betrothed the Madam to him. When the Madam married into the family, she brought along a dowry stretching the length of an entire street.

At first, Lord Guo respected and cherished her, but later he discovered the Madam could not bear children. Consequently, he began taking concubines, one after another. Just two days ago, he even took the second young master's two young and beautiful concubines into his own chambers. That is why our primary Madam seems to have suffered a severe shock and keeps losing her mind..."

"Guo's primary Madam's surname is Xie?" Murong Huan asked.

The servant woman nodded, "Yes, her surname is Xie, and her given name is Rou."

"Then why did your Madam try to beat those two concubines to death?"

"Beat two concubines to death?" The servant woman looked bewildered upon hearing this. "No, she didn't! Our Madam has never beaten or scolded the servants. Besides, after those two women were taken as concubines by the second young master, the Madam even treated them with great care—how could she possibly beat them? You must be mistaken! The Madam is kind and gentle, and she never harshly reprimands her servants!"

"Then how did those two women die?" Xuanyu asked again.