The Wei Family members were forcefully summoned away by the Wei Clan Leader, and Lady Xiang also left the Wei Mansion. What was once a bustling household now held only a coffin.
To seize control of the Wei Mansion, Lady Xiang had dismissed or sold off all the old servants who had served the estate.
The only people Zhu Changsheng could rely on were the maids and elderly women she had brought from the Zhu Family.
She was not handling a single person’s funeral but a grand funeral for a hundred, requiring more manpower.
The Wei Clan Leader thought this would give him leverage over her, unaware that Zhu Changsheng had made thorough preparations even before marrying into the Wei Family.
“I’ve caused you trouble.” Wei Yuan’s voice came from behind.
Zhu Changsheng turned to look at the man beneath the umbrella.
He had removed his blood-stained armor and was wearing the wedding attire she had personally tailored for him. His soul body remained faint and ethereal, his face as pale as paper.
Earlier, beneath her veil, she hadn’t been able to see clearly how his soul body had changed.
Now that everyone had dispersed and Wei Yuan’s soul had reappeared, Zhu Changsheng noticed that his soul had not only failed to heal but had grown even weaker than before.
“Why is your soul weaker than before?”
He had returned to the ancestral residence, where the ancestral hall’s incense was abundant and could repair his damaged soul, allowing him to pass through the Ghost Gate and tread the Yellow Spring Road to where he belonged.
But in his current state, forget about opening the Ghost Gate—he might scatter and disperse before even leaving the Wei Mansion.
Wei Yuan raised his hands, looking at their translucent form, his consciousness muddled. “After Aunt Xiang brought me back to the Wei Family ancestral residence, I couldn’t enter the ancestral hall.”
Something was hindering him, or perhaps he couldn’t yet withstand the intensity of the incense, preventing him from entering the Wei Family ancestral hall. Could it be…
Zhu Changsheng hurried to Wei Yuan’s coffin and pushed open the lid with her bare hands.
A foul stench assaulted her senses.
When Shui Yao and Fu Xin came over to help lift the coffin lid and saw the scene inside, their expressions changed drastically.
Shui Yao said, “How could Young General Wei’s corpse be damaged like this?”
Zhu Changsheng approached the coffin.
The face of the person inside was severely damaged, the armor sunken and collapsed. The ice had melted into water, turning the coffin, which should have remained dry, damp and prone to decay.
Zhu Changsheng instinctively frowned, put on gloves, and reached out to lift the armor covering Wei Yuan’s corpse.
As she suspected, the body she had sculpted for Wei Yuan had been smashed into a pile of mud.
After Wei Yuan’s death, his corpse was incomplete, his body shattered and broken. However, the people of Linshui Pass hoped to restore Wei Yuan to his original appearance, so Zhu Changsheng had used clay, following the principles of pottery-making, to sculpt the missing parts of his torso.
Thus, half of Wei Yuan’s corpse was made of clay, and the other half consisted of his own bones.
Now, beneath the armor, the body no longer resembled a body, the hands no longer resembled hands, and the feet no longer resembled feet. Clearly, someone had tampered with it.
Whoever did this truly lacked yin virtue.
While examining Wei Yuan’s damaged corpse, Zhu Changsheng found a strange object within it.
It resembled a copper coin in shape but was not a copper coin.
On its surface were inscribed characters Zhu Changsheng had never seen before.
“Is this yours?” Zhu Changsheng picked up the object, which resembled a copper coin—for now, she called it a coin—and asked Wei Yuan.
However, upon seeing this coin, Wei Yuan’s soul body instantly began to smoke, and his expression twisted in agony.
Seeing this, Zhu Changsheng immediately picked up the Red Umbrella and drew the nearly dissipating soul into it.
She understood—this object was what was harming Wei Yuan’s soul.”Mr. Zhu, I have never seen that thing. When you held it before me just now, I felt as if fire was burning my body, making me very uncomfortable.”
Wei Yuan’s voice came from within the Red Umbrella.
Zhu Changsheng carefully put away the umbrella, holding the copper coin tightly in her hand as she frowned deeply. “Someone deliberately damaged your corpse and inserted this object into your body, causing your soul to suffer continuous harm and preventing you from passing through the Ghost Gate. Who in the military held a grudge against you?”
Wei Yuan paused for a moment before replying, “The Wei family army defending Linshui Pass was nearly wiped out. Moreover, they were all soldiers I led, loyal to me. If any of them survived, they would never harm me.”
“Then the problem lies with those who transported the coffin,” Zhu Changsheng said. “Aside from those in the military, were there any officials in the court who were at odds with you?”
Wei Yuan replied, “Since I followed my father and grandfather onto the battlefield, the days I spent in Shengjing were few and far between. It’s impossible for me to have offended any court officials.”
Zhu Changsheng fell silent.
If it wasn’t someone from the military or the court, who would want to harm Wei Yuan like this?
She thought of Zhu Yuanshu. Could it be Yuanshu?
No, Zhu Yuanshu didn’t have such capabilities. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been bullied so badly by Lady Xiang in her previous life. Moreover, this copper coin didn’t seem like an ordinary object. It could suppress the soul of a military general, which spoke volumes about its power.
If it wasn’t Zhu Yuanshu, then who could it be?
“Think carefully. This concerns your afterlife. If we can’t find the person who damaged your corpse, I fear they might strike from another angle, putting you in danger. Whoever buried this evil object in your body must harbor deep hatred for you. We cannot afford to be careless.”
Zhu Changsheng stored the copper coin away, planning to send it along with a letter to True Lord Changguang at the Azure Cloud Temple.
Her master was knowledgeable and experienced, and he would surely recognize this evil object!
But for now, she had to deal with the troubles at Wei Mansion first.
After hearing Zhu Changsheng’s words, Wei Yuan began to carefully search through the people he had met and known over the years, but for a moment, he couldn’t find any leads.
He had spent years fighting in the south and north, focused solely on warfare, with little time even for eating and sleeping. When would he have had the opportunity to offend anyone?
Moreover, his reputation in the military had always been excellent, and everyone respected him greatly. He truly couldn’t understand who would want to scatter his soul to the winds.
At that moment, Zhu Changsheng turned to Shui Yao and Fu Xin and said, “Shui Yao, go find Steward Feng and have him arrange for people to elevate all the coffins and prepare more torches. Tonight, the courtyard might not be peaceful. Fu Xin, I have a list here. Go to the slave traders and redeem everyone on this list.”
She asked Shui Yao to find Steward Feng because she was certain that Lady Xiang would take action tonight to seek revenge on her.
The list she gave to Fu Xin contained the names of some loyal servants of the Wei family who had been sold off by Lady Xiang.
Loyal servants were dismissed from the mansion, while most of the wicked ones had become part of Lady Xiang’s faction. The remaining pretty young maids had all been sold off by her.
Her heart was truly malicious.
After giving her instructions, Zhu Changsheng turned back to look at the corpse in the coffin.
She put on protective clothing to guard against the stench of decay and took precautions to isolate herself before lifting Wei Yuan’s corpse.
When Steward Feng returned to the spirit hall with the servants of the Zhu residence, he happened to witness this scene.
He trembled in fright and hurried forward to ask, “Miss, you… what are you doing…?” Not even sparing the dead!Zhu Changsheng noticed Steward Feng’s odd look but didn’t explain, merely glancing down at the corpse in her arms before saying, “Go fetch a few bed planks from the house. I need them.”
“Yes, as the young mistress commands. Fetch the bed planks.”
The newly arrived servants in the courtyard moved swiftly, carrying the planks into the side room.
Zhu Changsheng placed Wei Yuan’s body on the bed planks, then turned to Steward Feng. “By the way, Steward Feng.”
“What else does the young mistress require?”
“Go buy twenty or thirty mouse traps. They’ll be needed tonight.”
Steward Feng secretly wiped cold sweat from his brow, glancing at the body on the planks. He had no idea what Zhu Changsheng intended, only that her behavior seemed rather peculiar. Not daring to ask why she needed so many mouse traps, he nodded and replied, “Yes, this servant will see to it immediately.”
At the Wei Family’s ancestral residence, Lady Xiang looked at the twenty-some children gathered in the main hall. Scooping a handful of copper coins from her purse, she announced, “One copper coin for each rat caught—the bigger, the better. The more you catch, the more you’ll earn. Understood?”
The children chorused in unison, “Understood!”